Search Results for: against the current

Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make nearly perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry embarked on a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing business environment. First, it emphasized copy-control technologies, often referred to as digital rights management (DRM), that many in the industry believed would allow it re-assert control over music copying. Second, it lobbied the Canadian government for a private copying levy to compensate for the music copying that it could not control. While the industry’s approach proved successful on the legal front — the… Read more »

In a rare open letter from CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday, Apple urged record companies to abandon digital rights management technologies. The letter, posted on Apple’s Web site and titled “Thoughts on Music,” is a long examination of Apple’s iTunes and what the future may hold for the online distribution of copy-protected music. In the letter, Jobs says Apple was forced to create a DRM system to get the world’s four largest record companies on board with the iTunes Store. But there are alternatives, Jobs wrote. Apple and the rest of the online music distributors could continue down a DRM… Read more »

Are the re-formed Smashing Pumpkins set to rock Lollapalooza? Will the long-dormant Police return at Bonnaroo? How about a reunited Nirvana taking the stage at South by Southwest, only with Ben Kweller playing guitar and singing Kurt’s vocals? All three sound too good to be true, little more than the pipe dreams of manic music buffs with way too much free time. But incredibly, they’re all “100 percent confirmed” by sources with intimate knowledge about such things. But don’t go crazy just yet. It’s entirely possible that absolutely none of the above information is true. After all, we’re smack-dab in… Read more »

The end of 2006 also marks the end of the current congressional session in the House and Senate, closing the door on the Deleting Online Predators Act. Let’s take a look at why this legislation, which passed overwhelmingly in the House this summer, died such a slow death. Those of you who’ve been following this blog from the get-go are undoubtedly aware of the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA. But for those of you who don’t frequent my humble column on a regular basis, here’s the skinny. DOPA, introduced last May by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and a coalition of… Read more »

One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »

Matt Skiba, lead singer and guitarist for Chicago punk purists Alkaline Trio, feels that there are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding Satanism, and, as a longtime member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, can tell you that it’s not all fire, brimstone and threats of eternal damnation. Really, the faith’s simply about theatrics, how to comport yourself when you’re out and about (for instance, one of the church’s Ten Commandment-like mandates forbids followers from bothering others in open territory, but “if someone bothers you, ask him to stop – if he does not stop, destroy him”) and maintaining… Read more »

Just as Green Day’s American Idiot has a theme running through it, so too do the band’s videos from the album – they all share the vision of director Samuel Bayer. After working with Bayer for “American Idiot,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Holiday,” the band hooked up with him again for “Wake Me When September Ends” after the guys returned from a sold-out Asian tour at the end of March. The shoot took place in Los Angeles, and according to a spokesperson at Warner Bros., the video reflects the song’s serious tone – it’s about frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s… Read more »

Used record bins are flooded with albums from swaggering British lads whose bands have conquered England and have their eyes set on cracking the States. Not too many of them can claim to have their music used in two of the most popular TV shows in the country before most Americans have ever heard of them, though. The vaguely scary, beat-crazy sound you might have heard on recent episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “CSI: Miami” comes courtesy of Kasabian, currently infecting American ears with the intense marriage of druggy beats and massive guitar riffs from their self-titled debut. “We’re going… Read more »

Cleveland – Less than a year after rock band Sparta’s latest Geffen album, “Porcelain,” hit stores, singer/guitarist Jim Ward is feeling reflective about the past and rebellious about the future. “I felt like there was a momentum that for some reason has been lost,” Ward told Billboard.com. “I’m not a fan of looking back and saying what could have been. And to me, it’s really only about the music. I’ve never based anything on sales or success or how many people you play to or whatever, because I’ve seen different sides of that, and then they don’t equal happiness. “In… Read more »

Chris Cornell, prepare to get your transcendence on. Audioslave are hitting the road in support of their upcoming second album beginning April 14 in Las Vegas, and from sound of things, opening night can’t come soon enough for Cornell. “I can just go out onstage and get lost in the music and get lost in whatever it is I am doing and it becomes transcendent, and it is kind of addictive now,” the singer said Wednesday (March 16). “With Audioslave, I’ve really started to like the road a lot. There is a certain dedication and work ethic that the band… Read more »