Audio/Video

The continued hoopla over online music has taken another turn in the Federal government. This time the United States Department of Commerce Technology Administration (TA) is holding a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management (DRM). The information the TA collects will presumably find its way to the various hearings Congress holds as it tries to gauge what laws it should impose upon Net music technology.

Nullsoft Winamp is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity music player for Windows. Winamp supports MP3, CD, Audiosoft, Audio Explosion, MOD, WAV and other audio formats, custom appearances called skins, plus audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins. Version 3 includes many additional features including free-form skins, a new decoder, built-in cross fade, and an advanced Media Library.

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Source: Personal Computer World

Bertelsmann steps in with debtor-in-possession deal
Napster appears to have secured its future after winning approval for a $5.13m debtor-in-possession agreement with German prospective buyer Bertelsmann AG.
The controversial internet music swapshop, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and has been unable to operate since July last year, said that it would use $4m of the money to prop up its business operations.

The lawmakers will tell you that hackers are a great evil in this world...except for those they give permission to hack. The music industry is now seeking that permission in a new bill by a California congressman who is probably running for re-election and needs some campaign cash. Next time someone gets caught pulling off a DDoS attack, just hold up your hands and yell "Don't shoot, I'm a record producer"!

The Library of Congress has made a decision on royalty rates for Online radio streams, setting a fee that all US based Net radio stations will have to pay to the record industry for the privilege of playing their music. The good new is that the Librarian of Congress halved the recommendations of the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel's (CARP). The bad news is that those figures may still be too much.

Audio Playback Recorder enables you to record sound, played back through your sound card and any other sound sources like microphone , VCR, Audio tape player etc. You can use it to grab any sound, including music, dialogs from movies, game sounds etc. from your local computer or the internet. Captured sounds can be saved in WAV or MP3 format, using real-time conversion (without creating temporary files).

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Source: CNet News

L33tdawg: This might explain why a search for most songs will result in the sickening 'x' mark on the search result pages. Oh well, there's still Xolox and WinMX so that's all right then :)

I have come to the conclusion that the music industry must be ruled by organized crime because everything they do is a shakedown. Now the record industry is considering charging used CD retailers a royalty for every CD they resell, claiming that used CD sales are another form of intellectual piracy.

Nullsoft Winamp is the ultimate high-fidelity music player for Windows. Winamp supports MP3, CD and other audio formats, more than 10,000 skins and 150 audio visualization and effect plug-ins.

Download Winamp 3.0 Build 477

Alan de Klein

It's been a bumpy ride for this Gnutella client the P2P world calls XoloX. XoloX was introduced in mid 2001 and almost immediately became a success. At the time, several features placed it above the reigning Gnutella clients such as BearShare and LimeWire. Such features included multi-source downloading (revolutionary for a Gnutella client) and a very efficient resume feature. Fearing litigation, the developers of XoloX imposed a self-exile upon themselves which lasted for almost 5 months.