Search Results for: no cure

Taiwan high-speed Internet access firm GigaMedia Ltd. said on Monday it would sell part of its music Web site to record label EMI Group Plc in a strategic alliance to jointly offer music downloads. U.S.-listed Giga said it spun off its Juice.com music site into a separate company capitalized at T$100 million and EMI would take a minority stake in the firm. Officials declined to give financial details of the agreement. “The alliance supports our goal of creating new platforms to promote our artists and distribute their music in a secure, protected, and commercially viable manner,” Mathew Allison, president of… Read more »

Internet pioneer eBlvd.com extends peer to peer (P2P) computing several notches beyond Napster today – releasing version 1.33 of its popular eBlvd.com online presentation, collaboration and file sharing service. Napster opened up a P2P consciousness that the Web is more than just Yahoo or Amazon pushing pages from the corporate server down to a web browser; that PCs can interact directly with each other. But did Napster only stumble upon the lowest hanging P2P fruit – MP3 music file swapping? EBlvd.com is betting that some of the 300 million web users are ready to take it to the next level.… Read more »

Long before gun-toting rap stars roamed America, the first manager of the Rolling Stones was terrorizing “Swinging” London, throwing errant journalists out of windows and others off bridges. Accompanied by a thuggish bodyguard, teenage pop Svengali Andrew Loog Oldham was said to be quite the rogue 40 years ago: Sporting a cape, he would careen around the city in his Mini Cooper, speakers blaring from the roof of the tiny car. This is not all completely true – especially the bit about the cape – but the anecdotes and rumors metamorphosed into “facts” over the years, a consequence of the… Read more »

KS95-Minneapolis OM/PD Leighton PeckIn an age of radio where “localness” is being de-emphasized, one example of a station stepping up and serving its community, and a stellar example at that, is KS95 (KSTP/FM)-Minneapolis’s Third Annual “KS95 for Kids Radiothon.” Held last month at the Twin Cities’ Mall of America and hosted by KS95 morning duo Van Patrick & Cheryl Kaye, the 84-hour (!) event helped raise an astounding $1.54 million, breaking the national record for a fundraiser of this type. Amazingly enough, the record the Hot A/C broke was their own, set at last year’s Radiothon. What’s even more amazing… Read more »

Bowing to a threatened recording industry lawsuit, a Princeton University computer scientist decided against revealing Thursday how he and other researchers thwarted security measures meant to protect copyright digital music. Edward Felten, an associate professor whose team included Rice University and Xerox-PARC researchers, had been silent for days on whether he would present his findings at the International Information Hiding Workshop in Pittsburgh. On Thursday, a frustrated Felten said he decided against releasing the information because of the potential for lawsuits against the researchers, their schools and conference organizers. He did not say what he would do next. “Litigation is… Read more »

Citing the powerful allure that Napster’s free service has had on millions of music fans, the head of MusicNet – a new music subscription joint venture backed by three of the world’s biggest record labels – sounded a note of cautious optimism Tuesday. “It’s still unproven that people will go from paying zero to a reliable but paid service,” said Rob Glaser, chief executive of media software giant RealNetworks Inc. and acting CEO of MusicNet. “I’m optimistic, but until it plays out in the marketplace, its not proven,” Glaser said, speaking at a Beverly Hills breakfast for entertainment executives and… Read more »

A group of researchers who foiled four different copyright protection technologies in a contest launched last year by the music industry is now being asked by the record companies to suppress its findings, one of the researchers said Tuesday. The research group – composed of students and professors from Princeton and Rice Universities and an employee of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center – had initially planned to present its findings Thursday at a Pittsburgh conference on information security but was then threatened with legal action by the forum, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a forum representing music and technology… Read more »

With the Hollywood-Washington war expected to be reignited today, Motion Picture Assn. of America prexy-CEO Jack Valenti on Monday warned lawmakers in no uncertain terms to back off. “May God save the First Amendment,” Valenti said during a keynote speech before the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which is meeting here for its annual confab. Valenti, like his counterparts in the music biz, was gearing up for the release this morning of a Federal Trade Commission report that will chart how well the entertainment biz has done in stopping the marketing of violent or suggestive fare to kids. The FTC reportedly… Read more »

Oh, what a week it was for music news. My head hurts just thinking about it. No, wait – that’s just my hangover. Twelve-time Brit Award winner and international chart topper Robbie Williams disclosed plans to release a version of “We Are the Champions,” recorded with the remaining members of Queen. Poor Freddie Mercury is pirouetting in his grave. Williams also told a British chat show he’s been wrestling with alcoholism off-and-on for the past four years. Let’s hope he sobers up for good before somebody convinces him to tackle “Radio Ga Ga.” Mariah Carey’s new deal with Virgin Records… Read more »

A leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance CD-related equipment has announced plans to include Liquid Audio Player Plus software in the company’s PlexWriter CD-R/RW drives, devices capable of burning personalized CD’s. Santa Clara, Calif., based Plextor Corp also announced that it will employ Liquid Audio’s Liquid Store to facilitate the secure distribution and sale of audio content on the Plextor Web site, giving Plextor users access to more than 150,000 digital downloads. The new hardware, to be introduced as the year unfolds, will allow users to stream, download, purchase and playback secure, CD-quality music files. The next-generation CD-R/RW devices the… Read more »