Archive: Music
FCC To Clear Sirius-XM Merger For Liftoff
With today's news that Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin will vote to approve the merger of the XM and Sirius satellite-radio companies, it looks like we're officially near the end of competition in this corner of the radio realm. I thought this combination was a bad idea when it...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 16, 2008; 09:56 AM ET | Comments (59)
Napster Launches Business Model 3.0
In the past decade, Napster has worn many masks. It began life as a free, peer-to-peer service that brought you all the music you could take, quickly found itself a lawsuit target, then emerged from legal oblivion as a hubris-ridden iTunes Store competitor. And after years of mediocre results in...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 21, 2008; 11:50 AM ET | Comments (9)
Apple's iTunes Plus No Longer Adding Up
I got a $25 iTunes gift card for Christmas, but four months later I've only spent $6 of it. I have no idea when I'll use up the rest. I haven't uninstalled iTunes or hawked my iPod. The single greatest improvement Apple's made to the the iTunes Store since its...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 22, 2008; 11:34 AM ET | Comments (40)
Sat-Radio Firms to Wed; Who's Next?
After a year or so of suspense, the Justice Department gave its blessing yesterday to the proposed merger of satellite-radio broadcasters Sirius and XM. The move did not surprise too many people; many pundits whose opinions I respect applauded it. So why do I still have a bad feeling about...
By Rob Pegoraro | March 25, 2008; 11:16 AM ET | Comments (25)
Tuesday Tidbits: Audio and DRM
The past few days have brought a couple of interesting data points on the world of downloadable audio. First, after a successful trial on the eMusic download store, book publisher Random House will no longer require "digital rights management" (DRM) copy-prevention software on its audiobook downloads. The news first surfaced...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 26, 2008; 12:45 PM ET | Comments (22)
Apple TV's Tune-Up
Today's column takes a look at Apple and Microsoft's new movie-rental download services. I found a great deal to like in both services; even with their issues, I could see myself renting movies this way with my own money. That's much more than I can say for all of the...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 21, 2008; 12:49 PM ET | Comments (5)
Relationship 2.0: Two People, Two iPods, One iTunes Library
Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, which means I'm almost through being bombarded by press releases with headlines like "Valentine's Day Gadget Gift Idea." These pitches have suggested a remarkable variety of tech trinkets--portable hard drives, laptop bags, a multifunction printer, phones and camcorders in red or pink--as the ideal token of one's...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 13, 2008; 01:20 PM ET | Comments (29)
Help File Help: CDs You Can Play But Can't Rip
Once again, I turn to the collective brainpower of this blog's readership for help with a tech problem that's stumped me. Today's puzzler involves music CDs that play normally in regular CD players, but which a computer can't rip at any acceptable level of quality. Either the machine never finishes...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 6, 2008; 01:34 PM ET | Comments (25)
Yahoo Hits the Eject Button On its Music Service
Yet another iTunes competitor is going down the bit bucket--Yahoo will close its Music Unlimited service and move its remaining subscribers over to RealNetworks' Rhapsody later this year. Yahoo explained the move yesterday in a post on its corporate blog: Around 25 million people visit Yahoo! Music each month. Relatively...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 5, 2008; 12:50 PM ET | Comments (35)
Checking Up on HD Radio
LAS VEGAS--For each of the past three years, the folks at Columbia, MD-based iBiquity Digital have promised that a flood of new HD Radio receivers would be coming soon. But each year, the flood has turned out to more like a trickle, leaving fans of these new digital broadcasts--which...
By Rob Pegoraro | January 9, 2008; 05:21 PM ET | Comments (31)
Rock and Rolly From Sony
LAS VEGAS--The most curious gadget I have seen so far at CES is a small, spinning cylinder at Sony's booth called the Rolly. It's a combination of digital-music player, portable speaker set and, um, dancing robot. As the Rolly plays a song stored in its 2 gigabytes of flash...
By Rob Pegoraro | January 8, 2008; 10:26 AM ET | Comments (6)
News From Apple: iPhone to Open, iTunes Plus Expands, Leopard Next Week
Apple has had a busy couple of days. I'll start with the most significant item: The company's Hot News page today leads with a statement from Steve Jobs that it will allow outside programmers to write software for the iPhone and iPod touch: Let me just say it: We want...
