If you’re a BMG Music Service member you won’t be for much longer — the service is being discontinued as of June 30th, 2009.
music
Find Free Mp3s On Music Blogs
By 3.2.09
I posted recently about how I like HypeMachine, a reader/player/finder of free mp3s on music blogs and some readers chimed in with their favorite ways to find free mp3s on blogs:
ITunes Offers To "Upgrade" The Already DRM-Free Songs You Bought From Amazon?
By 2.26.09
Update: Mike writes back to say that after reading the comments below, he checked his purchase history and the album is indeed listed there. What’s confusing is Mike didn’t buy it through iTunes, but through Amazon, but he says that other people did have access to his account and may have purchased it without his knowledge.
Is Last.fm Sharing User Data With The RIAA?
By 2.22.09
TechCrunch has published a damning rumor accusing the social music site Last.fm of helping the RIAA find users who downloaded leaked copies of U2’s new album. Relying on a tip, TechCrunch claims that the Last.fm, a subsidiary of CBS, handed over a “giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks.”
Hypemachine Saves Your Ears With Free Tunes From Music Blogs
By 2.20.09
Hypemachine, an aggregator of the latest free songs posted on music blogs, has been around for years but I started using it with gusto this week and it’s tight. It scans all those blogs and then streams them for you in a popup radio player, which you can narrow by popular, new, or from the top 25 music blogs. If you like a track you can click through to the source blog and download the mp3. (Most of the time the mp3s have been released onto the internet by the artists themselves. If there’s ever a question, most have an option to buy the song on Amazon or iTunes). A great way to freshen up your music mix without having to think too hard or shell out. [Hypemachine]
Customer Apologizes For Guitar Center Screw-Up
By 2.19.09
Mitch wrote to us last week to complain that he was sent a used guitar instead of the new one he ordered. Musician’s Friend and/or Guitar Center (they’re related) followed up with Mitch and corrected the mistake, but it turns out that Mitch was in the wrong on this one. Here’s his explanation for what happened.
Musician's Friend Responds To Guitar Center Shipping Mix-Up
By 2.13.09
Bob Weibel at Musician’s Friend contacted us only a few hours after we posted Mitch’s story of the used guitar shipping screw up. He writes, “This kind of thing simply can’t happen, ever. We’ve tracked down Mitch’s order information and have been attempting to reach him on the phone to make things right.”
Guitar Center Ships Broken Guitar From Another Store's Inventory, Says Too Bad, Now It's Yours
By 2.12.09
Did you know Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend, and “a few other online music retailers” all share the same centralized distribution center? That’s the explanation a Musician’s Friend CSR gave Mitch when he tried to solve the mystery of the dented, twisted-neck, not-even-from-the-right-store Fender Telecaster. It looks like Guitar Center shipped him another company’s returned item. That’s bad enough, but now Guitar Center says they won’t make good on his order because it’s beyond the 30 day return period. Hey, Guitar Center: What return period? Mitch never got the product he ordered in the first place.
Update: Musician’s Friend has responded with an apology.
Ticketmaster And Live Nation Agree To Merge
By 2.10.09
That booming evil laughter you heard echoing across the sky earlier today came from the board room where Live Nation and Ticketmaster agreed to an all-stock merger between their two blighted companies. Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller says the merger will benefit customers, who are frequently “frustrated by their ticket buying experiences.” Oh! So by merging the two companies most responsible for those frustrations, we’ll cancel them out! This is doubleplus good, right?
Ticketmaster, Live Nation Consider Merging, Destroying Concertgoing Forever
By 2.4.09
The two companies most responsible for making your next live entertainment experience a financial disaster may announce a merger as early as this week, reports Reuters and the WSJ. If it goes ahead, the new company will apparently call itself Live Nation Ticketmaster, not “Satan’s Boxoffice” as one might expect. The merger will raise antitrust issues, but if Sirius/XM has taught us anything, it’s that those issues can be ignored at the expense of consumer choice and pricing.
Confirmed: Sirius Radio Raising Rates March 11
By 1.21.09
Sirius Radio customer service reps are now telling subscribers that the rumored rate hike is indeed going to happen. This means, at the very least:
Is Sirius XM About To Raise Rates On Its Customers?
By 1.20.09
Ryan pointed us to an article on Orbitcast about a rumored fee hike by Sirius XM. The increases appear to be for services that aren’t strictly protected by the FCC agreement, which is why they would legally be able to do this despite promises that they wouldn’t raise rates for 36 months after the merger.
Breaking Out In Song Is Now An Acceptable Way To Authorize Visa Purchases
By 1.11.09
Visa has revealed a darling new feature that will let consumers authorize debit transactions via song. It’s all part of Visa’s revised but always-exciting operating regulation 6.2.A.7.b, which now lets you “choose to sing to authorize a debit transaction.” Don’t worry if the merchant gives you an awkward look, they’re just sheepish about their cruddy singing skills. Sing louder to encourage them to join in the transaction-approving fun! (Thanks to Barbara!)
By 1.9.09
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Remember that Norwegian site that was offering Beatles songs for legal download? Yeah, well, not anymore. It turns out their licensing agreement stipulates that the shows they put online have to have been aired within the past 4 weeks, and all the Beatles shows are from 2007. [Exclaim News] (Thanks to elc81!)
Apple: Give Us Money And We'll Remove DRM From Your Music
By 1.7.09
Apple has dropped DRM from iTunes — and is offering to remove their DRM from music you already bought for the low, low fee of $0.30 per song.
By 1.5.09
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Want to download every Beatles track ever made, legally? [NRKbeta.no via BoingBoing]
RIAA To Stop Suing File Sharers
By 12.19.08
The Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica are reporting that the RIAA has announced a fairly dramatic change in its strategy to fight piracy.
