Category: Rights

Music by Joe WilcoxJan 30, 20043:11 pm

Let’s Eat at the Audio Lunchbox

I discovered a cool, new music site today. I was looking around MusicMatch, which had profiled The Distillers album “Coral Fang.” I listened to the songs first on MusicMatch MX radio; some rad punk. So I checked out the band’s homepage where there was a post about The Distillers going digital, with songs for sale over at Audio Lunchbox.

Audo Lunchbox is a legal download site hawking indie music. Lots of it, and stuff you’d buy from Apple’s iTunes Music Store (that means rights protection) or one of those Windows Media Audio outfits like MusicMatch (that also means rights protection). The problem with the rights-protected (a.k.a. digital rights management) stuff isn’t the restriction on playback (three PC cap for most music) but the compatibility. Apple’s music format and WMA aren’t compatible. The songs usually won’t play in the same media player or portable music player.

Politics by Joe WilcoxJan 20, 20043:08 pm

Voter Profiling

I guess privacy doesn’t mean much during an election year. According to a Reuters story by Andy Sullivan, politicians are “drawing detailed profiles” of voters. Mr. Sullivan quotes Grassroots Solutions founder Robert Richman as saying, “It’s pretty scary, the stuff you can get on people”.

It’s funny how politicians often talk big about protecting people’s privacy (except maybe with regard to Homeland security). But in the crunch, some won’t hesitate to mine data the same as businesses.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJan 6, 20045:59 am

Not So Fast, Music Suers

Yesterday, news that RIAA lawsuits had cut down file trading broke big headlines. But, I wonder. I’ve been experimenting with most major legal music stores—iTunes, MusicMatch, Napster, and Rhapsody—and wonder how much impact they have […]