rah1420 writes "Gizmag just wrote about "Instant FM Music," a USB dongle that plugs into your computer's USB Port and records FM and Web Radio stations. You can record the playlist, tag the songs for easy playback, all without that nasty DRM." Nice and cheap, although who knows if the software is any good. That would be a neat device to see hacked for things like MythTV.

High-C writes, "A bunch of us nerdcore hip-hop artists have gotten together and released a Halloween-themed CD. Seventeen creepy, darker-than-they-should-be songs from total nerds, with seven different CD covers. What's not to love? The perfect soundtrack for tonight's Halloween parties. And of course, the track listings are in hex."

jetsetsc asks: "I am not a programmer but I am a musician. My band's recordings belong to the band, and we'd like to skip the middlemen — labels, iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, etc — and setup a way to sell MP3's cheaply, and directly to fans. I have searched quite a bit and found nothing that fits the bill. Snocap is sort of similar, but they are more about a central store with a MySpace tie in. We don't need a fancy search, or a complicated 'if you liked this try...' feature. I figure potential fans can find our webpage on their own, referred by Pandora, a music blog, internet radio, or even (gasp!) a print article. When they get there it'd be great if they could listen to samples, check off the songs they want, pay 39 cents (or however much) through PayPal, and get a secure non-transferable download just like iTunes. DRM not required. I can't believe in this day and age that a service or software package like this doesn't exist. Any ideas?"

Bennett Haselton writes "The Associated Press is writing that "DVD Jon", known for breaking the copying restrictions on DVDs, plans to market a method for breaking the copy protection on songs purchased from iTunes Music. What's missing from the story is the fact that converting iTunes music into unrestricted formats like MP3 is already trivial. In principle it's impossible to prevent music from being copied anyway, because a user can always play a song through an audio output jack and use another device to record the sound; there are several other methods that work by reducing the same principle to practice. Bottom line: there's no reason yet to get excited about the iTunes-cracking technology (and, indeed, no reason to buy an iPod), when you can already convert songs this way." Bennett's full article on the subject is available below.

An anonymous reader writes, "On the 5-year anniversary of the iPod, Fortune Magazine has an article called Unlocking the iPod about Jon Lech Johansen's new venture. Slashdot briefly covered DoubleTwist earlier this month, and those of you who complained that he was not enabling iPod competitors to play FairPlay files will be happy to learn that according to the Fortune article he will also be going after the hardware market." From the article: "As [Johansen] and Farantzos explain DoubleTwist in a conference room they share with several other companies, he points to a sheet of printer paper tacked on the wall that has a typed quote Jobs gave the Wall Street Journal in 2002: 'If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.' As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system... Johansen has written [two] programs...: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs."

ncstockguy writes "YouTube appears to be fully aware of their copyright vulnerability and is now actively moving to head that problem off. They're now taking active steps to aid copyright holders in pursuing litigation against violators." From the article: "Its prompt legal capitulation suggests that YouTube users who post copyrighted material should not expect the company to protect them from media-business lawsuits, said Colton, whose firm wasn't involved in the Paramount subpoena or lawsuit and who learned of them from a MarketWatch reporter. The 'Twin Towers' episode is reminiscent of the way the entertainment industry vanquished the first version of Napster Inc. and other digital-music sites that made it easy to download copyrighted songs over the Internet. Music company lawyers first warned and then sued individual users who downloaded their songs. Now it looks like piracy hunters for the movie studios are using the same technique against YouTube users."

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including: The facts about Debian Iceweasel; A closer look at Folding@home's GPU client; David Brin's lament; Online gambling ban may violate international law; Human species may do whatnow?; and Another RIAA lawsuit dropped. Read on for details.

