iLounge

“In an interview Wednesday, Hotelling said he was able to give the song to a friend, Keith Elder, a Web developer in Ypsilanti, Mich., whom he met through an Internet discussion group. In order to close the deal, Hotelling said he had to transfer control of his entire iTunes Music Store account to Elder. He said he intends to demand 50 cents from Elder for the account, which included one song, the Devin Vasquez remake of Frankie Smith’s song ‘Double Dutch Bus,’ which he’d originally purchased for 99 cents. 

‘For the average user, I’d definitely say this was extremely difficult,’ he said. ‘I guess you could say we’re both extreme geeks.’”

“The hurried settlement involving Brianna LaHara, an honors student, was the first announced one day after the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) filed 261 such lawsuits across the country. Lawyers for the RIAA said Brianna’s mother, Sylvia Torres, contacted them early Tuesday to negotiate.

‘We understand now that file-sharing the music was illegal,’ Torres said in a statement distributed by the recording industry. ‘You can be sure Brianna won’t be doing it anymore.’”

“Brianna LaHara said she was frightened to learn she was among the hundreds of people sued yesterday by giant music companies in federal courts around the country.

‘I got really scared. My stomach is all turning,’ Brianna said last night at the city Housing Authority apartment where she lives with her mom and her 9-year-old brother.

‘I thought it was OK to download music because my mom paid a service fee for it. Out of all people, why did they pick me?’”

“The Recording Industry Association of America said it has filed 261 lawsuits against alleged file swappers Monday, charging the computer users with “egregious” copyright infringement potentially worth millions of dollars. [...]

‘Our goal is not to be vindictive or punitive,’ said RIAA President Cary Sherman. ‘It is simply to get peer-to-peer users to stop offering music that does not belong to them.’”

“Wolfson Microelectronics has this morning confirmed plans to float on London’s Stock Exchange this year.

The company makes the digital audio chips used in Apple’s iPod products. Its technologies appear in products from other manufacturers, including Microsoft. You’ll find them in digital cameras, mobile phones, DVD players and games consoles.”

“Apple’s iTunes service does use DRM technology—for example, users may not e-mail downloaded music files to one another, although they may burn unlimited copies of files to CDs. Still, the company’s approach is far less restrictive than that of its competitors. Many of those rivals charge monthly subscription fees, restrict the number of times a downloaded file can be burned to CD, or make downloaded files inaccessible if a user’s subscription expires. Apple does none of those things.”

“It’s still difficult to tell how much iTunes will boost Apple’s profits. But Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham and Co., likes the early signs. For example, in the previous quarter Apple sold 304,000 iPods, up from Street estimates of 75,000. Wolf estimates iPods could account for $274 million in revenue in fiscal 2003, or 5% of sales. Apple’s iTunes service should also be helped by a new version of iTunes for Windows users, which should be available later in the year.”

“A single song download is too pricey at 99 cents, according to a Billboard.com poll. Of 9,034 voters, 61% said that the base price at such online outlets as Apple’s iTunes is too expensive for them.”

“The Rolling Stones’ entire catalogue—more than 500 songs—is available, legally, on the Internet for the first time today.

The online service Rhapsody secured an exclusive deal with the band that stretches through the end of the month: All songs the Stones recorded since 1971 and released on EMI’s Virgin Records...”

“With Rhapsody - including the new Best Buy Rhapsody service - customers pay a $9.95 (U.S.) monthly fee to listen to songs from a vast library of music from the major record labels as well as independent producers. Rhapsody subscribers can also burn songs onto compact discs for 79 cents each.”

“‘Although the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] sets forth the minimum requirements for seeking a subpoena, RIAA is not seeking a subpoena as to everyone who is illegally distributing copyrighted recordings,’ the letter said. ‘Rather, at this time, RIAA is focusing on egregious infringers, those who are engaging in substantial amounts of illegal activity.’

An RIAA spokesperson could not quantify what the group means by ‘substantial amounts,’ but the group called its response ‘proportionate to the scope of a pervasive piracy problem today.’”

“Beginning today, music fans with Microsoft’s Windows Media Player version 9 can purchase individual music tracks for 0.99 euros or 75 pence from OD2’s library of over 200,000 songs, representing a 25 percent discount from most other European subscription services, the companies said.

The move marks the first time European consumers can purchase song downloads off the Internet for under one euro ($1.13), and without requiring a monthly subscription, bringing the fee in line with the popular Apple Computer iTunes service, which is not yet available in Europe.”

“The latest entrant is RealNetworks, which closed on its acquisition of Listen.com on Monday, and will now take control of the Rhapsody digital music subscription service. RealNetworks’ Chief Executive Rob Glaser clearly has Apple in his sights. 

While Rhapsody is still mostly a subscription site, where users pay a monthly fee ranging from $4.95 to $9.95 a month plus 79 cents per song to burn songs to CD, Glaser says he expects it to try the so-called “à la carte” model, which is similar to Apple’s approach, very soon.”

“First they killed off vinyl 45s. Now even the days of CD singles are numbered. In the future, laments Paul Morley, pop fans will collect nothing but lists in cyberspace. [...]

The iPod, at once a nail in the coffin and some kind of saviour, is an object that seems beautiful enough to honour the history of the popular song as a vast and varied art form, and to be the futuristic replacement to the vinyl single. It represents a brave new world in the way that the CD never did. The iPod, the place where storage becomes magic, now helps us say for sure: It’s all over.”

“ Here’s what I’ve deduced… BuyMusic.com (which I will refer to as BM) got their “vast” music library of 300,000 plus songs from a company called the Orchard. The Orchard is a distribution company that has consistently shafted artists by not paying them for CD’s sold nor returning unsold CD’s or cancelling contracts. So, without the express consent of what is likely lots of the Orchards catalog, BM has put it up for sale at the bargain price of $.79 a song.”

“In the afternoon keynote session yesterday (July 29) at the Jupiter Plug.In conference in New York, Peter Lowe, Apple’s director of marketing for applications and services, said the company intends to launch a PC service with broad content-usage rights similar to those enjoyed by iTunes consumers using Mac computers. [...]

Meanwhile, Plug.In attendees questioned whether the 99 cent download model employed by Apple and others will drive the digital music business going forward. “We still have a long way to go in terms of figuring out how everyone makes money in the space,” Yahoo! Inc. VP/GM of music David Goldberg told attendees in a Billboard-moderated roundtable discussion on the state of the digital music business.”

“DISTANT WAILS.  In the hands of listeners such as McGinley, Apple’s iTunes is a tool of liberation. It gives them the freedom to pick and choose, and, in essence, make their own compilations from favorite tracks. And that’s just what many of those who wrote in told me they were using iTunes to do. In fact, the opportunity to compile personalized play lists and track selections may be one of the service’s biggest draws.

Fans of iTunes represent an unstoppable force. Who wants to keep all those CDs if you can carry around 1,000 songs on an iPod and easily expand that library through the Internet? Not many I suspect. Nor is this growing army of Internet-savvy users going to stop at music. Not too far in the future an iVideo and perhaps an iTome, for downloading literature and audiobooks, respectively, will be available”

“Although the AAC 224bit/sec shows some artifact, you have to compare it with the original and critical source material in order to recognize those artifacts. The AAC 320 kbit/sec encoding results in much larger files, for just a little bit more quality, which was my reason not to select it. For less critical material, I use the 192kbit/sec AAC encoding, just to save some space on my iPod.”