By Rob Pegoraro | October 17, 2007; 01:50 PM ET | Comments (31)
Subtractions and Additions for iTunes Plus
That didn't take long: Less than a month after Amazon.com began selling MP3s without any "digital rights management" controls for considerably less than Apple's own iTunes Plus DRM-free downloads, Apple now seems to be cutting the prices of iTunes Plus downloads to match. Last night, searches for iTunes Plus songs...
By Rob Pegoraro | October 16, 2007; 10:14 AM ET | Comments (12)
Microsoft Plays a New Zune
Almost a year after introducing its Zune music player--then seeing it land in the marketplace with a resounding thud--Microsoft is taking another whack at the concept, as Mike Musgrove reports today. The software giant just unveiled two new Zunes. One's a $250 souped-up version of the old model, now with...
By Rob Pegoraro | October 3, 2007; 01:07 PM ET | Comments (24)
Amazon's MP3 Store
The MP3-download store from Amazon.com that I wrote about in May is now ready to take your money, the company announced this morning. Any venture by Amazon into digital music downloads would be a big deal in the music business, but this one is also DRM-free--every track is sold as...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 25, 2007; 10:05 AM ET | Comments (28)
Debating the Future of Music
I spent most of Monday in an auditorium at George Washington University, attending the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit. This gathering is meant to give musicians--as opposed to the recording industry at large--a chance to mull over the state of the business. Because life isn't always too kind...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 18, 2007; 10:07 AM ET | Comments (17)
Vinyl to MP3, the Hard Way
One of the questions I get most often--but which I am least suited to answer--is "how do I copy my old records to my computer?" I started buying music at a time when the only viable choices were tapes and CDs; I don't think I've bought even five recordings on...
By Rob Pegoraro | September 4, 2007; 10:57 AM ET | Comments (24)
Sony Connect, ATRAC Exit the Stage
It's official: Sony's pulling the plug on its Connect music service. Back in June, I'd posted an item here about reports of Connect's demise, reports that Sony denied at the time. Its confirmation arrived early this morning, in the 17th paragraph of a press release announcing a new lineup of...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 30, 2007; 10:24 AM ET | Comments (14)
Tuning Into Interactive Web Radio
I ended today's column with a series of question marks--I didn't want to tell you all what to think, mainly because I wasn't sure what I thought about how people might elect to listen to music if they could tune into a reasonable approximation of their tastes anywhere and everywhere....
By Rob Pegoraro | August 16, 2007; 09:51 AM ET | Comments (26)
Goodbye, AllofMP3.com...
... hello, MP3Sparks.com... er., AllTunes.com... or whatever name this site will be going by next week. The Russian music-download site has been blinking on and off the Internet this week. Each time it's resurfaced at a new domain name, however, it's retained the same attributes as before: absurdly low per-song...
By Rob Pegoraro | July 6, 2007; 08:07 AM ET | Comments (39)
Sony Connect Disconnecting?
Is Sony going to pull the plug on its Connect music-download store? A report at the PaidContent.org site last weekend said so, citing unnamed sources at Sony. Axing Connect would make a lot of sense, as the store has been one of the biggest failures in the digital-music business. But...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 22, 2007; 09:40 AM ET | Comments (5)
iTunes Minus DRM = iTunes Plus
So if it wasn't obvious from this morning's column or podcast (listen/subscribe/iTunes): Yes, I do have the iTunes Plus enabled on my own iTunes Store account. And if I could upgrade every one of my purchases to Plus, I would. I like the iPod and iTunes, but I also like...
By Rob Pegoraro | June 14, 2007; 09:49 AM ET | Comments (7)
DRM's Demise Accelerates
Steve Jobs wasn't kidding when he wrote that "Thoughts on Music" essay back in February that condemned the use of "digital rights management" technology in music sales--the iTunes Store will feature DRM-free downloads by the end of this month. Similarly, EMI wasn't fooling around when it joined Apple in this...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 16, 2007; 07:01 PM ET | Comments (56)
Copyright Board to Web Radio: Drop Dead
When it comes to copyright policy, it seems that no idea is too stupid to get a second hearing. Most of the time, the greedy proposals foisted upon us by Big Copyright are appropriately ignored even on the first go-round, but every now and then some foolishness slips by. Which...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 17, 2007; 02:26 PM ET | Comments (19)
A Death Blow to DRM
Less than two months after Apple chief executive Steve Jobs challenged record labels to stop insisting on "digital rights management" copy restrictions, one of the major record labels took him up on the invitation. This morning, EMI Music announced that it would allow customers to buy music off Apple's iTunes...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 2, 2007; 12:19 PM ET | Comments (56)
