Amnesia, a small Australian dot-com, claims to have found the solution to the problem of selling music online in a way that satisfies both consumers and record labels, and has received backing from Telstra to bring it to market
Major record companies have instigated a legal battle with Australian universities over students’ alleged use of university networks to engage in illegal file swapping. But while the major music companies may fret over falling revenue, one label saw its business jump 33 percent last year — thanks in part to the recordable compact discs that the industry says are hurting its sales. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is using CD-Rs, to ensure that each release in its extensive catalogue is always available
Two weeks ago it was revealed that Microsoft’s MSN portal targeted Opera users, by purposely providing them with a broken page. As a reply to MSN’s treatment of its users, Opera Software has released a very special Bork edition of its Opera 7 for Windows browser. The Bork edition behaves differently on one Web site: MSN. Users accessing the MSN site will see the page transformed into the language of the famous Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: Bork, Bork, Bork — via Slashdot
Bring On The Junk! Junkyard Wars is looking for new contestants to compete on the 2003 series. Teams of contestants are given ten hours to build a machine to solve a specific challenge using parts they salvage from a junkyard
Only a couple of weeks after its networks became infected with the ExploreZip virus, the BBC has managed to mail a copy of the Sobig worm to fans of the long-running Radio 4 show, The Archers
Gibson is planning to roll out their Magic this year with the delivery of guitars using Cat 5 instead of analogue cables to connect instruments and amplifiers. The debate over the quality of digital vs analogue signal processing is not new, but using a Magic
Les Paul would force you entirely into the digital domain
If you’ve ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped copyrighted files, you’re what prosecutors like to think of as an unindicted federal felon
The Australian Consumers Association claim that a levy on the sale of blank CDs and DVDs may benefit buyers if it locks in a right to copy for personal use
Technology groups are going on the offensive against Hollywood in a bitter dispute over a call for government-mandated copy protection
Imagine the human genome as music. Unravel DNA’s double helix, picture its components lined up like piano keys, and assign a note to each. Run your finger along the keys. Spanish scientists did that just for fun and recorded what they call an audio version of the blueprint for life
William Gibson, whose new book Pattern Recognition is due out soon, has a weblog online
Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, an outspoken advocate of the free publication and copying of digital works, is putting his money where his mouth is. He’s giving away his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, to anyone who wants it
A Norwegian court has acquitted a teenager accused by US entertainment groups of creating tools for hackers. The court acquitted Jon Johansen on all charges and said he did not break the law when he created a system that could remove copy protection on DVDs
The web site of the Recording Industry Association of America, one of the most unpopular lobby groups on the Internet, was defaced last week for the fifth time in a year
Star Wars Origami features about a dozen pieces of Star Wars vehicles and characters complete with diagrams on how to make them yourself
Mexico’s equivalent of the RIAA used federal police to raid Grupo Mekong, responsible for half of the 400 million virgin CDs imported each year, accusing them of being in league with the Piracy business in Mexico. The rationale being that record companies buy only 20% of Mekong merchandise, so the other 80% must be going to pirates, disregarding computer users, independent labels or other legal uses — via Slashdot
Joe Strummer, former singer, guitarist and songwriter for legendary punk rockers The Clash, died Sunday at his home in Somerset, England of an apparent heart attack; he was fifty
A poll of BBC World Service listeners attracted 150,000 votes from 153 countries and revealed the diversity of the world’s musical tastes, after A Nation Once Again
, an Irish republican rallying cry, was named the world’s favourite song. Australians and New Zealanders voted for both Crowded House’s Don’t Dream it’s Over
and Highway to Hell
by AC/DC. Disturbingly enough, the United States went for Girl from Ipanema
Music and film producers have been slammed as rip-off merchants in a scathing industry review by Forrester Research chairman and chief executive George Colony. And according to Gartner analyst Daniel McHugh, attempts to block copying of music CDs will spark an arms race between record labels and hackers
The sequel to legendary anime movie Ghost In The Shell, Innocence: Ghost In The Shell, has been announced. Due out in spring of 2004 in Japan, with Mamoru Oshii onboard writing the screenplay and directing — via Slashdot
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