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07 Apr 2010 10:06

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Music, Tech: Do your legal MP3s have “secret” DRM? Some stores play dirty

  • Apple, Lala and Wal-Mart are culprits. Does the record industry have sights on putting the cat back n the bag? Despite the lack of digital rights management in nearly all of the online music stores, some embed your name in the file, something which could lead to backdoor digital rights management down the line – especially if cloud-based services like Lala (which we otherwise love) take off. Will the labels ever learn? And why are Apple, Wal-Mart and Lala enablers? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Jul 2009 12:36

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Biz, Tech: Has the RIAA finally come around to seeing DRM as bad?

  • All DRM has ever done is annoy consumers who actually paid for their music. No single piece of DRM has ever stopped anyone from pirating music, it’s quite the opposite as the music industry now realizes.
  • TorrentFreak’s Ernesto • Discussing the demise of the Recording Industry Association of America’s reliance on digital rights management to protect its content. In recent months, the music industry group has abandoned the approach: In an upcoming issue of SCMagazine, chief spokesperson Jonathan Lamy says, “DRM is dead, isn’t it?” That sounds pretty definitive to us. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jun 2009 22:39

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Tech: Eventually, Amazon’s Kindle runs into a hard, solid wall of DRM

  • A poor blogger found out the hard way. Dan Cohen of GearDiary found out the other day that some books he downloaded for his Kindle/iPhone had a limit to how many times they could be downloaded and on how many times they could be shared. Worse, it seemed this number was arbitrary and was, until now, not communicated to customers. After talking to a number of Amazon customer service reps, he confirmed it was set by publishers, though it was very confusing to get to that point. Granted, Cohen posts on a site that checks out tons of devices, so it’s possible that his case is extraordinary, but why is it even there in the first place? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Mar 2009 12:41

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Tech: Electronic Arts learns from its DRM mistakes of “Spore” past

  • The Sims 3? No DRM. Just a serial code. Back in the dark ages of last year, this hotly anticipated game called “Spore” came out. Somehow, it managed to get completely overshadowed by its digital rights management scheme, which was particularly invasive and seemed to take ownership away from fans. Well, Electronic Arts has apparently learned its lesson; “The Sims 3,” out later this year, will not use any DRM at all beyond a serial code. Someone got burned. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Mar 2009 09:45

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Tech: Yo Apple: The proprietary iPod Shuffle headphones? They suck.

See that little chip? It’s necessary to to control the new device. Which means your old headphones won’t work at all. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

09 Feb 2009 10:45

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Tech: Back to piracy: University-minded tunesmith Ruckus shuts down

  • What their deal was Ruckus was a product of a much simpler time, when the RIAA was suing college students left and right, and the music industry needed to provide an alternative to Limewire. Ruckus, with its Windows-only software and DRM-heavy music collection, was the answer to a question few wanted answered.
  • The end of Ruckus Ruckus was acquired last year by TotalMusic, a music-industry-owned company that attempted to be the driving force behind the failed Facebook Music initiative. TotalMusic is kind of not doing so hot, though they just launched a streaming music site. As for Ruckus, it shut down without warning on Friday night.
  • What about my tunes?Did you download some DRM-addled tunes from Ruckus? Well, you’re in luck. You can continue to listen to your music until it phones back home to the DRM server, which died along with Ruckus. That should happen in the next couple of weeks. Aren’t you glad that digital rights management exists? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jan 2009 10:20

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Music, Tech: Throw out everything you knew about iTunes

  • The changes afoot Apple, who despite their stranglehold on the digital music market has faced strong competition in the last year from the Amazon MP3 store, plans to stop selling music with digital rights management. Users will also be able to purchase songs using their iPhones over 3G data networks.
  • A changing price structure The most noticeable change to consumers will be the cost of a single song – Apple has long resisted moving from a price structure of 99 cents a song, but finally relented and will start selling music at two other price points – 69 cents and $1.29.
  • Other MacWorld highlightsPhil Schiller, who took the place of Steve Jobs at the company’s final MacWorld keynote, also revealed new versions of iWork and iLife and a 17-inch MacBook Pro to match the rest of their laptop line. All in all, kind of boring. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 
 
 
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