Oh good, Rootgate isn't over yet. Nearly simultaneous with Sony reaching settlement of several U.S. class actions, three major group lawsuits are emerging from Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. I haven't read the briefs and probably won't have time to today (and might not understand them if I did), but Michael Geist posts that they complain of a long and interesting list of legal issues.

Meanwhile, some individuals in the U.S. are opting out of the class-action settlements and suing Sony BMG in small claims court. Mark Lyon of SonySuit.com is opting for that route and explaining how it is done. [via Boing Boing]

Rhino Westwood, an iconic indie music store in southern California, announced "with utmost pain and sadness" that it is closing. The store has been selling records, then CDs, since 1973. I relate to the sadness, and easily slip into fond memories of my record-store adventures (in New York) as a teenager. Always, a cross-genre scavenger, I recall one time startling the guy at the register when I put the Chopin Etudes (played by Augustin Anievas) and Jimi Hendrix into one shopping bag. And that delicious anticipation of getting home, the impatience of putting vinyl on the spindle, the glorious artwork, the inevitable and honorable sonic scratches.

Then I pull myself up short. Memories are grand, and sentiment is dreamy, but if we had imagined today's consumer tools when we were kids, we would have fainted from intoxication. Give me playlisting, give me online jukeboxing, give me single-track instant purchasing, and there's no need for record stores. I know that's harsh and sentimentally incorrect, but it's backed up by my own local experience. In Princeton there remains a local institution: the Princeton Record Exchange. Operating for decades, this store offers new and used vinyl and plastic, and by itself used to be a good reason for living in Princeton. I stopped in nearly every time I walked past it until a couple of years ago. By then the momentum of my online music lifestyle simply pushed the Record Exchange off the radar. Now, when I'm tempted to dive into it, I think of Rhapsody and eMusic and everything else waiting for me at home, and I think, "Why bother?"

If the Record Exchange ever shutters its doors I'll be infused with sadness and reminiscences. But not regrets. Give me progress; give me the future.

Verizon announced the imminent (January 16) launch of its long-rumored, long-awaited VCast Music service for cell phones. A hybrid model will allow downloading on the computer for 99 cents, and mobile downloading for--what's this?--for a 100-percent premium of $1.99. Oh, brother. Pay for portability. Marguerite Reardon at CNET called the PC price a "discounted rate," as if $1.99 were a new standard for single-track pricing. The labels must rejoice at such presumptions, eager as they are to inflate the cost of iTunes downloads. As such, the VCast model could be regarded as a market experiment, to see if portable downloading, as yet completely untested, will gain adoption at twice the price of PC downloading.

You'd think the service would be priced attractively to encourage early adopters, not scare them away. Verizon will tell you that the $1.99 product gives you twice the value, because after downloading to the phone you get the PC download for free. But this twisted selling point is camouflage for the fact that you (probably) can't easily transfer purchased music between the phone and the computer. Verizon would also argue that $1.99 is less than the cost of a 15-second ringtone, and that's a thriving market. but labels and cell providers both risk catastrophe if they confuse or equate the ringtone market with the single-track download market.

Anyway, supported phones will be the LG VX8100 and the Samsung a950. I have an 8100, so I'll test and review the service when it launches.

Sandisk is escalating its battle with Apple for flash supremacy by announcing the Sansa e200 6GB flash player, out by the end of March. A microSD slot adds capacity, though 6GB is pretty damn capacious for a flash player. The Register calls these things "Nano clones," not without reason, but the features set them apart. The Sandisk units include FM reception, FM recording, a removable, rechargeable Lithium battery, and they promise to work with Windows-based music subscription "To Go" services. The 1.8-inch color screen displays photos and video. 2GB and 4GB models are available. Sandisk reportedly owns 29 percent of the flash market, to Apple's 49 percent. Apple got a late start in flash, disregarding the product category until it finally released the Shuffle.

I don't know how I forgot to mention this before it happened, but I'll make up for it now. I was invited yesterday to guest on today's Soundcheck program on WNYC in New York, hosted by John Schaefer. John is a renowned radio host and promoter of new music in various media and venues; I was delighted to meet him and see the face behind a voice I've heard for years. Soundcheck usually features actual music and musicians, but today's topic was RIAA lawsuits. During the course of a 40-minute discussion we covered the Patricia Santangelo case, details of the RIAA's targeting and settlement process, and responded to live calls and emails.

