According to Macworld,

BlueBeat's lawyers claim that the Website is "entirely lawful and does not constitute piracy" and that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed. Also, the plaintiffs are well aware that the defendants "developed a series of entirely new and original sounds that it allows the general public to purchase" and that "copyright protection does not extend to the independant fixation of sounds other than those contained in their copyrighted recordings."

Macworld points out that even if this were a sane argument that was remotely believable, BlueBeat sells their so-called knockoff Beatles tracks as real Beatles tracks, complete with "album title, track titles, record label, and release date." I just hope BlueBeat presents some sort of online demo of what "psycho-acoustic simulation" entails, so I can duplicate it at home and create my own music store.

Update, Friday Nov 6th: The judge has ordered Bluebeat to stop selling the Beatles tracks at once. (Thanks to sakanagai!)

"BlueBeat says Beatles songs are its own creations" [Macworld]

This is the message he received in reply:

I understand the titles you purchased from the iTunes Store with account [redacted] were lost. I know how upsetting that can be. My name is Jesse and I would be more than happy to help you with this today.

Seeing that you have been a loyal customer since September, 2004, the iTunes Store would like to give you the opportunity to redownload (at no charge) all the titles you purchased on this account that are still available. This does not include any item that has been modified or removed from the store since you purchased it. Please note that you may download your purchases only once, so this is an exception. Also note that Apple does not offer protection for the loss of data from your hard disk, so I recommend that you back up your iTunes library as soon as possible and thereafter on a regular basis. I'll include backup instructions in this email.

Custom ringtones that you made and purchased using iTunes on your computer cannot be replaced because they are created and stored only on your computer's hard disk. Ringtones you purchased on your iPhone will be made available for you to download again as long as they are still available for sale on the iTunes Store and have not been modified.

Any movies you may have rented will not be made available for you to download again. If you rented a movie and were unable to finish watching it, please reply to let me know.

Follow these steps to download the available items:

1) Make sure you're using the latest version of iTunes. It can be downloaded free of charge from the iTunes website:

http://www.itunes.com/download

2) Open iTunes.

3) From the Store menu at the top, choose "Check for Available Downloads". If you're unable to upgrade and are using iTunes 7, the option will say "Check for Purchases".

4) Enter your account name and password, then click Check. Your purchases should begin downloading. If you receive an error message while downloading, try again after turning off any firewall or web-accelerator software that you may have installed.

If you want to pause your downloads and resume later, click Downloads on the left side of iTunes, then click the Pause All button in the lower right corner. When you're ready to resume downloading, just choose "Check for Available Downloads" from the pull-down Store menu at the top, enter your account name and password, then click the Check button.

I do need to mention that I was unable to restore every item in your purchase history. When an item is modified in the iTunes Store, or removed entirely, we no longer have access to the original one that you ordered. This is what I couldn't restore: [redacted]

Fortunately, if you have an iPod or iPhone and have your purchases on it, you can transfer items back to your computer using iTunes. You'll find instructions in this article:

Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848

As soon as your download is finished, it would be a perfect time to do a backup of your entire iTunes to make sure you never lose your purchases. This is something I make sure to tell all my friends to do. Here are some great articles that I use all the time to back up my own iTunes library and playlist.

Instructions for backing up your entire iTunes Library

Instructions for making regular, incremental backups

Instructions for backing up your playlists

Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

Backing up your iTunes library to CD or DVD

Thanks to Nathan's work, you can get lazy and not follow the back-up instructions. If you lose all your music, you can just cut and paste this link and sent it to customer service, begging for the same treatment.

(Photo: decaf)

From American Fork's local news website:

The teens started the rap at a faster pace and then repeated at a slower one, causing workers to tell them they were backing up the line and they either needed to order or leave.

Spencer Dauwalder says nobody was in line, and he and his friends left - without ever purchasing anything.

McDonald's didn't find it amusing. In fact, ksl.com says the McDonald's workers "felt threatened" and that bad language was used. They called the police, who tracked the teens down at a volleyball game and cited them.

Don't worry, kids; just keep up the fight, and eventually at your prom this will happen:

"Teens cited for burger ‘rap' in drive-thru" [ksl.com] (Thanks to Nate!)
(Photo: adotjdotsmith)

Probably the coolest new feature is that in the future, when you search for an artist or song, Google will present tracks along with other search results. Click on the track link and you'll be able to hear the song in its entirety once, through an arrangement with Lala.com. (The New York Times says MySpace Music will be another track provider, but they may not offer the same "listen once" service.)

