Yes, we have waited and waited and now the ‘Bird has finally landed! Since the Songbird server appears to be overloaded we are going to offer a MIRROR here on the site. Enjoy!
Download:
Songbird_0_1_0.exe
Like it? Diggit™
If you want to link to the MIRROR please link to this post permalink (not the .exe file):
http://www.emusiq.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/08/songbird-mirror-available-right-here/
TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/bg85v
Direct from BoingBoing:
“A team led by ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord today released a preview edition of Songbird, a desktop media player that offers an open source alternative to services like Apple’s iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Instead of connecting to one locked store full of DRMmed goods, it can connect to any and all available music (and video) on the internet.
Code brains behind the project include people who helped build Winamp, Muse, Yahoo’s “Y! Music Engine” media player, and developers from Mozilla Foundation. Initial release is for Windows only, with editions for other OSes to follow in the coming weeks.
Built on the same platform as Firefox, Songbird acts like a specialized web browser for music. It sees the online world through MP3-colored glasses – it looks at an archive of public domain sound files or a music store’s catalog, and displays available media for you.
I spoke with Rob Lord earlier today by phone about the preview release. Screenshots and interview after the jump. ”
BARCELONA, Nov 18 (Reuters) - In an attempt to make up with consumers whose PCs have been exposed to unsecure copy-protection software which acts like malware, music publisher Sony BMG said on Friday it would swap unsecure CDs for new unprotected disks as well as unprotected MP3 files.
The music publishing venture of Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Germany’s Bertelsmann AG [BERT.UL] had already said last week it would temporarily suspend the manufacture of music CDs containing the controversial copy-protection technology.
The XCP copy-protection programme, developed by British software firm First4Internet and used by Sony BMG to restrict copying and sharing of music CDs, acts like virus software and hides deep inside a computer where it leaves the backdoor open for malicious hackers.
Sony BMG, after announcing a recall of some 4.7 million CDs with the software on Wednesday, said on Friday consumers could mail their CDs to the company, and they would receive a new unprotected CD in return.
Pending the processing of the exchange programme, consumers would also receive an email with details of a Website where they could download the music tracks as unprotected MP3 files.
Details of the swap programme can be found on http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/. Music CDs with the copy-protection software can be identified by a web address containing the letters XCP printed on the back of the box.
Last week the music publisher said it would do anything possible make amends with its customers who were outraged when the first viruses were discovered.
The XCP programme will have installed itself on a Windows-operated personal computer when consumers want to play 52 title CDs from Sony BMG. The vast majority of the CDs were sold in the United States.
The copy protection software has become a debacle for Sony BMG. Angry consumers filed a class action lawsuit, and Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said it regarded the copy-protection software as malware and would make a tool available to uninstall the programme. Sony BMG also said it will make a new uninstall tool available, after the first uninstall method proved unsecure.
In the latest twist to the story, software engineers found earlier on Friday that the music player which is part of the XCP software contains components from an open source project, an MP3 player called LAME, raising questions about copyright.
First4Internet, which sold the XCP software programme used by Sony BMG on its CDs, declined to comment after repeated requests since Monday.
Sony BMG has re-emphasised that copy-protection software is “an important tool to protect our intellectual property rights and those of our artists.”
TORONTO (CP) - It’s becoming a regular occurrence in CD shops across the country: an irate customer comes in complaining the CD they bought won’t play on their computer, and worse yet, they can’t transfer the tunes to their IPod.
The culprit is copy-protected or copy-controlled CDs - something many Canadian music retailers say they would like to see pulled from store shelves.
“This is just another really, really ridiculous way of telling our customers, ‘We don’t want your business,’ ” said Tim Baker of Sunrise Records, which has 31 shops in southern Ontario.
“It’s so stupid.”
The issue was underscored last week with news that the anti-piracy technology used on about 50 Sony BMG titles released in the United States and 37 in Canada secretly left spyware behind on people’s computers.
The software - developed as a way to fight music piracy - made the machines susceptible to viruses and hackers. And trying to remove the software disabled CD drives.
Needless to say, the technology irked consumers. Thousands flocked to the web to vent, using blogs and online petitions to encourage people to boycott Sony products altogether.
“There’s still plenty of work to be done if we are to achieve our goal of being treated like the music lovers we are rather than the criminals that (Sony) assumes us to be,” read one posting on www.boycottsony.us.
Sony BMG said Friday that about 120,000 of the 4.7 million faulty CDs were sold in Canada.
They are not the only company to issue copy-protected CDs in Canada.
EMI has been releasing select albums - including the latest Nickelback album, All The Right Reasons - this way for about three years. The company intends to ship out all its releases with the technology by year’s end.
The EMI discs use different software than Sony BMG, and have yet to cause any computer troubles.
Labels say they need the technology in order to stop people from sharing music with those who haven’t paid for it.
Still, retailers say such technology is punishing those who are actually willing to fork over cash for music - an ever-dwindling group as it is.
“Consumers are not liking it,” says Leslie Purchase, assistant manager at CD Plus in the Halifax Shopping Centre. “People are getting very frustrated by (copy-protected CDs).”
She’s noticed an increase in customers who put CDs down after noticing the “copy-controlled” or “copy-protected” label.
“A lot of customers won’t buy them now. They say ‘I don’t want it’,” she said.
