Science and Technology

Web cartoon commentary on RIAA tactics, “Sue All the World“: Animation – good, singing – bad, humor level – adequate.

BusinessWeek on Hollywood’s digital future: Can Hollywood avoid getting Napsterized? Right now, the pirates are only nibbling at the $65 billion-a-year film and TV business. Downloading a movie is still a clunky affair that can take a few hours, and only 27% of the country’s 66 million online homes have …

Napster busts out o the joint in the first of an animated series tied to its relaunch as a pay service by Roxio.

Napster is comingback in the form of a pay music download service from Roxio. It appears Shawn Fanning is back as well, now selling copyright recognition software to the labels: Napster creator Shawn Fanning is looking for backers of technology he’s developing that would let file-sharing networks distribute music without …

This is amusing: This mangled medley was not remixed by a mischievous D.J. Instead, the mismatched music was generated by new software. N.A.G., as the interactive program is called, works like a cross between Google, the Morpheus music file-sharing network and a Cuisinart kitchen appliance. ….N.A.G. was created by Jason …

“Jane, you ignorant slut…” On openDemocracy, Siva Vaidhyanathan and Bill Thompson begin an ongoing debate on the nature and meaning of P2P. Siva: This is the story of clashing ideologies: information anarchy and information oligarchy. They feed off of each other dialectically. Oligarchy justifies itself through “moral panics” over the …

John Dvorak blames the RIAA’s announced assault on file sharers for a raft of upcoming problems, including terrorism and the disappearance of the rain forest: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) may become indirectly responsible for our inability to stop the next terrorist attack on the US. Hear me …

Billboard analyzes the $.99 download and whimpers that “no one is getting rich.” Perhaps this is because the entire industry needs to be restructured to a model that emphasizes quantity at a reasonable price (MUCH lower than .$99 per song) rather than the all-or-nothing hit model that is failing so …

As we mentioned back in April, Tori Amos has had this big contest going on inviting fans to create a music video for her single “Taxi Ride.” The final nine are now up on her site for review and a vote: All votes must be cast by Friday, July 11 …

Not for the faint of heart – see this picture for a ghastly caution against bioengineering, in this case the unholy breeding of Harry Potter, an owl, and the Joker. Actually it’s an interesting article about the spread of media personalization: Coldplay, my favorite band, is performing on a Saturday …