Music sales milestone: digital surpasses physical
It's been more than a decade since Napster sent the music industry into a
tailspin, and record labels are still adapting to the digital reality they find themselves in.
For better or worse, the future of music is not the CD, and a huge recent milestone confirms what we have known for a long time: that it's largely digital.
SOPA: the sad but honest truth
The fight against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, may be one of the most important fights ever waged on the internet. It threatens to change the course of the web's development, and not for the better.
Given the impact this dark and misguided legislation would have on the internet economy, it's no surprise that many are coming together to do what they can to ensure it doesn't become law.
The media is starting to pay attention, and SOPA supporters like GoDaddy are seeing that such support comes at a cost. These things provide some hope that SOPA will be defeated.
Unfortunately, however, the discussion about SOPA is incomplete.
Can a pay-what-you-want type foundry work?
Typography is a huge but often overlooked and underestimated component of effective design, particularly on the web.
Fonts are often sold through foundries, which are sort of like the record labels of the typography world. While many produce their own fonts for sale, they also serve as distributors for independent designers and studios, earning a royalty each time they sell a font.
Spotify's new freemium: a little less 'free'
The internet has popularized the freemium model like no other channel, but building a successful business on this model can be quite a challenge.
One company that has succeeded: Spotify, the Swedish company that has become Europe's most popular music streaming service.
Supreme Court: eBay not liable for counterfeit goods
Should eBay be liable for trademark infringement when its vendors offer counterfeit goods for sale? Famous jeweler Tiffany & Co. has been arguing since 2004 that it should.
The case finally reached the Supreme Court, which rejected Tiffany & Co.'s appear on Monday. That leaves a lower court ruling, which went in eBay's favor, as the final word on the matter in the United States.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda: the movie studios and their Netflix stock
Last month, beleaguered video rental chain Blockbuster filed for
bankruptcy. While the company's demise can be blamed on a number of
factors, it's hard to ignore one: the rise of Netflix.
Netflix, which is now an $8bn corporation trading at just over
$153 per share, looks poised to capture a big part of the nascent streaming
business.
France saves the music industry
The music business isn't as easy as it once was, and record labels often blame the internet for that. After all, the internet has enabled piracy on a scale never seen before, which is often cited as a major reason CD sales have declined so much.
While the internet did usher in an era of digital piracy, the truth of the matter is that industries change over time, and the strongest players in them find ways to adapt.
Will the RIAA seek a DMCA replacement?
The business model of the recording industry is broken. Just about everyone knows it, including record label executives. But the industry collectively still seems to have a hard time admitting it.
So it's really no surprise that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has gone so far as to sue grandmothers for illegal music downloads, is singing a new heartbreaker: copyright law is broken.
Download 'Hurt Locker' on BitTorrent? That might really hurt
The Hurt Locker won six Oscars earlier this year, and if its producers have their way, it will also be a big winner in court.
U.S. Copyright Group, a company operated by a group of intellectual property attorneys, has been retained by Voltage Pictures, which financed The Hurt Locker, to file a lawsuit targeting potentially tens of thousands of individuals who downloaded the film via BitTorrent. Ouch.
Spotify looks to make digital music more social
Popular European music streaming startup Spotify has been able to survive and thrive in a tough market that has seen its fair share of startup casualties. In an effort to maintain its growth, it has announced the largest upgrade since it first launched in 2008.
The goal: turn Spotify into a "total music management platform". The means: a hefty dose of social features.
