Monday, October 13, 2008
Fake iPods and iPhones turning up in Russia. The surprising thing would be if this was only happening in Russia. [via You Thought We Wouldn't Notice, a great site for finding examples of copytheft.]
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Monday, November 27, 2006
Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group, is a wanker
Fridgemagnet helpfully brings this review of the Microsoft Zune to my attention. Less important is the actual device (I'm actually happy with my iPod and, heaven knows, I may well buy a new one when my old one wears out) but rather another example of how the big companies don't understand that the way to deal with piracy is to not act like dicks about it.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. "So it's time to get paid for it."
See, there's around one percent of the music on my iPod which, I'll admit, I don't own the CDs, so out of 8.5 days worth of music, two or three hours of music I shouldn't have. Two or three hours that I should have gone round car boot sales rooting through bins for, because UMG and their ilk certainly didn't want to sell me the albums any more. But comments like that make me want to up that percentage. If those of us who actually, Mr Morris, aren't crooks, worked over the next five years to make sure that 80, 90% of the music on our MP3 players is stolen, will you then stop treating us like scum? Is the only way to get you to stop treating us like thieves is to act like thieves until your bottom line is so damaged that you are forced to come out of your castle and make nice?
And don't even get my started on how every time I sit down to watch my Boston Legal season one DVDs that I received for my birthday I have to sit through warnings telling me not to steal them.
On that mention of DVD box-sets I'll also point you towards two very interesting essays on the subject: Binge Watching contemporary TV from City of Sound, and the essay by Mark Lawson it refers to.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. "So it's time to get paid for it."
See, there's around one percent of the music on my iPod which, I'll admit, I don't own the CDs, so out of 8.5 days worth of music, two or three hours of music I shouldn't have. Two or three hours that I should have gone round car boot sales rooting through bins for, because UMG and their ilk certainly didn't want to sell me the albums any more. But comments like that make me want to up that percentage. If those of us who actually, Mr Morris, aren't crooks, worked over the next five years to make sure that 80, 90% of the music on our MP3 players is stolen, will you then stop treating us like scum? Is the only way to get you to stop treating us like thieves is to act like thieves until your bottom line is so damaged that you are forced to come out of your castle and make nice?
And don't even get my started on how every time I sit down to watch my Boston Legal season one DVDs that I received for my birthday I have to sit through warnings telling me not to steal them.
On that mention of DVD box-sets I'll also point you towards two very interesting essays on the subject: Binge Watching contemporary TV from City of Sound, and the essay by Mark Lawson it refers to.
Labels: iPods, music, piracy, Television
Friday, September 29, 2006
"This one is called 'The Guns of War'"
Boom boom boom boom... [via Tranniefesto, though I'm only adding my weight to what is currently 'cool' in order to boost my traffic.]
Labels: computers, iPods, YouTube
Friday, September 22, 2006
I am the reason your iPods are no longer cool
I had downloaded the latest version of iTunes a few days ago. The greatest advantage to it in my view is the inclusion of the 'refresh' button on the podcasts page, no longer do I have to schedule things around the tyranny of the 'check for new episodes in one hour' option! I can just download and go!
I then signed up with iTunes, not because I can see myself buying music from them, preferring to hold the CD in my hand whenever possible, but so I could download the album art, and amuse myself by seeing which of my albums would download the covers and which wouldn't. It's rather odd, Kill Bill 1 is on there but Kill Bill 2 apparently isn't. All of the Blur covers were downloaded but none of Radiohead (are they boycotting iTunes or something?). Orbital did fairly well, though they did have the cover of the Green album as the cover of the Brown album (the colours apparently didn't tip them off), some of the more obscure stuff in my collection downloaded, Zen Guerilla and Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe, but while Godspeed You! Black Emperor was recognised A Silver Mount Zion weren't. It's a funny old world.
I then signed up with iTunes, not because I can see myself buying music from them, preferring to hold the CD in my hand whenever possible, but so I could download the album art, and amuse myself by seeing which of my albums would download the covers and which wouldn't. It's rather odd, Kill Bill 1 is on there but Kill Bill 2 apparently isn't. All of the Blur covers were downloaded but none of Radiohead (are they boycotting iTunes or something?). Orbital did fairly well, though they did have the cover of the Green album as the cover of the Brown album (the colours apparently didn't tip them off), some of the more obscure stuff in my collection downloaded, Zen Guerilla and Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe, but while Godspeed You! Black Emperor was recognised A Silver Mount Zion weren't. It's a funny old world.
