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Posts Tagged “

MP3s

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Rhapsody is entering the a la carte music store business—now you can buy single tracks or albums just like you can from Amazon or iTunes. The first 100,000 people who create accounts receive a $10 credit. (You need a credit card to register.) [Rhapsody]

7 comments

riaa

RIAA Pulls Case Before It Can Be Dismissed, Then Refiles Days Later To Get Different Judge

If you were still somehow unconvinced that the RIAA's legal strategy is "be sleazy, intimidate, then profit," their latest legal maneuvering might finally convince you. Next week, a judge was to decide whether their case against a New York family should be thrown out—the family's lawyer, RIAA critic Ray Beckerman, argued "that if the RIAA can't prove anybody downloaded the music from an open share folder, then the case would have to be dismissed."

Earlier this month the RIAA voluntarily dismissed the case—then refiled it last week but didn't mention it was the same lawsuit, which means it was assigned to a different judge. Now the RIAA is demanding immediate discovery (which includes depositions and hard drives), which the previous judge had blocked pending a rule on the dismissal motion. We tip our hats to you, RIAA lawyers. You bring every evil-lawyer cliche from TV to life.

More »

1:00 PM on Sun Jun 15 2008
By Chris Walters
7,898 views, 51 comments

file sharing

Arizona Judge Rejects RIAA's "Shared Directory = Piracy" Argument

Although it won't affect other cases, the RIAA was handed a small smackdown this week when a U.S. district judge rejected their request for a summary judgement, and ruled that putting song files in a shared directory was not enough proof that infringement had occurred. More »

8:14 PM on Wed Apr 30 2008
By Chris Walters
4,019 views, 26 comments

Are High-End Sound Systems Worth The Price? Audiophiles claim that their fancy-schmancy sound systems serve up rich melodic delicacies that our crud-laden ears just don't appreciate. Slate asked if their high-end systems were anything more than effete indulgences.

106 comments

digital music

DG Launches DRM-Free Classical Music Store

The Internet always seemed like a logical sales outlet for classical music, which has long been the neglected step-child of the record labels. We're happy to see that last week, Deutsche Grammophon launched a music store that sells DRM-free files of classical recordings—the files are constant bit rate 320 kps MP3s, and prices range "from $/€1.29 for a full-length track to $/€11.99 for an album." More »

11:16 AM on Mon Dec 3 2007
By Chris Walters
774 views, 12 comments

microsoft

Microsoft DRMifies Your Own Music

You might have caught the Zune swoon in the blogosphere last week. For those who didn't catch it, Zune is Microsoft's planned iPod-killer: a device that is as often nifty (built in WiFi that allows you to share music with friends on the go) as it is underwhelming (30 gig hard drive, max.) More »

6:20 AM on Mon Sep 18 2006
By consumerist.com
175 views, 4 comments

mp3s

Florian Is Out To Lunch

We called Mile Hi Aereation hoping to reach Florian McCann. We were going to pose as someone interested in buying the email list he created from DefendMyStreet.com. Unfortunately, he was out to lunch. When we were first shuffled to his mailbox, we couldn't leave a message because it was full. Let us tell you, consumer reporting doesn't get more exciting than this. More »

4:26 PM on Thu Sep 14 2006
By Ben Popken
140 views, 8 comments

abuse

Target Don't Like Talkin' 'Bout Fran

By popular demand, we tried to followup on the reader complaint about her disabled mother getting treated poorly at at Target. We made some calls and learned what happens when you try to go in the front door. It gets slammed in your face. More »

12:11 PM on Mon Sep 11 2006
By Ben Popken
432 views, 19 comments

mp3s

Pranking Solicitors Into Endless Telemarketing Loop

Creative Bastard blogger set up an extension on his phone line to route telemarketers to. It plays a loop of his voice being "highly interested" in the rep's offer, with the goal being to keep the t-marketer on the line as long as possible. More »

10:40 AM on Wed Aug 30 2006
By Ben Popken
1,049 views, 9 comments

dreamhost

Anti-Spammer Rage Truer Than Aim

This guy was the unlucky recipient of several spams which seemed to be coming from DreamHost. Seeing as he never heard of anyone forging message headers, he decided to call Dreamhost and leave two vitrol, curse and stupidity laden calls on their answering machine. [NSFW, cursin'] More »

5:32 PM on Thu Aug 17 2006
By Ben Popken
142 views, 8 comments

customer service

Is it Legal To Record Your Own Customer Service Calls?

Whenever we talk about recording customer service calls, someone always chimes in about wiretap laws. While far from being lawyers, we think it's okay and here's why. More »

12:34 PM on Fri Aug 4 2006
By Ben Popken
413 views, 12 comments

howto

HOWTO: Record Phone Calls

This may not be the best or the cheapest way, but this is how we record our customer service calls, without ever going to Radio Shack. More »

12:55 AM on Fri Aug 4 2006
By Ben Popken
1,213 views, 7 comments

verizon

Cancel Verzion By Moving to Cambodia

UPDATE: We don't mean to say that you should actually lie to your cellphone provider and do this. In the interest of following up on advice we previously posted, which also appeared in Wired, we wanted to see if this worked. So we gave it a shot. More »

4:13 PM on Tue Aug 1 2006
By Ben Popken
2,491 views, 16 comments

prostitution

PayPal Hates Hookers and The Men Who Love Them

Mark Perkel likes hookers. Hey, who doesn't? Other than Paypal, that is. More »
recording

The Real Dope on Recording Customer Service Calls

It's totally legal to record conversations across state lines and you don't have to tell the company at all. More »

12:33 AM on Tue Jul 25 2006
By Ben Popken
666 views, 8 comments

napster

Please Ignore the 800 Pound Guerilla Marketer in the Corner, Napster Frontmen Beg

We could have been the ones to get a bad PR flack fired. Two weeks ago, Nadine at Guerilla PR tried to airplane gaming blog Kotaku a big bowl of Napster payola: More »

1:28 PM on Mon Jul 24 2006
By Ben Popken
138 views, 4 comments

aol

Former Elite AOL Retainer Interviewed

Tricks an AOL retainer used to keep people from cancelling: More »
aol

Interview With Former AOL Retention Superstar

At his peak, our interviewee "saved" over 87% of the people who called him up to cancel their account. We're still working on editing the whole thing, and in fact, have to get on the phone with another consultant in a second here, but we wanted to share this teaser clip with you. More »

11:32 AM on Fri Jul 21 2006
By Ben Popken
110 views, 12 comments

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