The EFF doesn’t seem to hate the idea of Choruss, but admits there are problems/things that could be cleared up. The rest of the links are from this post:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/more-choruss-pro-and-con

This article is really interesting. I mean, it’s a lot of what we already know, but said really eloquently. But it’s a lot of new stuff too. (Jim Griffin is the guy who proposed Choruss.) He’s basically trying to disband the myths that surround Choruss:
http://www.thelicensingplate.com/jim-griffin-discusses-choruss-in-digital-music-forum-east-keynote-transcript/

“Why a music tax is a bad idea” – Note: Techdirt hates the idea of Choruss.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081209/0144083060.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090318/0304264167.shtml

Long but detailed article nitpicking the crucial details:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/03/17/chorusss-covenant-the-promised-land-maybe-for-record-labels-a-lesser-destination-for-everyone-else/

The Nokia “comes with music” phones/service used to allow users to play the music that they downloaded on one computer and on the device that they downloaded it to. Now, Nokia’s going to phase out their use of DRM like Apple. I don’t know anything about their change of pricing scheme (or, perhaps, lack thereof) like iTunes. Should be interesting to watch how this plays out…

Apple wasn’t the first to start this trend, though. The failed Microsoft Zune program had DRM-free tunes on the market years ago, too…
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=14987&subject=Nokia+DRM

I was thinking about this site earlier, but I couldn’t remember the name. Hooray for Google. It’s a really interesting, cool model that, in my opinion, could really help new artists.

Basically, artists upload their songs–in any format/quality they want–for cheap or for free. The more downloads the song gets, the more expensive the price will be. (Prices are capped at $0.98.)

Granted, this service is more for artists, especially indie artists. For the consumer, this isn’t really too different… besides the fact that you can get songs earlier for a cheaper price.

After writing the paragraph above, I did some more research and discovered that the RIAA decided to stop filing lawsuits against college students and has reached voluntarily agreements with ISPs. According to a Wall Street Journal article, “Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html).

The ISPs have an incentive to cooperate because of the adverse affect that p2p using bandwidth hogs have on their networks. According to an article in ars technica, “Suddenly, ISPs gain a tremendous new tool. One study in the UK showed that most people sharing music would stop when made aware that their activity was being tracked and that they were not, in fact, anonymous. Should that hold true in the US, ISPs would presumably see massive decreases in P2P traffic. The customer notifications can be blasted out by e-mail, making the whole process quick and easy for ISPs. As is usual for these sorts of schemes, questions still remain about what sorts of judicial processes will be in place to contest notifications and penalties, and what happens to a household Internet connection when Dad finds his access canceled even though he’s never shared a file in his life? ” (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/12/no-more-lawsuits-isps-to-work-with-riaa-cut-off-p2p-users.ars).

Since Evin writes that Yale itself is considered an ISP, I wonder what incentives, if any, a place like Yale would have to enter into a voluntarily agreement like this. For the those more familiar with the intricacies of the Yale network–is Yale somewhat of a sub-isp that is powered by Comcast or another larger provider?

On a different matter related to Laurin’s post, I have been reading about iMesh–a legal peer-to-peer service in which users pay to a subscription fee to download copyrighted songs but can download uncopyrighted songs for free. It’s entirely approved by the RIAA… Check it out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imesh)