Retrogaming with racketboy has up an interesting feature, a piece intended to discuss the best and most relevant Dreamcast games available today. Not intended as a 'top ten list', his goal is to suggest titles that will resonate with gamers of today who are likely to own other consoles. By suggesting titles that haven't been topped by further works, or that may have been the basis for other popular games, he's hoping that today's gamers will still stop and play the classics once in a while. From the article: "Not only is the gameplay in Jet Grind Radio compelling and unique, but the audio and visual qualities stand up extremely well to today's standards. First of all, the graphical style hits you like a brick in the face (in a good way) with its well-executed cel-shaded models and landscapes. Jet Grind Radio was one of the pioneering games in the cel-shading movement before mainstream games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker made it popular for cartoon/anime-style games. The Jet Grind Radio soundtrack is also one of the most popular gaming lineups of all time featuring an array of eclectic songs combining the musical genres of J-pop, Trip-hop, Hip-hop and Electronica. This is one game that is not done justice on TV speakers -- you should definitely try to hook up some decent speakers in order to experience it at its best."

Tamas Feher from Hungary writes, "Finnish antivirus vendor F-Secure reports that Mcdonalds in Japan distributed 10,000 infected MP3 players as customer prizes in a promotion with Coca-Cola. The USB sticks contained 10 free songs plus the QQPass Trojan, which is intended to steal login data. F-Secure reports that they have heard, but cannot confirm, that simply plugging the USB device into a Windows PC is sufficient to get infected. Investigation is still going on, but the mishap apparently happened in Hong Kong. Patrons nationwide are urged to quickly return their M-logoed sticks for replacement or call a 24hr hotline, if unsure." Here is the Mcdonalds Japan announcement (in Japanese, but Babelfish at Altavista handles it well).

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes, "The RIAA has dropped the Elektra v. Wilke case in Chicago. This is the case in which Mr. Wilke had moved for summary judgment, stating that: '1. He is not "Paule Wilke" which is the name he was sued under. 2. He has never possessed on his computer any of the songs listed in exhibit A [the list of songs the RIAA's investigator downloaded]. He only had a few of the songs from exhibit B [the screenshot] on his computer, and those were from legally purchased CDs owned by Mr. Wilke. 3. He has never used any "online media distribution system" to download, distribute, or make available for distribution, any of plaintiffs' copyrighted recordings.' The RIAA's initial response to the summary judgment motion, prior to dropping the case, had been to cross-move for discovery, indicating that it did not have enough evidence with which to defeat Mr. Wilke's summary judgment motion. P2pnet had termed the Wilke case yet another RIAA blunder."

willith writes "IGN has posted the official list, straight from RedOctane, of the 40 licensed tracks in Guitar Hero 2. There's a great mix of songs, running the list from 'stuff my parents like' (Allman Brothers) to 'music that kills' (Megadeth). You can get an early start with the GH2 playable demo in this month's Official Playstation Magazine, which contains four songs (Strutter, You Really Got Me, YYZ, and Shout at the Devil). For those about to rock, we salute you!" If some of the songs on the list are making you scratch your head, a helpful gent online has put together YouTube clips of the set list.

Wowzer writes "MTV's Overdrive game site show G-Hole got a preview of Guitar Hero II for the PS2. MTV wasn't supposed to share the song names they saw, though, and they were quick to remove the new song names from the video. Lucky for us all 38 Guitar Hero II songs were captured at VideoGamesBlogger. From the article: 'Opening Licks: Strutter — Kiss, Mother — Danzig, Monkey Wrench — Foo Fighters, Shout At The Devil — Motley Crue, Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight — Spinal Tap.'" The article points out that between the songs listed here and previously announced tracks, there are only two songs as yet unrevealed.

mikesd81 writes to mention an article at Engadget exploring what the Zune's wireless is good for. It turns out that, at least for now, that's not much. From the article: "You can search for and find other Zunes nearby. You can send songs / albums for the 3 x 3 trial. Songs past the three days / listens are deleted at next sync, but catalogued on your PC for record-keeping should you want to purchase them later. No word on whether Microsoft is going to keep track of which files are traded. You can send and receive image files for 'unlimited viewing.' (Oh, so copyrighted images aren't worth DRMing?) You can't: Connect to the internet, Download songs directly from the Zune store via WiFi, Sync to your computer via WiFi."

