It is of course quite easy to stay relatively anonymous on the internet and services like Pirate Bay are already offering ways to work around these new laws.

There are however people that figured out how to make use of the new technologies to distribute media and still make decent money. Jamendo is one of these companies. All music on Jamendo is free to download and licensed through one of several Creative Commons licenses or the Free Art License, making it legal to copy and share, as well as to modify and make commercial use of for some, depending on the license. Jamendo allows streaming of all of its thousands of albums in either Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format, and downloads through the BitTorrent and eDonkey networks. Jamendo also helps musicians to commercialise their music via their Jamendo Pro services.

On 23 March Jamendo published an ironic statement against the “Three strikes” laws. It is called “Three strikes vs. three thanks”. In a nutshell – they will reward people for downloading music, instead of punishing them showing “…that there are plenty of talented artists who know how to profit from the opportunities offered by the internet and embrace innovative monetization models…” Hopefully many more artists will join them.

BTW if you are in Johannesburg and want to hear a really great band that publish all their music under a creative commons license, NUL are playing at the Bohemian tonight 4/4/2009.