The copy controls are possible through digital rights management technology, or DRM. It lets labels restrict the number of times a CD can be shared - meaning burned or copied.
More controversial is the ability to control which programs consumers can use to playback their music. With EMI and Sony BMG discs, for instance, the music is compatible only with Windows Media Player but not with ITunes (for PC users).
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Computer Inc. has unveiled a pencil-thin “iPod nano” digital music player and a long-anticipated cell phone that plays music like an iPod, both aimed at extending its domination of the digital music market.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs also said that in 2006, some 30 percent of all new U.S. cars will sport stereos that can easily connect to the iPod.
The seriously slimmed-down nano – about a quarter of an inch (0.6 cm) thick, 3-1/2 inches (9 cm) long and 1-1/2 inches (4 cm) wide – drew “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience at the product release in San Francisco, outdoing the buzz generated by the Rokr phone, which some said failed to meet high expectations for design.
The nano players, either all black or all white, are nearly as small as the entry-level iPod Shuffle but sport click wheels and hold up to 1,000 songs.
Apple has about 75 percent of the market for digital music players, with iPod sales about one-third of its total revenue, and Jobs said competitors had set their sights on the iPod mini, which he said was Apple’s best-selling iPod model.
The nano replaces the mini, and Gartner analyst Van Baker said that Apple – which has sold 21 million iPods since introducing them in 2001 – has moved the goal posts farther down the field with the nano. “It changes the rules of the game,” Baker said.
The iPod nano uses flash memory chips to store songs and photos, rather than the hard-disk drives that the iPod mini and the larger iPods use.
Test for music
The Rokr phone is Apple’s long-awaited foray into the wireless realm. Developed with Motorola Inc., it can store up to 100 songs and has a color screen, stereo speakers, stereo headphones and a camera. Cingular will be the first mobile carrier for the Rokr. Several operators in the United Kingdom are expected to offer the phone soon.
But some said the silver phone did not meet style expectations set by Apple’s iPod and Motorola’s slim flagship Razr phone, and others cited its limited song capacity for iPod users accustomed to carrying thousands of songs.
“It doesn’t have the emotive cachet that the Razr or the iPod has,” said Yankee Group analyst John Jackson. “When you whip this out in the bar, nobody’s going to say, ‘That’s a cool device.’”
The Rokr iTunes phone will be available in Cingular stores on Thursday.
No. 1 U.S. mobile service Cingular Wireless, a venture of SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., will be the exclusive U.S. carrier of the phone, which it will sell for $249.99 to customers who sign up for a two-year service contract.
Cingular does not make money from the songs played on the phones, but hopes they will help boost sales and reduce customer defections to rival services. One analyst said it could become Cingular’s top-selling phone by next year.
“If this phone is easy to use, at this price I think it will fly off the shelves,” Charter Equity analyst Ed Snyder said. “Cingular will reap the benefits of the combination of Motorola and Apple’s brands.”
The phone does not allow for wireless downloads, but it does eliminate the need for carrying two separate gadgets.
Motorola said the phone would be available in the United Kingdom at Carphone Warehouse Group’s stores in mid-September and with operators such as O2, Orange, BT Mobile, Virgin Mobile this month or next.
In the coming months, it is also expected to be available in countries such as Germany, Canada, Italy and France.
Motorola’s chief marketing officer, Geoffrey Frost, said the phone – the first in a whole family of Rokr devices – would be followed by more stylish designs.
“As this continues to develop you’ll see it become as iconic as our other new products,” Frost said, referring to a new products inspired by its Razr phone.
Flexible
As it tests the market for music on mobile phones, Apple is free to work with other handset makers and cellular service providers, said Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing, in an interview.
“We have flexibility to do many things,” Schiller said. He declined to comment on the financial arrangements of Apple’s partnership with Motorola and Cingular.
Music is expected to be one of the hottest new features in mobile phones, which already sport everything from cameras to video players.
Apple has to keep up a steady pace of innovative new music products to maintain the level of growth investors now expect.
Shares of Apple fell 12 cents, or less than 1 percent, to close at $48.68 on Nasdaq. So far this year, the stock has gained 52 percent and trades at about 34 times its projected earnings per share in fiscal 2006. Apple’s fiscal year ends in September.
Apple said it was teaming with car makers Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen to integrate its iPod products into their car stereos for 2006 model lines.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
SPAS007: All new and original 8 track EP from Dsico That No-Talent Hack. No bootleges, no mashups. Raw Electronic Alt-Pop with guitars and vocals and stuff. Written and Performed by Luke Collison, recorded at Luke’s in Newtown/ Sydney. Great stuff!
BashPodder Was written and is maintained here by me (Linc) with the generous code contributions and great ideas of many of it’s users, some of whom have contributed modified scripts of their own. BashPodder was written to be small and fast, and most importantly, to conform to the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid). That way, anyone can add to and detract from the script to suit their own needs (and they are welcome to do so). BashPodder is listed in many places as a “Linux” podcatching client, and in fact, that is what I wrote it for initially, however, it should be noted that I have dozens of emails telling me how well it works on everything else, including but not limited to MaxOSX, Solaris, AIX, Net Open and FreeBSD, even windows and many other OS’s I have forgotten I am sure.