The other two features are that now Google will be smarter about identifying songs based on snippets of lyrics you enter, thanks to a partnership with Gracenote; and the search engine will also provide direct links to relevant Pandora, Imeem, and Rhapsody pages.

The reason Google is doing all of this: higher quality search results mean more traffic, and that means more ad sales. In other words, you'll still buy your songs through Lala or one of the other partners, which isn't a terrible deal considering Lala has probably the cheapest option around right now for à la carte song and album purchases. (The subscription-based eMusic is cheaper if you buy your music in bulk.)

"Google Lifts the Curtains on Its New Music Service" [New York Times]
(Photo: dabasse)

Google won't sell the songs directly; they'll most likely be sold by Lala or iLike, according to the article, and Google will only make money off of ads that appear on the pages. Lala is actually pretty cheap: we compared prices on the latest Arctic Monkeys album on Lala and Amazon, and Lala beat Amazon by over $2 dollars for the same 256kb VBR files.

By comparison, the artist pages on Yahoo and over at Last.fm link directly to iTunes and Amazon for sales. (Last.fm also links to something called "7digital.") They make money off of referrals, as far as we can tell.

We don't care what business model the three sites use; we just want the best value for our music budget. Of course, there's no reason you can't buy your music from Lala today, but we're still curious to see what sort of service Google will deliver next week and whether they'll offer any added value.

"Google to unveil music search" [Hollywood Reporter]
(Photo: carolyn.will)

The ruling may also affect another ASCAP lawsuit that's even more ridiculous, reports Barb Dybwad at Mashable:

That means carriers won't have to pay royalties on ringtone plays. It also has implications for another recent suit we reported on recently, in which the music industry is seeking royalties on 30-second song previews and performance fees for TV show downloads. Part of the language in the judge's ruling also considered a ringtone download as not being a public performance either, which could set a precedent for the other suit in which ASCAP/BMI are seeking royalties on downloads.

Paying good money for a ringtone is stupid anyway. Symbian (i.e. Nokia) and Android phones should let you assign pretty much any common audio format as a ringtone. Here's an info page for Android, and here's how to make your own for an iPhone.

"Judge: No Royalties for Music Industry Each Time a Ringtone Plays" [Mashable via IntoMobile]
(Photo: quinn.anya)

Jake says:

So I was shopping for groceries the other day at my local krogers in Lebanon ohio, when I noticed that they were all ready putting up Christmas creep as of September 30th. What's worse was I could hear Christmas tunes playing over the Muzak. What has this country turned into?

(Photo:u2acro)

And yeah we know this hit Digg almost a week ago, but we were holding on to it for Friday.

You can understand Chris's confusion, since Ticketmaster posted a picture of the Teen Idols next to the listing. The Star Tribune writes:

So you can imagine Stout's surprise when he got his tickets in the mail with these names posted on them: Mickey Dolenz, Peter Noone and Mark Lindsay, performers closer to their 90s than they are the 1990s. Turns out, Ticketmaster mistook the pop-punkers for the pop-geezers from the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and Paul Revere & the Raiders, respectively, who are touring together on the so-called "Teen Idols Tour." Wait, wasn't Davy the idol in the Monkees?

Ticketmaster offered Chris a refund minus $13 in "convenience fees," but the Star Tribune interceded and Ticketmaster issued a full refund to Chris and any others who were inconvenienced with the accidental bait-and-switch.

Ticketmaster mixup sends out pop-geezers, not pop-punkers [Minneapolis Star Tribune]
(Thanks, Elise!)

"P2K: The Decade In Music" [Lala]

Well, now Pirate Bay is advertising a torrent to a mix tape that includes all 30 songs Tenenbaum shared.

Gadgetell writes about the middle finger to the RIAA:

The mixtape, as of now, has 1057 people seeding the torrent. While that means you can get all 30 songs rather quickly depending on your download speeds, the seeders aren't there for that reason. The torrent description makes it clear that seeding is meant to be a symbolical gesture, say that they, too, downloaded the 30 songs Joel Tenenbaum had to pay $675,000 for, and they're going to help others do so as well. The description also makes it clear that Tenenbaum isn't involved in the torrent, but did serve as the inspiration.

No, we're not linking to it, because we won't support piracy even if it's to make a political point. But if you do decide to download the mix, better be sure to get to it before Pirate Bay goes legit.

