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The Recording Industry Association of America has won a court battle over copyright infringement settling in their favour for $220 000. This is one of the biggest ever fees and the woman was accussed of sharing only 24 songs.

Furthermore, the penalty was issued without any hard evidence other than the IP address being used. This will now set a precedent meaning they will be more likely to pursue cases like this in court rather than just settling.

Illegal downloading is growing at an enormous rate, up 60% last year alone. This settlement is just a drop in the ocean compared to the vast sums of lost revenue. So it’s a good bet that after this victory the RIAA will be seeking out more cases to pursue.

Blog Posts About This Story
Infoshop News writes:
“A jury of twelve ordinary Americans from the defendant’s home state didn’t think the penalties were excessive.” In fact, they chose the amount of the penalty, given the fact that the record company plaintiffs left it to the jury to decide what was appropriate. Makes it kind of tough for the defendant and certain commentators to argue that the penalties are so excessive as to be unconstitutional, doesn’t it?”

Teresacentric writes:
In the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, Thomas, a single mother of two, was sued for 220,000 thousand dollars. Does this seem fair to you?

Marcs Opinion writes:
RIAA Bankrupts a SINGLE MOM with a 220,000 dollar fine for sharing 24 songs online makes the RIAA look more like a bully than a helpful particapant that they were initially intended to be in place for

At the recent music show in Shanghai, tanglewood guitars has introduced to their impressive range of high quality and affordable acoustic and electro acoustic guitars.

Tanglewood has brought prototypes of two new guitar ranges, the evolution series at the entry level – exceptionally well made, solid top acoustics with a projected retail price of around 139 pounds – and the all new master design series.

At the entry level, tanglewood will be introducing the evolution series. featuring the usual exceptional tanglewood guitars build quality along with an RRP in the £140 area this is guaranteed to be a winner.

Then at the other end of the spectrum, tanglewood are making their first foray into high level acoustic guitars with the master design series set to sell for around £800 – £900.
The series has been designed by the swedish master luthier, michael Sanden, and features his trademark ‘paintbrish stroke’ ebony bridge, unadorned headstock, and single moniker on the 12th fret of the ebony fingerboard.

Tanglewood is hoping to launch these guitars officially at NAMM and be shipping by the time Musikmesse rolls around again. Of course you will be able to get these directly from PlayRecord.Net as soon as they become available.

Other Tanglewood / Acoustic Guitar Related Blogs:
Tony writes in this blog:
‘Buying a new guitar these days can be a daunting experience for anyone, especially if you care about the music you play…’

Andrew Smith writes in his blog:
‘but having played it a little, I’m wondering if it’s better suited to my style of playing than the Takamine (at least, until I get an evening to put some lighter strings on the Taka…). It has less of a Wow-factor but sounds good without having to dig…’

There is no official ‘correct’ way to string up an electric guitar, but it is possible to do badly, usually with yards of string spooled around the machine head so it never stays in tune.

So, this is what i believe to be the ‘proper’ way to do it.

Firstly thread the string through the bridge and pull it through, then pull the string tight up to the machine head you’re going to thread it through.now bend the string putting in a kink about 3cm pas the machine head you intend to thread it through (right).

Thread the string through the hole in the machine head up to the kink and start turning the machine head anti clockwise.

On the first half turn of the spool make sure the string goes over the protruding string(left). From then on make sure the string goes under as you’re winding it on.

Now (hopefully) you should have a tidy and uniform set up (below). You will notice that as you tighten up the string, because the string is wound over and then under the protruding string, it actually pinches the string and holds it in place for more stability.

Check out this video of how to string a Bass guitar

Other restringing Blogs:
Ifingers writes this blog… After the air on my g string (and Gabriela style strumming) resulted in a snap. I decided to put some new strings on my guitar…

us metal band mudvayne have announced that their next album release – dubbed “By the People, For the People”, will be created by their legion of loyal fans.

By voting and submitting work through their official website, fans can help pick the track listings, submit art work and participate in the video for the first single release from the album, “Dull Boy”.

The eagerly anticipated album boasts several live recordings, demos & rarities as well as an incredible never before heard cover of the Police’s “King of Pain.”

Chad Gray, of Mudvayne, states “We have some of the greatest fans and this album is a way for us to give back to those that have supported us throughout the years”.

Mudvayne has shifted over 4 million units across the globe, claiming an incredible 6 gold certified releases. In 2005, the band were also nominated for best metal performance at the Grammy’s.

Check out this video of Mudvayne live

Other Mudvayne related news:
Interview with Mudvayne singer…..

uber known band led Zeppelin, are to release their back catalogue to on line music store’s after so far resisting digital distribution.

Warner music admitted that led Zep were ““one of digital music’s final holdouts” , not any more. As from November 13th led Zeppelin’s original albums will be available, and all tracks will be available individually.

Zeppelin will also be doing their first gig in 19 years with the three surviving members, jason Bonham will be on the drums laying down that solid Bonham sound. The concert is to be held as part of a memorial tribute to the co-founder of atlantic Records, who released the bands albums.

Check out this video of an interview with Zeppelin in 1974

Other Led Zeppelin related Blogs:

zandorit writes this blog:
Dragons Of Darkness, Led Zeppelin Blog Blog led zeppelin, travels to the land of dragons and more…

The drumming world record, previously held at a rather respectable 101 hours , was broken on 7th october this year.

Jagjit Singh Batalvi, a renowned tabla player, tapped his way into the record books to the sound of cheers and celebrations all around the Shiromani Sikh temple, in Mississauga, Canada.

