Adam Electronics is offering a portable MP3/CD/VCD player. Yes, that's right. It plays back VCD videos and movies.
Sounds very nice indeed. I'm looking forward to seeing it reviewed somewhere.
Check out the details on Adam Electronics or order it right away for $299.
Source: Dimension Music.
On Monday Napster Inc. will be presenting their counter claims to the RIAA brief filed earlier this week.
RIAA and National Music Publishers Association are, again, seeking a premilinary injunction against Napster. The aim is to have all the members' material from Napster's directories.
Source: www.newsbytes.com.
Hole has made over fifty full MP3s of their songs available online at www.holemusic.com.
Among the available songs are alot of cover versions one of which is a live cover of Guns N' Roses' 'Paradise City' which Hole claims to do better than the original. Check it out yourself!
MP3.com has introduced the MP3 Media Server 1.0 (MMS 1.0), which is a plug-and-play type of music service solution.
The product is aimed for in-store use at e.g. grocery stores and other establishments for providing background music. The MMS 1.0 helps to boost MP3.com's new business-to-business music delivery program.
Read the full story on Dimension Music
The lucky guys from CNET News.com got a private backroom briefing on some of the upcoming technologies from IBM at the PC Expo trade show.
The coolest item by far was the IBM WatchPad, which is a wrist watch with a "surprisingly crisp VGA screen". The device is capable of synchronizing data with PCs and will later support the wireless Bluetooth interface. WatchPad might be the first truly portable PDA. And since IBM is pioneering in the storage department, too, having released the 1GB MicroDrive CF hard-disk last week, the storage space is not likely to be an issue.
Read the full story on CNET News.com.
RIAA has filed a copyright infrigement suit against MP3Board Inc.. The suit alleges that MP3Board.com posts links to pirated MP3 recordings on the Internet and encourages users to post links to other infringing MP3s.
Read the full story on the Hollywood Reporter.
Our graphic wiz Teemu has updated his popular Blue Dawn skin to version 1.1.
Grab it now and spread the word!
Happy Midsummer Day everyone!
Dell today announced a technology preview of their upcoming Dell Digital Audio Receiver. The Digital Audio Receiver overcomes the difficulty of playing the MP3 files stored on a PC in other rooms by transfering the songs around the house using existing phone lines.
Powered by SIII Rio Audio technology the receiver connects to existing phone lines, speakers and stereo equipment without the need for extra wiring. The product will be available from Dell in August, and will be priced at $199 when purchased with a Dell Dimension system and at $249 for existing desktop systems.
Read more:
Dell press release
Dance act Darude, number 3 this week with "Sandstorm", has become the first MP3.com artist to hit the UK Singles Charts.
Darude, otherwise known as Finnish 24-year-old Ville Virtanen, first gained recognition when he posted up a 60-second clip of "Sandstorm" on the Internet. The track reached number one in the MP3.com dance charts and hung around the top for a couple of months.
Source: dotmusic.com
Courtney Love, the lead singer and head of the band Hole sympathizes with Lars Ulrich (drummer from Metallica). In her Essay on HoleMusic.com she says, that she has nothing against Napster and other file-sharing utilities as such.
``It's not piracy when kids swap music over the Internet using Napster or Gnutella or Freenet or iMesh or beaming their CDs into a My.MP3.com or MyPlay.com music locker,´´ Love says, and continues ``It's piracy when those guys that run those companies make side deals with the cartel lawyers and label heads so that they can be "the labels' friend," and not the artists'.´´
Unlike others have reported, Love is not taking a stand against file sharing. Actually it's quite the opposite - she's all for it. What she is against, however, are the record companies, who instead of taking advantage of this opportunity, take all effort to squash it altogether. In the process the only ones really getting hurt are the recording artists.
``There were a billion music downloads last year, but music sales are up. Where's the evidence that downloads hurt business? Downloads are creating more demand,´´ Love points out.
Make sure you read the whole manifesto on HoleMusic.com!
While the major record labels see the Napster as a threat, and do everything in their might to close it down, to some Napster means good times. To Refined Records and Trymedia Systems of San Francisco, Napster and its ilk are a great way to reach customers.
