Science and Technology

Keen eyes will have noted I have taken a break from the RIAA-digital music wars for the last couple of weeks because while on vacation I realized just how absofuckinglutely sick of the whole ugly dispiriting mess I had become, and when I got back to work I had no …

Very interesting tale of blogging intrigue and infighting from CNET that I missed on vacation: The conflict centers on something called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a technology widely used to syndicate blogs and other Web content. The dispute pits Harvard Law School fellow Dave Winer, the blogging pioneer who is …

One year, 1.5 million page views, 19,838 referrers, 13,817 comments, 7162 entries, 311 blogcritics, awards and recommendations aplenty:

Another roundup of the current legal status of file sharing, the RIAA’s Campaign Against Humanity, and advice on how to not get sued: if you have already been subpoenaed, erase copyright infringing files from your computer; if you haven’t, stop file sharing. Hmm, brilliant advice. When I explained the situation …

Is there ANYONE outside of the copyright cartel who thinks the RIAA’s current sue-your-customer’s-pants-off-then-sue-their-butthairs approach to “marketing” is wise, imaginative, conducive to a healthy business atmosphere, or anything other than self-defeating and vengeful? I’m waiting… Newsweek’s Steven Levy doesn’t get the joke either: Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, and …

An editorial by Thomas Keane Jr. on why CDs and the music industry in general are on their way out – nothing terribly new to Blogcritics readers, but a great line makes it worthwhile: Still, the RIAA fundamentally believes that its customers – largely the young – are pirates; given …

The way this is working is the RIAA – as a very well funded institution with lawyers out the ass – has about zero per unit cost to subpoena all of these file sharers, while for the targets, the cost in real and potential cost in money, time and emotional …

A not particularly large, but notably skanky spam operation appears to be run by a 21-year-old right here in Northeast Ohio, according to an excellent article by Plain Dealer tech writer Chris Seper: Every month hundreds of thousands of e-mails chug through the computers at Isolate Networks, offering aphrodisiacs, erotic …

It sounds like they’re trying to do it right: By Christmas this year, Napster’s enigmatic cat logo will again lure consumers into downloading music. But this time it will discard its file-sharing heritage and be entirely legal, with a wealth of new capabilities. Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Napster’s …

Two former Radio Free Blogcritics featured artists, Scott Andrew LePera and Shannon Campbell got together virtually to make some impromptu music for the Blogathon this past weekend – cool results are here. Congrats to all who participated!