Wednesday, June 13, 2007

snapshot 6/13/07

iTunes presses button on London music fest
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/music/news/e3ie602df63c27b9ff804d883c483dff1fc
LONDON -- iTunes is entering the live music business. Apple Computer's market-leading digital music store said today it is throwing its considerable clout behind the free iTunes Festival concept, which will take place in London throughout July.

Tickets will be distributed through competitions on the official iTunes Festival Web site. Throughout the 31-day program, organizers will update the site through a mixture of photographs, festival blogs, videos, podcasts and artist interviews. Each concert will be taped and made available for purchase on iTunes.

PassAlong Networks to Feature EMI Music's DRM-Free, Higher-Quality Catalog in MP3 Format
http://new.marketwire.com/2.0/rel.jsp?id=741700&sourceType=1
PassAlong Networks™, developer of digital media innovations and services, today announced that the network of online music stores powered by its StoreBlocks technology will feature EMI Music's entire digital catalog in EMI's premium download offering that is free of digital rights management (DRM) technology and available in a higher-quality bit rate. Music purchased from StoreBlocks stores, including Trans World Entertainment's (NASDAQ: TWMC) f.y.e. -- for your entertainment -- online music store will play on all digital music players, including iPods, mobile phones and home stereo systems.

But just as iTunes adds consumer info to every download purchase PassAlong adds its own FreedomMp3 protection to each purchase. FreedomMP3 which promises to honor "both creator and consumer rights by allowing the use of any file format and providing a secure environment on all devices" was enhanced by a new deal this week with content protection provider Phoenix Technologies.


Recorded Music: Can It Be Packaged & Sold?
http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/061207sold/view
As the recorded music industry faces a difficult sales slide, bleak questions continue to surround the long-term fate of the sector. Major labels, among others, are struggling against a continuing tide of free content, and an increasingly facile digital music consumer. During a Tuesday morning roundtable at Digital Hollywood in Santa Monica, a central theme was the saleability of recorded music over the next few years. Ken Hertz, an entertainment attorney and senior partner at Goldring, Hertz, & Lichtenstein, LLP, pointed to the "impossibility of the packaged product," while others identified shifting budget priorities among the younger demographic. "They're now saving their money to buy a Playstation," remarked David Thompson, content acquisition manager for music and video at Sony Ericsson, referencing increased demand for big-ticket consumer electronics items.


Apple bringing iTunes to Bebo?
http://ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-bringing-itunes-to-bebo/
Apple is ready to announce a deal to embed a version of the iTunes Store into the Bebo social networking site, according to a Financial Times report. The report claims that beginning today, the service’s 8.8 million users in the UK and Ireland will be able to buy music from the profile of any musician who has both a Bebo profile and music on iTunes. Bebo has 500,000 musicians registered on the site, a number that includes both established acts and unknown bands. The deal would mark the first time Apple has offered an embedded version of iTunes on a social networking site.


New Linkin Park CD Has Hidden Copy-Protection
http://www.rockstarfamily.com/blog/len/?p=192
Ibuy most of my music on iTunes, because the albums are only $9.99. When the new Linkin Park “Minutes To Midnight” CD came out, I went to iTunes and to my surprise, the album cost was $11.99. No extra tracks, no videos, nothing extra. So I decided to buy the physical CD instead.

I bought the CD for $16.99, and when I went to pop it into my Macbook Pro, the CD never showed up in iTunes. And it never displayed in the Finder. I thought maybe my mac goofed, so I ejected it and inserted it again. No dice. So I popped it in my work PC, and it opened Windows Media Player and allowed the CD to play, but, when I tried to view the CD’s contents in Windows Explorer, it showed the tracks as 1kb files, which is obviously wrong. The true files are hidden. They secretly employed some type of copy protection to prevent my fair use. I have the right to copy or listen to my music on my computer.

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