217 Topics
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| | Jon Lech Johansen is perhaps best known as DVD Jon, the chap who cracked DVD movie encryption at the tender age of just 15. He may soon have to adopt a new nickname, how about iTunes Jon, as he releases software that takes iTunes out of the iPod music equation. … |
| | Sky, better known for news and sport television broadcasting, has today announced that it is entering the online music business with an ad-free streaming download service. All of the four million songs accessible by users of the service will be available by way of unlimited online streaming as well as … |
 | When singer Lily Allen posted a passionate plea for people to stop illegally sharing music files, and started a dedicated blog where fellow pop stars could voice their concerns over the 'theft' of their work, you might have been forgiven for thinking it would just turn into the usual bunch … |
 | Apple introduced a new feature today that lets you buy an album from iTunes complete with extra material like bonus recordings, video footage, lyrics and more. This is the kind of package I was suggesting the record companies need to bring to CDs a couple of weeks ago in my … |
| | Years ago [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message"]Marshall McLuhan[/URL] uttered the famous phrase, "The medium is the message." He said this long before the World Wide Web. If he were alive today, he might have said something else: "He who controls the distribution method, controls the money." When you look at the Web's influence on … |
| | Continuing on its charm offensive, the music industry is apparently not satisfied with the $675,000 fine for sharing 30 songs imposed on Joel Tenenbaum or the $1.92 million Jammie Thomas-Rasset was hit with for illegally downloading 24 tunes. Now it is going after the lyrics pirates. The what? Well, exactly. … |
| | I'm not a great fan of the phrase 'total coincidence' and nor am I a fan of The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills and Lord President of the Council to be formal. While I'm on the small matter of … |
| | Today Dynamite Records, a fixture in Northampton, MA for more than 27 years shut its doors. Probably doesn't matter to most of my readers, but consider this news against the backdrop of [URL="http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090818.html"]figures released this week by the NPD Group[/URL] indicating that iTunes controls 25 percent of all US music … |
 | This is just odd, for too many reasons. [URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8177285.stm"]A file sharer has been fined $675,000 for downloading illegal music[/URL]. He is a student. People have offered him money because they think it's an unreasonable amount to pay. He has turned them down. Why do I think this is odd? Well, … |
| | Seems like a silly question, right? But $80,000 per track is exactly how much Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother from Minneapolis, has been charged. Well, I say charged but actually she was fined this amount for each of 24 songs downloaded via a file-sharing site at the end of a …  |
| | File under strange but true, it would appear that 24 year old musician Gary Baker, better known as singer and songwriter Gary Go, is to play Wembley Stadium with his iPhone as musical accompaniment. As the supporting act on the Take That tour, Gary Go will be on stage on … |
| | A California Senate candidate is using a Don Henley song in a campaign video on YouTube, and when Henley sued for copyright violation, the candidate fired back that it was his first amendment rights to use the song. It seems he failed to understand the nuances of the Digital Millennium … |
| | Just as the excitement started to hot up, first with the news that the controversial and increasingly popular legal free streaming music service Spotify was to open up with the release of a third party developer API, and then with the actual announcement of the availability of [URL="http://developer.spotify.com/en/libspotify/overview/"]Libspotify[/URL] itself, so … |
| | Many UK participants in Daniweb will be aware of the various social media that carry music. They will have been delighted by the free stuff that you can listen to on [URL="http://www.lastfm.com"]Last.FM[/URL], [URL="http://www.spotify.com"]Spotify[/URL] and [URL="http://www.youtube.com"]YouTube[/URL] - you can even get the Beatles on YouTube, which is pretty much unique among … |
| | The Pirate Bay is, without doubt, a huge thorn in the side of the music and movies business. As the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3479.html"]worlds largest bittorrent tracker[/URL] with more than 3 million users and well over 20 million peers it constantly flips the bird at The Powers That Be. Even the threat of … |
