Category: Digital Music
(Only!) Half the music stored on MP3 players is stolen
According to a survey from British Music Rights, only half of the music on the iPods/Zens/Sansas of the nation’s 14-24 year-olds had actually been paid for legitimately.
The average musical youth has 1770 tracks stored on their MP3 player of choice, but half of that lot’s been nicked off the internet or, more likely, copied from the hard drive…
Qtrax redeems itself with a June 18th relaunch date for Universal and EMI downloads
After the initial controversy surrounding Qtrax, they’ve managed to improve upon their image and actually become a fairly legitimate download service. Having signed up their second major record label, they’ve now announced that June 18th will be the relaunch date for the beta version of the service.
Currently you’d be hard pressed to actually find a song that’s worth downloading on Qtrax – if you can find any that actually will download – however in just five days songs from Universal Music Group and EMI will be available to download, although it’s still unclear whether EMI songs…
Ministry of Sound still going – launching Ibiza-themed blog, social network and live music portal
Although dance music has turned from something good into a series of abysmal high-pitched reworkings of old songs sung by horrendous blonde slappers, nightclub “lifestyle” chain Ministry of Sound is still going. We really thought it had closed in about 1998.
But not only is MoS still going, it’s expanding – opening up a new web presence based entirely around the goings on and party scene of Ibiza. It is, of course, a social network, offering live TV presented by attractive ladies, blogging…
BPI and VIrgin Media to send informative anti-piracy letters to customers who download illegally
Virgin Media’s collaboration with the BPI to crack down on the illegal download and sharing of music has moved forward a few steps.
Both organisations have created stock letters designed to inform and educate Virgin Media customers about the legal implications of stealing music off the web…
SanDisk buys MusicGremlin for Wi-Fi sharing bonus in the MP3 player wars
MP3 player maker SanDisk has acquired the much overlooked MusicGremlin wireless PMP…
Weak bloggers cave in to Metallica's new album non-review demands
This story’s a bit of a mess. We know some UK bloggers were invited to listen to an “unmixed” demo of the new Metallica album and weren’t required to sign any non-disclosure agreements or stick to an embargo regarding what they heard.
Which meant they could all, quite legally, tell the world all about it on their blogs.
So sites like The Quietus ran with reviews (cached version here) – only to get told to take them down shortly afterwards. This has, predictably enough, turned into a mammoth Metallica HATE-FEST with everyone blaming the put-upon band for trying to break the internet again…
Last.fm previews new Sigur Rós album ahead of release
A web 2.0 ‘try before you buy’ if you like with Last.fm offering the entire Sigur Ros album for free for the two weeks prior to release…
MusicStation becomes largest UK unlimited music service
What, you didn’t catch the headline? Ok, well, the mobile phone unlimited music download service from Omnifone, known as MusicStation, is now bigger than Napster or any other as far as UK subscribers go…
Police officer investigating Pirate Bay was on Warner Bros. payroll
Gather round me hearties as I tell ye a tale of the thickening plot of the Pirate Bay court case in the far off land of Sweden. It seems the prime witness for the prosecution be tarnished. Gyaaaaargh! Tarnished, I tell ye!
It turns out that investigating police officer Jim Keyzer was in fact in the very employment of one the plaintiffs, Warner Bros., while still working for the coppers…
Wholly unimportant world first – band streams live show through Facebook
Brilliant news. We doubt anyone noticed, but brilliant news all the same.
The no-doubt popular-on-the-internet band RedBoxBlue has made the claim, reckoning that its series of streaming video performances currently being shown on Facebook are indeed a world first.
It’s not 100% live, though – they’re only beaming taped…
