piracy

There were two great links at The Shifted Librarian recently concerning the music industry. By some bizarre twist of the cosmos, both links are - at least obliquely - in reference to the “artist” Eminem. The first link is to an article at MTV.com about how Eminem’s new album, The Eminem Show, jumped to the top spot on the Billboard charts after being on sale for only a single day. The second link is to a link at LawMeme to an article on the NYTimes site about why the album went on sale so much earlier than projected. Apparently it had become a victim of widespread piracy long before it was scheduled to be released.

The articles, and The Shifted Librarian’s comments on them, and the essays in the links to the links to the articles, all make for some very interesting reading. I actually enjoy listening to Eminem, which is probably even scarier than the fact that I linked to a link to a link to an article.

Music bosses have unveiled a revolutionary new recording format that they hope will help win the war on illegal file sharing which is thought to be costing the industry millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Nicknamed the ‘Record’, the new format takes the form of a black, vinyl disc measuring 12 inches in diameter, which must be played on a specially designed ‘turntable’.

I’m finding more good links through The Shifted Librarian than I can imagine. This is a consistently excellent blog which covers a wide range of intriguing topics. In the past few days there has been some well-written commentary (and linkage) on the state of the radio/music industry in the new, digital era. Here are three of the best:

• We’ve got personality — at least for now
• Rocking radio’s world
• and When Online Got Off Base: How Mark Cuban would have–and could have?–saved the music biz

The First Amendment v. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act

On January 20, 2000, United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan … issued a preliminary injunction … prohibiting the defendants from distributing computer code for reading encrypted DVDs. If code that can be directly compiled and executed may be suppressed under the DMCA, as Judge Kaplan asserts … but a textual description of the same algorithm may not be suppressed, then where exactly should the line be drawn? This web site was created to explore this issue, and point out the absurdity of Judge Kaplan’s position that source code can be legally differentiated from other forms of written expression.

Beauty is Truth
I just stumbled upon an excellent discourse about What’s Wrong With Content Protection. This should be required reading for anyone who creates anything - writing, music, programming, paintings, film, anything. This means YOU. Go. Now. Read it.

PulseNewMedia, a company affiliated with the University of Toronto, is using pig Latin to disguise Napster file names that are to be blocked this week. Once installed, the software alters the names of MP3 files, moving the first letter to the end of the word. The band Metallica, for instance, would become ettalicam.

Can ‘Military’ Technology Beat Digital Piracy?

” … if the hacker persists, and continues making ”aggressive” attempts to disable InTether’s defenses or pierce its vault, he’ll get ”the white screen of death.” His InTether receiver, together with all the InTethered files stored inside it, will be destroyed. Attacks ”would have to be pretty aggressive and multiple” in order to trigger the white screen of death …”