When the realities of business and art crash into each other, it’s usually art that suffers. Bulls and China shops come to mind, as does the MPAA and the Internet. The Motion Picture Association of America’s latest pile of previously beautiful bits: Fanedit.org.

If you thought YouTube’s click-to-buy feature was neat for music labels, allowing them to add links to purchase music on pirated videos featuring that music, you’ll love this: MTV has partnered with MySpace to identify videos posted to MySpace that are copyrighted by MTV, using audio and visual fingerprint technology. And here’s the good part: instead of getting medieval on pirated videos’ hineys, MTV gets to add ads.

In a display of hypocrisy that seems like it could almost be taken directly out of a lyrical interpretation of a track from Metallica’s own "…And Justice for All" album, the band’s drummer and well-known music piracy combatant, Lars Ulrich, has now said that he doesn’t care if Metallica’s new album is pirated.

Audio and Video aren’t the only forms of media being pirated on the Internet.

There is a site called Mygazines.com that thinks they can get away with allowing users to upload entire copies of magazines provided they simply acknowledge that they have purchased it.

Not surprisingly, the publishers aren’t too thrilled with this.

Some publishers have been reported to be preparing legal action, and the site’s days (at least in the current format) are likely numbered.

The US and Britain go about some things differently; this was as the heart of our little squabble in the 18th Century. It’s not surprising an announcement that a UK ISP will be both music piracy police and provider of subscription music services doesn’t seem to ring many alarms.

French film fans are illegally downloading more movies than they pay to see in theaters, according to a new study.

Alpha, a movie industry group that fights piracy, commissioned the study to examine the number of films downloaded on the Internet via P2P file sharing with movie ticket sales.

Music sales dropped to their lowest level in a decade even though there was an increase in digital sales but it did not make up for falling CD sales according to a report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Worldwide music sales fell 8 percent to $19.4 billion in 2007. Sales of CDs dropped 13 percent to $15.9 billion. Sales of downloaded songs and mobile ringtones increased 34 percent to $2.9 billion.

The Chinese music industry issued a warning to the nation’s most popular search engine Baidu saying it risked losing advertising for allowing music to be pirated.

"Resolutely countering Baidu, the largest and most incorrigible purveyor of pirated music in China, has become a common goal of the music industry," said Qu Jingming, director-general of the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC).

Beijing courts are pledging higher fines for Internet cafes that allow users to violate copyright laws by illegally downloading movies.

The Beijing High People’s Court promised harsher penalties would be introduced after three local courts heard cases involving Internet cafes and copyright infringement. In one case, Chinese producer Huayi Brothers, won its lawsuit against three Internet cafes.

Online Flash games appearing on the Beijing 2008 site may have been appropriated from at least one other designer after one game maker found his had been pirated.

Internet service providers in the UK must take tougher measures to prevent illegal downloading or face legal sanctions the government has warned.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, told Internet service providers he would introduce legislation in April of next year if they did not voluntarily take action to reduce online piracy.

Six members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) have filed copyright infringement suits against Chinese file-sharing company Xunlei Networking Technology and are seeking 7 million yuan ($1 million). The company is partially owned by Google who has had its fair share of copyright battles in the U.S.

The MPA is also asking for a public admission of the copyright infringement and a promise from Xunlei to halt any future infringements.

Internet users in the UK who go online and illegally download music and movies could have their Internet access revoked according to plans the government is considering.

A draft proposal says that Internet service providers would have to monitor users who accessed pirated content through their accounts. The government says that plans are in an early stage and it is working on final regulations.

Six million users a year are estimated to download files illegally in the UK and music and film companies say it is costing them millions in lost revenue annually.

The Chinese government says it is cracking down on Internet-based audio-visual programming like podcast and video-sharing sites to ensure content doesn’t pollute the spiritual and cultural ideals of the country. And yeah, that includes pirates, too. That the expanded measures against user-generated media come just months before the Beijing Olympics is just a coincidence.

Right?

The Motion Picture Association of America is the latest poster child for reasons not to trust research put out by entities with vested interests in the results of the research. The MPAA is having to send out word that their previous estimates of movie piracy on college campuses were a bit overstated—by a factor of three.

Torrents and peer-to-peer networks have had a rough couple of weeks lately. In addition to Cox and Comcast’s recent blocking of torrent sites, file-sharing has been under assault in France and Canada, not to mention from billionaire Mark Cuban.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) did some more surfing on Google Video and found 300 films readily available to visitors.

It’s hard to have sympathy for a dirty, exploitative medium when the producers of it cry foul over piracy – after all dirty is as dirty does, and karma can be your friend or your enemy. But at the same time, copyrights are copyrights and are intended to protect the truly artful from thieves as much as they protect the scummy.

In China, the piracy isn’t limited to software copiers and activation code crackers. An official news agency has no problem borrowing a little bit of copyrighted Simpson’s art for its purposes.

How would you feel about your ISP digging into the stuff you send out to check for pirated content? Sounds kind of Big-Brotherish, doesn’t? A sort of TSA for your data packets. Enter Ma Bell and the Copyright Police.

American movie and music interests have pressured Canadian authorities on the adoption of copyright laws similar to ones in the US. Painting Canada as a piracy haven, however, does not seem to reflect reality.