The show is archived on this page, and also available as a podcast (usually two days behind the broadcast in iTunes). My segments are separated from the rest of the show and offered as a RealAudio stream on this page.

WNYC is located at 1 Centre Street in Manhattan, in an imposing building that looms over City Hall. Lobby security is as tough as in any airport, and I stalled the line by generating an incessant and inexplicable beeping in my stomach area when wanded by the guard, as if I had eaten nails for lunch. He finally gave up, which isn't an encouraging outcome but did deliver me to the 25th-floor studio on time.

Creative Zen portable player owners should know about Zencast, a podcast organizer and subscription aggregator customized for the Zen Vision players. It's a downloadable product that can also be used on a PC (Windows XP or Media Center only, and IE is required) without any player. Zencast is clearly meant to offer an alternative to iTunes, for Zen owners.

Motorola is getting nearer to launching its iRadio service for cell phones, and has released fairly complete details about how it works. Though announcements are hitting the wires this week (CES week), all you can sign up for presently is a mailing list to be notified when the service is available in the U.S.

iRadio seems to be a side-loading playlist service. That is to say, you do not receive a radio transmission or online stream; instead, an iRadio-enabled phone loads new music for your selected stations whenever the phone is charged. Since charging happens via USB cable, the phone is charged and relaoded with music simultaneously. When listening, music is automatically paused when a call comes in, then resumed. A Bluetooth adaptor makes the thing work with most car stereo systems.

The rundown of genre stations is impressive. The total station list numbers nearly 450, and a glance at the Classical breakdown is startling and refreshing. Most new-paradigm station providers make short shrift of classical music, typically furnishing three selections--general classical, opera, and light classics. iRadio offers over 40 subgenre classical stations, an eye-popping selection for the classical lover.

One crucial point remains unexplained. iRadio-enabled phones will have a Wish List key on them, designed to be pressed when you hear a track you like. Here's what the marketing language says about it: "The next time you connect to your PC, iRadio will automatically provide you with info about your Wish List artists and tracks."

Eww, that sounds lame. Info? Who wants info? That sounds like a sales pitch, or the notoriously ineffective "Buy this CD" button that used to (and still sometimes does) appear in Internet radio modules. With XM and Sirius both rolling out track-saving functionality in their portable devices, iRadio will stumble if it doesn't compete. It needs a Save This button. Then, when recharging, the saved tracks would be loaded into the phone and playlisted separate from the stations. But it doesn't sound like a planned feature, and I expect iRadio to take a competitive hit because of it.

The main selling point seems to be that the cell phone is the most constant of all our walk-around devices, and therefore is the device that should hold our music. It's not a new argument, and Motorola will not be the last provider to roll out a portable listening service. Now we need more information about the phones and the cell companies that will support them. And Motorola will need to overcome consumer resistance and confusion. Get this: "All you need is an iRadio-enabled mobile phone, an iRadio subscription, a PC running Windows XP and a broadband Internet connection." Oh, is that all. On second thought, I'll just listen to the car radio.

Digital music plays a big part at the mammoth CES consumer electronics show, along with gigantor plasma TVs and ho-hum keynote addresses. Engadget is producing live coverage with over 60 entries per day, including much live-blogging coverage of speeches and important press gatherings. It's all bundled onto a special page. I notice that a few XM Radio devices are being introduced. Check out the live, caustic coverage of Sony's presentation, and be sure to read the comments section for a full dose of snark.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has had recent success with open letters, its recent public challenge to Sony BMG resulting in class-action settlement of multiple lawsuits arising from the XCP copy-protection scandal. Riding high on its influence, the EFF has posted an open letter to major label EMI, challenging it to authorize indiependent testing of its copy-protected discs, some of which use the same provider (Macrovision) as in some of the Sony discs. The EFF wants EMI to publicly renounce its right to litigate against reverse engineering under the DMCA, freeing researchers to probe the safety of EMI copy-protection before any security holes are exploited by real, and malicious, hackers.

Well, that didn't work. The "John Doe" motion to sever an RIAA lawsuit on a procedural basis, based on the idea that groups of defendents should not be corralled together in characteristic RIAA style, has been denied. The defendent in this particular case is also pleading that the technology by which the RIAA identifies its victims is invalid.

All right, after the initial unpleasantness I got into Vongo. Rebuffed with one credit card (all paid up, I might add), I succeeded with a different card. No idea why.

Anyway, the with a few hours of Vongo experience under my belt I can say that the browsing experience is favorable. The usage restrictions, while bewildering, do not often seriously thwart enjoyment. The catalog, though, is pathetic and ragtag, and this last fact poisons the service and any chance of a recommendation...

