Tag Archives: Internet

Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is preparing a consumer-friendly digital copyright bill that he could present as soon as this week. In what must be taken as a good sign, it has the RIAA spitting: “This draft legislation is weighted down with a variety of bad public policy judgments hostile …

Give Apple credit for taking the risk and proving the viability of a relatively user-friendly digital music store. Now will the world’s biggest butts squish Apple? Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and AOL Time Warner Inc.’s America Online unit are among the companies expected to launch services to compete …

Wal-Mart has lowered DVD rental service prices: The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said it would offer a $15.54 monthly subscription rate for the service for customers who only want to have two DVDs rented at one time. When the company started the service in October, it had a subscription fee of …

Just as the FCC ruling to loosen media ownership rules has caught the public’s attention, the studios are being sued for price fixing by Intertainer: The one thing about the Intertainer service on which everyone can agree is that it was ahead of its time. Founded in 1996 to deliver …

Math genius claims to invent new piracy-protection technology: When Internet users started ripping off songs from the online Museum of Musical Instruments, they angered the wrong guy: millionaire mathematician Hank Risan. Risan’s unorthodox museum is a Web site devoted to guitars and their role in music history, reflecting his personal …

Discussion #3,1004 about the state of the music biz, this one by Amy Harmon of the NY Times: The industry is pursuing lawsuits against music pirates but is also offering new ways to legally listen to and buy music online through deals like a recent alliance with Apple Computer. That …

VERLYN KLINKENBORG of the NY Times hopes iTunes can remain independent from the machinations of the major labels: This new innovation is almost certainly going to set off a surge of new buying. Some of us will be filling in the CD-size gaps in our collections, but a lot of …

Henry Jenkins has a perceptive analysis of the “collective intelligence” of the Internet and its bearing on Survivor – really: The Survivor winner is one of the most tightly guarded secrets in the country. Some say that the show’s producer, Mark Burnett, engages in misinformation campaigns, planting misleading information in …

Verizon runs out of options and has to reveal the names of four customers suspected of illegally uploading [article mistakenly says “downloading”] digital copies of songs to the RIAA: The nation’s largest telephone company was ordered to surrender the names to the Recording Industry Association of America by the U.S. …

Companion site to “American Mavericks” series produced by Minnesota Public Radio offers opportunity to play eccentric musical instruments virtually online: American Mavericks (www.musicmavericks.org), a new Web site focusing on unorthodox classical composers, allows visitors to hear [Harr] Partch’s music, read one of his manifestos or, by tapping on a computer …