Tag Archives: Sci/Tech

The P2P companies have decided that ridding their systems of child pornographers is probably a good PR move: Online file-sharing networks, used by millions of consumers to trade digital music, videos, games and software, are beginning to work with law enforcement to crack down on child-pornography purveyors who use their …

Fascinating study with all kinds of math and shit about the effect of file sharing on the music biz: Abstract: Music is an information good, and more specifically, an experience good, whose true value is realized only after its consumption. At its fundamental form, artists create (or produce) the music …

Lesson: never be an early adopter. I didn’t start accumulating CDs until 1990 and so far mine are holding up fine. Of course, I also store and handle mine properly, not to say anal-retentively, so that probably makes a difference: Koster, a Web and graphic designer for Queens University of …

RIAA spanks another granny: A Fayetteville grandmother is facing off with the recording industry. The Recording Industry Association of America said she illegally downloaded and shared copyrighted songs. About a month ago, Barbara Johnson tried to log onto AOL and found she was cut off. She called the company. “They …

U.S. Gov. censors web service set up to evade consorship: A web-proxy service set up by the US government’s International Broadcasting Bureau to enable websurfers in Iran to evade censorship is itself massively censoring what they can see. That is the conclusion of an independent new report released from the …

The BBC is ahead of the curve with “rich” Internet content. They have begun a pilot project that could lead to all of their TV content being available on the Internet on demand: The future of television is almost upon us: the day when we spend our train or bus …

As usual I have mixed feelings. Today Microsoft came out with their new DRM, called Janus (who would have thought Microsoft would choose to identify one of its products as two-faced?), which will, in the short run give consumers more flexibility with digital content, specifically enabling “rented” material like music …

Very interesting symposium at MIT’s Media Lab on May 10: On May 10, the MIT Media Laboratory and the Consumer Electronics Association will co-host a symposium at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium, followed by a research open house at the Media Lab. Walt Mossberg, Personal Technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal, …

We’ve been hearing about how the Internet would revolutionize the way music is found, distributed and promoted for ten years. Until recently that wasn’t the case – at least with the majors – who have just now been dragged kicking and screaming into digital music sales over the Internet, and …

The Future of Music Policy Summit 2004 is going on right now in DC. Since most of us aren’t there, a great way to keep up with the proceedings is via the blog that CD Baby’s Derek Sivers is keeping. Topics up so far include This Panel Kills Fascists, The …