:Link:
Came across drdrak.over-blog.com. Very cool assortment of topics and links. The retro stuff is great.
Plurn is an online playlist community, which is a folksonomy in the way it handles playlist content. Playlists can be browsed by tag, imort a page as a playlist and the new XSPF format is supported. The site has very nice text based look.
Here’s the beatsinspace playlist, great stuff! Streaming and download.
http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists.html
A new addition to the MP3 mini-player market is SecondhandMonkeys. The site lacks detail; for example some more detailed tech specs would great. But nonetheless at $49.95 you can’t beat it. The come in a myriad of styles, and as the site says there are the size of a Pez dispenser.
Here are some specs for the M128 model.
Plays MP3 music files
Can be used as a USB drive to store any kind of data
Digitally Records voice memos
Organize your music in folders/directories
5 Equalizer Modes
Backlit LCD Display
128mb flash memory
SNR:85db
Output Frequency: +5MW(32ohm)
Frequency Response: 20HZ-20KHZ
Power: 1 AAA battery (included)
Size: 55mm x 22mm x 23mm
Weight: 25g (without battery)
Windows 98 driver included (no driver needed for Win2000/ME/XP)
The Rave MP is coming close to breaking the $100 barrier for a reasonable Mp3 player. It’s a 2.5GB MP3 Player/FM Tuner/Voice Recorder. Not bad at all. Here is where we found the deal.
This is great a “acid” version of Power Station’s Robert Palmer Some Like It Hot. Thanks dsico!
:MP3:
I was really hoping the new beatport.com MP3 website would be a welcome change to the previous version. However, sadly, it is not. The site is 100% Flash making it difficult to navigate and interface with. It’s really too bad, because they have been providing cutting edge independent music released in a non-DRM format. Hell, they’ll even let you download it as a lossless WAV file. It’s pay per download, and the music is well worth it, I just hope they don’t stay with Flash.
As you may already know LokiTorrent has ceased to exist instead the website has been replaced with an ominous warning, depicted below.
There are websites that provide legal downloads. This is not one of them.
This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.
A Dallas federal court has ordered file-swapping site LokiTorrent.com to shut down and provide Hollywood lawyers with access to its full server logs, including data that could expose hundreds of thousands of people to copyright lawsuits.
The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it had won a quick court victory against LokiTorrent, and was launching a new round of actions against other online piracy hubs. The data provided by the onetime file-swapping hub would provide “a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities,” the trade group said.
Hard numbers on the site’s traffic are hard to come by. However, according to researchers at the Delft University of Technology, LokiTorrent was responsible for more than 800,000 downloads in the month of October alone.
MPAA executives said the information could “quite possibly” lead to lawsuits against individuals.
8bitpeoples offers plenty of reviews and links to great “chip” music from around the world. They’ve been spreading the love since 1999 and even perform live shows. The 8bitpeoples consist of Bit Shifter, Mesu Kasumai, Nullsleep, Sabastian Boaz, Tangible, Ten and Tracer, Tet, Twilight Electric and Yuppster.
“We continue to provide the vast majority of all our releases for free, including printable covers and inserts so that anyone with the desire to can “manufacture” physical copies of our albums. Furthermore, limited runs of most of our releases are available, offering superior sound quality to the mp3 releases and occasionally bonus tunes.”
:Link:
Sabadabada shares a phenomenal collection of rare brazilian vinyl posted as MP3s. We are warning you the selection is top notch, containing tunes from Eumir Deodato, Orlann Divo, Brasilia Modern Six, Bossa 4 and more. I can imagine these won’t be up for long so check ‘em out.
:Link:
This article from the SF Bay Guardian is very compelling. To summarize:
“1. The Supreme Court rules on P2P For better or worse, the biggest legal fight over file sharing will be finished by next Christmas. The Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether makers of P2P software – and by extension other technology makers – are responsible for the sins of their customers. When its opinion comes down next fall, it will tell us what Napster’s demise never did: whether or not it’s legal to make and distribute file-sharing software. This won’t stop the record labels from continuing to sue anything with a heartbeat and a DSL line, but that news will look silly next to the fact that …
2. File sharing continues to soar The Recording Industry Association of America has sued more than 7,000 alleged file sharers since 2003, but P2P traffic has actually increased. By some counts, 60 million Americans have tried file sharing. New P2P programs are released faster than J.Lo can get engaged. There’s no reason to think these trends won’t continue or increase. The year 2005 will be the “best year ever” for P2P, and the medium’s continued popularity means …
3. Artists look for plan B When it becomes clear that the RIAA’s slash-and-burn campaign hasn’t stopped file sharing, musicians will start to wonder if there’s a better way to move forward. Would it be possible to create a system in which P2P joins CD sales, concert revenues, and radio licenses as another way to pay the bills? The answer is yes, and the technology is finally available to make it happen. The trick is to make it feel free to the public while collecting money for creators. “
:Link:
MP3 manufacturer Reigncom, recently described as an “outstanding firm” by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, is making waves by using an adult film star in advertising for its new products.
Reigncom late last year introduced its portable multimedia player (PMP) onto the U.S. market, hiring U.S. porn starlet Jenna Jameson to appear in advertisements.
Industry sources say it was a pragmatic move. “One cannot ignore people using the PMP to watch adult material,” said one. “I think they were targeting these customers when we hired a porn actress.”
