Rob Lord: Songbird will be more disruptive than Firefox
Firefox 2.0 is causing quite a stir these days. The browser has been downloaded more than two million times since it was officially released last week – and the debate is heating up about whether the upgrade is worth it or not.
In the shadows of this ruckus another Mozilla offspirng hatched a few days earlier: [...]
P2P Censorship: Safemusic removes dirty words from songs
A Michigan-based software and web developer has published a program that allows music fans to remove dirty words from songs to “protect the mind of a child”. From the Safemusic website:
“It allows you with the ease of a point and click interface to remove explicit/unwanted words, lyrics, or sounds from any song or recorded sound.”
safemusic
Safemusic [...]
Microsoft takes legal moves against auction pirates
Microsoft Corp said today it is preparing 55 legal actions worldwide against sellers on auction sites who are hawking illegal copies of the company’s software.
The actions are a mix of lawsuits and criminal complaints, said Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, a Microsoft attorney for Europe, the Middle East and Africa region. Microsoft has or will file 34 [...]
(PRESS RELEASE) SNOCAP Continues to Expand Catalog by Adding Leading Independent Music Companies
SNOCAP, the first end-to-end provider of digital licensing, copyright management services and artist distribution for the digital music marketplace, today announced licensing deals with a number of leading independent music companies. As part of the agreements, the companies will upload and register their extensive music catalogs into SNOCAP’s Digital Registry, expanding the distribution of their [...]
Record labels wake up to online music reality
For years, major music labels have waged a doomed war against file sharing in the hope lawsuits and secretly corrupted files would convince the millions who download music illegally to return to the record store.
But new relationships between music companies, advertisers and file-sharing networks are signalling a major change in the corporate attitude toward illegal [...]
MySpace Begins Music Filtering Initiative, Taps Gracenote
Music is an incredibly integral part of the MySpace experience, and a high percentage of profile pages feature popular songs. Most of those tracks are copyrighted, and streamed without permission. Tackling the thorny issue, MySpace has now tapped audio identification experts Gracenote to filter unauthorized content. Moving forward, MySpace will proactively identify and block copyrighted [...]
Music Downloading’s New Deal
The threat of recording industry lawsuits has certainly given pause to peer-to-peer music file-sharing services. Few have dared show their servers on U.S. soil since the Supreme Court in 2005 ruled Grokster and Morpheus could be sued, declaring open season on companies that enable users to swap copyrighted files. On Oct. 30, even News Corp.’s [...]
Copying Own CDs Still Not Legal
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has called for outdated copyright laws to be changed and modernized. Currently it is illegal to copy music CDs and then place them in your MP3 player for listening. Making copies of CDs and DVDs does not impact the copyright holders and this law should change, [...]
Google AdSense for Audio Coming
Google plans to release Google AdSense for Audio to monetize podcasts sometime this quarter, according to sources.
I’ve been sitting on this news for months out of deference to a colleague’s wishes, but today Seeking Alpha has some information on it too, so I thought I might as well post.
Earlier this year, Google contracted with several [...]
UK urged to update copyright law to decriminalize Apple iPod users
UK copyright law should be changed to include a ‘private right to copy’ that protects users of Apple iPod and other MP3 players, according to a new report published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). The UK’s current copyright laws mean that millions of Brits break the law each year when they [...]
