We missed this story when it appeared last month, so we are commenting on it now.

A woman who was arrested on allegations she sold illegal music compact discs was jailed last month and left by law enforcement authorities in solitary confinement for more than four days. The woman, Adriana Torres-Flores, 38, of Springdale, Arkansas, was left without food, toilet facilities, or sleeping facilities. Torres-Flores said she drank her own urine to for fluids.

Torres-Flores had been arrested in December 2007 on criminal charges she was selling bootlegged compact discs at a Springdale, Arkansas flea market. Torres-Flores faces deportation proceedings because she is not a U.S. citizen.

We discovered news of Ms. Torres-Flores’ situation after we read a The New York Times last week about the bootlegged entertainment that no longer is available on Canal Street, long known as one of New York City’s major distribution points for discount goods, many of which are counterfeit. The story details an initiative Mayor Michael Bloomberg began in December 2003 with the aim of reducing the amount of counterfeit goods in the city that never sleeps.

A separate December 2003 from the Times details the results of an afternoon raid against counterfeit goods.

In both Times stories, the newspaper quotes financial estimates from trade associations — the Motion Picture Association of America in last week’s story; the International Chamber of Commerce in the 2003 story — that purport to detail the amount of money the associations’ member lose to counterfeit or bootlegged goods.

Ms. Torres-Flores’ situation is egregious because of the unusual circumstances surrounding her detention. In many other ways, however, her situation is consistent with an effort by multinational copyright industries to use municipal police to enforce and uphold the protection of their narrow interests. We wrote about this situation last year when editorializing about the Fulton County Sherriff’s involvement (with blue-jacketed representatives from the Recording Industry Association of America) in a raid of DJ Drama’s Atlanta studio.

DJ Drama and several of his colleagues were arrested in January 2007 for making mixtapes allegedly in violation of the Copyright Act of 1976.

See also:

Eric A. Taub. Off New York Streets, Film Piracy Is Online. The New York Times. April 14, 2008.

Mark Minton. Woman Forgotten 4 Days In Tiny Cell. Arkansas Democrat Gazette. March 11, 2008.

Copycense. Mix Tapes Compared to Cocaine? February 7, 2007.

Michael Wilson. 2 Chinatown Stores Raided In Counterfeit-Goods Sweep. The New York Times. Dec. 3, 2003.

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The news cycle has been abuzz about digital music and iTunes‘ ascendance to a position as the country’s leading music retailer. Likewise, the mainstream press has continued to feed its desire for an iTunes-Amazon.com octagon-style retail death match, and steadily has been promoting Amazon.com’s mp3 download service as a worthy challenger to the iTunes hegemony.

(The music labels, long irritated with Steve Jobs‘ control of the legal download market, silently would approve of such a challenge.)

We don’t see what the big deal is. There are several problems with music downloads, and none of them have anything to do with three-letter acronyms that purport to “protect” the underlying content. The primary problem with downloaded music is that it sucks.

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Wayne Frost, known in the hip hop world as Frosty Freeze, died April 3 in New York City. He was 44 years years old.

For decades, Frost had been a member of the seminal break dance troupe Rock Steady Crew, which formed in the Bronx in 1977. People unfamiliar with hip hop instead may remember him as one of the break dancers whose routine became part of the penultimate performance for Jennifer Beals’ character in the 1983 film Flashdance.

More details about Frost’s life and performances are available in a New York Times obituary.

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“The [music subscription] services also have to overcome a conceptual hurdle with many consumers. Most music fans want something tangible when they buy songs. Subscription services, however, are like cable TV: They sell access to entertainment, not packaged goods. And like cable, they’re not easily portable, which is a real problem when it comes to playing music in a car. It would be a different matter if people were continuously connected to the Net and could hear any song they wished, anywhere, any time. But in the current circumstances, music subscriptions work best as ways to sample music — not as a substitute for buying it.” — Jon Healey.

Jon Healey. If Yahoo can’t do it … LATimes.com. Feb. 4, 2008. Both a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board and editor of the paper’s Bit Player blog, Healy asks whether subscription music services are a viable business model in light of Yahoo!’s announcement that it would end its subscription music service and support RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service. Since so many of us at the Cense are heavy music listeners and buyers, we can confirm Healy’s insights. Almost all of us choose to buy music on compact disc (then rip to iTunes) rather than buy music on iTunes or some other service. Not only do we get better sound quality when we buy and rip, we own something, which is important to us.

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On Copyright Reform. (.mp3) The Ottawa Citizen sponsors an hour-long debate on copyright reform in Canada. Lots of shouting and interrupting, but may be worthwhile listening if you want to hear frustrated content industry discuss the state of their nation. Check out, however, Michael Geist’s analysis of this session, in which he contends Canadian Recording Industry Association president Graham Henderson and others give tacit support to ISP filtering, which AT&T reportedly is considering.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in Site Check 2.03.)

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QuestionCopyright.org. Musicians Censoring Themselves. Jan. 21, 2008. We have to agree: when people interested in the performing arts discontinue sharing their craft because of copyright concerns — legitimate or not — it is time for a change. It’s easy to say “people need to be educated.” To some degree, this is true. If your profession involves working with copyrighted information, you need to know basic copyright law. (For example, we already have addressed our concerns that the library profession cannot continue to be effective when so many librarians fail to have a firm grasp of basic copyright.) As an enthusiast or hobbyist, though, we think it’s an entirely different ball game. This post includes a link to a bulletin board forum thread that illustrates the chilling effect that the overprotective copyright rhetoric has had on people who just want to enjoy art and culture.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 29, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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Aaron O. Patrick and Sarah McBride. Showdown Looms Over Pirated-Media Directory. WSJ.com. Jan. 11, 2008. Sweden gets into the U.S. copyright enforcement act. We wonder whether the country will appear in the Trade Representative’s 2008 Special 301 report for its alleged copyright indiscretions.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 15, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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