“Males are the primary target for most digital equipment,” said another. “We tried to find an entertainer easily recognized by men, and we selected Jenna Jameson. There was nothing else behind the decision.” Company officials said.
Very nice dub mix by way of breaksblog.biz.
“King Tubby is to this day synonymous with dub. He was a man who had a passion for fiddling with sound equipment, and turned that passion into a new musical genre and a veritable art form. He may have started his career as a repairman, but before he was done, his name was one of the most respected around the world. He worked with virtually every artist in Jamaica, and his name on a remix was like gold, a seal of quality that was never questioned.”
:Link:
LAS VEGAS – Perhaps it’s too early to pick a best-of-show product among the thousands that came to play at CES, but as of Friday afternoon, my early candidate is Yamaha’s Digital Sound Projector, the $1,500 YSP-1.
This is what you’d call, in computerese, a no-brainer solution. Essentially it’s a strip of 42 tiny speaker drivers, hidden behind a handsome grill in a piece that is matched to sit just under a 42-inch flat panel monitor.
Each of the speakers has its own digital amplifier, and technology to control the orientation of the sound. So that multi-channel surround soundtracks play back with unerring precision and drama: sound is beamed or reflecting off the wall surfaces to create the surround illusion. And there’s only a couple of messy cables to bother with. Stylish and sonically sophisticated, it’s a keeper.
iPod makes an appearance
Apple Computer has its own showcase - a little soiree call Macworld that opens Monday in San Francisco. But that hasn’t kept the iPod out of the spotlight at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Here in Las Vegas, the idea is that the iPod belongs in the dash as well as in the pocket. Pioneer and Clarion want car owners to be able to directly hotwire their music players to built-in car stereos and to use the stereos’ controls to access and play the iPod-stored music. Pioneer’s adaptor will cost $140 when it’s released in March. Clarion’s more complex system is due next month, no pricing yet.
BMW now has some models whose steering wheels incorporate iPod controls, and the automaker also offers a $149 iPod-stereo adapter that lets users control the device through the steering wheel. Driving into DVD market
About 300 miles separates the Los Angeles Auto Show from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. So imagine my suprise when I came across the Hyundai and Daewoo exhibits among brands like Sharp and Pioneer and Samsung.
Both Korean manufacturers were showing off flat-panel TVs, DVD players and an assortment of other plug-in delights, none with specs that mentioned horsepower.
Ring tones for the car?
Ride Tunes might not be the the Next Big Thing, but it’s a start. And it’s clever: a little box that installs in newer cars with remote, keyless entry systems. When you lock or open the car or pop the trunk using the remote, a song plays. Or somebody shouts.
The options are nearly endless. The Ride Tunes box accepted sounds via download from your computer, There’s a Ride Tunes library available: one choice is, “Will you marry me?”
The system is scheduled to go on sale in March for about $150.
LokiTorrent is officially being sued by the MPAA (view) and is asking for donations. Unlike SupNova.org, the site has not folded under legal pressure to cease operation. The site has set a legal find goal of $30,000, however it is possible that may not be enough to cover all of the legal and operating costs.
micro music is site completely dedicated to 8-bit and computer generated music.
“basically “musical research” is the most accurate description of the micromusic.net activities. even though music produced on low_budget equipment and retro computer games sounds was the focus at the beginning of the micromusic project we always had far more in our minds than that. the internet is still in its first years and topics like how to build up ’special_interest_communities’, advanced realtime communication tools and highly optimized interface design were also quite important to us.
the micromusic crew realised a multimedia_website which is unique on the worldwideweb within less than 2 years. the very active and rockin’ micro_community counts almost 3000 people now and the quality of the uploaded lowtech_tunes has reached a level which defines a new standard in the territory of low_tech music and online music communities.”
:Link:
This comes by way of BoingBoing and Evil Genius Chronicles. Man, that’s quite a mix. I forgot about all those wonderful bass-lines.
Hank sez, “Where ordinary mash-up mixes mix two or perhaps three songs, this mix is made up by appx 40 Beatles songs, with sometimes five different songs playing at the same time. A must hear!” I concur; this is mind-blowingly amazing…”
:Link:
Songwriters and musicians get royalties when their music is played in public, on the radio or in clubs. With the advent of Internet radio and digital cable broadcasts, performers are also entitled to royalties. In the final story in our online music series, NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports on Sound Exchange, a company dedicated to tracking the music and sending royalties to musicians.
:Listen:
Yeah, the Awesome Cool Dudes or ACD:
“Neon women’s jumpsuits, handcrafted basketball uniforms, perms, fake tans, we’re down for whatev’s when it comes to playing live. As far as recording goes we record ourselve and take our tracks into a real studio and fuck it up a little bit.”
:Link:
“We’ve obtained copies of the MPAA lawsuit letters being circulated to Bit Torrent websites and their hosts - in this case to Torrent website “Demonoid” (Pages: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7). In it, lawyers warn the host they’ve sued the operators of a Torrent site on their network, but currently don’t know their identities. The letter to the website owner claims they face “severe sanctions” should they delete any pirated material or usable evidence in the case against them. As noted by users below, the IP address for the website cited by the letter (66.250.450.10) doesn’t/can’t exist, a mistake repeated throughout the letters.”
