About this remix contest… Fat Joe, Terror Squad, Imperial Records, iKey-Audio, and HipHopDX are giving you the chance to remix Fat Joe’s hit single “I Won’t Tell” featuring J. Holiday from his new album The Elephant in the Room. Just download the a cappella and get to work!

The winner will be picked by Fat Joe and their remix will be featured on his MySpace page. In addition, the winner will also win a pair of studio monitors from iKey-Audio. So get your remixes submitted!!!

Read more about fat Joe’s remix context here

There have been 38,112 visitors to the website since it started, and I have had visits from just about every country and every continent on earth (except Antarctica!… I guess people living on ice don’t listen to music to stay warm?).

Hopefully every single person found some remixes to download.

No turntable or mixing hardware needed, just visit THIS WEBSITE.

(You don’t need to be a college student to win the cash prize, but you do need to be a U.S. citizen to be eligible).

In the past, companies were allowed to obtain street addresses of file-sharers from their internet service providers in order to send registered letters to each individual.

Italian consumer rights groups protested this practice and a ruling was handed down preventing companies from tracking down people through IP addresses who were thought to be sharing files.

The consumer groups were happy with the ruling… but needless to say, Italy’s record labels are not so happy.

More than 1.2 billion music tracks were illegally downloaded from computers in Spain during 2007, according to authors’ and publishers’ society SGAE. In fact, the number of illegal music tracks downloaded illegally in Spain is up 566% from the year 2002 when only 180 million tracks were downloaded for free.

The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) says that 58% of all Spanish Internet users illegally downloaded music during 2006… while the European average was 37%.

Free music reigns king in Spain.

I hate the way the RIAA stages witch hunts on College campuses for students who participate in what is referred to as music piracy. I am not saying that students are in the right, however, I find it compelling to think that maybe if the RIAA embraced digital innovation, instead of defying it, they could have been the driving force behind this new market and could have capitalized on it and profited like no other. Instead, they spurned innovation and are now forced to fight their way out of a situation they created for themselves.

I also hate the way the RIAA cries about losing album sales… all I hear about is how consumer’s are paying for the intellectual property in the music each time we buy a CD. This is perfectly acceptable to me, BUT, in a fair world would I not be given some form of acknowledgment that I have bought (and own) the copyrights to that music. I think I have bought a physical copy of the Beastie Boy’s album, Paul’s Boutique” about 10 times in my lifetime. I have had to replace this disc so many times due to scratches and other factors that contribute to the demise of a CD. Therefore, I paid for the Intellectual Property on that disc 10 times.

So stop your crying RIAA, you have had a monopoly-type strangle hold on the music industry, musicians and consumers for decades and you are solely responsible for squandering your profits by ignoring the changing times.

Now the Press… I hate the Press because I have to always second guess what they write, and their motivation for writing. The biggest reason however, is that they recently made me feel compassion for the RIAA by writing a nonfactual column that mis-represented the RIAA’s stance on what defines music piracy. The Washington Post printed a column by Mark Fisher claiming that the RIAA considers copying a disc to a hard drive is illegal.

“…that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer…”

I don’t think any of us who hate the RIAA believe even they could go this far. However, some people were mislead and believed what they read in the Washington Post’s column. The RIAA never stated this, and it appears that the Post took one small segment from a court document and used it to write an article bashing them for going overboard. This faulty news story spread over the internet through bloggers and other new website in the time it takes new of a Britney Spears arrest to spread the web.

Realistically, most fans of music do not need more reasons to hate the RIAA… but I expect that when reputable news organizations choose to write and bash somebody, the facts should be just that…. facts!

So I hate the Press for making me feel compassion for the RIAA.

But I hate the RIAA more than the Press.

Who do you hate more?

Read more on news.com >>

I have an idea for these fan site owners… replace all photos of him with a photograph of a pile of crap, because that’s what he is.

I can understand a crackdown on the illegal proliferation of his music, but to serve a notice to fan sites based on images or “anything linked to his likeness” is a bit extreme - barring copyrighted photography.

Get over yourself Prince, everyone else has!

Creative Commons and BBE have released the original solo and instrumental studio tracks for Bucky Jonson’s new album, “The Band Behind the Front”. What this means is that you can download and remix these studio tracks… without being taken out by the copyright police. Why? Because their tracks are licensed through Creative Commons which makes it perfectly legal to remix, mash up and share.

So get out their and start remixing! You can download the tracks from ccMixter.

Visit Bucky Jonson’s website.

The UK based website has released 60 major pre-release albums in 2007 alone.

via Pitchfork

Read more on BBC News