Which sucked, but if you liked my writing at the time and still happen to have me on your RSS feed, or if you have come in through Google directly to a post and want to know more, then you’ll be pleased to know that I’m now blogging elsewhere. I’m now paid to blog (yay!) about gadgets, technology and the internet at Techdigest.tv.

Thanks for reading RAD!O ED!T while it was still alive!

- Duncan

Of course this is just a side-effect of the other factor here - that of heavily promoting Amazon’s MP3 store as an alternative to iTunes. Amazon’s MP3 store is apparently doing well, but with content from only half the major labels, it suffers a bit from catalogue problems. Most users aren’t aware of the contract negotiations in the digital space, and when they can’t find their favourite band in a search, they assume it’s just a rubbish store and head elsewhere. The other problem is that Amazon MP3 only covers the USA at the moment - it hasn’t been rolled out anywhere else in the world. Seriously guys (and I’m looking at you too, Zune), how hard is it to do global deals with stuff like this?

Running low on creative energy? Sick of using Arial-style font? Don’t want to name your band “The Somethings?” Are you a middle of the road band and the only thing that stands between you and greatness is the perfect title? Are you tired of wasting your hard earned cash on lottery tickets and lucky gumballs? Well, if who I described above is you, then search no further, my fortunate friend

For sale in this auction is an unused (that’s new people) band name that I came up with during a bout of inspiration. I think the name would be good for an indie rock to moden rock-type band. The band name will be revealed to you (assuming you are the group’s lead singer/guitarist) at the auction’s end via email. I have not and will not discuss the name of your band with anyone.

In all seriousness, if I were a musician or even musically capable, I would name my band the name I have invented. It is good.

Disclaimer: Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Consider this your opportunity for your John Lennon “Flaming Pie” dream. If not pleased with this band name, it is a black licorice gumble in the band name gumball machine of life. No refunds. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions. Thank you for looking!

Wow. Though given that the auction title is “Rock Band Name Sunset Rubdown Okkervil River”, the new name is likely to be a bit emo…

This sounds very smart to me - there is an enormous amount of resentment from consumers to these trade organizations, as from a customer perspective, all the RIAA ever does is sue them. The RIAA has spent huge amounts of cash on lawsuits over the past few years - and have only ever achieved one court victory (though they have won a whole lot of default judgements and settlements). Repeated attempts to get the RIAA to disclose exactly how much cash is going towards lawsuits have failed, so this event perhaps reflects EMI bosses finding this figure out and it giving them a bit of a shock…

• “Seeqpod is the most useful. It has an index of 8 million individual songs, auto-spell checks queries to find common misspellings, and allows users to create playlists.”
• “Skreemr has bare bones functionality and the hit rate is a little iffy. But they have one feature that the others do not - a direct link to the file on the third party server. That means downloading the song to your hard drive is just a right mouse click away.”
• “Songza also allows users to create playlists and provides embeddable players. “

Check this link for the full article.

Regardless -  it’ll be interesting to see how they value downloads. I can’t quite place how much I value them myself - clearly they’re not the same as the loss of 1 physical unit (I’ve downloaded stuff I’d never buy, and some downloads have made me buy stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise bought), but I think it’s fair to say they don’t have zero value either. I don’t think they’re worth the quid iTunes charges for them, either - especially with all that DRM they’re slathered in.

So the blogosphere is on fire today, following a profile of Universal boss Doug Morris in Wired Magazine this month. For the uninitiated, he’s basically saying that major labels knew they’d have to change but didn’t know how, and dithered for too long. The worrying part is where he starts trying to answer the question of WHY they didn’t know how:

“We didn’t know who to hire,” he says, becoming more agitated. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.” Morris’ almost willful cluelessness is telling. “He wasn’t prepared for a business that was going to be so totally disrupted by technology,” says a longtime industry insider who has worked with Morris. “He just doesn’t have that kind of mind.

That concerns me - that they didn’t know how to post a job application on their site for someone who knows a bit about digital music, who’d be able to analyse different strategies. There were a million people online who’d have done it for them for free.  With regards to the rest of the article though, bloggers are giving Morris a lot of flak for essentially coming clean and explaining himself. It seems that Morris would have been better off keeping his mouth shut entirely. I think that’s a shame - he should be commended for owning up. It seems like he’s learnt his lesson and we’re seeing the effects - Universal have ditched DRM.  An apology’s too much to ask for - but recognition of the problem is the first step towards solving it.

The group is also apparently pushing certain universities to install some MPAA-sponsored software to monitor network usage. However, after examining this “toolkit” some are noticing that it appears a lot more like a “rootkit” than a “toolkit.” Depending on how a university’s network is configured, it could actually reveal a lot of private info to the outside world. The software also phones home to the MPAA, despite promising not to report back any information. There are a few other oddities as well. While it could password protect some of the exposed content, it never prompts the user to do so — and, at the same time, it disables logging who accesses the pages revealing all the info. While it could all be a coincidence, effectively the MPAA has made it so that it (and others) can spy on university network usage without being tracked in many cases.

Didn’t they learn from the SonyBMG rootkit debacle that the dangers of doing stuff like this is enormous?

While we’re at it, Zune is #1, #2 and #10 on the Amazon.com bestsellers list right now…