Source: DslReports.
Michael Butler releases American Heartbreak -The Greatest Xmas Song. An RIAA-free song for download on his site.
A Canadian judge on Thursday set aside copyright rules that had imposed regulatory fees of as much as $25 on the purchase of iPods and other MP3 players in that country.
The country’s copyright regulators traditionally have imposed a small surcharge on media such as cassette tapes and blank CDs, using the revenues to pay musicians and record labels whose works are being copied at home by consumers. Late last year, the Copyright Board applied this to MP3 players, which they said consumers also used for “private copying” of music.
A coalition of retailers and electronics manufacturers sued, saying the ruling was unfair. In a decision released Thursday, federal Judge Marc Noel ruled that the MP3 player fees did not seem to be supported by the letter of the law, and set them aside.
“It is for Parliament to decide whether digital audio devices such as MP3 players are to be” included, he wrote.
The decision marks a victory for retailers, manufacturers and sticker-shocked consumers in the country, even if its effect might be temporary. However, it did uphold the foundation of the country’s private copying rights, which courts have used as grounds to say consumer file-swapping is legal.
That series of decisions has put the country’s legal system at odds with much of the rest of the world, which is cracking down on operators and users of peer to-peer networks with criminal and civil penalties. Record labels have appealed the file-swapping decision.
The MP3 player ruling will likely mean a quick drop in prices for iPods and other devices in Canada. The board’s decision last year imposed a $25 fee on players with more than 10GB of memory, $15 for players above 1GB, and $2 for smaller players.
The shoppers’ reprieve may not last forever, however. The judge made it clear that he was sympathetic to the Copyright Board’s attempt to impose the fees on MP3 players. Devices such as iPods are in fact used to copy large amounts of music and could potentially do more damage to copyright holders’ interests than ordinary blank CDs or cassettes, he said.
“However, as desirable as bringing such devices within the ambit of the (fees) might seem, the authority still has to be found in the” law, he said.
Two Australian indie legends come to Ozmusicweed Australian Music site this week in the form of David Virgin from Sekret Sekret, and Dan Rumour from the Cruel Sea who have teamed up together for an album of new songs, which they are releasing in Weedshare format. These elder statesmen of the Australian underground music scene have been making music together since 1979 in various different bands, starting with seminal industrial noise band SPK. Read more and ownload tracks from their new album “Virgin & Rumour". Weedfiles from the Virgin & Rumour album can be downloaded from http://www.ozmusicweed.com
Virgin & Rumour are one of the increasing amount of artist’s releasing their music in the new Weedshare format.
Weedshare (as in the music “spreads like a weed”) is a relatively new digital music distribution model that pays people to share your music. Weedfiles are basically windows media files (so most people already have the software needed to play them) with a very clever form of digital rights management built in. You can download and listen to a Weedfile 3 times free before you have to pay for it, then if you buy it, the artist/label always get’s 50%, the last 3 people to pass the song around get 35% (split 20%,10%, 5% in order of who purchased song first) and SML, the Weed parent company get 15% for administering the system. So once you pay for a Weedfile, and pass it around to your friends, you get 20% of the sale price every time one of them pays for the song. It’s a natural thing to want to share music you like with people you like. Weedshare works on the principle that it’s better to reward people for doing the right thing, rather than punishing them for doing the wrong thing.
Apple had been unwilling to raise the cost of the single in line with other download services, said Band Aid. But the single is now on sale for 79p - the usual cost of a song from iTunes - with Apple donating a further 70p to the charity for each song downloaded. A copy of the original 1984 song is also available for download at 79p - with all proceeds going to the charity.
The song is hot favourite to be Christmas number one
More than 72,000 copies of the new Band Aid single were sold on its first day of release on Monday, according to sales figures.
The track has become the fastest-selling single of the year so far, shifting more copies than the rest of the top 30 combined, HMV claimed.
Dido, Robbie Williams and Chris Martin are among those featured on the new version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, which is raising money to fight hunger in Africa.
If the track sold 500,000 copies, more than £1m would be raised for charity.
The CD is being sold for £3.99, with HMV, Virgin and Woolworths all donating their profits.
Just like prescription drugs from our northern neighbor Canada, the downloads are cheaper too. The iTunes price is only $0.99 CDN (about $0.83 US) per download. I wonder if the FDA can stop the illegal import of MP3s into the US.
La Blogotheque offer an excellent selection of original french music in MP3 format. Yes, the french actually have other bands besides Daft Punk!
Wurld Media, a leading developer of proprietary e-commerce and file transport technologies, today announced it had signed agreements with three major record labels. SONY BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have agreed to provide access to their vast catalogs of music to be made available on Peer Impact (www.peerimpact.com), Wurld Media’s new peer-to- peer (P2P) digital file-sharing network. Peer Impact is currently concluding internal beta testing and is scheduled to launch publicly in the first quarter of 2005.
Peer Impact’s proprietary business model is designed to provide a clear, legal alternative for consumers to buy and share music, video and an assorted variety of digital content. At the same time, the service ensures that artists and rights holders receive their due compensation for each file shared on the network. Peer Impact is a revolutionary platform that harnesses peer-to- peer technology to create a low-cost infrastructure for distributing licensed content. Because Peer Impact will distribute only licensed and public domain content, it leverages the efficiencies of peer-to-peer distribution while respecting the work of artists and copyright holders.
