Editors' Blogs

An item I just read in the Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/10/police-fraud-online-music) reminded me of a quote by composer Edward Elgar who probably didn’t have illegal digital music distribution in mind when he said “My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require.”

In brief: Scotland Yard arrested ten people and charged them with having profited off their own songs in a novel way. They are alleged to have produced original recordings, managed to have the songs placed on Apple iTunes and Amazon, then downloaded them thousands of times while using stolen credit card numbers. They pocketed the proceeds of the “sales” to the tune of an estimated $300,000...