What are you guy's thoughts on this, which today became this?

Sounds like a good idea to me, except it seems its not going to happen now.

BTW, I thought the NYT's articles were better, but you have to have a membership to see them online.

"What are you guy is"? Mail in your apostrophe key.

I've been watching discussion on the instant message system they use at MIT (which Carnegie Mellon is linked to, or at least that's the simplest way to explain). Hopefully I have the details right here.

It seems that the media is very confused about this. It's not a file swapping service. You can't have the files.

There are multiple channels on the campus cable system. You can "check out" a channel and make requests on it while you have it checked out, within whatever constraints. That's not a file swapping service.

Anyhow, the way it was supposed to work was this:
-MIT has a license to broadcast already
-but needs music to broadcast, mandating they need to pay Harry Fox Agency for mechanical reproduction rights.

They negotiated with Loudeye for hard drives full of material and got a price. Then it turned out Loudeye wasn't licensed and apparently sold XM radio mechanical reproductions without being licensed either, at least that was the allegation.

So Keith Winstein was involved in negotiations between HFA, MIT and Loudeye. They thought it was resolved, that Loudeye would pay Harry Fox and sell MIT music. Allegations, again, are that other parties agreed this was the case.

Some amount of time later, apparently not, and so despite having clear license to broadcast, MIT stopped the service to avoid any question of legality while the issue of whether the music they were broadcasting was effectively "bootlegged" was resolved.

The choices are:
a) misunderstanding and in fact HFA still needs to be paid
b) someone lied
c) RIAA got pissed, and people decided they could make a case for it not being legal and started pulling funny stuff.

I'm betting on a.

Then there's the Universal Music Group quote:
"It is unfortunate that MIT launched a service in an attempt to avoid paying recording artists, union musicians, and record labels. Loudeye recognized that they had no right to deliver Universal's music to the MIT service, and MIT acted responsibly by removing the music."

Except, of course, that Harry Fox Agency isn't ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, and none of those licenses are being disputed here. The artists et al have no (stated) beef, so one presumes then that it's the labels who of course are crying, and trying to draw sympathy. They'll get none here.

"What are you guy is"? Mail in your apostrophe key.

Possessive, as in "What are the thoughts belonging to 'you guys" (ok, technically should have been "_guys'_") It was a typo, not improper grammar thought. (Though I guess it means I should proof read better.)

Yea, what you said sounds a lot like it is choice (a), but that Universal quote almost makes it sound like they want it to be (c).

"What are you guy is"? Mail in your apostrophe key.

Possessive, as in "What are the thoughts belonging to 'you guys'" (ok, technically should have been "guys'") It was a typo, not improper grammar thought. (Though I guess it means I should proof read better.)

Part of the problem is that if the "guy's" in your sentence is posessive, there is no plural, and if you say "guys" (without the apostrophe), it's plural but not posessive.

But I'm not exactly an authority on proper grammar. I think I'm rebelling against my mother the magazine editor