Trymedia makes software to protect digital music, video and other forms of content against unauthorized copying. Its latest product installs a hidden lock on MP3 files -- the most popular form of downloadable music -- that reappears every time the file is swapped from user to user.
Refined Records, an upstart record label, is the first to employ Trymedia's ``viral distribution'' software. It plans to put several tracks from its two jazz CDs onto Napster, using Trymedia's technology to collect a name and address from anyone who wants to keep the songs they download.
Source: San Jose Mercury News
According to a survey by US research firm Yankelovich Partners shows that majority of US consumers that have downloaded or streamed music from the internet have later bought the tracks at a retail store.
The survey was released the same week as US record labels increased their attack on controversial online music service Napster. It contradicts two earlier surveys cited by RIAA which claim that online file sharing has resulted in a decline in album sales, particularly to students.
Source: vnunet.com
The on-line version of the Rolling Stone magazine published an interesting look at Shawn Fanning, the creator of Napster.
``In high school, back in suburban Massachusetts, he played guitar in a covers band, bashing out Metallica and Zeppelin tunes. Now that he's getting sued by Metallica, it's painful for him to talk about how much he loves their music. When asked which Metallica songs he covered, he goes on the defensive. "I better not say," he muses, deadpan. "I don't recall whether I had their written permission." ´´
Read the whole story on RollingStone.com.
Napster, the maker of the famous song-swapping software, said today it is planning to forge relationships with unsigned artists and small, independent record labels. The idea behind the relationships is to spread previously unreleased music from the artists free of charge via Napster.
Till now the record industry has concidered Napster a playground for piracy. It remains to be seen if this kind of co-operation will change the attitude towards napster.
Source: CNET.com News
Company called SightSound.com, an online movie distributor, has announced that it will use Gnutella network as their way to spread their content to customers.
Security of movies (=can they be copied by unauthorized persons) is solved by Microsoft which says that no security problems are found in this distribution method. When user has downloaded a movie, we's required to purchase or rent it to be able to watch it.
SightSound has rights to publish 12 movies from Miramax online.
MP3.com's CEO Michael Robertson criticized recording industry's current business model that they use for their web businesses.
Most of the legal MP3/digital audio sites sell tracks by $2 / each or so, and this, Robertson said, doesn't work.
"What they will do is 'all-you-can-eat' buffets for 10 bucks, for 5 bucks, for 20 bucks."
By this he means that subscription services -- the model that user pays some amount of money per month and gets unlimited access for streaming media, some downloads, etc.. Just like MP3.com's classical music subscription service.
Robertson kept his keynote in Streaming Media East 2000 conference.
RIAA has filed a preliminary injunction for U.S. court to shut down the Napster's servers.
Napster's CEO Hank Barry, replied to this request with written statement explaning Napster's role as a service, not a place to download illegal music. Barry also pointed out that recording industry has allowed existence of MP3 players, CD recorders, etc.. Why to focus on file sharing technology?
Barry's reply is not official document meant for court, more like an open letter.
dMusic.com reported today that rumor is going that Yahoo! is interested to buy multimedia giant MP3.com.
This sounds like a reasonable path for Yahoo! which has been putting some major efforts trying to hit big time into music community -- their recent action was to launch their own media player, which actually does the thing pretty damn well..
dMusic.com
As the rumours over the weekend anticipated, Hollywood Entertainment decided to discontinue the e-commerce section of Reel.com. All outstanding orders will most likely be filled through buy.com.
``Closing Reel.com's e-commerce business was a difficult decision. However, with Hollywood's stock dropping 75% during the same period that the operating profits of Hollywood Video stores were up over 40%, we could no longer justify funding the e-commerce business. We want to thank all of our existing Reel.com customers and are confident that buy.com will do an excellent job providing e-commerce services,'' commented Mark Wattles, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hollywood Entertainment.
Related stories:
Hollywood Video company press release
MP3.com Inc. settled it's copyright violation claims by two of the five big recording companies and agreed to license their songs for its online services.
