Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Arista Records and Capitol Records, sue AllofMp3.com for 1.65 Trillion (USD). They estimate that AllofMp3.com has 11 million copyright infringement violations. With a $150,000.00 price tag per violation, they are suing for more money than Bill Gates can shake a Zune at. Full story here.
On Wednesday, the super-popular music store AllofMP3 announced the launch of its “Music for Masses” program. According to it, AllofMP3 users who download the “Music of Masses” program can pick all the songs they wish from the huge AllofMP3 catalog, and listen to them for free. Some restrctions apply:
they can only listen to them through [...]
Amie Street provides a new model for selling DRM-free music: among several novel ideas, the most innovative one has all songs starting from the very tempting price of 0c (as in: FREE) and going upwards according to their popularity (max. price that can be reached is $0.98).
From the TechCrunch writeup: “Songs uploaded by artists fluctuate [...]
The 2nd largest music e-tailer in the US (11% vs the iTMS’ 88%) is making its debut in the European continent. eMusic, which sells independent label music in the plain ol’ DRM-free MP3 format, is selling three types of monthly subscriptions:
eMusic Basic: 40 song downloads per month / €12.99 per month / £8.99 per month
eMusic [...]
Whoever made this, “mad propz” as they say. FairUse4WM is a tool that strips WindowsMedia DRM 10 and 11 (not DRM 9)—it surfaced first on Engadget. This is the kind of protection that the tracks you listen through subscription services (Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster, etc.) come with. The app looks easy to use and [...]
First, a short introduction and a necessary reference to Hymn—Hymn is an app that strips the DRM (Apple calls it FairPlay) of the tracks you bought from the iTMS—only drawback? You need iTunes 5 for it work.
iTunes 6 users can now have a look at Igor Skochinsky’s QTFairUse6 [via]—a tool that’s supposed to do the [...]
Warner to experiment with ‘DVD album’ discs: these will feature:
stereo and surround mixes of the album
extras: ringtones, remixes, photos and video footage
pre-ripped digital music files. Warner is currently in talk with Apple to make those rips, so that they’re iPod-compatible and DRM’d (with FairPlay).
A handful of titles are expected in October, a “full-blown launch” next [...]
Nicely worded rant on the DRM’d tracks you buy from online music stores: “So, there you have it, you’re paying for photocopies (and crummy one at that), you don’t own said photocopies, and you can only view it on the special copy viewer. Sounds like a good deal to me, where the heck do [...]
[Yes, this is a picture of Jessica Simpson. What’s worse is that in the post that follows, I may try to convince you to shell out two bucks for a track of hers.]
Y! Music is offering a DRM-free MP3 for sale. DRM-free. Yes, I know Allofmp3 and eMusic have been doing this for ages, but [...]
Why can’t digital music be sold in a mixable format?: “What I want is a file format that carries each track—unmixed. Then I want a ‘mix’ file, say in XML, that contains the artist’s preferred mix of the tracks. But then I want to be able to tweak it and mix my own version.”
Trent Reznor [...]