response 76 of 104:

Aug 31 04:35 UTC 2002

  I read the NY Times article that Ken refers to in #72 a few days ago 
  and while I'd agree that the article is "not too optimistic about
  DataPlay's chances" after reading the article I'd go even further and
  say flat out that the DataPlay format will never succeed as long as
  these "features" as mentioned in the article are part of the bargain:

     1) pre-recorded discs several dollars more expensive than CDs
     2) playback devices and blank media very expensive.
     3) except for media size, no obvious advantage over CD format
     4) potentially cumbersome anti-copying restrictions in recorders

  My own belief is that for a new format to supplant CDs, one of two
  things needs to happen.  Either

     1) record companies all stop releasing recordings in the CD format, or
     2) the new format will have to be either much better, or the recordings
        much cheaper than CD.  Probably the new format will have to be both
        better *and* cheaper.

response 78 of 104:

Sep 1 11:53 UTC 2002

I don't know who the RIAA thinks they're fooling, but it's not me.
I'm trying to send them a message by buying anything good I can find
so long as it's under $10.  I just found another Tom Waits CD for
$7.99, which is reasonable given the cost of production etc.  If
they try to jack the price up to $25 I won't be buying any new music
from them at all.  What I buy now is almost exclusively from little
indy labels for $15/disc or less.

I'm sure there are a lot of indie artists who will continue to publish
on CD even if the RIAA goes to something more expensive.  This will
just make the indie artists more attractive to listeners and get them
to stop buying from RIAA members and their retail channels.  Oops...

response 80 of 104:

Sep 2 20:45 UTC 2002

read an article last night about the new laser techinology that lets you store
4 times the data curently storeable on a cd by using blue instead of red
lasers.  Sony is pushing this as opposed to several otehr formats that are
coming out doing a similar function.  So combine that with the the dataplay
and think of the amount of music or data you can stoer on it.

response 82 of 104:

Sep 4 12:38 UTC 2002

Many media reports: the bankruptcy court judge overseeing the 
Napster case has blocked the proposed sale of Napster's remains
to Bertelsmann.  Here's Cnet's story:
 
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956382.html?tag=fd_top

Bertelsmann's proposal was to forgive the $85 million
already loaned to Napster and pay $9 million for its remaining 
assets.   This was opposed by the record industry and the music
publishers -- in my view, because they are pursuing a scorched-earth
policy against Napster and anyone who did business with it,
in particular its lawyers.

The judge ruled that because Napster's CEO Konrad Hilbers had 
ties to Bertelsmann, there was a conflict of interest in the sale.
With Napster's advocate Thomas Middelhoff gone as CEO of Bertelsmann, 
the media group indicates it has no further interest in pursuing the 
matter.
 
Napster is proceeding to a fire-sale liquidation which will yield
pennies for its creditors -- the Bertelsmann deal was better than 
anything likely to appear now.   Napster laid off all remaining 
employees except for a small staff overseeing the bankruptcy.

Visit the napster.com site, while it lasts.

I'll probably continue titling these summaries as "Napster items."  :)

response 84 of 104:

Sep 13 05:14 UTC 2002

http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,55006,00.html

"Digital Rights Outlook: Squishy"

Buried in the story is a report that Thompson Multimedia has plans
for a Super MP3.  The Super MP3 will include a "tracking signature ...
that will identify the PC that made it."  No implmentation details
are offered, but there's a quote from a Thompson Multimedia VP
so presumably this is halfway thought out.

response 86 of 104:

Sep 13 16:09 UTC 2002

A new paper by Sandvine, Inc. finds that between 40 and 60 percent of all
Internet traffic is now generated by Kazaa and Gnutella.

http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/tech/RTGAM/20020906/g
tcybsept6/Technology

response 88 of 104:

Sep 14 03:04 UTC 2002

The article unfortunately doesn't have many details.  There's a link to the
paper, but it requires some kind of registration.

I'm not sure it's so far-fetched.  Have you ever tried Gnutella?  It's
incredibly inefficient.  The amount of traffic when you aren't even doing
anything is amazing.  It's enough to swamp a 56K modem link all by itself.

response 90 of 104:

Sep 14 20:20 UTC 2002

        Since Napster can use a range of ports, it's hard to tell, but
tracking the most commonly used ones, about thirty-two percent of one DS-3
that we'd used for a test case analysis was used by Napster (when it was
still up) and other common P2P programs at the time.

response 92 of 104:

Sep 16 22:27 UTC 2002

via Wired and the dead tree edition:  USA Today runs a summary story on 
the struggles between major recording artists, now organized as the 
Recording Artists Coalition, and the RIAA labels.   Seems like the 
RAC group is starting to get some traction; their drive to get a 
seven-year limit on contracts, a limit on every other industry in 
California, was tabled this year but is set for a big push next year.
 
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15-artists-rights_x.htm
 
Keith Richards says he's not in the struggle for the money, but for 
the music: he says it's time for the accountants to stop defining what
good music is.
 
-----

In the slashdot followup chatter is this pointer to the San Francisco
Chronicle:
 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/18/PK4256.DTL

Jimmy Buffett ("Margaritaville") has departed the major labels and 
set up his own label.  He sold half a million copies of his release
on his own label.  He's looking to sign other unhappy artists to 
his label: he's already landed Poison.
 
Quote:
>   "We make as much money if we sell 100,000 copies this way as we made
>    when we sold a million copies through a major label," Poison
>    bassist Bobby Dall told Billboard magazine."
 
Buffet doesn't have the horrendous overhead of the majors -- no big upfront
deals, no high-paid executives -- so the payout to the artists is much 
larger.

response 94 of 104:

Sep 20 14:55 UTC 2002

I still think this is a risky move.  The backlash might be political (i.e.,
a call for the laws to be changed) and that could be bad for corporate
copyright holders.

response 96 of 104:

Sep 20 17:35 UTC 2002

Under the DMCA, I don't think damages have to be proven.  Just that a copy
protection scheme was circumvented.  That'd be either the CSS encryption on
the DVD or the Macrovision encoding on the videotape.

response 98 of 104:

Sep 21 00:07 UTC 2002

I suspect the music industry doesn't think it has much left to lose.