Tag Archives: Sci/Tech

The new Napster is giving away a free three-day trial of its subscription service during December. Consumers who subscribe to the service after their free trial ends will receive five free permanent downloads. In addition, Napster has inked a deal with RadioShack to distribute pre-paid cards that allow consumers to …

For the last 16 months we have been writing and writhing about the dangers of the copyright industry infringing upon personal freedom, consumer rights and the efficacy of the Internet, the diminution of the public domain, heavy-handed use of the judicial system, increased corporate control over both hardware and software …

Bob Tedeschi looks at the digital music prospects for the coming year: COMING to a music download store in 2004: Yo-Yo Ma’s Shostakovich Quartet No. 15 and Bob Dylan’s second show at Amsterdam. So go the predictions of some music industry executives, who say that as music labels and retailers …

Playboy turns 50 this week with the publication of a special anniversary issue. Though we are a far cry from the “anything goes” sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s – with AIDS the single biggest killjoy – and hedonism in general is out of fashion, I think the world …

So far, I have found two things for which mobile phones are really good: safety (as in “I am broken down in the middle of BFE, please come rescue me”) and courtesy/convenience (“I am am running late, be there in 20 minutes”). From a business standpoint, it also untethers you …

Rob Walker writes in NY Times Magazine from the perspective that the iPod is already an iconic product, and he tries to undertand why: Two years ago this month, Apple Computer released a small, sleek-looking device it called the iPod. A digital music player, it weighed just 6.5 ounces and …

Serious and important paper from Jessica Litman on digital music, copyright and the Internet: Abstract: The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation and mass dissemination of a wide variety of works. Until recently, most means of mass dissemination required a significant capital investment. The lion’s share of the …

First of all, Norgies rule, and yes I am biased being 75% Norwegian. This would be a brilliant marketing move for any one of the U.S. commercial music download companies, but you know, “free” can never be monetized, can it? If you are a fan of Norwegian music, or just …

Last week we mentioned people having fun with the email scammers, stringing them along, even turning the tables on them and squeezing some cash out of them. The government of Nigeria has finally decided that being known as the scam capital of the world might not be the ideal image …

We reported last week that MP3.com has been bought out by CNET, and that all of the music was to be rather unceremoniously dumped into the digital dumpster. This is no longer true: MP3.com Artist Announcement A message from CNET Networks, Inc. (CNET) Dear MP3.com artists: Last week CNET Networks, …