The Canadian Recording Industry Association (which represents multinational, US, and other non-Canadian record labels exclusively) has come out against the "private copying levy," a tax on blank media that it lobbied hard for over the past 15 years. The levy is charged against blank media, and the money raised is paid to copyright holders in exchange for the right to copy music and other works onto the media. CRIA apparently fears that the levy can be used to legalize P2P music-trading in Canada (an activity whose legality is in dispute right now), thereby breaking the P2P deadlock, decriminalizing millions of music fans, and paying millions of dollars to their members. The record industry giants would prefer to go on suing music fans and technology companies -- an activity that pays the record companies handsomely, while encouraging fans to defect from buying music in the future, and which does not pay one cent to any artist.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association this week quietly filed documents in the Federal Court of Appeal that will likely shock many in the industry. CRIA, which spent more than 15 years lobbying for the creation of the private copying levy, is now fighting to eliminate the application of the levy on the Apple iPod since it believes that the Copyright Board of Canada's recent decision to allow a proposed tariff on iPods to proceed "broadens the scope of the private copying exception to avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement."

Given that CRIA's members collect millions from the private copying levy, the decision to oppose its expansion may come as a surprise. Yet the move reflects a reality that CRIA has previously been loath to acknowledge - the Copyright Board has developed jurisprudence that provides a strong argument that downloading music on peer-to-peer networks is lawful in Canada. Indeed, CRIA President Graham Henderson provides a roadmap for the argument in his affidavit:

"First, the Board has stated, in obiter dicta, on several occasions that the Private Copying regime legalizes copying for the private use of the person making the copy, regardless of whether the source is non-infringing or not. Therefore, according to the Board, downloading an infringing track from the Internet is not infringing, as long as the downloaded copy is made onto an 'audio recording medium'...

Link

Antonio sez, "There is a 'viral' Bob Dylan marketing project that allows people to remix the infamous Subterranean Homesick Blues film made by D. A. Pennebaker. I made this mash-up with my favorite series, Battlestar Galactica, titled, 'Subterranean Homesick Alien (a Radiohead homage).'" Link (Thanks, Antonio!)

700 megabytes of internal email from MediaDefender, a group of entertainment industry enforcers, has leaked onto the net. The emails detail MediaGuardian's procedures, their internal response to being outed for posting a fake download site to entrap users, the plans to induce users to link to their entrapment site, and the way the company sought to insulate their clients in the motion picture industry from negative publicity arising from their entrapment efforts. There's plenty more there -- 700mb is a lot of mail -- and I'm sure we'll see all kinds of interesting things in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately for Media Defender - a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks - they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.

According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called "MediaDefender-Defenders". It states: "By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services," and "A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account"

Link (Thanks, Christian!)

Wired NextFest takes place in Los Angeles this weekend, and is full of much to enjoy. I visited earlier this week and filed this report for NPR News with "Day to Day" host Madeleine Brand: Link to audio. Three things not to miss: Keepon (who looks like a "marshmallow scrotum" or "the yellow lovechild of Hello Kitty and a friendly snowman, depending on who you ask), the creepy Chinese doppelganger 'bot, and Brainball. Here are some great NextFest photos from Dave Bullock.

A new, ultralight aircraft made from carbon fiber has beaten the standing world record for longest unmanned flight, according to its manufacturer. It has a 60-foot (18-meter) wingspan, weighs 66 pounds (30 kilograms) and is launched by hand. Snip from National Geographic report:

The Zephyr High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) stayed aloft for 54 hours during a recent test flight at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, says London-based defense firm QinetiQ.

No observers from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) were on hand, so the flight may not officially break the previous record of 30 hours, 24 minutes, 1 second set by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A "Global Hawk" on March 21, 2001.

But the FAI is currently reviewing a second test flight of the Zephyr that lasted 33 hours, 43 minutes.

Link. Image: National Geographic. (thanks, John Parres!)

Ever-charming Manolo the Shoeblogger (who refers to himself in the third person because he's earned it, people!) tells Boing Boing,

Here is the story that has been hot among the purse blogger for the past several months but has just broken through to the general public, the story of the limited edition, patchword, $52,500 Louis Vuitton purse, constructed out of the chopped parts of 14 older Louis Vuitton purses.

It is ugly and ridiculous and grotesquely overpriced, and the Manolo has said so at his blog.

Here is the Washington Post story on the purse.

Only five are being sold in the US, one of which has already gone to Beyonce.

[Ed. note: Me, I'd call her "*The* Beyonce," but who am I to judge.]