ourTunes and rTunes

There are two music options I have found that seem to continue to grow the beast of the copyright wars. One is called ourTunes and the other is a new trend of pay-for-play Russian bootleg sites.

ourTunes
The ourTunes program is actually simple in concept and very simple in design. It is a Java based program (you actually run the .jar file) and it syncs with iTunes. The way it works is this: when I am on a network and open iTunes I can see other people's shared music. I can listen to this music via iTunes in the form of streaming audio. If I want, I can download wire-tap and record that streaming audio in real time, or I can get ourTunes. ourTunes taps directly into iTunes and allows the user to download tracks from another's computer rather than streaming them. This means you get those mp3s fast and without using a peer-to-peer software. The freaky thing is that the other person thinks he's being legal in simply streaming his library to you... you on the other hand are taking advantage of this guy by downloading his hard earned music.

mp3search.ru
Russian bootleg sites have been around for a long time. Normally marked as "warez" sites these offshore blackmarkets offer the savvy surfer a plethera of illegal software, music, movies, games and all things digital (even term-papers). The site mp3search.ru has exteneded this idea to make it profitable for the bootlegger (bootlegger n. boot-leg-er german: one who bootlegs). This site works off of the same idea that the iTunes music store had; the consumer is actually willing to pay a little for something that he can find for free (if free is illigal and paying is not). The only difference between iTunes and mp3search is that iTunes is legal and the Russian site is not! For some reason buying a song from a Russian for 10cents is more appealing than buying the same song from iTunes for 99c. Next thing you know the Chineese will be selling Greatest Hits CDs by U2 with the song Take My Breath Away on them (oh wait, I actually saw that once)