Pirate Bay advertising the $675,000 mixtape [Gadgetell]
(Photo: Zmogo)

The trial was an almost entirely one-sided affair. Plaintiffs built their case with forensic evidence collected by MediaSentry, which showed that he was sharing over 800 songs from his computer on August 10, 2004. A subsequent examination of his computer showed that Tenenbaum had used a variety of different peer-to-peer programs, from Napster to KaZaA to AudioGalaxy to iMesh, to obtain music for free, starting in 1999. And he continued to infringe, even after his father warned him in 2002 that he would get sued, even after he received a harshly-worded letter from the plaintiffs' law firm in 2005, even after he was sued in 2007, and all the way through part of 2008.

And when he took the stand on Thursday, Tenenbaum admitted it all, including the fact that he had "lied" in his written discovery responses and at his first deposition in September 2008.

Tenenbaum's admissions were so clear-cut, and so damning, that Judge Gertner-who had recruited Nesson to represent the formerly lawyer-less 25-year-old-took the basic issue of infringement away from the jury, determining that no reasonable jury could find for Tenenbaum on that issue. The jury of five men and five women, all white and all from the Boston suburbs, were left only to determine the issue of willfulness and damages.

Tenenbaum's lawyer, Charles Nesson, the poker proselytizing co-founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, described the verdict as "a bankrupting award." None of the money will go to the artists whose work Tenenbaum shared.

This is the second time a file sharer has lost their case against the RIAA. Last month a Minnesota jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset owed $1.92 million for sharing 24 songs. Nesson has made murmurs about challenging the constitutionality of the awards, a fight we'd love to see even though the RIAA stopped suing individual file sharers back in December.

Oy Tenenbaum! RIAA wins $675,000, or $22,500 per song [Ars Technica]
PREVIOUSLY: Good Day For Bad Guys: Court Says 'Pirate' Jammie Thomas-Rasset Must Pay RIAA $1.92 Mill
RIAA Pockets Filesharing Settlement Money, Doesn't Pay Artists Whose Copyrights Were Infringed
RIAA To Stop Suing File Sharers

Here's Wentao's story.

I purchased a set of Skullcandy iPhone earbuds on Amazon last September. It was not cheap at $69.95 before tax. In late October to early November (less than two months after purchase), one earphone was suddenly dead. I checked Skullcandy's website, and their "lifetime warranty" looked pretty cool. So I submitted a claim online, and received an email on November 13, giving me an RMA number and asking me to send back the broken earbuds.

I sent it back. On December 3, they sent me an email confirming they had received it. The email also said: "We have authorized it to be replaced under our lifetime warranty. We will notify our warehouse to ship your replacement. This process takes about 1-2 weeks depending upon availability of product. You will receive another email from FedEx when it ships with a tracking number."

So I waited. In the mean time, I moved to a different address in the same city. Since the post office would forward my mail so I didn't worry about it. When I still hadn't received the replacement by January 15, 2009, I sent an email to their customer service email address, telling them I hadn't received my replacement six weeks after their last confirmation email. I also told them my new shipping address.

On January 24, they emailed me back: "Your RMA request #xxxxx has successfully been processed. Please allow several days for the item to ship."

Another month passed and nothing arrived. On February 24, I sent another email to customer service: "Will I ever get my replacement? It's been over three months since I sent the headphone back, and it's been over one month since I received the SECOND RMA confirmation."

Three days later (February 27), I received an email from someone with a real name (Joe): "I will look into this.Please give us a
week to get in contact with the warehouse and see what happened." At this point I was a little relieved. I thanked Joe and reminded him my shipping address had changed.

But dear Joe didn't write back in a week. Or a month. On March 26, I emailed Joe again: "Another month has passed. Still no replacement or any update. Please help."

On April 1, Joe wrote back: "I have emailed the warehouse. For the longest time we have been out of the iphone fmj's they are just barely coming back into stock. We will get you your headphones as soon as we can. Sorry about the delay"

I was annoyed by the "not in stock" explanation. I wrote a harsher email on April 13: "Thanks for the information. However, I want to point out that I paid for the headphone seven months ago, and was in possession of the product for only two months. Do you think this is acceptable whatever your stocking situation is? It is in stock on Amazon.com as of today, and your warehouse was not able to ship me a replacement five months after the original RMA was issued. This is clearly a priority issue. I am very disappointed."

Maybe because of my angry email, Joe started ignoring me. So on May 21, I wrote again: "I just want to let you know that I am still waiting. Sorry for bothering you again, but please let me know if there is a better channel than writing to you."