Terms of the agreement with Warner Music Group (company of Time Warner) and BMG Entertainment (company of Bertelsmann) were not disclosed, but experts estimate that company had to pay $20 million to each company.
Sony, EMI and UMG are still negotiating with MP3.com. The law suit was filed in January 2000 by RIAA, an organization representing these five labels in U.S.
MP3.com's shares rose appx. 11% today to 19 3/16 on Nasdaq.
According to today's Wall Street Journal, MP3.com is close to settling it's copyright issues with Warner Music Group, one major member of RIAA.
Not more detailed info is available at the moment, but it's estimated that MP3.com would pay something between $15M and $20M for Warner Music for settling the case.
MP3.com launches a new service called "Notify Me!" which gives users an ability to get informed if some of the MP3.com's artists are having some event or show in the local area. And as usual, this service is 100% customizable, like all MP3.com's services are.
http://www.mp3.com/notifyme/
Finally this one sad episode in "Napster saga" is in happy end. Offspring and Napster have reached an agreement in the trademark issue, where Offspring sold Napster merchandise over the Internet without Napster's permission.
Now Napster has given this permission for Offspring. But Offspring doesn't keep the money itself, no. But Dexter Holland and Shawn Fanning decide later together a charity organization that gets the money from sold merchandise.
Happy end. OMG, why other people can't be as reasonable and smart as these two. Well, I'm kinda tired of this legal sh*t already.. But it goes on, we all know that.
Remember few weeks ago when this whole Napster-Metallica-Dr.Dre -mess started? Ok, now the first round is almost done -- even that I know there are whole lotta more to come.
So, Metallica forced 300k users to be removed from Napster. And 30k of those complained. And Metallica didn't sue them. And based on U.S. laws, now they've got their accounts back online. And Metallica's pissed...
That's it this time :-)
MP3Board.com, one of the biggest MP3 sites in the world, sues RIAA because RIAA has threatened to shut down the site.
MP3Board.com has very popular MP3 search engine and that's what RIAA is now targeting. MP3Board.com says "Copyright laws should not apply to sites like MP3Board.com that simply offer links to other sites, even if those sites offer pirated material."
"We're not Napster. We don't have...MP3 files. We're a mere conduit, like Lycos or Hotbot. What this lawsuit is about is whether a search engine or linking service has an obligation to edit automated links. By going after us, they are basically oppressing free speech for everybody," said attorney Ira Rothken, who represents MP3Board.
...this is going to be very interesting, since MP3 search engines are very popular and also the Big Boys are doing that business, including giants like Lycos and AltaVista. And as we all remember, mp3.lycos.com went through this same path and won in court..
Mega-popular punk/rock band Offspring has started selling Napster merchandise on their website. This contains Napster caps, T-shirts and stickers!!
Now, what makes this new twist very weird, is the fact that band doesn't have Napster's permission to sell this stuff, and forced by U.S. trademark laws, Napster has to sue band for copyright infrigements because otherwise they can lose their trademark.. But propably there is just an easy way for Napster to give Offspring legal permission to sell these items..
Offspring is the single most popular band that has publicly supported Napster and fans right to spread copyrighted music through it.
Offspring.com
DVDRip v1.15 is now officially the first program ever to reach 10,000 downloads through AfterDawn.com. Wow, that's quite something for small website like us..
Let's see when we hit the 100,000 total downloads in software archive. With the current download amount, it propably wont take very long..
Oh, if you don't have it yet -- Download DVDRip v1.15!
Despite all action around MP3.com and Napster these days -- mostly legal action.. -- some bands still point out their support for distributing their material for free. One of these bands is Mötley Crüe -- this legendary hard rock band has now set their latest single "Hell on High Heels" for free MP3 download in some of the major MP3 sites, including MP3.com.
Also, they've helped Camp Chaos to create kinda sequel for legendary "Napster Bad" (money GOOD) Metallica parody. Check it out at here.
dMusic reported today that Madonna is threatening to take legal actions against MP3-swapping program, Napster.
Reason for Madonna's anger is that MTV reported yesterday that Madonna's new single, dubbed as "Music", was stolen from her studios and spread through Internet via Napster.
dMusic.com
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