Jagjit, 29, was trained in india by two of the world’s best known tabla players, and now resides in Canada. He is currently teaching.

His world record attempt is being confirmed with the Guiness world records now.

Check out this Video Of Jagjit Singh’s Students Playing Tabla

The internet is an absolute goldmine for discovering and listening to new music. there is much more beyond downloading mp3 files using bit torrent or shareaza. What’s more – its all legal. so here is our up the the minute breakdown of the best ways and places to get all the legal free music you need .

Internet Radio:

Internet radio has been around almost as long as the internet itself. Our favourite player for listening to internet radio is winamp, which also comes with a comprehensive internet radio directory so you can immediately start discovering new music from the huge range of niche stations. another great internet radio resource is Live 365.

Last.fm

A recent addition to the free online music world is Last.fm. after installing their special software you can enjoy your own customised internet radio stations. i hesitate to call it radio as their is no commentator or anything, its really just streaming music. The great thing is that you put in the band or artist you want to listen to and Last.fm will serve it up alongside a load of music that it classes as similar. This is an awesome way to discover new music which you are very likely to enjoy.

The downside of Last.fm is that it can sometimes be a bit patchy, and if you start typing in less well known artists or bands, the selection can sometimes be repetitive or completely unrelated. The reason for this is that Last.fm is built around a system called audioscrobbler which monitors the music that you listen to and creates relationships. so if you listen to The doors and then follow that with some jimi Hendrix, then Last.fm will link these two artists together and if someone else asks for jimi Hendrix, they are likely to be served up a side order of The Doors. (this is possibly an oversimplification, click here for the full power geek version.)

Last.fm was recently sold to CBS for $280 million, so its evidently a powerful platform that is here to stay.

Pandora

Pandora is another very powerful system which serves up customised internet radio. The system is entirely browser based, which is nice as it means you don’t have to install any software to enjoy it. Pandora is arguably more reliable when it comes to serving up related music to the artist or band that you specify. The reason for this is that instead of tracking peoples listening habits, the relations are worked out with an algorithm to determine similarity. click here for the full technical details, but suffice to say it works very well. The only drawback with this system is that it takes time and resources to work out all those relations for all that music, so you may find that Pandora is not able to serve up more esoterical or obscure music. However the stuff it does have is plentiful.

Music Blogs

If you are prepared to be a bit more proactive then the world of mp3 blogs can be a very rewarding place for the online music lover. mp3 Blogs are blogs (just like this one) that also serve up mp3s, usually accompanied with a bit of info and some nice pictures… imagine reading NME, but being able to hear the music that the journo is waxing lyrical about. fun

To best enjoy the world of mp3 blogs we recommend using this new firefox based web browser called songbird. This browser will automatically scan a blog for mp3s and set up a playlist for you to listen to the tracks quickly and easily. It really makes the whole mp3 blog browsing experience very easy and fun.

To find what you are looking for the easiest way to get started is to use an mp3 blog search engine. The most popular of these is Elbows. another great one to check out is Hype Machine. once you have found an mp3 blog that you like, you can start to traverse the mp3 blogosphere by following the links you find in that blog.

Conclusion
There is so much free music out there that its hard to comprehend. We will keep our eyes on the scene and update this story as we discover more great sites. If you know of any particularly good ones that we should try, please post them in the comments.

Welcome to a new series on the PlayRecord.Net Blog. We are going to be profiling some of the greatest and most famous guitarists of all time and giving you the lowdown, links, videos and other online goodies for your inspiration and enjoyment. To kick off, we are looking at jimi Hendrix:

Born on November 27, 1942, hendrix is considered one of the greatest and most influential guitarists in rock music history. His first success in England, and he even played a gig down the road from PlayRecord.Net in the town of Ilkley. Unfortunately it was before the time of most of the PlayRecord.Net employees. He went on to achieve worldwide fame following his 1967 performance at the Monterey pop festival and famously headlined at the iconic 1969 woodstock Festival.

Hendrix taught himself to play the guitar and generally preferred to play a fender stratocaster guitar turned upside down (so that the right-handed guitar could be played left-handed) and restrung to suit him. This upside down left handed style is the same as adopted by kurt cobain among others. hendrix helped pioneer the technique of the feedback solo, taking something that was previously an undesirable sound and making it a cornerstone of his style.

Hendrix drew influences from blues greats such as B.B. King, muddy Waters, albert King, and T-Bone Walker, He also built upon the styles of rhythm and blues and soul guitarists curtis Mayfield, steve Cropper, and Cornell Dupree, as well as from traditional jazz.

Hendrix’s flamboyant stage persona was probably inspired by rock pioneer little Richard, who he toured with as part of “The Upsetters”. hendrix is also famously influenced by The Who’s pete Townsend who was performing in london when hendrix was starting his career there.

Hendrix strove to combine what he called “earth”, a blues, jazz, or funk driven rhythm accompaniment, with “space”, the high-pitched psychedelic sounds created by his guitar improvisations. As a record producer, hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas; he was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during recording.

Hendrix was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1992 and the uk music hall of fame in 2005. His star on the hollywood walk of fame (at 6627 hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the united states national recording Preservation Board’s national recording Registry. rolling stone named hendrix number 1 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of All time in 2003.

Check out this Video of Jimi at Woodstock!

Other Hendrix Related Blogs:
Peter Lattman writes this Blog
Jimi Hendrix Steals the Show At Intellectual Property Auction…