The sinister side of Spotify

Friday, March 5th, 2010

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that Spotify is, in many ways, simply brilliant. Music at my fingertips. The music I want, when I want it. And most importantly of all, for free.

The question is how long it’s going to last. More than one voice in the babbling din of the internet has openly wondered how the likes of Spotify can ever hope to turn a profit, and for good reason. The vast server farms, all that bandwidth swallowed by hungry cheapskates – not to mention having to pay all those pesky musicians – it must cost an absolute fortune.

And I really do wonder where all the money is coming from, because Spotify’s advertising is  clearly about as effective as getting semi-conscious students to thrust leaflets into the path of psychotic rush-hour commuters. The phrase ‘doomed to failure’ springs to mind.

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Need a bit of extra Christmas cash? Grass up your boss, says BSA

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

“Research released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reveals that nearly three quarters (70%) of London workers are willing to shop their bosses for improper business practices and one in five (20%) London workers would be even more willing to report their management for extra cash in the run up to Christmas,” states the BSA press release that landed in my inbox today.

Which is handy, because the dear old BSA would like nothing more than for employees to shaft their bosses in the run-up to Christmas, launching as it has “an advertising and marketing campaign to encourage employees in London to report their companies if they think they are using illegal software.”

Is it me, or is there something deeply unsavoury about the BSA trying to claim the moral high-ground on the use of illegal software on the one hand, and then using Christmas and the recession as bait to encourage employees to grass up their bosses on the other?

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Windows 7’s Disingenuous “Advantage”

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Last week, Microsoft announced some details of anti-piracy measures in Windows 7. It sounds like they’re going to be slightly less intrusive than those in Vista, and probably roughly as effective.

I don’t exactly resent all this product validation stuff. I’d prefer it if Microsoft didn’t feel the need to do it; but I accept that the company has a legitimate interest in dissuading casual copying, and to me a one-time online authorisation doesn’t seem an unreasonable way of going about that.

But I do resent all the weasel words and spin that surround the process. (more…)

Don’t pirate anything! (Unless you have to)

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I’ve just finished reviewing the QNAP TS-119 NAS drive. It’s interesting, in a geeky, all-your-stuff-on-one-device kind of way, and the review can be found here.

Among the drive’s long list of features is the ability to run BitTorrent downloads in the background. This is great news for anyone who currently leaves their PC running overnight. But before you do, the manual has the following warning:

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My mummy said it’s good to share

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

In David Bayon’s latest blog post he discusses a new tool which makes it almost effortless to download music for free. Really he shouldn’t refer to this as “stealing” – that entails taking someone’s property so as to permanently deprive them of it, which isn’t what’s happening here. But I think he’s absolutely right when he says it’s “hard to see what sites like Amazon can do in the long run” to compete with free unauthorised downloads.

Because the fact is that BitTorrent is only gaining momentum. A huge number of people now get their music this way (and see nothing wrong with it, as noted by Tim Danton in another recent blog post). As I write this, one popular BitTorrent tracker is reporting over 21 million users currently uploading or downloading data. A recent study by Jupiter Research estimates that a fifth of Europeans actively use file sharing sites – twice as many as use the iTunes store.

Clearly this is a problem. When such a large segment of society is at odds with the law, something needs to change. But what? Do we need to rethink the law, or do we just need to work harder to stop people sharing music and video files?

Before we can answer that, I think we need to understand what we’re actually trying to achieve. I believe the presumption should be that people are free to do what they want on the internet (and elsewhere) so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. So the first question is: what precisely is the harm that’s done by file sharing? Why, in a nutshell, do we care about all these people sending music files back and forth between their computers?

I’ll return to this subject in my next blog post; but before I do I’d be interested to hear your views on the above questions. So please, comment below and let me know what you see as the problem with file sharing.

How to steal music without even trying

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Amazon’s new MP3 store has finally been launched without DRM, with decent 256kbps tracks and some initial prices that certainly catch the eye (although not Tim’s). All good stuff, if a bit late to the party – but one mischievously timed little add-on could have a much greater impact on the industry.

It’s a Firefox plug-in that’s freely available if you know where to look (I won’t be telling you), that essentially turns the official Amazon.com retail site into a candy shop for freeloaders. (more…)

The Inevitable Rise of the Torrent?

Monday, May 19th, 2008

News reached us at PC Pro today that popular torrent website The Pirate Bay has cracked the Alexa top 100 – a list of the most-visited sites on the internet – and there doesn’t seem to be much that anybody can do about it.

It’s not the only torrent portal on the list, either, with Mininova sitting pretty at number 52. That’s higher than whole host of hugely popular and well-respected sites – about.com, for instance, languishes at number 78, and popular bohemian hangout DeviantArt lurks at 77. Blogging behemoth LiveJournal is just behind, too, at 56.

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