“iPod Jon” cracks iPod and iTunes
DVD Jon, the Norwegian who as a teen hacked the encryption on DVDs has done it again. This time he has slayed Apple’s Fairplay encryption that prevents iPod users from playing music downloaded from places other than Apple’s iTunes.
Monique Farantzos, managing director at DoubleTwist, the company that plans to license the code to [...]
Closed systems leave song buyers out in the cold
The top consumer complaint at online music service
Napster: Songs purchased at Napster won’t play on Apple’s iPod.
It’s not Napster’s fault. Apple’s (AAPL) hugely successful iPod business is built on a closed system. You shop at iTunes Music Store for digital songs and use iTunes software to transfer them effortlessly to the iPod.
The system works great [...]
Movie Downloads: iTunes v. The Rest
We started testing the various movie download services earlier this summer when rumors of Apple’s new movie download store first heated up. We’re now regular customers of three of the services. Michael Arrington is an iTunes junkie because he likes having movies and music videos on his iPod, Nik Cubrilovic likes Movielink and I’m hooked [...]
Disney – we can compete with piracy
A senior Disney executive has finally come out and said what we’ve all known for a long time – that the way to beat pirates is to create a better product, not try and lock down content.
Anne Sweeney is head of the ABC TV group within Disney, which is responsible for some of the biggest [...]
The Indie-Rock Insurgency Against iTunes
Bleep’s success may represent a growing trend away from global download firms. iTunes is “the Tesco of the music marketplace with all the hits, but people would rather go for something a bit more alternative, with a bit more heart and soul,” said one industry insider.
The might of iTunes has been challenged after an independent [...]
Retailers pressure studios on Web deals
National retailers that control the lucrative DVD market are pressuring Hollywood studios to give them the same favorable deals being offered to Web-based download services such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes.
The latest expression of concern from retailers was a letter sent to studios by the president of Target Corp.
The letter warned that Target might have [...]
The crime: Playing iTunes on devices not named iPod
It took more than 10 minutes to persuade the Paris police station’s highest-ranking officer that a crime might have taken place, but that did not deter Jerome Martinez and his two companions.
After all, the three had marched halfway across the Latin Quarter one evening in late September, accompanied by about 40 fellow advocates, waving banners [...]
Napster Goes Japanese
Napster launched a new music download service in Japan today as it tries to play catch up with the 800lb iTunes gorilla.
Japan is the second largest music market in the world and offers Napster a chance to expand into additional markets with which to compete with iTunes. iTunes, available in Japan since last year, [...]
(iTunes Offers) Customizable Record Label from Beck
iTunes eat your heart out, for years now we’ve been told that the online music store (aka limewire or anyother P2P provider) offered us something we simply couldn’t get in a music store: convenience, price and choice. Well, now music front runner Beck is has come up with somthing that gives us something we can’t [...]
Disney ‘very, very bullish’ on early iTunes movie downloads
It’s only been a week since Disney plonked a load of movies on Apple’s iTunes store, but already the studio is squeaking about how well it’s all going.
“We are very, very bullish on consumption of electronically delivered media,” CEO Robert Iger told Wall Street analysts Tuesday.
Disney said it has already flogged around 125,000 downloads of [...]