No response again. Big surprise!

Then it was June. iPhone OS 3.0 arrived. Now I could use stereo headsets. I didn't really want that wired Skullcandy headphone any more. But I did pay $70 for it. I went to their website again, and found a customer service number. I called. There was no pre-recorded message. No extension. No waiting. An actual person picked up, and his name was Joe! I told him about the situation. He asked which model it was. I said the chrome iPhone model. He said the chrome color was not in stock. I said I didn't care about the color. Any color was fine. He sent the request to the warehouse.

After about a week, I received a package from Skullcandy. I opened it and it was the wrong model. Apparently when I said "iPhone" on the phone, Joe thought it was "icon". But the icon headset was less than half the price of my original iPhone FMJ model. Besides, I submitted the warranty claim several times, and they clearly had the record. Joe shouldn't have asked me which model it was in the first place.

I wanted to give up already, but didn't feel it was right. In late June, I went to their website again, and found another way to reach customer service—live chat. I started up the chat window, and the person on the other end? Joe!!! Now I was convinced that he was probably the only person in this company who handled warranty. I told him I was shipped the wrong model. He said he would resend the correct model, and it would arrive in a week. Also, the "icon" model that was mistakenly shipped to me would be mine for free.

At the time of this writing (July 30), I still haven't received my replacement Joe last promised a month ago. I am sick of it and don't want to contact them ever again. I am also moving out of the country in 10 days, so I will probably never see the headphones I paid for ever again.

Here's the tracklist:

1. Glass of Water
2. 42
3. Clocks
4. Strawberry Swing
5. The Hardest Part/Postcards From Far Away
6. Viva La Vida
7. Death Will Never Conquer
8. Fix You
9. Death and All His Friends

The band doesn't have the greatest history of consumer-friendliness, but this offering seems like something of a make-good. Either that or it's Coldplay's vindictive way of making me feel bad about myself for wasting a dollar downloading Viva La Vida a year ago.

Download LeftRightLeftRightLeft Now [Coldplay]

The body belonged to then 60-year-old J. Hines, an

albino black man who had several modest hits in the 1970s as a soul and funk guitarist with J. Hines and the Boys. He became a preacher later in life. His widow, Ann Hines, wasn't at Tuesday's hearing and didn't return a phone message from The Associated Press.

In honor of Hines, we tried to find some music of his for readers to listen to. We're all lucky, because someone else already did this and put together both a bio and several mp3s of Hines' music. Our favorite one is Can't Think of Nothing, but Funky Bumble Bee is also pretty great.

If you have to bury an oversized loved one, be sure to tell the funeral home that you intend to view the full body before burial. And not to try anything funny with a saw.

"Judge closes SC funeral home that cut corpse legs" [Associated Press]
(Photo: joeannenah)

"Group Sues AT&T Over Ringtones Heard In Public" [MocoNews]
(Photo: Ewan-M)

Though we don't really have an award to send to CDBaby, if we did it would be solid gold.

(Thanks to David! And Jeff!)
(Photo: *** Fanch The System !!! ***)

Don't blame Sony entirely for the price increase. In the New York Times article reporting the news, the CEO of eMusic basically admits that eMusic has been wanting to raise prices for a while (actually, he blames independent labels), and that this is a good time to do it.

Here's what the new plans look like:

Note: I am not enough of an audiophile to make recommendations about sound quality of most "average" music files. For those of you who care about that sort of thing, eMusic encodes using variable bit rate at 192k.

"Sony Agrees to Provide Its Older Songs to eMusic" [New York Times]
(Photo: tipoyock)

Reznor says:

I'll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and "clean" versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency - because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any "indecent" material for sale - but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film "Scarface" completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?

You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can't allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone!

Come on Apple, think your policies through and for fuck's sake get your app approval scenario together.

Reznor's developer also slammed Apple for letting the issue get in the way of a bug fix. Apparently, they've been trying to update the app to stop it from crashing, but can't get Apple to approve the new version because of the content.

"Apple is not allowing us to make the current app more stable because there is "objectionable" content online (yes on the internet). so we are essentially not allowed to fixed bugs unrelated to the issue."

Trent Reznor compares Apple to Wal-Mart [CNet]
NIN iPhone app rejection [NIN Forums]

Slap Chop Remix [YouTube] (Thanks to Matt!)