ColinPL writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new study backed by Hollywood on intellectual piracy. The study, which they're presenting to lawmakers today, claims that piracy has a ripple effect on the economy. According to the study, lost revenues may have as much as three times the impact previously imagined. From the article: "Lawmakers and federal agencies such as the Justice and State departments have helped Hollywood battle physical piracy -- specifically, counterfeit DVDs. But now the stakes are especially high for entertainment companies as they sell more of their products online in the form of digital songs, movies and other intellectual property. Internet piracy may be tougher for lawmakers to conceptualize, entertainment companies fear."

Cubricon writes, "As expected, Microsoft has dropped their price on the Zune in response to Apple's recent iPod updates. Ars Technica has an article that discusses the Zune's use of Microsoft's prepaid 'points' system for songs. Will the masses notice the difference between an iPod and a Zune? Will they want the FM and wireless capabilities?" The Zune lists for $0.99 more than the comparable iPod and songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor the RIAA is trying to include song files it doesn't have copies of as part of its 'distribution' argument. The defendant Marie Lindor is asking the Court to preclude them from doing that. She points to the RIAA's own interrogatory response in which the record companies swore that their case was based upon their investigator seeing a screenshot and then downloading 'perfect digital copies'. They produced eleven (11) copies of song files, but want to be able to prove twenty seven (27) other songs for which they can't produce the files."

Joel from Sydney writes "According to a report in the New York Post, YouTube has informed potential buyers it won't be sold for anything less than $1.5 billion. The report lists Viacom, Disney, AOL, eBay and News Corp as potential buyers. Given that News Corp purchased MySpace last year for $580 million, is this a realistic figure?" From the article: "YouTube's stated business model is to 'pursue advertising,' but potential advertisers might be skittish considering industry estimates that roughly 90 percent of the content viewed on its site violates copyright laws. And at least one giant, Universal Music, is threatening to sue the company if its artists' songs keep appearing there. As it tries to focus on videos that don't use content owned by media companies, it yesterday launched the YouTube Underground, a contest to 'discover the most talented unsigned bands and musicians on YouTube,' backed by Cingular Wireless, Gibson Guitar and ABC's 'Good Morning America.'"

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "'Sure, the Internet has revolutionized the spread of information and all that high-minded stuff, but its combination of reach and anonymity also makes it the greatest enabler of guilty pleasures ever invented,' Jason Fry writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'Indulgence is just a click away, and nobody needs to know, except you and some server somewhere.' For example: Fry, a rock snob, has a double secret life as a pop-music fan (secret no more, of course). From the article: 'If your secret love of "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" has caused it to creep into your iTunes list of 25 most-played songs, a simple right-click will let you reset the play count. If you want to hear Fall Out Boy, but would rather do so in secret, you can command Last.fm to ignore that the song was played — or delete it from your charts if you forget. Viewed from the standpoint of cool logic, this behavior is at least mildly insane. But who needs things that remind us of who we really are, as opposed to how we want others to see us — or how we'd like to see ourselves?'"

lopy writes "Medialoper has noted that Zune's highly touted wireless file sharing will infect otherwise unprotected audio files with proprietary DRM. In cases where users are sharing songs covered by any of the Creative Commons licenses, this would be a clear violation of those license. From the CC FAQ: 'If a person uses DRM tools to restrict any of the rights granted in the license, that person violates the license.' It'll be interesting to see how and if the CC community responds." An anonymous reader wrote in mentioning a post to the Crave blog, relatedly exploring how the Zune stacks up to the iPod.

theoddball writes "In what should come as no great surprise, Universal Music Group is preparing to file suit against YouTube for copyright infringement, the AP reports. Discussions with the site's owners have broken down (although talks are apparently still progressing with Myspace / News Corp over similar issues). From the article: 'We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,' Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. This development follows last month's announcement that YouTube is negotiating with labels to legally host videos. While the primary complaint is against music videos, one cannot help but wonder if this will also impact the many, many homemade videos using copyrighted UMG songs as a soundtrack (or — *shudder* — a lipsync.)"