Beware, AOL subscribers!  Quite a number of MMD members have web sites
which feature music of one kind or another; if they are AOL subscribers
this might be of interest.

This morning I visited a site to listen to some music files posted by
the site owner, an amateur pianist whose playing will never enrapture
the world.  On his web page was a statement explaining that he had
removed some of the files and would never again upload music to his
site because of the following message which he received from AOL :

  "Dear Sir or Madam: I am writing on behalf of America Online, Inc.
  We received a complaint from the International Federation of the
  Phonographic Industry that you have made one or more copyrighted
  sound recordings available for download from your AOL hosted
  website(s) without the permission of the copyright owners.
  In accordance with the requirements of the Digital Millennium
  Copyright Act we have blocked access to the referenced website(s).
  If you have a good faith belief that you have the legal right to post
  the material identified above, then you may provide us with a counter
  notification which we will provide to the party who brought the
  complaint. There are specific items that must be included in the
  counter notification, so if you'd like to do this, let us know and
  we'll send you the details. If you are willing to remove the materials
  identified above, we will remove the block for 2 business days to
  allow you to do this. After 2 business days, if the materials have
  not been removed, your website(s) will be blocked again and further
  action may be taken. The materials must be removed from both the
  website(s) and the FTP site(s). Thank you for your cooperation.
  Sincerely,"

Perhaps AOL will be drawing a bead on one of you next?  Thankfully my
ISP seems to have a more benevolent attitude to my web site music.

John Farrell
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm

 [ At http://www.aes.org/sustaining_members/index.cfm?CompanyID=88 :
 [
 [ "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI),
 [ 54 Regent Street, London ... A trade association representing some
 [ 1100 record producers in over 70 countries around the world. The
 [ association works to ensure that the recording industry is able to
 [ realize its potential throughout the world. In order to achieve this,
 [ IFPI's activities cover a number of areas including fighting piracy,
 [ exploring new technologies to develop technical solutions for
 [ combating piracy, and promoting national legislation and international
 [ conventions to protect the rights of its members in the area of
 [ copyright and other related rights legislation. The firm was
 [ established in 1933."
 [
 [ -- Robbie