Long have I wondered as to the true identity of the mysterious MP3 blog British bulldog the Web Sheriff. I knew that “he” was British. I knew “he” was often quite funny in his takedown posts. I knew that “he” was employed by a number of the big indies to ferret out leaks in the blog world. And that was about it?. Was this dapper industry constable one person, like Shakespeare, or multiple people, like Shakespeare? I kind of imagined “him” like John Cleese’s sheriff from Silverado: charming at first, but you still don’t want to shoot anybody on his watch like Kevin Kline did.
It’s difficult to think of a thornier or more complicated issue in copyright law than that brought up by Bopaboo, a startup that purports to provide a forum for consumers to buy and sell used digital audio files online, so I’ll try to keep this brief. I’m not going to comment specifically on Bopaboo, but rather on the legal implications of after-market sales of digital audio files, referred to in this article under the appropriate legalese of “digital phonorecords.”
One of the running gags those of us who follow the music world for a living has had focused on the idea of the used-MP3 store. “Ha ha!” we laughed. “This is when we know that people are really trying to make money off anything on the Internet, and when we all close up shop and learn a trade.” Well, my friends, I give you Bopaboo, which, while cloaked in a ready-to-carry-yuppie-babies name, offers those people who want it “an online marketplace that allows you to legally transfer and resale digital music.” “Legally,” huh?
When I saw Some Kind Of Monster, I was shocked to find Lars Ulrich the most sympathetic member of Metallica. With James Hetfield busy trying not to turn into The Hulk and Kirk Hammett fulfilling the “luke-warm water” role a little too well, Lars was the only member aggressively invested in making a frikkin’ Metallica record. Sure, St. Anger sucked, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort on his part. His recent Rolling Stone interview, however, reminds us that when taken out of a real-life Spinal Tap context, Ulrich’s enthusiasm can be a bit more annoying. Seems Dave Mustaine’s little Danish friend has come around on downloading. After all, if new Metallica songs were free, maybe people would be excited about them.
Well, not yet. But PC Magazine is reporting that stock spammers have taken the initiative and are bulk-mailing MP3s that have stock tips buried within. The files have innocuous names like santana.mp3, sayyousayme.mp3 (!) More »
Despite the evangelizing of digital music partisans that it’s just as good a way to listen to music as any analog format–and even if it sucks it’s still the future, so you better get on board, Jack–we’re all familiar with the space-saving signal loss that comes with MP3’s. How often have you listened to a song on your iPod (which oblierates bass to begin with) only to find all sorts of new nuances when you slap a CD of the same song onto your stereo? (Let’s not even bring vinyl into this.) Plenty of veteran industry types (and younger journalists) have been kvetching about our current hyper-compressed musical world for a few years now, but now some folks are claiming that the cruddy quality of MP3’s may actually be rewiring your neurochemistry:
A new study by the online-metric company ComScore shows that MP3 files are the most common files on computers in the U.S., with the typical home computer containing 880 MP3s and 36 Windows Media files. More »
Forgive us for being late with this one, but the Trailmix remix of Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Lovin’ Fun” (available below) is one of the best dance records of the year. More »
Idolator wasn’t around when country great Buck Owens passed away, so we missed our chance to pay tribute. More »
The new single, “Everything I Love,” featuring cameos by Cee-Lo and Nas, and production by Kanye West. Be warned: There’s a blatant Christopher Wallace cash-in shout-out at the 45-second mark, and a plug for Diddy’s “Unforgivable” cologne line just over a minute later. More »
