music

Onetime social-networking leader Friendster has announced a new feature called "Fan Profiles," which is essentially a way for celebrities, bands, companies, nonprofit organizations and other entities to self-promote.

Among "early adopters" of the new feature are Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, comedian Dane Cook, and pop-punk band Fall Out Boy, all of which now have "fan profiles" on the social network.

The formal announcement was made at a press lunch at the DigitalLife consumer technology trade show in New York on Thursday.

It's an ambitious move for the struggling social network, but one … Read more

Across the board, it's been a great week in music. With the fall releases pouring out, we just added new songs from James Blunt, Dashboard Confessional, T.I., Interpol, and more. One notable release is our full album stream of Herbie Hancock's latest "River: The Joni Letters," which is a tribute to Joni Mitchell (who conveniently enough just released an album as well). Check out the song "Court and Spark" featuring Norah Jones. Since there's some much to swallow this week, we made it simple for you by compiling this free playlist. Now … Read more

There's a funny thing about technology: It's supposed to make life easier, but things just seem to get more complex as time goes on. Still, that's the price you must pay when fanaticism drives you to collect a terabyte of music.

In those extreme cases, something like the Qsonix Q110 may be one of the few solutions to keep life in order (at least as much as can be expected). This touch-screen music management system not only takes care of your archives but can also control four zones independently with their own tunes, volume and other settings, … Read more

Remember when Amazon.com was just a bookstore? On Tuesday morning, the online retailer launched the public beta of its much-anticipated rival to Apple's iTunes Store: Amazon MP3, which features over 2 million songs free of digital rights management copy protection, which means they'll play on any computer, music player, or music-enabled cell phone.

Because of Amazon MP3's DRM-free focus, that means the selection isn't as wide as the iTunes Store's. Several major-label conglomerates, like Sony BMG and Warner Music Group, have not jumped onto the bandwagon and hence aren't offering their music for … Read more

The irony of the MediaDefender case is that while one segment of the entertainment industry huddles with FBI agents over the theft of e-mails, another segment has acknowledged purchasing stolen e-mails.

In court papers made public last month, the Motion Picture Association of America disclosed that it paid a hacker $15,000 for private e-mails belonging to TorrentSpy, a BitTorrent tracking site. The MPAA, which said it was unaware that the e-mails were stolen, has accused TorrentSpy of encouraging copyright violations.

Then came startling revelations about the tactics employed by MediaDefender, an antipiracy company that tries to thwart illegal file … Read more

I hate the whole experience of arena rock shows today: the security staff who assume you're a criminal, the overpriced food and drink, the "down in front" screamers who always seem to be seated behind me (it's a $100 rock concert, not your daughter's piano recital). Consequently, I don't go to many big shows--one or two a year.

So I was a little surprised when I first encountered the "fan club" charge when the Stones rolled through Seattle's Key Arena in October 2005. The ticket prices were painful enough--$200+ for … Read more

Online music retailer eMusic launched their 'eMusic Remote' application today, which is currently downloadable for PC, Mac, and Linux. While Remote doesn't exactly revolutionize the eMusic customer experience, it does consolidate the eMusic online store and and eMusic download manager application into one space and increases support for syncing eMusic content to jukebox applications like iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp.

We still wish there was a way to preview tracks without getting kicked over to another application, but this is definitely a step in the right direction for eMusic. It's a much better strategy than trying to … Read more

CNET News.com posted an interview with Pandora founder Tim Westergren the other day. He stated that technology has had a radical effect on distribution, and he'll get no argument from me there--iTunes, CDBaby, MySpace, file-trading, and all the other services I've written about are fundamentally altering how users consume music. Music production's also in the midst of a sea change: while I disagree that you can create a world-class-sounding recording for free, you certainly don't need access to a $300-a-day recording studio like you did 10 years ago when I first started playing.

Westergren hopes … Read more

There appears to be relief ahead for at least some small Webcasters that balked at a new requirement to pay higher royalty rates to musicians and record labels.

SoundExchange, the nonprofit record industry spin-off charged with collecting the mandatory royalty payments, said in a Tuesday press release 24 "small" Internet radio outfits have signed agreements guaranteeing they will owe through 2010 the same rates they have paid since 1998. Others are in the process of signing on, SoundExchange said. It was not immediately clear which radio stations had already reached agreements.

Under the deal first offered in May, … Read more