A kid in the US has recently been fined $700,000 for downloading fewer than 100 songs. I don’t suppose that he’ll be able to pay that off very soon. Pirate Bay people in Sweden are convicted of intellectual piracy for file-sharing.
However, we are all aware of the viral video of the moment, the terpsichorean wedding entrance which is set to Chris Brown’s song Forever. The couple used the song without permission (I don’t believe permission would have been needed to play it in the church) but also put the video up on YouTube.
Most artists and music publishers would have sued the wedding dress, veil, and tuxedos off any newlyweds who did that. However, the people behind Forever are not just any artists or music publishers.
BoingBoing tells you what happened after the video was published. Ladies and germs, THIS is what the future monetarisation of the internet looks like. And as much as the older dinosaurs in the music industry hate it, they’d better get used to it.