by SHANE SINNOTT

I know some of y'all are probably starting to tire of all the CRTC/Net neutrality/regulation stuff, but its important, dig? At stake is fair use of what's quickly becoming our exclusive means of communication (and, of course, the main way we get music.) So, there's an upcoming CRTC hearing on Internet Traffic Practices (i.e. whether your ISP should be allowed to block or slow down whatever it wants, or whether you should be paying for a connection and be allowed to do whatever you want with it). The normal process to comment on these types of things is laborious, but the CRTC has launched an e-consultation site where you can get your two cents in, at isppractices.econsultation.ca. Of course, judging from most public forums, 95 per cent of the comments will be useless, but there's bound to be some diamonds in there. You've got till April 30 to get your comments in, before the real-life public forum later this summer in Gatineau.

Seeqpod (seeqpod.com), the super-good playable search site that allowed you to instantly play almost any song online, has filed for bankruptcy after a pile-on by major record labels. Launched a couple of years ago, Seeqpod used a fancy biomimetic algorithm to deliver instant and useable music search results that you could stream. They received the 2008 Award in Software at a thing sometimes called the Oscars of Innovation. Sadly, it didn't take the majors too long to start kicking and screaming, and after being sued by Warner, Capitol and EMI in quick succession, the company has decided to call it quits. Startlingly, this is the first case of lawsuits being launched against search sites—Seeqpod just directed you to other content on the Web—and it doesn't bode well for other MP3 search sites like Hype Machine or Elbows (hypem.com, elbo.ws). For now, Seeqpod is still up, so enjoy it while you can.

In light of the search-engine threat, check out listentoyoutube.com. Its a simple site that lets you paste in the link to any YouTube video and turn the audio part into an MP3 that you can download.