Items tagged with 'DRM'
iTunes Smashes Other Online Music Stores, Takes 25% Of All Sales
With all the talk of music piracy clouding the airwaves these days, it's rather refreshing to hear some positive news about music in the digital age. And despite what the RIAA or anyone else may have you believe, music sales are still happening. Just not in the same way that they were when your mother was buying records.... Read More
Survey Finds That Teens Love To Pirate (And Buy) Music
You know what we haven't heard much about lately? Piracy. It used to be all the rage, but after iTunes (and pretty much every other online music store) went DRM-free, it seems those stormy waters have calmed. Or, on second thought, maybe no one was talking about it.New research from the University of Hertfordshire over... Read More
Astak's Pocket PRO eBook Reader Includes Adobe Digital Editions Firmware
Astak launched a new 5-inch Pocket PRO eBook reader that should provide Amazon’s Kindle with some good competition. This new reader supports over 20 open file formats and also features Adobe firmware that adds support for Digital Rights Management PDF files. Thanks to the Adobe firmware, users can read both public-domain... Read More
RIAA Says "DRM Is Dead" - But Does It Mean It?
DRM, or Digital Rights Management, never did go over well in the court of public opinion. To the music industry at large, DRM was a mostly futile attempt to lock music down to certain players or systems, thus making it something harder--in theory, anyway--to freely distribute. In reality, however, those who were circumventing... Read More
Apple Sued Over Tiered Pricing, Gift Cards
On April 7th, iTunes went 100% DRM-free, but at the same time Apple introduced tiered pricing. And therein lies the crux of this new lawsuit against Apple. Daniel and Barbara Owens of Illinois have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The couple has purchased "numerous" iTunes gift cards over the years, but in this... Read More
Napster Re-launches, Offers $5/month Plan
Napster unveiled its latest plan to compete in the subscription music space by offering a $5 per month service that is similar to what Zune users enjoy. Through Napster’s latest offering, you’ll enjoy a combination of on-demand music streaming and five tracks to download and keep each month. At that price, you basically... Read More
Pirate Bay Founders Face Jail Time And Fines
Some might say it's the end of an era. Just so we're clear, Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom are definitely not among that group. The four men most tightly linked to torrent hosting site The Pirate Bay have been found guilty in a Stockholm district court and sentenced to one year in... Read More
Apple Goes 100% DRM Free
Apple has rolled out the 100% DRM free iTunes, otherwise known as iTunes+. With this change also comes variable pricing; songs now cost $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29. Most albums still cost $9.99. Users who have purchased music via iTunes prior to the upgrade have the option to upgrade their songs, albums, or their entire library... Read More
"Control Chip" Confirmed In iPod Shuffle Earbuds
The rumors were true; Apple has indeed popped a new "control chip" within the headphones on its talkative new iPod Shuffle, and this little inclusion has all manners of panties up in bunches. After a flood of questions surrounding a mysterious chip within the inline remote cropped up over the weekend, a number of third-party... Read More
Vodafone Makes Its Music Catalog DRM Free
Astoundingly, it looks like the darkest DRM days are behind us. As more and more companies digest the fact that DRM only hurts the legitimate buyers and gives pirates even more incentive to plunder for illicit bounty, we're seeing the DRM shackles removed from music stores across the web. The latest major company... Read More
iTunes Plus Upgrades Go Singular
At this year's Macworld, Apple announced iTunes was (finally) going DRM-less. However, if you wanted to remove the DRM from your pre-existing iTunes library, it was all or nothing. Proving that they do listen , Apple has changed things, and you can now upgrade your music to iTunes Plus (AKA DRM-free) one song at a time.... Read More
Prince of Persia 2008 for PC is DRM Free
To DRM or not to DRM, that is the question. (For the uninitiated, DRM stands for digital rights management, and it is a means publishers use to restrict users from making unlicensed copies of software and other digital media--in essence, it is copy protection.) On the one hand, DRM limits the ability of casual users from... Read More
Spore Top Pirated PC Game in '08
Spore is not only a retail hit, it's a BitTorrent hit, according to a recent top 10 assessment of PC game piracy by TorrentFreak. Spore's SecuROM DRM earned it negative customer reviews at Amazon.com, protest Spore creatures, as well as lawsuits. According to TorrentFreak (and honestly, many others), it also earned the... Read More
Spore's DRM = Class-Action Lawsuit for EA
Spore is a critically-acclaimed game, but (at least by users) its DRM has been universally panned. Many of those who know anything about the SecuROM copy protection used in the game don't want it near their computers, unless they absolutely have to. And while Electronic Arts (EA) has "loosened things up" slightly, the DRM... Read More
Spore's DRM to Loosen Slightly, Soon
Spore's rather draconian DRM, which besides being the already hated SecuROM limits the user to 3 installs and only one online account per CD key, has fostered extremely bad user reviews on Amazon.com as well as "protest creatures." At least part of that DRM will get loosened up soon, via a patch, according to reports. When... Read More
Spore's DRM Inspires Protest Creatures
Don't expect this issue to go away anytime soon. We know many are (understandably) upset over the DRM used on the critically-acclaimed game Spore, not just because of SecuROM but also because of the "three activations limitation" and one account per CD key (which was not noted in the manual; in fact the opposite was said... Read More
One DRM to Rule Them All?
What would be the ideal form of DRM? Besides, obviously, no DRM, copy protection that's industry-wide, so that you could snag something from one store or retailer and play it on any player, whether it be a Zune or an iPod, or even your DVD player, would be the dream of consumers. While piracy is the bane of... Read More
DRM's Dead! Long Live... Dell?
The trend towards DRM-free music seems to be giving Dell the notion that the market's ready for another digital music player. They tried to sell MP3 players five years ago, but got washed away in the Apple iPod tsunami and gave up in 2006. There's a whiff of "me too" about anybody trying to make portable music players now;... Read More
DRM Sucks Redux: MS to Nuke MSN Music DRM Keys
As though we need still another reason to hate DRM, here comes one. Remember the now-defunct MSN Music store? Hopefully you weren't one of the few to use it.Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which... Read More
Your DirecTV Will Be DRM-Old And Busted
April 15th is not my favorite day of the year. I doubt it's yours, either. But the IRS is not the only acronym you need to start worrying about on that date. This year, your DirecTV digital video recorder will be getting the DRM treatment for pay-per-view content on April 15th. The days of recording and watching entirely... Read More
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