The quote's been pulled from the front page now, barely two hours after Engadget found out about it and posted an acceptable substitute quote that they're willing to stand behind ("Monster Cable sucks"), but we still think it's funny that Monster gave the go ahead on using an Engadget quote.

For reference, here's the text of the post they pulled the quote from:

You can't put velvet in these earcups and call 'em nice headphones! As Mr. Chappelle would likely attest, there are no better headphones in which to drop the beat into than Dr. Dre's "highly anticipated" Beats. The master of chronic himself has slapped his all-but-forgotten name onto a set of cans (which we spotted originally at CES), and is now ready to introduce 'em to the world. Starting on July 25th, the crunk-inducing headphones will be available exclusively at Apple and Best Buy (both online and in-store), though the buying experience would likely be way more gangsta if checking out at BeatsByDre.com. Still, for $349.95, we'd recommend looking at more respected names in sound, but if your street cred is sitting at rock bottom, you may have no other choice.

And here's the quote they created from it:

There are no better headphones in which to drop the beat into.

"Engadget endorses Monster Cable? Uh, hell no."

(Thanks to Miami Frost!)

We're sure there are some 69 cent tracks hidden on there somewhere—it just seems like the labels haven't quite gotten around to dropping those prices as promised. We guess they're too busy with the $1.29 tracks.

"iTunes : Where are the $0.69 Tracks?" [MP3newswire.net] (Thanks to Colin!)
(Photo: LabyrinthX)

Ars Technica points out that this may be an attempt by labels to spur album sales, since a $9.99 album price will now look like a better "discount" price when compared to a list of $1.29 singles.

We looked at "Poker Face," the new hit from Eurovision winner Lady GaGa*, on both stores. On iTunes the track will cost you $1.29, while on Amazon it costs 99 cents. The same goes for "Boom Boom Pow" from the Black Eyed Peas.

As far as sound quality goes, iTunes uses 256 kbps AAC files, which produce a better sound than Amazon's variable bit rate MP3 compression that aims for "an average of 256 kilobits per second (kbps)." To be fair, however, the average listener won't know the difference. To download albums from Amazon you have to download and install a small helper app, but then again to download songs from iTunes Music Store you have to download and install an entire music management application (iTunes). What we're saying is, for most consumers Amazon is the better alternative at this moment.

* correction: we have been told that transsexual recording artist Lady GaGa has never competed in a Eurovision competition.**

**correction: it turns out Lady GaGa is not a transsexual.

"Variable pricing spreads to Amazon, Lala, Rhapsody, Wal-Mart" [Ars Technica]

At the cheaper end of the tier, $50 will get you the digital download, a double disc set, a t-shirt, and a 5-minute phone call with Freese to discuss anything you like—including what you liked or didn't like about the album. Too boring? Buy the $250 package and you'll get signed drumsticks, plus you can have lunch with Freese at The Cheesecake Factory or PF Changs. The $5,000 package includes (among other things) a letter from Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam telling you about his favorite song on the album.

But wait there's more! If you're willing to spend a sizable amount of money, the perks get even weirder: there's only one $10,000 package, but that's because included alongside the foot massage and day at Disneyland, Freese will give you his Volvo station wagon, of which he obviously only has one. The $20,000 package includes 2 original songs written for or about you, and you get to sing back up or play ("the drums, triangle, whatever") on them.

Wired has an interview with Freese where he discusses how he came up with the ideas, and insists that they're all legit. They're on sale starting today, and you can see the details of every package on his website.

Naturally, he's made a YouTube commercial about it:


"Drummer's Crazy Album Extras Take 'Freemium' to Weirdville" [Wired]
joshfreese.com

Hello, I am a Borders employee in Massachusetts and I'm sharing some news with you. If you've traveled into your local Borders this past weekend and noticed yellow signs everywhere indicating 30% off DVDs and CDs, you may have thought that was excellent. But then again our prices have always been a little high, so it's probably bringing it down to the same price as Amazon/Best Buy now.

Well hang in there. Over the next 7 week period most Borders are getting rid of 75% of their CDs and DVDs to pretty much get rid of the section, due to the economy and poor sales. To my understanding they will still be carrying the "top sellers" from that point on. But during the 7 week period I've been informed that the clearance prices will gradually rise from 30%, 40%, 50%, 75% and then FINALLY $1 to get everything else out the door.

They did this similar thing with all the calendars at the beginning of the year. But this is much bigger than calendars! So just a heads up if you happen to be in Borders, wait at least another week until the prices start to drop more.

