UYRL

A retrial may be on the cards in the infamous Jammie Thomas filesharing case as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) failed to reach a settlement with Thomas’’s lawyer Brian Toder.

“What they wanted to do, my client did not want to do” said Toder. Normally in filesharing settlements the RIAA or major label members demand that alleged filesharers make a promise of confidentiality so as not to share their experiences with the general public.

Of course, it is likely that Jammie Thomas, a Native American single mother of two and the first person in the US convicted of criminal copyright infringement for filesharing, has quite a story to tell.

In the absence of a settlement the RIAA is likely to go back to court. Although Thomas was originally found guilty and fined USD $222,000, Judge Michael Davis was forced to declare a mistrial some months later on the basis that he had falsely instructed the jury that it is illegal to make available copyrighted works regardless of whether it could be proved that anyone else downloaded the music. Though this is the case in certain countries around the world, in the US it’s still a matter of legal debate (the RIAA argued that the distinction between whether or not a user makes a file available or whether they simply downloaded the songs into an open folder is immaterial.)

From her myspace page:

Due to unavoidable circumstances I am disappointed and sorry to announce that we have had to postpone NYC,San francisco and Los Angeles concerts until September this year. For anyone who has bought tickets, these tickets will still be valid in September.And I am sorry for any inconvenience.

The good news is that there will be a more extensive U.S and Canadian tour at this time. Thanks for bearing with me! More information to follow....

And now for Napster’s next act…

With its 10-year anniversary around the corner, one-time music ‘biz bad boy Napster announced Monday a new subscription service featuring a $5 per month pricing plan that allows subscribers unlimited, on-demand streaming access to their library of more than 7 million tracks.

The kicker in the new deal is that you get to download and keep five songs per month in DRM-free MP3 format. Not too shabby. Put those tracks right onto the iPod, Zune or whatever. Let’s note that beyond the five freebies, if you want more MP3s, it’ll cost you between 69¢ and $1.29 — same as our friends at iTunes or Amazon.

The updated service also offers more than 60 commercial-free radio stations with more than 1,400 pre-programmed play-lists.

Best Buy SVP of entertainment Julie Owen said:

“A decade ago, Napster revolutionized the way people discovered and enjoyed music. The brand that started it all is shaking things up again with a new service that provides music lovers continued access to the entertainment experience they’ve come to expect of Napster and Best Buy.”

This is the first major re-launch of Napster since mega-retailer Best Buy acquired the service last year; the company plans to sell prepaid cards redeemable for the monthly service in Best Buy stores.

Anyone interested in trying the subscription model can try Napster for free for seven days and then pay $12.95 a month for the subscription plan.

One-time bane of the RIAA, Metallica and let’s just go ahead and say the music industry as a whole (not the music consumers though, we loved it), Napster has had quite a digital decade. Founder Shawn Fanning’s music file sharing service was shuttered in 2001 and brought back to life in 2003 by Roxio as a legit service. To say it caught the recording industry off guard would be a thunderous understatement. Whether or not they’ve recovered remains a good topic – but probably not for music execs.

Not sure yet how the new Napster is going to compare with Rhapsody, iTunes, Zune Marketplace, Pandora, Lala, and other services, but on the surface it appears to be a pretty sweet deal. It’s not a digital music game-changer, but an improvement nonetheless.

However, let’s not forget sites like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker, for example, are free services, and good a deal as $5 per-month is, it’s still not free.

However again: the five, free MP3s each month is a nice bonus.

The new Napster offering is now available for U.S. residents at www.napster.com

Are you curious to check out Napster’s $5/month unlimited streaming service, or is that still too much to pay for music?