Search Results for: AVOID

If you’ve noticed that it’s getting increasingly hard to find just about anything on Napster lately, the file-sharing service has an explanation: it’s called “overblocking.” Napster has been incrementally improving its filtering process since March, when a judge ordered it to remove copyrighted songs cited by labels, artists and publishers. But the service’s most recent improvements seem to be blocking large chunks of the English language, taking down indie-label music, concert recordings and other material that no one has asked to be removed. In a statement posted Thursday on Napster’s Web site, the company blamed the problem on its efforts… Read more »

The academic cracker crew led by Princeton University Computer Science Professor Edward Felten, which answered the HackSDMI public challenge of last September with ‘unqualified’ results, has received veiled threats of criminal prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) from the SDMI Foundation in hopes that the team will be cowed into withholding what it’s learned from an upcoming computer science conference. “Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public Challenge….could subject you and your research team to actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” SDMI Foundation mouthpiece Matthew Oppenheim warns in a letter to the Felten team.… Read more »

Eminem avoided jail time when a judge sentenced him on Tuesday to two years’ probation for carrying a concealed weapon. But the rapper must refrain from excessive alcohol or drug use for those two years, undergo counseling, avoid “assaultive behavior” and can’t own or possess firearms or other weapons. Macomb County Circuit Judge Antonio P. Viviano also told Eminem he must get the court’s permission if he wants to leave the continental United States during that period. Prosecutors had sought a jail sentence of four to six months after Eminem pleaded guilty to the felony in February in a plea-bargain… Read more »

As chatter abounds regarding the urgency of digital distribution, major music conglomerates are moving quickly to demonstrate their eagerness to make their content available online. Further evidence comes with this week’s pact between media giants AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI and digital behemoth RealNetworks to create MusicNet, a platform for downloadable and streaming services. MusicNet will provide a pool of licensed music from the participating rights holders, with a technology infrastructure by Real. The label groups collectively have a 60% stake in the venture, while Real has 40%. Once the platform is established, any digital music provider satisfying the… Read more »

Like concertgoers reluctantly heading home as the lights come up, many Napster users are heading for greener pastures as the company’s court mandated filters block more than a million copyrighted music files from the service. According to data from entertainment research firm Webnoize, the number of Napster users on the system at any given time has dropped from 1.5 million in mid-March to 1.1 million as of Friday a one-week decline of more than 25%. At the same time, however, Webnoize found that the average number of files shared by any one user, which had tumbled by 60% after Napster… Read more »

File-sharing service attempts to comply with court order, but downloaders concoct ways to avoid blocks. Despite Napster’s promise to do everything in its power to comply with a court order to remove copyrighted songs from its system this week, users can still find – and download – plenty of tunes by Metallica and other artists. And those users are working just as hard, if not harder, to foil Napster’s efforts. Napster won’t say how many songs it has already filtered, but searches for top-selling artists such as Joe, ‘N Sync, Britney Spears and Eminem all turned up dozens of matches… Read more »

On Monday (February 12), the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the wildly popular song-swap service Napster to stop its millions of users from trading copyrighted material. Calling the decision a major victory, recording industry officials and legal experts said the ruling by a three-judge panel could destroy Napster as a free song-swapping service. Napster, a company formed around a computer program developed by a teenage college dropout, was gloomy. “Napster is not shut down, but under this decision it could be. We are very disappointed in this ruling by the three judge panel and will seek appellate review,”… Read more »