(Photo: Infrogmation)

Here's the email they sent out:

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

We'd like to tell you about some upcoming changes to your membership.

BMG Music Service is being discontinued as of June 30, 2009.
That doesn't mean your music savings are coming to an end. Your savings can continue with our other service, yourmusic.com, where shipping is always free and there are no automatic shipments.

Here's some important information regarding your current account:

You will receive one more Featured Selection Announcement email from us.
You will still be able to shop at bmgmusic.com through May 31, 2009.

We have discontinued our Music Points program, effective January 31, 2009. You will be able to redeem your outstanding music points through April 30, 2009.

You'll have through May 31, 2009 to redeem certificates or free CDs you've earned.

Remember, you can still shop online at bmgmusic.com and take advantage of our great selection and prices until May 31, 2009. Please make sure you have signed up to receive emails from us so you don't miss out on special offers and important updates. Click here to sign up.

If you have any questions, you can call us at our Customer Service #: 1-888-443-8264 or email us at cs1@bmgmusicservice.com.

Sincerely,
The Membership Office

(Thanks, easy mac!)

elbo.ws (online)
seeqpod (online)
getpeel (software, mac only)

Got a fave we missed? Let us know in the comments. (Photo: emilybean)

Mike originally wrote:

I recently checked the status of my "Upgrade to iTunes Plus" section of the iTunes store. I have never even considered upgrading any of my songs due to the fact that i payed $.99 for tracks with DRM and now they're $.99 without DRM and Apple still wants me to pony up $.30 a track (this made more sense when they were charging $1.29 for DRM-free tracks). But for some reason I check back to see if they've added anything to my list. I noticed something quite peculiar today. They offered to upgrade The Raconteurs "Consolers of the Lonely" for me for a price of $3.30. Here's the thing though, I didn't buy this album from iTunes. I bought it from the Amazon MP3 store. The files aren't even .AAC, they're MP3. I thought perhaps I was just crazy, so I went back and found my confirmation email from Amazon. So Apple wants to charge me $3.30 to make a DRM-free album that I purchased elsewhere DRM-free. The best part is, the iTunes store sells the Album for $10.99, while I bought it from Amazon for $8.99. How many people do you think press the "Buy All" button without even looking to see what albums and songs are being upgraded?

I'm curious to see what would happen if I did upgrade that album via iTunes, but don't want to waste the $3.30.

Technical glitch or evil plot to generate enough revenue to pay for a clone of Steve Jobs? Either way, if you're an Amazon MP3 customer you shouldn't just accept the iTunes upgrade package without making sure all the tracks they've identified are legitimately in need of the service.

Last.fm was designed to watch over your music collection. Every time you play a song, the site is notified and the song is added to your profile, or scrobbled. Over time, the site uses your listening patterns to generate recommendations.

According to the Last.fm, over 7,000 users have listened to U2's unreleased album. TechCrunch's tipster says that that part of that data was handed over to the RIAA.

I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks. As word spread numerous employees at last.fm were up in arms because the data collected (a) can be used to identify individuals and (b) will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.

The RIAA released a sentence-long response declaring: "To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA." Last.fm's system architect also denied that any data had been shared.

We release no data linking users and plays to any third parties.

The only data we provide to labels (in addition to the data publicly available on their artist pages) are historical graphs of listeners and plays. There's no way to link these to individual users.

Basic user data is already on Last.fm for anyone, including the RIAA to see, but without personally identifiable data like IP addresses, it's tough to see how the RIAA could do anything other than rustle up some scaremongering publicity.

Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA? [TechCrunch]

UPDATE: Last.fm gave the following clarification to TechCrunch about user data sharing:

The data we make available to labels is aggregate data about their artists - it's a slightly more detailed version of what you see on the site. We release no data linking users and plays to any third parties.

The only data we provide to labels (in addition to the data publicly available on their artist pages) are historical graphs of listeners and plays. There's no way to link these to individual users.

If a label was trying to work out who's been listening to their leaked track, the closest they can get would be to look at the publicly-available listeners on the music pages. I would doubt that would be enough evidence to convict someone, and users can opt out of being displayed there in their settings.

Well Consumerist, I'm an idiot. Among the choice genetic treats my father passed to me are a receding hairline and a touch of dyslexia. While the hairline does not account for much, the dyslexia does.

What I saw as a big yellow 'complaint' tag, was in all actuality a big yellow 'COMPLIANT' tag. This innocuous sticker was simply stating a lack of hazardous materials, something I really like in a guitar.

