Posts Tagged ‘ DRM ’

Major Music Labels Enlist Napster To Take On Apple

May 20th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, General, iPhone, iPods & Portable Media Players

You almost have to feel sorry for the mainstream music industry. Almost.
The major labels have teamed up with Napster to offer what they are calling “the world’s largest and most comprehensive MP3 store.”
Yep - the labels are so intent on breaking Apple’s dominance in the world of digital music that they are giving Napster - [...]



WIll Apple Bring Back DRM’d Music?

May 15th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, iPhone, iPods & Portable Media Players

According to the Guardian’s Tim Anderson, DRM’d music is going to stage a comeback, and Apple’s going to be the one making it happen.
The music industry wants to sell new services, like music subscriptions, and DRM’s is central to making these services viable. To succeed, though, subscription music services need to work with iPods and [...]



Microsoft Denies Plan To Censor Zune Content

May 7th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, iPods & Portable Media Players

Speculation is running wild on the Web about Microsoft possibly building a content censor into the Zune software.
It comes as a result of a New York Times article that looked at why NBC pulled its TV content from Apple’s iTunes store and is now distributing it for the Zune.
NYT’s Saul Hansell writes:
Late Tuesday afternoon I [...]



Blinkx Offers Its Take On Internet Television

Apr 2nd, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Streaming Video

Video search company blinkx today announced the availability of blinkx BBTV, a new online television service that leverages blinkx’s speech and visual recognition technology to deliver Internet television with contextually linked information.
blinkx BBTV enables users to instantly browse or interact with online sources related to what they are watching, whether it’s Google, Wikipedia, IMDB or [...]



Music Industry Using DRM-Free MP3s To Monopolize Your Ears

Jan 14th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, iPods & Portable Media Players

For a long time, people have thought that getting the music industry to switch to DRM-free MP3s for music downloads would open the doors to a consumer-friendly world of digital music competition.
Now it’s starting to look like the music industry wil use DRM-free MP3s to enforce their traditional monopoly on what you hear, what you [...]



DRM’d Music Is Dead; DRM’d Video Is Next

Jan 4th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, Digital Video Downloads, Digital Video Recorder, Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video

DRM’d music is dead. DRM’d video will be next.
As CD sales plummet, the record labels have realized that they have to get with the 21st century. They have to have a place on your iPod, if they expect you to listen to them, and they have to get rid of DRM if they want to [...]



DRM’d Music Is Roadkill

Jan 4th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, iPods & Portable Media Players

DRM’d music is roadkill, steamrolled by iPods, iTunes and fair use.
Businessweek reports that Sony BMG is finalizing plans to sell songs without DRM, the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet.
Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection [...]



Neuros Pushes “Unlocked” DRM-Free Media Branding

Dec 19th, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: General, iPods & Portable Media Players

Portable media player manufactuer Neuros Technology has created the Unlocked Media brand to create a consumer friendly trademark out of the abstract idea of “DRM Free” media.
The concept behind the Unlocked Media trademark is that it be made available for free to any entity that uses media using open standard technology which is available to [...]



Will DRM Get Killed Off By Wal-Mart & Pepsi?

Dec 1st, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, iPods & Portable Media Players

After years of attack from everyone from privacy advocates to consumer rights groups to so-called “freetards”, it looks like DRM’d music may finally get killed off by Wal-Mart & Pepsi.
And it’s not because they care about your rights as a consumer. It’s because they want onto your iPod.
According to an article in Billboard, Warner Music [...]



MediaMelon Offers HD On Demand, But The Site Still Sucks

Nov 15th, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video

MediaMelon has launched what it calls a “pioneering Video Delivery Network” that enables content owners to deliver high-resolution videos on the Internet. According to MediaMelon, they are the first service to offer video downloads to be accessed and played from a web browser.
Unfortunately, the MediaMelon site requires a software install in order to work, is [...]