“We’re excited and proud to gain the cooperation of leading record labels, and we look forward to concluding even more agreements in the coming weeks, but we are not stopping there,” said Greg Kerber, chairman and CEO of Wurld Media. “Peer Impact actually revolutionizes P2P in two ways: By minimizing distribution costs and by allowing legal file sharing within a closed network. Our goal is to populate Peer Impact with the greatest, and most diverse, collection of digital content anywhere.”
“The online media market is presently split between authorized legal paid- download services and unauthorized free services; the consumer is stuck somewhere in the middle, and that’s where Peer Impact comes in,” Kerber continued. “From the beginning our objective has been to reach out to the consumer and help build a secure and legal file-sharing community, created by – and for – the fan, but which also ensures that digital-rights owners get compensated. We look forward to realizing that objective with the coming launch of Peer Impact.”
Three of the Big Four music labels have reached licensing agreements to provide their music to the soon-to-launch Peer Impact network, a peer-to-peer service that enables legal music file-sharing.
Peer Impact is being developed by Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Wurld Media, which signed the pacts with Warner Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music Group.
A Wurld Media representative said Tuesday that the company is currently in talks with the remaining major label, EMI Group.
Peer Impact is currently conducting internal tests and plans to launch to the public in the first quarter of 2005.
Its proprietary business model is designed to provide a clear, legal alternative for consumers to buy and share music, video, and an assorted variety of digital content. The company said the service ensures that artists and rights holders receive their due compensation for each file shared on the network.
SigmaTel, Inc., the market leader for MP3 audio controller chips within portable MP3 players, announces an agreement with Oakley, Inc. to use SigmaTel D-Major MP3 controller technology exclusively for the world’s first MP3 player incorporated into performance eyewear, known as Oakley Thump.
Scheduled to be launched November 20th for the 2004 holiday season, Oakley Thump will be distributed under an exclusive distribution arrangement with Circuit City Stores, Inc. for the consumer electronics channel. Thump will also be offered by Oakley’s own O Stores, Iacon sunglass specialty stores, online at Oakley.com and through limited specialty retailers.
“SigmaTel was a great partner for our creation of the world’s first MP3 player integrated into eyewear. Oakley capitalized on SigmaTel’s small uBGA package, highly integrated chip design, low power consumption and USB 2.0 to create the most innovative MP3 player on the planet,” commented Carlos Reyes, Vice President Research and Development of Oakley, Inc.
SigmaTel is the world-wide market leader for MP3 controller chips to the MP3 player market and is known for its highly integrated solutions. Because of this integration, the SigmaTel D-Major solution is ideal for small, unique form factor designs like Oakley Thump, offering power-savings benefits, feature-rich functionality, high quality audio playback and a lower system design cost.
“Oakley’s globally recognized reputation as a product innovator and master of form-meets-function eyewear and consumer products is well known. The Oakley Thump line of MP3 audio-enabled sunglasses is another great example of this innovation,” says Ron Edgerton, president and CEO of SigmaTel. “SigmaTel’s own expertise with system-on-chip innovations for MP3 audio controllers enabled the Oakley design team to find very few limitations on how this new product would look and function.”
Vivendi Universal recently sold the MP3.com domain to c|net, and instead of selling its archive, containing more than a million songs by 250,000 artists, the company will simply delete the content. Mike Robertson, founder and former CEO of MP3.com is currently pleading with Vivendi and CNET to allow archive.org to mirror the contents. Since many of these artists won’t be able to come up with alternate hosting in that timeframe, and many of them won’t even know it’s happening, what Robertson calls “the largest collection of digital works ever assembled” will cease to exist.
UNAUTHORIZED COPYING OF SONGS FLOURISHING
On his way to MusicNet headquarters in New York, Alan McGlade, chief executive of one of the record labels’ newest online ventures, passes a humbling sight: the largest McDonald’s restaurant in the world.
This single restaurant served more paying customers during the past year than all the online subscription music services combined. “I’ll run downstairs to Times Square and ask people if they’ve ever heard of these companies,'’ McGlade said from his desk. “It’ll be a waste of time because, of course, none of them have.'’
In the 12 months since MusicNet and the other subscription music services were launched to counter the file-swapping frenzy that Napster ignited, none has managed to attract more than 100,000 paying subscribers, label sources and analysts say.Meanwhile, unauthorized music and movie swapping continues to flourish. Despite the recording industry’s best legal and technological efforts, the free file-swapping service Kazaa remains the most popular music destination on the Internet in the wake of Napster’s collapse, attracting nearly 13.7 million visitors a month from the United States alone.
And as testament to the allure of getting something for nothing, Kazaa’s audience is growing 324 percent annually, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, an audience measurement firm in Milpitas.
The fundamental problem for the paid subscription services: a lack of music selection, caused by big-name artists and niche labels refusing to license their songs and actions by some big labels to reserve popular content for their own online ventures.
Executives for the label-backed music services say they are finally ready to prove that the “Evian theory'’ can work for music just as it did for the bottled water industry: Consumers can be coaxed to buy something they can readily get for free if the marketing is right, it’s convenient and portable.