Guitar Center did absolutely nothing wrong. They sent me a new guitar, exactly what I paid for, the first time. Any problems in the neck were for me to take up with Fender, as the guitar was still under warranty, and not Guitar Center. So if there's a lesson here it's this: even if you're an insufferable moron, Guitar Center will take care of you.

Apparently he's not kidding about that last part. Mitch contacted Guitar Center to offer to return the upgraded Fender they gave him last week, but they refused:

It was an honest mistake, but I couldn't rightly let this go by without letting Guitar Center, and the Consumerist know. I offered to send the upgraded guitar back but Paul, being the stand up guy he is, wouldn't hear of it. He just said, "I appreciate your integrity and I stand by my original statement that we just want to keep you as a customer."

"Guitar Center Ships Broken Guitar From Another Store's Inventory, Says Too Bad, Now It's Yours"

I'm Bob Weibel, Director of Editorial & Content Management at Musician's Friend. I work closely with Paul Christensen, Director of our Contact Center and customer service operation.

Paul, myself, and all of the upper management team here at Musician's Friend are particularly concerned that we failed Mitch so miserably after he trusted us with his hard-earned money and desire for a new, pristine Fender Telecaster electric guitar. We've tracked down Mitch's order information and have been attempting to reach him on the phone to make things right.

It's a sad thing for us to have so severely disappointed a customer and fellow musician, especially since we've actually put extensive new efforts into improving our warehouse efficiency and accuracy, retraining customer service staff, and doing everything possible to improve the customer experience.

So this kind of failure — albeit rare — is what we call a "sentinel event," in quality-assurance terms. It forces us to go back over our operation from top to bottom in order to track down the odd set of circumstances that led to this mix-up and to the insensitive response Mitch received. We won't accept that "mistakes are made." This kind of thing simply can't happen, ever.

In the 10 years I've been here I've watched Musician's Friend grow into a large company, based entirely on enthusiastic, loyal customers. My feeling is that folks like our large product selection, attractive pricing, generous return and price-matching policies, and informative web site, to name a few benefits. But with growth comes challenges: we've moved through three warehouses and are now in a fourth, a highly efficient operation designed to fulfill a huge amount of orders without delays. We continue to fine-tune all of our systems so that an incident like the one Mitch experienced won't occur again. Mitch has our sincere apologies, and we'll definitely make things right for him.

Bob Weibel
Director of Editorial & Content Management
Musician's Friend

Say what you will about Guitar Center or Musician's Friend, this is one of the fastest management-level responses I've seen to a story on Consumerist, and other than the promotional boilerplate in the last paragraph, it's the sort of honesty and openness that we wish more companies would embrace: "it was a mistake, we are deeply sorry, we are correcting it and looking at how to prevent it from happening again."

Mitch contacted us shortly thereafter to say he'd missed a call from the company, and was hoping to speak with them later today. We hope Mitch writes back soon with his own update that he finally got the new Fender he paid for.

Actually I talked to Paul from GC. They have expressed their genuine regret and embarrassment and have done more than needed to make things right. As we speak a new guitar (this time an American Standard Telecaster) is being shipped overnight to my house. This is actually about a $550 upgrade from my previous. Very, very, very nice. Paul reiterated over and over that he wanted to not only make things right, but retain me as a customer... and you know what? He has.

Here's Mitch's story:

About 3 months ago I ordered a brand spanking new Fender Telecaster from Guitarcenter.com. Everything shipped smoothly and I absolutely fell in love with the guitar. Upon initial inspection I noticed a couple of dings near the head of the guitar, nothing glaring, and nothing that bothered me too much, but it sent up a flag in my mind. After all, this was supposedly a brand new guitar (at least that's what I paid for), and if anybody was going to do a 'relic' job, it should be me.

Perhaps a week later as I was setting the guitar up to my preferred level of feel/action, I noticed things were not quite right. I had noticed some string buzzing and a couple of other playability issues. So upon closer inspection of the neck, it appears to be slightly twisted... not a good thing at all.

Of course by this point I was beyond my 30-day return time limit and Guitar Center wouldn't replace my Tele. [We're not sure about the timeline here, but we'll assume the previous paragraph ate up an extra week or two. -Ed.]

About a week later I was cleaning out my basement and noticed that on the box my guitar was shipped in was a big yellow tag that said two things: Musician's Friend and COMPLAINT. Why in the world would there be a tag from Musician's Friend (Guitar Center's online competition) on my package ? And complaint ? That wasn't something I wanted to see.