| | The time has come to drag the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) kicking and screaming into the 21st century because it clearly has a lot to learn about marketing on the internet. The RIAA had a [URL="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212501507&subSection=Management"]good news/bad news announcement[/URL] on Friday. The good news was that it would … |
| | Isn't anything safe from hackers? Now they've apparently found a way to hack into systems through a media stream, threatening users with denial of service attacks that can bring down servers and desktops alike. The vulnerability was reported yesterday by VoIPshield Laboratories, a security tools maker in Canada. The flaws … |
| | Earlier this week Apple was adamant that it would close the iTunes Store if the Copyright Royalty Board raised the royalties paid to music publishers, rather than be forced into either accepting smaller margins on the music downloads it sells or be forced into hiking prices. The way these things … |
| | Researchers tell us that, in the UK market, there were some 1.5 billion 'legal' music downloads last year. That's covering all bases, different devices and download services, but discounting the illegal file sharing trade. The Goddess alone knows how big the figure would be if you factored in dodgy P2P … |
| | Some things are just made to appeal to weirdy beardy nerds. Take the 'musical' instrument invented by the Russian nutter Leon Theremin in 1919 for example. I say musical, but anyone who has ever listened to the sounds coming from this truly bizarre combining of metal antennae and the hands … |
| | A few months ago News Corporation announced that it was taking on Apple in the music downloads marketplace. Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of MySpace, said it would be starting up a [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/technology/03cnd-myspace.html?_r=1&oref=slogin"]one-stop music shop[/URL] by spinning out the existing MySpace Music service to become an independent joint venture. The interesting … |
| | Well, OK, they have agreed to throttle the bandwidth of those accounts found to be indulging in the illegal downloading of music via file-sharing networks if their customers do not take heed of a warning letter or two. The [URL="http://www.bpi.co.uk/"]BPI[/URL] (formerly known as British Phonographic Industry) which represents the British … |
| | The fact that the UK's Internet providers are [URL="http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4387283.ece"]doing something about illegal downloads of music[/URL] is of course to be welcomed in principle. Whenever the subject comes up there are a handful of objections; civil liberties, the Internet should be free, whatever, the objectors seem to come from everywhere. But … |
| | With Father's Day here in the UK fast approaching (hint for my own kids: it's on Sunday!) research published today by the world's 2nd largest digital music store, [URL="http://www.emusic.com"]eMusic[/URL], suggests that nearly half of us lie about the music we have on our iPod. It seems that us Dads are … |
| | Even though RIAA executives will probably spit out their coffee if they happen upon this post, I’m going to give you a round-up of some of my favorite free (and completely legal) internet music services. [URL="http://www.we7.com"]WE7[/URL]: This free site delivers free tracks from mostly unknown artists (although you will find … |
| | According to the Guardian newspaper, the much publicised reports circulating online and in the global print media that Sir Paul McCartney has struck a deal to put the Beatles back catalogue up for download on iTunes this year is simply not true. The story is that Sir Paul has agreed … |
| | Who could forget [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen"]DVD Jon[/URL], the Linux guru who was co-author of DeCSS? This Linux application 'unlocked' DVDs with content otherwise protected by Content Scrambling System (CSS) encryption and landed DVD Jon in front of a judge. Which did not stop him from continuing his quest to free audiovisual content … |
| | Yes, in a bizarre twist and turn of fate, the original bad boy of illegal MP3 downloads which then went legit and hooked subscribers into music with Microsoft's digital rights management system has changed tack and announced it is to sell MP3 format tunes. So, OK, maybe not a real …  |
| | According to a legal [URL="http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/lenz_v_universal/final_lenz_am_cmplt.pdf"]document[/URL] published at the [URL="http://www.eff.org"]Electronic Frontier Foundation[/URL] site, the copyright Nazis at Universal Music Group might have bitten off more than they can chew when they ordered the removal of a Dancing baby clip from YouTube. Stephanie Lenz posted a video clip on YouTube of her … |
| | It has always been something of a running joke here in England, where you have to buy a license from the government in order to watch TV (I kid you not, it helps fund the good old BBC), that blind people get a 50 percent reduction on the annual £135 …  |
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