Happens to us all. The Washington Post email system stopped working the other day… because they forgot to renew their domain.

Proving that the music industry just isn’t going to give up, Music Industry Privacy Investigations (MIPI) has launched a series of raids targeting Kazaa, several universities, and internet providers including Big Pond, seeking to gather evidence about ‘illegal’ fileswapping.

Kazaa’s pleas that it has re-shaped itself into a ‘legitimate’ business appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

“There is no doubt this is a cynical attempt by the industry to disrupt our business, regain lost momentum, and garner publicity. The assertions by plaintiffs are hackneyed and worn out. It is a gross misrepresentation of Sharman’s business to suggest that the company in any way facilitates or encourages copyright infringement.” says Sharman Networks, the owners of Kazaa.

Well it’s now official. The Can-Spam anti-spam law in the US has had no effect on the avalanche of dross perpetuated against our inboxes each day.

“The CAN-SPAM Act appears to have had little immediate effect on the amount of unwanted email offers,” said Andrew Lochart, director of marketing for Postini.

Another firm involved in anti-spam technology, Brightmail, estimated this week that 60 per cent of all internet email sent in January 2004 was spam, a two per cent increase from the company’s measurement of 58 per cent in December.

When we first started a paid subscription information service online at Arts Hub, everyone, including those who professed to be online business experts, told us we were mad. Since then the rest of the world has moved decisively to a recognition that paid content is legitimate, and real, opportunity.

Now the Association of Online Publishers, albeit a biased body, has released new research showing the trend will continue:

“The study found that 58 per cent of organisations currently charge for online content. Of those that do not, about half plan to charge in the next 12 months, which will bring the proportion of those charging to 82 per cent.”

I wish the naysayers were around for us to say ‘told you so’. But they’re all out of business. Clearly they took their own advice.

Music giant EMI says it’s looking at how to build a business model around file swapping, or peer to peer networks – the ones which, until now, the music industry as a whole around the world has decided are the personification of the devil. You’ll recall their general tactic is to threaten teenagers with fines and jail.

“We want to learn how to embrace P2P,” said Ted Cohen, EMI’s senior vice president for digital development and distribution. He believes it will take a year for the tide to change.”

EMI is set to make its music available via Wippit, a UK based peer to peer music sharing network, which until now has only had access to small independent labels’ music.

“For about $50 a year, subscribers can download any of Wippit’s tunes using P2P and save them in as many places they like — an idea that makes many big recording companies nervous. Other services limit copying. “

Google is busy firing lawyer letters off at the owner of a new web site www.booble.com. Have a look and you’ll quickly realise why the Googlemeisters are unhappy. Booble is an adult search engine – designed as a parody of Google. Except Google doesn’t agree it’s a parody and is claiming all manner of trade mark breaches.

Suffice it to say, all the resulting press coverage has led to a massive surge of traffic to Booble – no doubt all part of the plan.

Bill Gates famously predicted a few weeks ago Microsoft would eliminate spam within 2 years. One strategy was for the sender of an email to have to pay a small ‘bond’ to the recipient each time an email was sent. If the emails was legitimate, the recipient would refund the bond.

Now the OECD has decided they don’t share Bill’s vision. A new OECD report says “spam is dangerous, expensive and growing on an epidemic scale that threatens confidence in the internet and e-commerce”.

What might be suprising is the assertion:

“One anti-spam company, Spamhaus, says that only about 180 known individuals, working in “spam gangs”, are behind all spam received in Europe and the United States. “

With all the billions of babies and computers on the planet it’s a wonder no-one has done this before. A couple in the US has named their baby son ‘Jon Blake Cusack 2.0’. Dad is a computer programmer engineer.