let me use the time while waiting for the backups to finish downloading and the updates to finish uploading to give a short summary on the last weeks progress:

With the help of Lutz and Oli, the BETA version of wikiloops 6.4 has been constantly improved - with me working down a list of 50+ issues that had to be taken care of. By now, I believe Lutz, Oli and me agree that the new version is more fun to use, which is a good thing to see :)

I have kept coding at full throttle, and I hope to be able to move on from fixing bugs to preparing the translation needed before the update can go live.
Since we will introduce a new member status along with the updated interface, I am currently investigating wether there is need to update the terms of use of wikiloops as well, which would go along with the necessity to inform any wikiloops user ahead of time...
there will be no dramatic changes on the ruleset of wikiloops at all, so having to update the terms seems a little bit of extra effort, but to stay safe with all legal matters concerning this platform, I might just have to do it. The one change that might feel like a reduction of "free"dom is that the private jams segment will only be available to "supporting members" from the day of the update on - I have informed the users using this feature this morning, and I am looking forward to their feedback and reaction.
Besides that, everything remains "as is", with the additional option to become a "supporting member" and enjoy wikiloops ad free.
I will issue a seperate posting listing the new features and options in detail, soon, and I'm pretty confident you will like the changed site a lot :)

Besides all this, this morning a dreaded incident occurred for the very first time in wikiloops history:
I got messaged by some american label that claims to have copyrights on a track posted to wikiloops.
The track was removed immediatly, and the users involved have been noticed. I will be looking to find a settlement without any lawsuits, and I am in good hope we might be able to negotiate out of this since there was no profit made by posting the track. Still, you may imagine, my bloodpressure made a little bump on receiving this message... I knew it would happen one day...

I'm actually sharing this information with you to point out again that wikiloops is not outside the law, and if you have ever uploaded to wikiloops and checked that checkbox stating "I am the only copyright holder of this track and I am aware that I will be held responsible for all legal claims that may arise", you should be reminded that these claims actually DO arise, and that they come in a format that involves the dollar sign!
Copyright infringement is nothing funny, and just because youtube can afford to hire a bunch of lawyers to make it seem harmless, that does not mean it is not a threat...
well, lets hope this will not become an everyday incident and the label guys will stay within reason, we'll find out soon.

todays stats: 18.769 tracks up, 14.803 members