Modestly dubbed as the world’s most innovative site for legal music downloads, MP3Rocket.com recently launched its “100 Most Popular Artists”. This application allows users to vote for their favorite artists to be displayed by week and month to make free music downloads even easier.

Of course, this relies on your music taste being in tune with the rest of the world for it to have any use. And we do already have music charts, so this isn’t quite the revolution people are making it out to be. But still, if it makes getting music downloads easier for some people, it can’t be a bad thing.

Users can also watch their favorite artists’ music videos. Unfortunately, the top five artists at the moment for music downloads are Rihanna, Britney Spears, Linkin Park, Abba and Amy Winehouse.

It’s really just a pop music chart. MP3Rocket uses the Gnutella filesharing application and is available for free download. We’re not overly keen on MP3Rocket because when you try to leave their site, a popup menu comes up. There’s also a voice ad on the homepage.

Another filesharing application came out this week. The interestingly named Papaya is a simple way of filesharing with friends or family. This obviously isn’t a filesharing program in the same light as Limewire where you can get free music downloads, but if you need to share something a picture or large file with someone, this is a decent place to do it.

One cool function is the ability to share the song you are currently playing iTunes. Probably not that useful, but interesting nonetheless.

When you add a file to the filesharing network, the address is automatically copied to your clipboard so that you can pass it onto someone else quickly and efficiently.

The web interface is easy to use. The download is free for the filesharing software, but then you need to buy a license for about $32, which is perhaps a little expensive. Check it out if experimenting with new filesharing programs is your thing.

A Danish ISP has announced a new service to offer unlimited free music downloads. The new service will offer tracks with DRM restrictions that will expire 30 days after a user’s Internet connection has been terminated.

TDC unveiled the service, called PLAY, and offered the new product to existing broadband and mobile customers. EMI, Sony BMG and Warner are all on board, so the library of free music downloads will be rather substantial.

A number of Danish record labels are also on board to offer music downloads of indie music. More than one million tracks will be available for legal MP3 downloads, including the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Williams.

Users will be able to download all the music they want, for free – so long as they stay subscribed to TDC. Looks like a pretty good deal and this is surely a business model that other ISPs around the world will start to adopt.

There has been some debate on blogs recently as to whether the RIAA has been losing ground in its battle against filesharing. Three recent court rulings may be seen as complicating the way the RIAA deals with filesharing cases.

Until now, the RIAA has been happy to take people to court merely for making tracks available by putting them in folders that other users can then copy from. However, as with Jammie Thomas, the RIAA pays MediaSentry to download songs from users and therefore argue that copyright has been breached. Is this enough?

This is how the RIAA targets its victims. However, there have been accusations that MediaSentry is an unlicensed investigator. Then there is the argument that merely uploading songs is not a breach of copyright.

The whole scenario is becoming increasingly confusing.

Keep a close eye on filesharing court cases in the next few weeks as these recent decisions and debates could have some serious impact.

A Massachusetts District Judge Nancy Gertner has provisionally prohibited Boston University from providing details of students’ connections to the RIAA. The judge called for an investigation to look into whether such an act is permissible.

The RIAA, of course, targets students on campus suspected of violating copyright laws by getting illegal music downloads. The judge made the argument that it is unclear whether using filesharing programs like Limewire have violated any copyright laws.

There is some strong debate whether or not this is indicative of a turnaround in this and other court cases against students accused of filesharing. Boston University acts as an ISP for its students and has thus far not given the RIAA details of individual users.

The RIAA finds filesharing violators by employing the company MediaSentry to act as a filesharing user and target certain computers on university campuses around the United States.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “sneakernet” refers to the act of using external devices to transfer files from one computer to another. These files can, of course, be music files. A recent study by the British Music Rights (BMR) organisation suggests that sneakernet is a bigger threat to the music industry than filesharing.

While the RIAA is going after people for using filesharing networks like Limewire and Ares, kids are swapping the contents of their hard drives with each other on a daily basis without fear of being prosecuted.

Feargal Sharkey, who leads the BMR, said that the problem online is dwarfed by what goes on offline. This harks back to the argument that we have all been copying cassettes and tapes for years without being told that we have been doing anything wrong.

According to the study, home copying remains more popular than filesharing. Some people still even record off the radio. Food for thought as the filesharing battle rages on.