Blackhacker

BetaNews | iTunes may finally get The Beatles
United Press International posted a report on Saturday stating that a $400 million agreement had been reached between ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and Apple’s iTunes over the distribution of The Beatles’ back catalog.

Profits made from the deal and subsequent sales will be split between McCartney, Ringo Starr, the estates of George Harrison and John Lennon, Sony, EMI, and pop star Michael Jackson, each of whom owns some form of rights to the songs, be it in publishing, recording, or reproduction.

The battle between “Apple Computers” now called Apple Inc. and Paul McCartney’s Apple Corps Ltd., of the trademark “Apple” was the STUPIDEST feuds in the history of Intellectual Property. At the time, the two Apples where no where NEAR each other core businesses, and and all it did was cause bad blood between the two organizations that delayed the largest distributor of digital music from providing to the public one of the most recognizable and sough after collection of music.

I’m not much of a Beatles fan, I just hate stupidity. I’m sure there are many people who want to buy their music. I’m also sure iTunes wants to sell it to them and it would make Paul, Ringo and the Estates of the John, and George a a lot of money. That’s why its stupid. It’s an obvious win for everybody, so why can’t they just get together to make a few million dollars. I guess when you are a billionaire, you don’t bother stoop down to pick a few million dollars, when you don’t have too.

1. Caring around your entire music collection is just as intoxicating as it seems.
2. The Belkin FM transmitter Sucks !!
3. How do you keep those buds in your ears ?
4. If your going to use your iPod with a Mac and a PC format your iPod for PC first. The Mac can read a PC formatted iPod but the reverse is not true.

Stop treating me like a criminal. Let me …

… update my iPod from more than one iTunes instance, without destroy the music that I have on it.

… transfer ANY MUSIC I WANT from my iPod to iTunes. Just because ITMS was not the point of sale doesn’t mean I stole it. 9.18 GB of audio and the ONE album I bought from iTunes is the only thing I transfer to my PC at work. Never mind that the rest represent YEARS of music collecting acquired by going to the store and plopping down 12-15 dollars apiece and hours spent importing.

Hacker breaks link between iTunes and the iPod - Times Online
A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices.

The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web.

This guy is one of my heroes. Usually I frown when someone breaks the law, but the law being broken is in my view immoral, because it allows someone else to dictate how I use something that I have legally purchased. Shutting down networks that distribute illegally stolen merchandise is one thing, but if I bought the song, and I want to play it on my Zune, or my Stone or what ever then I should be able to do that. So what ever network I set up to facilitate that is legal, and moral.

Dap to LB for pointing me to this article, but she apparently has NO idea what a “hacker” really is. To that end I pointer to Paul Graham.

Grab your fedoras and bull whips boys… Indy’s back:

I caught this from Avery

I dig the track and REALLY dig the video.

It is finally safe to spend that 6 or 7 HUNDRED dollars for that HD player, and not worry that you will get stuck with a highly sophisticated door stop.

Toshiba pulls plug on HD DVD format
Toshiba has told the market that it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.

This effectively ends the high definition DVD format war and leaves the market clear for Sony’s Blu-ray high definition DVD format which has steadily been gaining ground ahead of HD DVD in the market.

About 2 decades after Sony lost the VHS vs Betamax war, they win with Blu-ray Disc. The company I suppose was do for a break, because the 21st century really hasn’t been that kind to Japan’s premiere electronics company. Soring competition, loss of market share, and some REALLY bad management decisions, has hurt the company, not to mention the fact that Sony products have not been as good as they once where.

Well kudos to you Sony. You have about 10 maybe 15 years to be on top. By then entertainment media distributed as atoms in stores will probably be a thing of the past. It does have promise as a storage medium. Until then we will all have to pay “tribute” to Sony, for every blu-ray product we buy. All hail Sony !!!

Writers Strike Eisner - Media US News Story - CNBC.com
“Its over,” Eisner said. “They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. Its going on Saturday to the writers in general.”

We should see the earliest affects on the late night shows, as well as “the Daily Show” and “Colbert Report.” And with any luck We’ll see a summer season of scripted TV.

dap: /.

 This was on Apple insider yesterday

AppleInsider | Amazon to acquire Audible for $300 million
In a bid to bolster its status as a premier distributor of digital content, online mega-retailer Amazon.com said Thursday it has reached an agreement to acquire spoken content provider and Apple iTunes partner Audible.com.

Related AppleInsider articles:
* High-quality unboxing photos of Amazon’s…
* Amazon’s new Kindle dubbed the ‘iPod of reading’
* Amazon rallies associates to battle Apple’s…
* Acer to acquire Gateway for $710 million
* iTunes passes Amazon to become third largest…

Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon.com will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Audible.com for $11.50 per share, or a 23 percent premium from their closing price of $9.33 on Wednesday.

BetaNews | HBO next to open its shows to the Web
Though it may be a bit late for it to enter the download market, Time Warners HBO will begin a controlled launch of HBO Broadband tomorrow, a free add-on to HBO on Demand.

Content will not be available through a browser, though, as HBO Broadband relies on its own application for Windows PCs running XP and Vista. Content is downloaded directly to the subscriber’s drive through the application and expires four weeks after the download date.

Maybe this is more about not giving Apple too much power but still acknowledging that the prevailing media business models are dinosaurs and the meteor is in the sky. It still a weak effort, I’m sure that TW will yield no fruit from sewing so sparingly, but we will see.

Sony Joins Other Labels on Amazon MP3 Store - New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — Sony BMG, the music company, announced Thursday that it would become the fourth and final major label to begin selling digital music on Amazon.com, offering its entire catalog in the MP3 format by the end of the month.

We are apparently hearing the death nell of the scourge of fair use, DRM.

Apples got some worries, because this make Amazon the largest legitimate music down load site, in terms of catalog.

Dap: /.