So I decided to write Musician's Friend to inquire about their warehouse tags. This was the response I got:

Response (Chris) - 02/10/2009 10:03 PM Dear Musician, Thank you for your recent inquiry. I apologize but it sounds like you may have accidentally received a Musicians Friend return. Musicians Friend, GuitarCenter.com, as well as a few other online music retailers, all share one centralized distribution center in the hopes to provide the best shipping times possible to their customers. GuitarCenter.com should not have received a return of ours, but accidents happen and it sounds like one of our items made it's way to them incorrectly. I would advise contacting them for further resolve. We apologize for any inconvenience.

So I called Guitar Center customer service yet again with this new revelation - they send me a lightly used guitar, a return item, from another retailer in place of what was supposed to be my brand new guitar. Yet, the only response I got was: 'Well if it's beyond the 30-day return period, there's nothing I can do'. Of course not...

Since Guitar Center didn't ship you the merchandise you paid for, we're not sure how their 30-day return policy even applies. You should contact their corporate office at 818-735-8800 and explain that you simply want them to make good on the original terms of your purchase, or else (we hope you paid with a credit card?) you'll pursue a chargeback.

Diller blames artists for your lousy ticket experiences, by the way:

"Ticketmaster does not set prices, Live Nation doesn't set prices. Artists set the prices," Diller said on a conference call. "Everyone else is just a distributor or a service provider."

Lawmakers say they'll give the merger a supposedly thorough review:

The agreement would "send ticket prices through the roof," U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said today in an e-mailed statement.

"I will take a very close look at this merger before anything moves forward," said Schumer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and called on the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to view the deal skeptically.

The new company will be called Live Nation Entertainment, which Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff confirmed on a conference call was a deliberate attempt to get away from the negative associations of his current company.

Oh, also, it was Visa's fault that they couldn't sell those Springsteen tickets more fairly. Diller said so.

"Live Nation, Ticketmaster to Merge in All-Stock Deal " [Bloomberg]
(Photo: gruntzooki)

"Ticketmaster, Live Nation in merger talks" [Reuters] (Thanks to WeSeed!)
(Photo: Anirudh Koul)

• $2 increase for additional subs
• $2.99 fee for internet radio service
• However, all internet subs will now include the 128k feed

Sirius XM Rate Increase For March 11th CONFIRMED [SiriusBuzz]

Remember, this is all rumor at this point, but here's what Orbitcast says is the most likely scenario:

• multiple receive radio fee will increase from $6.99 to $8.99/month
• online listening will increase from free to $8.99/month for Mostly Music and Family Pack subscribers, and $2.99/month for most everyone else

Less likely, because these are blatant FCC violations, are the following rumors:

• Mostly Music/News subscription jumping to $12.95/month
• A La Carte package increasing an unspecified amount

Current subscribers will be given a chance to lock-in their rates, according to these people. You can choose to lock in the Online Listening or $6.99 multiple radio price. Notifications to subscribers are said to start going out on January 26th, and subscribers are rumored to have a chance to lock in their rates by March 11th.

Just for fun, here's what Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin said two years ago during hearings for the proposed merger (as pointed out by a commenter on the Orbitcast thread).

“We are absolutely not a monopoly,” Karmazin said heatedly at one point. “We are absolutely convinced this merger will be in the best interest of consumers,” he maintained. “This merger will give consumers more choice at a lower price and more importantly, less confusion.”

Some of the most pointed exchanges occurred not with the members but at the long witness table between Karmazin and Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group. Cooper held that, “The argument that consumers will be better off with a benevolent monopolist than competition is absurd. Cost savings will not be passed to consumers. It is competition that is the driver of innovation in this economy, and competition is the best form of protection for consumers."

Karmazin said his people had told him not to get excited and to keep his hands folded at the table. But Cooper, he felt, had gone too far. The monopoly charge, he said, “is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard… We are not looking to bankrupt our companies. We are not doing anything that stupid. And we’ll give back some of that saving" to customers.

"Rumor: Price increases to come for Sirius XM" [Orbitcast]
"Satellite Radio Merger Partners Pledge Not to Raise Prices" [Politico]
(Photo: janeyhenning)

My ears are shooting streams of blood
As I watch this demo play
But thanks to Songsmith's magic touch
I'll write like Bruce Springsteen

You don't have to rhyme when you're using Songsmith. The demo showed me.

(Thanks to suryasnair!)