HITB News

Although a team of scientists published their controversial research detailing security flaws in a major digital music security initiative without incident today, the leader of that research team said the publication represented a "very partial victory." Princeton University Professor Edward Felten and his colleagues presented their findings detailing the inner workings, and failings, of the security features created under the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) at a security conference here this evening.

The latest version of the Ogg Vorbis digital music compression format was released today. Called RC2, the most important of the many changes is channel coupling, which means that Vorbis can now encode bitsteams at a much lower bitrate than before

MP3Newswire.

A third P2P program based on the Dutch FastTracK technology has emerged. Called Grokster, the program can now share files with Morpheus and Kazaa users who also link through FastTrack. Morpheus and Kazaa are among the fastest growing file trade programs in the wake of Napster's shutdown, scoring almost 2 million requests on Download.com last week alone. Grokster, which plans to put more emphasis on the music of unsigned artists, will expand that network.

MP3Newswire.

According to WebNoize, 6 CDs is what the average person buys a year. That is not very much and this article explores what that means to online music.

MP3Newswire.

The growing buzz over copy-protected CDs may be causing some consumers to hear double.

For several weeks, news that record companies have quietly been selling copy-protected compact discs in stores has been filtering around the Net. Although nobody has yet produced a verified copy of a CD loaded with this technology, developed by copy-protection giant Macrovision, it has produced a wave of "sightings" that have swept even to places as prominent as Amazon.com's consumer reviews.

In a setback for terrestrial radio stations that stream their broadcasts over the Net, a federal court has ruled that they must pay to stream.The loss means that broadcasters are liable for fees to the record industry retroactive to when their Net broadcasts first aired. That means tens-of-millions of dollars in past fees are owed by network giants like Infinity Broadcasting alone.

MP3Newswire.

MP3 Newswire distills a legal article by Anupam Chander that illuminates a concept of law called eminent domain and how a recent Supreme Court decision could use it to not only bring Napster back, but to its original open-trading form.

MP3Newswire

Give them credit, in less than 2 months MusicMatch got this many people to give them their credit card number. They are also claiming that 85% of all Radio MX customers report being satisfied or extremely satisfied. With all the free radio streams out there that is impressive. Having not tried the product here is the question: is the service that good or are a lot of people paying for something they can get elsewhere for nothing?

MP3Newswire.

Vivendi Executive Vice President Edgar Bronfman Jr announced at Jupiter Communication's Plug-in conference yesterday that the joint Vivendi Universal/Sony music service PressPlay will launch in the first half of September.

MP3Newswire.

It's not surprising that Hank Barry's tenure at the helm of Napster is coming to a close, his official title does include the word "interim" in it. It looks like that moment is at hand as Napster may announce as early as today his replacement, former Bertelsmann exec Konrad Hilbers.

MP3Newswire.