Search Results for: System of a Down

Classic-rock fan George Petersen doesn’t need another copy of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” or Cream’s “Disraeli Gears.” He has spent the past four decades buying and re-buying his favorite music in a succession of new formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassette, compact disc, Super Audio CD, DVD-Audio. Enough is enough. The basement is full. “We as consumers have been trained by the music industry to go out and buy a new piece of plastic every few years,” said the 51-year-old Petersen, editorial director of Mix, a San Francisco-based magazine that covers professional sound recording. “Why do we keep buying… Read more »

Hoboken, N.J. – The brooding kid hailed as rock’s next musical genius slouches next to the bar at a tiny, smoky club. No one notices. Not even this crowd of indie music fans recognizes Conor Oberst, the 24-year-old sensation behind Bright Eyes who’s been pegged as this generation’s Bob Dylan, putting words and melody behind those tormented emotions the rest of us struggle to describe. He pops up on stage to join his friends, Yo La Tengo, for their encore. Then he slides back into the crowd, just another skinny guy in jeans and a black hoodie. But the days… Read more »

Musicians and record companies have spent years in court trying to quash free music file sharing, which they claim has hurt sales and infringed on their copyrights. In the race to shut down free P2P sharing systems, however, 54 top recording acts and their labels are running out of road. According to Billboard.com, The Recording Artists Coalition (RAC), along with The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and other music groups, have signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn an opinion by the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that unauthorized P2P systems, like Kazaa and Morpheus, are… Read more »

Today at noon, the popular modern rock station WHFS 99.1, founded in the 1960s and owned by Infinity Broadcasting, was reformatted to become “El Zol.” The new station features salsa, merengue, bacchata, Caribbean and Central American dance music in a Spanish-language format. “This is the first top 10 market that we’ve done this in,” said Karen Mateo, director of communications at Infinity. “We’re looking to expand into this marketplace and this is the first station that we’ve done this with.” El Zol is targeted at the growing population of Spanish-speaking residents in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, almost 10 percent… Read more »

In a bold move to pave the way for more widespread licensing of music publishing rights, EMI Music Publishing and Sony BMG Music Entertainment have entered an umbrella agreement that sets working guidelines for clearing rights to new digital music delivery opportunities on phones, PCs, digital cable systems and emerging physical configurations. The pact, announced Dec. 17, pairs the world’s top publishing house and the second-largest record company globally, promises to drive the clearance of thousands of copyrighted works for new distribution formats. The deal covers North American rights for master ringtones and ringbacks; DualDisc, the new two-sided music format… Read more »

New York – The year began with the Super Bowl halftime show fiasco and ended with aftershocks from Howard Stern flipping his detractors the bird and taunting the Federal Communications Commission with a just-try-and-get-me-now move to satellite radio. Between those two seismic events, the FCC levied a record number of indecency fines, responding to an avalanche of complaints carefully orchestrated by conservative zealots and election year political pressure. The results from the government crackdown were widespread. Top-rated personalities were fired. Zero-tolerance edicts were issued. On-air delays and indecency tutorials became commonplace. Warhorses like Pink Floyd’s “Money,” Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”… Read more »

Los Angeles – Shawn Fanning, once reviled by record labels as the creator of renegade song-swap service Napster, on Thursday launched a new service designed to turn the threat of still popular peer-to-peer services into an opportunity for music companies and artists. The original Napster was eventually shut down in 2001 by copyright litigation and then sold to Roxio Inc, which re-launched it as a paid online service. But despite the proliferation of commercial services like the new Napster, RealNetworks Inc’s Rhapsody and even Apple Computer Inc’s iTunes, Fanning said unauthorized file-sharing was as rampant as ever. In launching the… Read more »

The French Competition Council has dismissed the case brought by Virgin’s French arm, Virginmega.fr, against Apple for alleged abuse of market dominance. The French download site wanted to force Cupertino to lift the lid on its DRM, to enable Virgin to make its downloads compatible with the iPod. Apple has always refused to open up its proprietary Fairplay – the system DRM that allows songs from the iTunes store to only be played on iPods – to competitors. Virginmega.fr, on the other hand, has opted for Microsoft’s DRM – which means its downloads can’t be played on iPods at all.… Read more »

New York – RealNetworks, XM Satellite Radio, NCSoft and TiVo were among the big winners at the first annual Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards. The awards were held on November 5th at UCLA Covel Commons at Sunset Village in Los Angeles, California. XM Satellite Radio was presented the award for Best Radio Service, given to the best digital, Internet, satellite or other format in radio with respect to variety, innovation and user experience. XM’s president and CEO Hugh Panero, was honored with the Innovator of the Year award for his profound impact and leadership in the satellite radio medium. RealNetworks’ Rhapsody… Read more »

San Francisco – America’s students are back to school, but it seems they have yet to learn their lesson about file sharing. Despite the efforts of digital music services, record company litigation, “spoofing” technology and legitimate offerings at various universities, illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks has risen since college students returned to their high-speed Internet connections this fall. According to Los Angeles-based P2P market research firm BigChampagne, the back-to-school months coincided with the typical spike of usage on file-swapping networks, with average simultaneous peak users totaling 5.7 million in the United States in October, edging up from 5.4 million… Read more »