In the olden days (i.e. until today), record labels and others seeking to discourage people from distributing copyrighted material online without permission in the United States had one basic strategy: 1. Find the IP address of the person sharing music (they only go after uploaders, not downloaders). 2. Subpoena that person’s ISP in order to…
My brother is probably not too excited that 120 Javelin songs are currently being streamed for free by Grooveshark, which does not pay him or his label for that music, the way most other large streaming services do. Grooveshark CEO Sam Tarantino told Evolver.fm that recorded music should be free, just like information used to…
When Google first yanked the Grooveshark app from Google Play, we wondered if Android were turning into its father. By that we meant Apple’s iOS, of course, but as the Samsung vs. Apple case made all too clear, these are meant to be two distinct smartphone operating systems. On Tuesday, Google reinstated Grooveshark’s app into Google…
Sometimes, the act of reporting makes you part of the story you’re trying to cover. Last week, we wrote about how a tipster sent us a link to a program called Grooveshark Downloader, a Google Chrome extension that lets anyone with that browser download as many high-quality MP3s as they want from Grooveshark, which itself…
Following Evolver.fm’s article “Someone Is Lying To Us: Grooveshark or Google,” which posted yesterday, the browser extension in question – Grooveshark Downloader – has vanished from the Google Chrome Web Store. Either Google or the app’s Brazilian developer, desescute, deleted it (the note says “An error occurred: Item not found. This item may have been removed by its author”). Update: Now…
Grooveshark and Google have had an adversarial relationship since April 2011 or earlier, because that’s when the Android app store booted Grooveshark from its virtual aisles. Along with Apple’s rejection of the app from iTunes, this led to Grooveshark building an HTML5 workaround. Now, one of them is lying to Evolver.fm. You be the judge. (Update: The Plot…
As the music technology awaits a reportedly massive iTunes overhaul, the Flaming Lips were busy setting a Guinness World Record, while a remarkably beautiful audiovisual presentation in Cannes integrates flying robots and the music of Oneohtrix Point Never. In digital music news, the act of urination is now more fun for some Brazilians, and we took a look at what the Google Nexus…
Our experimental Duly Noted category is a collection of news from other publications and press announcements that we put into our own words. Hey, someone should start a business around that!
The music world was hectic this past week, the most newsworthy item being the lethal pre-show stage collapse of the structure housing Radiohead’s beautiful and engrossing performance visuals. We also saw an art installation in L.A. turn heads with its ingenuity and the free release of a normally $200 Moog keyboard. The week’s recent music apps brings…
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently, the music industry is dead. From the start, it was clear that digitization would bring the ability to acquire music for nothing, in a mostly-anonymous setting (that is, until a record label subpoenas your ISP for your IP address). For many of us, the availability of so…
It’s an idea that’s been kicking around for years — that maybe people don’t want to subscribe to music in general. Maybe, in cases of extreme fandom, they want to subscribe directly to the artists they love, without all of the layers of record labels, distributors, online music stores, and so on. The fan pays,…
Nobody likes missing out on the big gig, whether due to a prior commitment, lack of funds, or scarcity of tickets, as with the recent tours by Kraftwerk and Pulp. Wish You Were Here, developed at Music Hack Day Sydney, is a simple web app that promises to alleviate some pain on the part of…
This Week In Music Apps serves up the latest music apps for iPhone, Android, and your now-more-capable web browser at the start of each week. You could set your… calendar by it. We’ll start with a round-up of music apps and services we’ve put to the test since last week’s installment, and don’t forget to check…
The latest installment of our “This Week In Music Apps” series adds a new category: web apps, with two exciting offerings you won’t want to miss, and as always, some great new options to enhance your iOS or Android music experience. (Developers or music app users: Please suggest music apps for us to cover here.) iPhone…
Music WithMe, a music sharing and discovery website that’s also available as an Android app, released an intriguing infographic this week that, if applicable to the larger music community, suggests that Apple may be lowballing the percentage of legal digital downloads in the average music library — where music sharers are concerned, anyway. Drawn from…
