Science and Technology

We have discussed the “appropriate” pricing for music in the form of CDs, downloads, streaming, etc., with some frequency here. Amy Harmon gives some good background and perspective on the issue in the NY Times: Since the introduction of vinyl records after World War II, recorded music has assumed many …

Well, at least one of yesterday’s absurdities has been mitigated. SunnComm now says it won’t sue John “Alex” Halderman for publishing the “shift key” hole in their CD copy-protection system: SunnComm Technologies, Inc. announced yesterday morning it would sue first-year graduate student John Halderman over his recent critique of the …

Thanks to our most excellent pal Brad Hill for this review of the new Napster – visit his Digital Songstream site often!: Review: Napster 2.0 by Brad Hill The beta launch of Napster 2.0, an upgrade of Pressplay 2.0 by parent company Roxio, occurred on October 9, 2003. Napster 2.0 …

Current and potential webcasters, take note of this: SUMMARY: The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is requesting public comment on the adoption of regulations for records of use of sound recordings performed pursuant to the statutory license for public performances of sound recordings by means of digital audio …

Is it the moon, something in the water, the Cubs and Red Sox both getting out of the first round of the playoffs? First the Tommy Chong sentence, now this. We told you a couple of days ago about the Halderman report on the flaws in SunnComm’s “secure digital” format. …

This guy is GOOD. You want to learn how to beatbox? You just want to be amazed? No need for a drum machine with Max around.

Our good pal and ex-Clevelander Scott Andrew LePera of Scott Andrew and the Walkingbirds, a former Radio Free Blogcritics artist has a very cool new CD and an interesting concept: Fresh from the oven: Where I’ve Been. This will be the record I’ll be pushing at my live shows from …

This is just crazy and thought-provoking at the same time: Scott Matthews of Andromeda fame has come up with a program called Baudio that can convert any kind of digital file into an audio file. Think about that for a minute: What it does Baudio converts any type of computer …

On September 23 we mentioned that Arista released an album by singer Anthony Hamilton in a new “secure digital” format. Here now is an analysis of the technique by computer scientist John Halderman of Princeton: Abstract – MediaMax CD3 is a new copy-prevention technique from SunnComm Technologies that is designed …

Interesting look at the morality of file sharing in the NY Times: IMAGINE that you sell newspapers on the honor system. You put some papers out on a table, along with a can for the money. It would surprise hardly anyone if, at the end of the day, more papers …