If you thought that you could avoid Christmas Creep by staying out of stores — think again. It’s annoying you on the radio as well.
music
By 10.14.08
../../../..//2008/10/14/if-you-live-in-st/
If you live in St. Louis, get ready for Santa! A radio station has already switched to 24/7 Christmas music! [KSDK via Fark]
Walmart Decides To Honor DRM-Protected MP3 Purchases After All, At Least For Now
By 10.10.08
Last month, Walmart announced it was shutting down the DRM side of its online music store, and too bad if you were a customer, because they were also going to turn off the DRM server that authorized your music for playback. Apparently enough customers complained, because they came to their senses—at least for the time being—and decided to keep the server running. Read their email below.
MyPhil Lets New Yorkers 35 And Under Build Affordable Concert Subscriptions
By 10.4.08
MyPhil from the New York Philharmonic lets anyone 35 or younger build their own concert series for $29 per ticket. Nearly every Philharmonic concert is eligible for purchase, and the cheap tickets don’t land you in the cheap seats.
Pandora, Other Internet Radio Stations May Survive After All
By 10.3.08
Assuming negotiations succeed, you’ll have your Pandora to listen to after all. On Tuesday, Congress passed the Webcaster Settlement Act, which gives Internet radio stations like Pandora until February 2009 to reach a new royalty agreement with copyright holders; if they meet the deadline, the government will not interfere, which is great news since it was the gov’s Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) that set the current market-killing fees in the first place.
Walmart Shuts Down Music Store, Deactivates DRM-Protected Songs
By 9.30.08
Last week, Walmart sent out emails to its online music store customers letting them know that on October 9th, 2008, they will no longer be able to play any DRM-crippled tracks. Unlike Yahoo, which did the right thing by offering free replacement downloads of unprotected songs when they killed their DRM program, Walmart simply brags about its new unlicensed model and tells you to burn your protected tracks to CD if you really want to listen to them in the future. Good job, Walmart, there goes another betrayed consumer into the welcoming arms of digital piracy. And another. And another…
Judge Tosses Out $222,000 Verdict Against Mom Accused Of File Sharing
By 9.25.08
The only jury verdict against a file-sharer has been thrown out by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minnesota, who declared a mistrial because he had committed “manifest error of the law” by instructing the jury that “that the recording industry did not have to prove anybody downloaded the songs from Thomas’ open Kazaa share folder.”
McDonald's & Microsoft To Let Zune Users Download Music While Scarfing Burgers
By 9.16.08
Is there really a need for this? Microsoft says that they’ve partnered with McDonald’s to offer access to the “Zune Marketplace” to Zune owners via a free wifi connection inside 9,800 participating McDonald’s. This is apparently going to “attract new customers whose digital lifestyle extends beyond their home and office,” according to a press release.
Apple: MacBooks Can't Handle GarageBand
By 9.13.08
Two Apple customer service representatives told reader Mark to blame his MacBook’s four hard drive crashes on GarageBand, professional-grade software that his puny consumer-grade laptop ‘can’t handle.’ Every MacBook comes with GarageBand pre-loaded as part of Apple’s iLife suite.
By 8.22.08
../../../..//2008/08/22/condom-is-a-free-ringtone/
“Condom!” is a free ringtone for your phone. It’s being promoted in India as part of a campaign to normalize condom use, but there’s no reason you can’t put it on your own phone to impress and amaze fellow diners, bus riders, church goers, etc. It’s also catchy! [Crave]
Say Goodbye To Pandora?
By 8.21.08
When SoundExchange, the organization that represents many labels and artists, proposed steep new royalty rates for radio webcasters last year, they shortsightedly killed off their own revenue stream. Instead of their proposed rates being cut back as part of a standard negotiation, they were surprised to see the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board reject opposing arguments and adopt SoundExchange’s rates fully. Now Pandora, the popular streaming music site, says it’s paying over 70% of its revenue in royalties, and unless Washington changes the rates soon—which looks unlikely— they will have to shut down.
By 8.18.08
../../../..//2008/08/18/if-you-want-to-buy/
If you want to buy that new AC/DC (and maybe Guns N’ Roses) album, you’re going to have to shop at Walmart. [BusinessWeek & Wired]
Yahoo Offers Coupons To Let Customers Download DRM-Free MP3s
By 7.31.08
When Yahoo announced last week that they were turning off their DRM-restricted music store store in September, thereby abandoning customers with songs that would no longer play, people were understantably angry. At the time, Yahoo suggested you burn the songs to CD while you still can, then re-rip them into unprotected MP3 files—but that was a lousy solution that took time and money, and resulted in lower-quality audio files. Now they’ve come back with a proper solution that seems to more than make up for the trouble—especially if we can believe what their spokesperson told the LA Times.
By 7.28.08
../../../..//2008/07/28/best-buy-will-start-selling/
Best Buy will start selling musical equipment—guitars, drum kits, sheet music, groupies—in up to 85 stores across the U.S. this year. They’ll also offer group music lessons. Is there anything the Geek Squad can’t do? [Associated Press]
By 7.25.08
../../../..//2008/07/25/yet-another-example-of-why/
Yet another example of why DRM sucks: Yahoo! is shutting down their music store. Don’t worry, all you have to do is burn all that music to CD then re-upload it to your computer. As Ars Technica says: “Sure, you’ll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn’t download it illegally or just buy it on CD!” [Ars Technica]
By 6.26.08
../../../..//2008/06/26/starbucks-will-ditch-those-cd/
Starbucks will ditch those CD spinner racks and instead concentrate on just four CD “slots” per store. This announcement comes after a NYT article claimed they were selling just 2 CDs per store per day. This is actually more than we thought they were selling, however. [Silicon Valley Insider]
RIAA Pulls Case Before It Can Be Dismissed, Then Refiles Days Later To Get Different Judge
By 6.15.08
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.”
