Sing it!
by redhatpress
This time we’re talking about one of our favorite topics–music. If you love tunes like we do, you know about the fight over Digital Rights Management (DRM). New technologies have blown the lid off music distribution; files can be passed almost invisibly over the Internet, from one device to another. Once a music file is out there, it’s hard to control. And like the advent of the cassette tape, this makes the music industry nervous. DRM is a way to reclaim control over how music can be used… but it eliminates many of the newfound freedoms the technology has introduced. Is it the right thing to do?
Get the answer to that question (and more) from Ed Felten, an expert on the subject of DRM. And if you missed our last release, you should catch the first segment of his talk, too.
The wide world of the Internet has disrupted the music industry in other ways. Web-savvy amateur guitarists have been sharing song transcriptions since the early 90s at sites like the Online Guitar Archive. You might notice that link is blank–it’s because OLGA’s been shut down. We had to find out why.
But don’t fret–it’s not all bad news and short-sighted policy. We’ve got some great info for Linux-loving musicians and listeners. One of our resident hackers turned his Fedora Core 5 machine into an audio and MIDI workstation with Rosegarden. And we talked to the founder of Jamendo, a music sharing service that uses Creative Commons licensing on its entire (and enormous) DRM-free library.
Also this week: Brush up on the basics of web services, pick up a few new tips and tricks, or sit a spell with your old pal Shadowman.
