Music

Well, this sounds ominous (from the Guardian):

From next week, Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. Many of the recipients are likely to be the unsuspecting parents of teenagers who hoard free downloads offered by file-sharing services. Research shows the majority of them are unaware their children are breaking the law.[...]

Virgin has stopped short of threatening any of its 3.5 million subscribers with disconnection, saying it first wants to “educate” customers during a 10-week trial campaign. Their letters will, however, be accompanied by a stern written warning from the BPI, which will threaten both disconnection and a court appearance for those who continue to download illegally.

I of course don’t condone theft of intellectual property (especially now that the entertainment industry has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century), but surely someone will soon notice that the means of detecting illegal file-sharing is hardly foolproof.

I suppose it could be worse.  They could be imposing 5GB download caps, like those of us with Sprint cell modems are preparing to live with.

Seen in the Wall Street Journal:

British pop star Lily Allen was supposed to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards last weekend and then head to the West Coast for the week of sold-out concerts she had booked. Instead, she spent this past week at home in London.

The reason: The chart-topping singer can’t get into the U.S. American authorities took away her immigration visa last month.

This fall, the British aren’t coming. Immigration restrictions are stopping some popular United Kingdom acts from reaching U.S. borders. At least three anticipated tours by British artists scheduled for this month alone have been called off or pushed back because of musicians’ visa problems. That is on top of at least 10 scuttled tours by buzzed-about British acts in the last year.

Part of the problem, immigration specialists say: The traditional visa system isn’t set up to cope with the new face of popular music. To get into the U.S., many foreign music acts need to secure a document known as the “P-1″-class visa. This visa requires acts to prove that they have been “internationally recognized” for a “sustained and substantial” amount of time.

And, of course with new media at work, and the speed with which groups can gain or lose popularity, all aggravated by immigration paranoia,… well, it seems like a musician is unlikely to get in unless he/she/they is/are a Big Name owned by a Big Record Label with a few platinum albums to their name.

You’d think that with all the tax dollars collected from us, Homeland Security could have learned how to balance the need for security with the common sense of welcoming visitors…and their Euros/Yen/… to the country, as well as keeping up with developments in business and entertainment.

I could join in with all the other bloggers who are either getting all warm, fuzzy, and morally outraged in honor of the Live Earth concerts, or the bloggers who are pointing out the hypocrisy of certain elements of the concerts. However, for now, I’m going to just be pleased to indulge in my childhood love of all things Antarctic, with the uploading of some of Nunatak’s performance to YouTube:

Link for those of you reading via RSS, in case you’re interested: [YouTube]

Of course, my luck holds true. I’ve been miffed at not being able to see the performance on TV….and it appeared in the Bravo wrapup as I was drafting this post.