“We’re entering a new era,'’ said Matt Kleinschmit, senior research manager for Ipsos-Reid, a research firm in Minneapolis. “The first eight months of these services were kind of preseason. Now, they’re giving consumers more of what they want.'’
To be sure, the pay services have evolved since they began. Listen.com’s streaming music service Rhapsody allows subscribers to burn favorite tracks to CD. And Pressplay ditched its earlier count-the-downloads turnstile mentality this summer, allowing its subscribers to freely stream and download as many songs as they want, buy individual tracks and burn their music to a CD or download to a portable player.
Services bedeviled by gaps
“Since we launched version 2 in August, we have more than doubled our user base,'’ said Michael Bebel, Pressplay’s president and chief executive officer. “At the same time, we’ve grown in usage. These two factors combined signal to us that we have a real product that people are interested in.'’
MusicNet, the other label-backed venture, said its distribution partners, America Online and RealNetworks’ RealOne Music, will offer something similar early next year.
But the subscription services remain bedeviled by gaps in the one thing that matters most – the music. A recent check of Rhapsody and MusicNet’s service through RealNetworks RealOne Music revealed that neither service offers all top 10 of the most popular songs in the country, as tracked by Billboard Magazine. The best of the lot, Pressplay, offered only four of the biggest hits. The worst, MusicNet, offered only two.
Sometimes it’s an artist issue. Some artists, such as No Doubt, Avril Lavigne, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, refuse to have their work online.
In other cases, deals have yet to be struck with certain independent labels, such as Clive Davis’ J Records or Madonna’s Maverick, which deprive the services of sought-after acts like Alicia Keys or Michelle Branch.
Sometimes it’s a publishing issue, where singer-songwriters like Billy Joel own the rights to their own compositions but just haven’t sold the rights to online services.
Will they ever catch on?
And sometimes labels favor their own affiliated services. Sony Music Entertainment, for example, offers Jennifer Lopez’s Top 10 single “Jenny from the Block,'’ only on its Pressplay service.
“With services like ours, we’re working so hard to get basic content,'’ said Listen.com’s chief executive, Sean Ryan. “And with the fringe cases – it just takes more time and effort for the industry to evolve to get this to happen.'’
The more daunting question is whether paid services will ever catch on with consumers. The most successful industry-supported sites, America Online’s AOL Music and Yahoo’s Launch, are free. Launch, which attracts 7.9 million people a month, uses advertising to subsidize its free radio, music videos and artist spotlights.
AOL Music – which garners the largest audience of the legitimate online offerings, with 10.8 million listeners a month – embraces the cable model, bundling the cost of its programming into the customer’s monthly bill.
Indeed, the subscription services may never amount to anything but a niche business.
What could save the nascent industry – at least in the estimation of researchers such as Forrester and Ipsos-Reid – will be individual music downloads.
The ability to buy tracks or entire albums on impulse online – through Amazon.com, Borders or Virgin – will both revitalize the moribund (and traditionally money-losing) singles business, and generate an estimated $2.1 billion by 2007, researchers estimate.
For now, all-inclusive subscription services have an uphill fight.
Legislation meant to thwart unauthorized downloading on certain peer-to-peer networks will still allow major media companies to offer file-trading through their own systems.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-California) introduced his much anticipated peer-to-peer legislation in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
The proposal would give copyright owners, from Hollywood studios down to independent musicians, the legal go-ahead to employ a variety of technological measures that would stop computers hooked up to decentralized networks from trading. That would be bad news for users of Gnutella and Kazaa. In the interim, it would allow companies like Overpeer, which floods decentralized networks with bogus files, to flourish. In the long run, it also would make any system that doesn’t have a central location – and most open-source networks don’t have a central location – vulnerable to attack.
Individuals affected by copyright owners’ attacks would feel the effects of the legislation immediately, as their systems could be assaulted with no notice.
If the attack was somehow a case of mistaken identity, recourse would be difficult. Individuals would have to petition the Attorney General for a private investigation. After the initial request, the agency would have four months to look into the matter.
The unprecedented breadth of technology the copyright industry could use was welcome news to those in the music industry who have battled peer-to-peer networks since 1999.
“The current landscape for online music is dangerously one-sided, with the peer-to-peer pirates enjoying an unfair advantage,” said Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. “It makes sense to clarify existing laws to ensure that copyright owners – those who actually take the time and effort to create an artistic work – are at least able to defend their works from mass piracy.”
The five major record labels have struggled to launch their online music subscription services – MusicNet and Pressplay – over the last year, blaming the availability of networks that allow people to download music for free.
Along with making it open season on individual users, open-source programs and decentralized networks, the bill also gives a free pass to chat applications run by the very media companies that would most benefit from open-source networks being shuttered.
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger – which each have specific file-trading options built into their systems that enable millions of users to trade their share without fear of electronic attack – will continue to flourish. The recording industry and movie studios have largely ignored those three chat applications, which have financial ties to the major record studios and movie studios, in their litigation and anti-piracy activities.
“What this bill has said is that what is good enough for the Internet isn’t good enough for AOL,” said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF is providing legal support to StreamCast Networks, the company that distributed the Morpheus file-trading software, in its legal battle with the Recording Industry Association of America. “This is hands-off for AOL’s network. It’s not a coincidence that AOL is a division of Time Warner.”
