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.

If you where planning to download last season’s BSG or Heroes from iTunes DO IT NOW:

BetaNews | NBC Universal Pulls Out of iTunes
UPDATE - 3:00pm ET, August 31, 2007: After staying silent most of the day, Apple fired back against NBC Universal by deciding to pull the company’s content at the beginning of the new television season. Additionally, it disclosed that Universal was attempting to get Apple to pay more than double the wholesale price for content. If Apple would have agreed, pricing of videos would have jumped to $4.99.

With signature (buzz making) flare the CEO of Apple Computers finally makes it BIG Announcement. C|Net has the details.

1. Video iPods, with new searching capabilities, and plays games
2. Some new brighter, longer lasting nanos. And they come in colors
3. A new smaller, clip on 1GB shuffle (it is REALLY small)
4. iTunes 7 will have cover art for music, & carry movies, for download, the same day they come out on DVD 14.99 & 9.99 price points. Download will take 30 minutes at 5Mb/s, quality will be close to DVD. This is not as big of news as you think because only Disney & Pixar movies will be available, initially.
5. Last but not least is a new product codenamed iTV, Cringely calls it videoXpress (Cringley’s name is better)
   

   iTV will sell for $299 and works with PCs and Macs. “We think it completes the picture here,” Jobs said.

   10:55 a.m.–The new iTV device, which Jobs demonstrated onstage, has 802.11 wireless built in, wired networking, USB, an HDMI connector, and also component video, analog audio and optical audio. It will be controlled with an Apple remote and hooks directly to a TV or to set-top box or home theater system.

   The point of iTV is to allow movies and TV shows downloaded to a computer to play on a TV in another room. The device is coming in the first quarter of 2007, Jobs said.

I think the last item is the really big news. It comes out in Q1 of 2007. My question is will it play standard formats or just what ever DRMed up forma Apple comes up with. It would be cool to download video via juice or democracy, and then be able to see it on a standard TV.Ooooorr what if I set up a DVR into a Mac, will it play those videos as well?