Audio/Video

Despite impressive growth in online music sales this year, CDs and LPs together are still outstripping digital downloads, according to a new study from market research firm Gartner.

Sales of online music are expected to grow more than 31 per cent by 2015 to $7.7 billion, but despite a slide in physical music format sales from around $15 billion in 2010, CDs and LPs are still expected to outstrip their digital equivalents, with total sales of $10 billion.

A co-founder of NinjaVideo.net has pleaded guilty to a copyright infringement charge, joining two other founders who pled guilty to charges in September.

Justin Dedemko, 28, of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. The U.S. Department of Justice charged Dedemko and fellow NinjaVideo.net officers with distributing infringing copies of movies and television programs to millions of visitors to the site.

The world of online music is evolving at a global breakneck pace. Millions of people are Pandoring, Turntabling, and Spotifying away. They're sharing their music choices on their mobiles via Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm. Users, developers, and entrepreneurs are redefining the very nature of broadcasting for the foreseeable future.

A NEW $7 million security camera system for Parliament House has been labelled a costly and dangerous security risk, after a whistleblower revealed it has numerous ''critical'' security deficiencies and has already been brought down by hackers.

The new system failed during two protests this year, and problems with its installation led managers to move it from a secure network to one recently hacked by foreign spies.

Sesame Street had its YouTube channel hacked on Sunday, and its highly popular child-friendly videos of muppets like Kermit the frog and the Big Bird replaced with something far less savoury: Hard core porn movies.

What would Bert and Ernie say?

The NSFW content was available for all the world to see for approximately 20 minutes, before the channel was suspended for "repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines."

Lyricist Jinn just released the fruit of his collaboration with TeaMp0isoN and Anonymous hacker groups in the form of a song and a video clip called #OpCensorThis.

The 4 minute rap was intensely advertised by TeaMp0isoN who is believed to be behind the recent riots that took place in the UK. Their Twitter profile posted all day messages that encouraged people to “push it to the masses.”

Two founders of movie download site NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty to charges related to copyright infringement, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Hana Beshara, 29, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Last Friday, Matthew David Howard Smith, 23, of Raleigh, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the same charges in the same court.

No wonder Steve Jobs is smiling. He just struck a deal with the record labels to finally monetize pirated music —  a move that “resets the whole music industry,” according to one music-tech CEO.

Hackers have uncovered Google's long-awaited online music locker service for Android, which will let users store all their music on Google's servers and then stream it to any device.

The service is a nice selling point for music fans who can't fit all their tunes on their phones, but probably won't make much difference to average users. Google first demonstrated a similar service at its I/O conference last May, but has struggled to reach the necessary licensing deals with music companies.

Two computer experts who allegedly hacked into laptops owned by leading record producers had "thousands" of unreleased songs by stars including MARIAH CAREY, SHAKIRA, and LADY GAGA, according to a report.

Cops in Germany busted the pair last year (10) amid claims cyber-crooks had targeted leading music industry figures with a Trojan horse virus to steal never-before-heard tracks.