America Online, which distributes AIM, is a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner. Yahoo signed a licensing agreement with the recording industry, giving it permission to create audio webcasts of popular music. Microsoft has developed a rights-management technology that several studios and record labels use to protect their products.
Not every messenger company escaped the legal wrath of the copyright industry. Aimster, which allowed AIM users to share files before the ISP created its own file-trading chat application, lost its domain name and teeters on financial ruin after facing a series of infringement lawsuits.
The spotty nature of litigation and selective targeting of companies has even supporters wary.
The Association for Competitive Technology, a trade organization representing information technology companies, including Microsoft, praised the spirit of the bill but offered tempered support for its specifics. It will continue to support the bill as long as it protects instant messaging products, ACT president Jonathan Zuck said in a letter to Berman.
Despite the popularity of file-trading applications, instant messenger programs may actually pose a bigger threat to record companies and movie studios concerned about curtailing downloading. At its height, the Napster network handled just under three billions files a month, where AIM has one billion files a day zipping across its system.
In his now infamous speech last March, Michael Green, the head of the Grammy organization, denounced file-trading as a threat to the music industry. He then announced that three students had downloaded over 6,000 files in three days at the behest of the National Academy of Recording Artists (NARAS).
It appeared to be a dramatic moment, until The New York Times reported that two of the three students hadn’t used file-trading applications like Gnutella and Kazaa. Instead, they used AIM to download their music.
File-trading networks have little recourse with this legislation, as most have few resources in Washington, D.C. Like Napster before it, the companies must appeal to users, hoping to shroud themselves in a blanket of swappers who’ll flood the halls of Congress with e-mails and letters demanding the government keep its hands off their computers.
While Napster unsuccessfully battled the record labels through federal district and appeals court, the company set up a website that allowed its users to communicate with their representatives. Today, Sharman Networks put out a similar call.
“We urge all users and supporters of technology innovation to contact Congress and voice strong opposition to this entertainment industry effort to gain exemption from the law and take malicious action against consumer’s privacy and other rights,” said Sharman Networks, the company that distributes the Kazaa file-trading application, which can be attacked under the Berman bill.
Folk singer David Grossman’s lifestyle and the term ‘’rock star'’ aren’t typically uttered in the same sentence.
Though the 36-year-old musician from Arizona plays hundreds of gigs a year, most are in small bars and coffee shops.
So it’s no surprise that on the question of free music downloads, Grossman differs radically from the Metallicas and Dr. Dres of the world, who have fought it in and out of court as sales-damaging copyright infringement.Grossman is one of thousands of musicians cheering the return of Garageband.com, a website that showcases songs of up-and-coming and going-nowhere acts through free downloads and streaming, peer reviews and rankings.
The site, launched in 1999 with industry heavyweights like Beatles producer George Martin and Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison as consultants, went offline in February after failing to meet operating expenses.
Tom Zito, a former Washington Post music critic who helped found Garageband Records, hoped to resurrect the site with a distribution deal to put Garageband albums in stores, but that never materialized.
Finally, some of the site’s users and employees scraped together enough money to bring it back online.
WELCOME NEWS
The site’s return last month is welcome news to Grossman and the tens of thousands of his peers whose music can be found on it. Besides providing information about how to buy his CDs, it helps Grossman land gigs by bringing his music to the attention of club owners and party planners who prowl the Net looking for local entertainers.
‘’The people who are complaining about [free downloads], they’re backward,'’ Grossman said. ‘They would see the wheel as a threat, and say, `What’s going to happen to sandal companies when the wheel comes out?’ ‘’
Though sites like Garageband are popular with indie musicians, turning a profit from obscure music has proven elusive.
The Internet Underground Music Archive was nearly derailed last year before the online music company Vitaminic acquired it.
IUMA.com ‘’was sort of on the verge of breaking even'’ when cutbacks from EMusic forced it to turn away new acts in February 2001, said IUMA founder Jeff Patterson.
Part of the problem is that Web surfers eager to hear unknown acts don’t necessarily buy their CDs.
CD Baby, a small company in Portland, Ore., which sells discs only on the Internet, handles record sales for both IUMA and Garageband.com. And though CD Baby bills itself as the second-largest online seller of independent music after Amazon.com, its success has been modest.
The company’s revenue has increased consistently, from $100,000 in 1999 to $1.4 million in 2001, according to vice president John Steup. It has turned a profit since 1997 when founder Derek Sivers would bike to the post office with a backpack full of discs.
CD Baby lets the artists set the price for their records, including those sold through Garageband. Typically, the bands sell discs for $10 to $12. CD Baby keeps $4 per CD sold, and the band keeps the rest. The artists are free to sell their discs anywhere else they want.
CD Baby says that in a record deal with a major label, musicians may only make $1 to $2 per disc.
NEW AVENUES
Clearly, record sales alone won’t keep operations like Garageband and IUMA afloat, so the sites are searching for new ways to make money. Much of IUMA’s revenue came from concerts featuring the site’s most popular acts, said Patterson, adding that IUMA is also considering charging users to download songs but would leave the decision to the individual bands.
Garageband plans to continue permitting free uploads and downloads, but also is planning for-pay services for musicians, said Patrick Koppula, spokesman for the company’s new owners.
Analysts were once optimistic about sites like Garageband, but after the dot-co