Vongo is a new video download service from the Starz Entertainment Group in cooperation with Microsoft. Starz has gifted consumers before with a movie service: Starz On Demand, which offered incomprehensible and counter-intuitive usage restrictions based on the mystefying and archaic release-window schedule employed by the movie studios.

Vongo bundles the OnDemand into the new service as added value--a side dish to the main course which provides all-you-can-eat subscription access to about 1,000 movie titles for $9.99 per month. Again, the damn release window slams shut at some point, and downloads implode on the hard drive. As such, Vongo is driving a stake into loose and shifting ground; most observers believe the tiered-access system of release windows will come to an end before long.

Adding to the confusion, Vongo is, if anything, more perplexing than Starz On Demand...

I'm noticing that my last seven entries (including this one) are about either DRM or RIAA lawsuit defenses. Perhaps those will be the two big topics of 2006. I recently predicted in Pho that 2006 would see the RIAA's lawsuit strategy busted and a class action initiated on behalf of previous victims who settled. There might be more hope than sensible prediction there.

P2PNet has set up a Patricia Santangelo defense contribution fund via PayPal donations, on a new Fight Goliath page (www.fightgoliath.com). Perhaps you're put off by PayPal donations--especially ones whose recipient email address is simpleizgood@aol.com; why didn't P2PNet set up a more identifying email for this? If that is the case, anyone is welcome to mail donations directly to the Santangelo household, the mailing address to which is given here (scroll down).

The Nelson family of eastern Michigan is among the handful of defendents currently resisting the RIAA's bullying lawsuit-settlement mechanism. the basics of this case: The Nelsons do not own a computer and claim that they don't know how to operate one. However, they run a daycare center which has an office computer. Employees use that computer; one of them is 15-year-old Eammtia Granado, whose testimony is crucial to the case. Granado has been deposed twice, and has offered contradictory accounts of the office computer's use. first, she claimed to have seen the Nelsons using that computer to listen to music via KaZaA. Then, after requesting a second chance to testify and being ordered to undergo a second deposition, Granado claimed that she was coerced by the RIAA's lawyer to testify falsely the first time. Her revised testimony claimed that she never saw the Nelson's use the office computer for music.

Ongoing defenses center around liability (in the Santagelo case) and procedural mechanics (the "John Doe" case); this is the first time that a defendent has brought possible coercion into the picture. But the Nelson case is tangled by the fact that the plaintiffs (RIAA) are also complaining of coercion. It's one set of words against another, and has yet to be clarified. See the transcript of Granado's second deposition here.

The Indian blog Itch is shining light on a particularly merciless form of CD copy-protection, applied to Coldplay's X Y album. Documented with close-up photos of a leaflet that comes with the disc, it is clear that the album disallows any kind of ripping, even to "secure" WMA files. The CD cannot be burned or copied. The kicker? No refunds or exchanges are permitted after the purchaser opens the package and discovers the bad news. There is also a long list of CD players in which the disc might choke. Itch's amusing reaction: "This is India, Virgin. INDIA. Piracy started here, dammit. You can't play Nazi with India." Then it refers readers to Exact Audio Copy which reportedly rips the Virgin disc effortlessly. Andy Green typed a satisfying rant about this piece of DRM foolishness.

It's easy to say that labels are learning the wrong lesson with each DRM debacle, but that would be underestimating consumer complacency. The labels understand that consumers have accepted harsh rights management on DVD movie discs, and that eventually those same consumers will be lulled to sleep with music discs. In the broad marketplace, many (perhaps most) people don't know how to rip a CD. Sony's XCP scandal, which had nothing to do with ripping, resulted in a relatively painless slap on the wrist. Analysts say that XCP was a stumbling point for DRM, but it would take anti-DRM legislation to really slow down the movement.

But the absolute futility of the DRM movement is painful to the music industry's best customers: individuals who do know how to rip CDs for personal use; individuals who adore music and wish to carry it everywhere and play it for friends. These are the people still willing to shovel out the bucks for music. A quick glance at BitTorrent.com reveals that Coldplay's album is in full distribution and easily available. And this is through an outlet with which the content industry is friendly, and which is supposed to be filtering its results. The irony is thick and laughable. After all these years of harsh lessons, the labels have not learned a thing and there is more reason than ever for empowered consumers to boycott their consumer-hostile solutions.