Muse reveal plans for gig in space

Devon trio consider approaching Richard Branson about performing on a Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceship.

 

Space cadet ... Matt Bellamy of Muse dreams of soloing in suborbit. Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Could Muse bring Starlight to the stars? The Devon trio have had "coherent conversations" about bringing their anthemic rock to suborbital spaceships, and hope to talk to Richard Branson about a collaboration with Virgin Galactic.

"Maybe I've seen The Jetsons too many times," frontman Matt Bellamy told the Sun. Muse have had several discussions "about playing in space", he said, "sometimes very coherent conversations and sometimes very late at night, but it's for real." While countless bands have had drunkenly imagined zero-gravity guitar solos, Muse are in the uncommon position of being increasingly successful at a time when the prospect of space travel is increasingly close. Virgin Galactic, Branson's model for tourist-friendly spaceflight, could launch later this year.

"I'm thinking of approaching Richard Branson to see if we could do it on his spacecraft," Bellamy said. "I do think it will be possible in the future and I'm sure it will happen in my lifetime. We'd love to be part of that." Although no one has ever crowd-surfed in a space shuttle, such a stunt would follow in the footsteps of Korn, who plotted a gig in an airplane, and Fall Out Boy, who aimed to perform in Antarctica. Only one of them was successful.

"We do have a lot of equipment, so I guess we'd have to use pods to carry our stuff and we'd scale back the shows a lot," Bellamy said. "I don't think the spacecraft is like a Tardis, where we could get everything in we usually have." A gig in a time machine? Now there's an idea ...

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Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs

What's the value of a song? Jammie Thomas-Rasset has spent the last few years in court debating that question. The Minnesota mother of four is being penalized for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs on the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Kazaa in 2006, but how much she owes the record labels has been in question. The jury in her third trial has just ruled that Thomas-Rasset should pay Capitol Records $1.5 million,CNET reports, which breaks down to $62,500 per song. It's a heavy penalty considering the 24 tunes would only cost approximately $24 on iTunes, which was Thomas-Rasset' argument, too. Thanks to Thomas-Rasset's colorful case, she has become the public face of the record industry's battle with illegal downloaders. In her first trial, in 2007, the jury demanded she pay $222,000 for violating the copyright on more than 1,700 songs by Green Day, Aerosmith and Richard Marx, to name a few. Thomas-Rasset maintained she wasn't the computer user who did the file sharing, and her legal team cited an error in jury instruction to secure a second trial in 2009 that ended with a much harsher result: an astronomical fine of $1.92 million. However, earlier this year a U.S. District Court judge found the $1.92 million penalty against Thomas-Rasset to be "monstrous and shocking" and "gross injustice" before lowering it to $54,000, or $2,250 a song. Thomas-Rasset and her legal team decided to appeal that decision, too. 

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the organization that represents the four major record labels, was pleased by the most recent decision, even if it has no intention to collect the $1.5 million from Thomas-Rasset. "Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset's willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions," the RIAA said in a statement. Earlier this year, the RIAA offered Thomas-Rasset the opportunity to end the legal battle for $25,000 and an admission of guilt; Thomas-Rasset declined.

Still, Thomas-Rasset and her legal team are already making plans to appeal, setting the stage for a fourth trial. "The fight continues," promised Thomas-Rasset's lawyer Kiwi Camara. Even if Thomas-Rasset were to win the next trial, the RIAA would likely appeal that decision to ensure that copyright infringement without penalization won't happen. This story has the potential to drag on well into the next decade -- when for $1.5 million, all of Thomas-Rasset's four kids could finish law school and take up the fight on her behalf.Burying a Midwestern mom in insurmountable debt isn't the best publicity move, so rather than argue the labels are entitled to the cash, the RIAA has sought to make this trial into a cautionary tale for anyone considering illegally downloading music -- a reminder that there are penalties. But as the constantly declining weekly Nielsen SoundScan sales figures demonstrate, nothing seems to have deterred music fans from stealing rather than purchasing songs and albums. And in a digital world now dominated by Bit Torrent and Rapidshare, a trial over a music-sharing dinosaur like Kazaa seems nothing but antiquated.