P2P developer aims to enter legal music streaming, Phishing on Twitter, Hulu win AP award

Spotify Aims To Compete With Piracy [Broadband Reports] 

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That appears to be the mantra of at least one segment of the peer-to-peer crowd, as a new start-up named Spotify aims to create a P2P application that streams legal MP3s from a catalog of major label music. Spotify was formed after the developer of uTorrent sold the application to BitTorrent. The Spotify application is still in beta.

It may be a noble effort to attempt to bring legitimate content to the world of P2P, but since Spotify's music can't be loaded onto an iPod or similar portable music device, it's questionable whether Spotify has much chance competing against other online music providers.

Realistically, unless the copyrights of the content owners are enforced, it's going to be a tough road competing against "free", even though free in this context usually is illegal.  I know it seems like a victimless crime to download a song or two online, but it's no different than walking into a music store and stealing a CD.  How many people don't do that simply because they believe they're going to be arrested if they do?

Twitter phishing scam may be spreading [CNET News]

Are you using the popular micro-blogging site Twitter? If so, you'll want to be aware of a phishing scam that is spreading through Twitter. It goes something like this: You receive a Twitter direct message saying something like, "Check out what this blog says about you!" The message has a link that appears to link to a Blogspot blog, but actually redirects to a site designed to look like Twitter. The site is, in fact, a phishing site designed to steal your log in credentials. CNET has all the details on this scam, so you can recognize it and steer clear if you receive one of these messages.

We Interrupt This Program New York Times 

The Associated Press named Hulu.com as it's Web Site of the Year for 2008. Here's one New York Times reviewer's opinion about the ease of use and and content available on Hulu, a joint venture of NBC Universal and Fox, which features steaming video content from both, as well as some feature-length movies. Hulu's content includes advertisements, which show up during the regular commercial breaks of Hulu's television programming. Hulu also features some HD content, which can be displayed full-screen on your computer.

LG gets official with Netflix-enabled Broadband HDTVs [EngadgetHD]

LG is unveiling a new line of HDTVs at this week's Consumer Electronics Show that promise streaming video from the Internet, while ditching the set top box that's currently required. Consumers can currently purchase a Roku set top that allows streaming of Netflix's movie catalog directly to the television. LG has packaged Netflix's streaming software directly into the television. No separate set top box or separate remote, required. Just plug your broadband connection into one of the new LG televisions, and with a Netflix subscription, you've got instant access to video content.  It appears, though, that the LG solution requires an ethernet connection.

I have used the Roku box at home and it works very well.  One reason I like it -- it's wireless.  My TV is nowhere near the closet where I keep my cable modem so an ethernet connection is simply not practical for me.  The picture quality on my 50" plasma screen is very good.    My only complaint is the lack of titles available for immediate download.  Netflix says they have 12,000, which sounds like a lot.  But my experience has been that most of the titles I was looking for were not offered for download.  It's also only 12% of their total library.  I wonder why. 

Between this and the previous subject--Hulu--we are going to have to continue our discussion about heavy bandwidth usage.  I think it's terrific stuff but all-you-can-eat Internet connections simply will not support the business model of this type of usage.

Comments

[sineswiper]

Millions of people are pirating music for a reason: they are tired of the deception and greed from the recording studios. They are tired of paying $15-20 for CDs, and sites like iTunes aren't much better. Sure, iTunes just removed their DRM, but now they want you to pay AGAIN to remove it, the prices are going to be even worse with the $1.29/song model, and the cut that artists get from iTunes is even worse than CDs.

I'd be willing to pay $3-5 for an album if the artists go in that direction. Sites like eMusic seem to be pricing these things right, and though the monthly model isn't to my liking, overall, I think they are moving in a better direction. Artists like Radiohead and NIN have skipped the middle man to provide their music free or nearly free.

So, no, I don't believe music piracy is the same as "walking into a music store and stealing a CD". What the RIAA does to artists every day is more like "walking into a bank and stealing all of the money". Piracy doesn't pay the artists, but it does make a statement that the general public is sick of how the music industry works.

The best way to solve for the problem is to make it more worth our while to buy music without having to skirt the law.