Is Spotify the future of internet music?
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in 7Digital, Spotify, Sweden, music, Apple on
Spotify is riding high on a wave of good publicity, signing a deal with 7digital that means users will be able purchase tracks - possibly giving iTunes a major run for its money.
If you haven’t discovered or used it, then what you are missing out on it is a free, legal music service that pretty much allows you listen to unlimited streams of virtually any track or album that you might think of.
Too good to be true you might say - there must be lots of artists and record companies that haven’t signed up. Although it does lack songs by the likes of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, it has struck deals with all the major record labels - load it up for the first time and you’ll be surprised at what you can listen to, with no fee.
The way they manage to make this pay is by is 20 minutes or so, hitting you with a short advert. Considering that listening to the radio many stations seem to hit you with a advert every second song, this isn’t too much of a big deal. Spotify is also trying to make its premium paid-for service more attractive to users - it remains to be seen how successful this will be.
Spotify celebrates its third birthday today, and their founder Daniel Ek has blogged about how the service first started with the aim of providing a way to allow listeners to be able to listen to whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, but without having to act illegally.
The next move for Spotify is to open up to a wider community, while at the same time respecting rights holders, as well as generating enough money to provide users with a decent service.
Ambitiously, it wants to be the platform for people to consume, manage and discover music.
Ek says: “To reach our goal it’s important for Spotify to be wherever our users are. Music should be accessible on your favorite platform whether that’s a social network, an IM service, a mobile device or a media centre in your living room.”
Personally, using Spotify has been great. It slaps the iTunes store with a wet fish, considering you’re only allowed to listen to any song by purchasing a track.
It also encourages you to listen to music you don’t necessarily have access to or just want to test out. I’ve listened to the entire back catalogue of Jimmy Hendrix and Stevie Wonder in this way - if you want to discover new music, this might be the best way that you can do it.
Importantly, it does have a role to play against piracy. Many people download songs because there is no other way to listen to them without having to purchase it online or buy a CD. This way, you can listen to the album for free, and then decide to purchase it if you want to keep it.
As one user commented: “Spotify really IS BETTER than piracy. Neither I nor many of my collegues have downloaded one single song illegally since we got Spotify accounts.”
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
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How Pirate Bay sticks two fingers up at the industry
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Sweden, trial, Pirate Bay, pirate, Microsoft, IT PRO, Apple on
The Swedish owners of Pirate Bay, one of the most notorious file sharing websites in the world, seem to be bulletproof.
It was today revealed that on the second day of their highly-publicised trial for copyright infringement, the prosecution has already had to abandon half of all the charges.
They are completely open about what they’ve been doing - hence the name, symbol and much of what they say on the website.
Their main defence is that none of the files shared are saved on their server - only torrent files, which technically means that the owners of the site don’t hold any of the copyrighted files.
Many of the companies whose property is being downloaded are pretty unhappy with what the Pirate Bay does, and how the owners stick two fingers up and laugh, as they feel they are protected under Swedish law.
Here are some of the cease-and-desist notices that companies have sent to Pirate Bay, together with some of the rather cheeky replies that its owners have given.
The big daddy of tech has already sent what Pirate Bay owners describe as a ‘ton’ of cease and desist letters like this one.
Pirates Bay contains a number of Microsoft files which users have uploaded and shared, including different versions of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and many more.
Like Microsoft, Apple sounds very serious in how it intends to “take further actions to stop the sites illegal activities.”
However the Pirate Bay sent a rather mocking reply, together with the insult: “Instead of simply recommending that you sodomise yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model- the ASP 21 inch, the previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action.”
The MPAA and the Swedish government
The Motion Picture Association of America and Swedish authorities thought they scored a victory against the Pirate Bay by ’shutting down’ the website in 2006.
However, the Pirate Bay returned.
They said: “Just some stats… here are some reasons why The Pirate Bay is down sometimes, and how long it usually take to fix.
Tiamo gets “very” drunk and then something crashes - 4 days
Anakata gets a really bad cold and no-one is around - 7 days
The US and Swedish government forces the police to steal our servers - 3 days…. yawn
Rated: 80% (5 votes)
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