Music-download service 7digital faces plenty of skepticism since its U.S. launch two weeks ago.
According to Ben Drury, its co-founder and chief executive, many of the questions–how do you compete with iTunes, how do you stand out amid a sea of music services–are valid ones.
When MTV Networks’ Harmonix Music Systems developed the videogame The Beatles: Rock Band, it made many small changes to some of the most beloved songs in rock history. All of them were made in consultation with Apple Corps, the Beatles’ management company, but some of the changes have come as a shock for fans.
A month ahead of its release, Susan Boyle’s album has more advance orders on Amazon.com than any CD in the retailer’s history, it said.
The Sony album, titled “I Dreamed a Dream,” goes on sale on Nov. 23. Ms. Boyle sang the song by the same name on “Britain’s Got Talent,” and the video of her unexpectedly strong performance made her a world-wide phenomenon after it landed on video-sharing sites like YouTube.
A new executive team at MySpace is trying to reignite the brand by focusing on areas like music, videos and games as users abandon the social-networking site for cooler destinations.
MySpace, which is holding a conference this week for its global ad-sales staff, needs to lure visitors back and kick-start advertising revenue, ad executives say.
Grammy judges will be listening to the upcoming award nominees online, thanks to a partnership with Yangaroo, a Canadian media-distribution start-up.
The company’s technology encrypts music files with a watermark and lets record labels share them securely with radio stations and other destinations. The watermark allows Yangaroo to identify each person who has downloaded a track, so if a song is leaked, it can trace its origin.
Samsung Electronics Co.’s profits are on the rise again as its chip and display businesses recover from operating losses earlier this year. The turnaround recently helped push its market capitalization past Intel Corp.’s for the first time.
Videogame publishers, pushing to expand their businesses, are making games that target girls and women a new industry battleground.
This holiday season, more games than ever are being geared toward female players. Electronic Arts Inc. is releasing the latest installment of its “Littlest Pet Shop” game for young girls and introducing a series of fashion-themed games called “Charm Girls Club” for older girls later this month.
Fantasy video games and heavy metal music seem like a perfect marriage, given that both often rely on Tolkien-esque imagery and create elaborate, male-centric alternate worlds.
But while games use metal songs in their trailers, during play the soundtrack usually transitions into orchestral music. “Brutal Legend” on the other hand, a game for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that’s being released tomorrow by Electronic Arts, is all metal, all the time.
Break out that mixtape. You know, the one with “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Thriller.” It’s the Sony Walkman’s 30th birthday.
And it got a present. Kind of. The modern Sony Walkman digital music player beat out Apple’s iPod share of the portable music player market in Japan in the last week of August, according to a study by BCN, a Japanese electronics research firm.
Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)
The more time I spend with my Zune HD, the more I like it. Sound quality aside–and I know opinions differ dramatically here, but I’m stuck with my ears and my preferences–there are a bunch of features that make Apple’s products seem like they’ve fallen behind the curve. Here are five things in particular that I miss when I use my iPhone or one of my iPods:
The same federal judge who oversaw the Joel Tenenbaum file-sharing trial earlier this year passed out default judgments this week against other file-swappers who never bothered to show up–and they now owe far less than Tenenbaum.
In my last post about Lily Allen’s hypocrisy in uploading tons of songs without authorization, while saying it’s good to cut off internet access for regular uploaders, one of the commenters made a good point: we should use this as a teaching moment, to try to show Ms. Allen why her position is wrong, rather than focusing on calling her a hypocrite.
RealNetworks shares have spiked more than 10 percent this morning, on zero news.
TheStreet.com notes that there has been “heavy upside options activity” in the shares, asserting that “volume was nothing short of explosive” in both the stock and the options.
With a new school year in full swing, Ars takes a look at the RIAA’s newly updated copyright curriculum. Your kids could be learning from it–so what does it say?
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