Mike Butcher

Public Enemy’s New Wireless Order: Public Enemy (which pioneered using MP3s) is getting into wireless. On Nov. 28 the group will make the music from its new album, New Whirl Odor, available through wireless phone networks using distribution technology from privately held m-Qube. “It’s like the Internet in ‘98, but with a business plan,” says Walter Leaphart, who manages Public Enemy leader Chuck D.

Today Lefsetz rants about…how music labels had the media on their side “but, by not coming up with a reasonable alternative to P2P, or authorizing it, and SUING traders, they’ve lost all their good will.” The next email was effectively spam, forwarded from a firm touting for people to call video shows requesting songs. Talk about outsourced pluggers. Next email today (three so far, and counting) was about how he discovered some decent tracks on Kate Bush’s Ariel album, but it took random events to find them, since he didn’t round to listen to the final tracks: ” After all, these albums don’t come with instruction booklets, which track to play first, to get hooked. After all, these albums are supposedly works of art… But in a world where the history of recorded music is available at one’s fingertips for free, one needs an introduction, one needs to be shown the way, it’s not like the old days, where you spent fifteen bucks and PLAYED the damn album, since you had so much invested.”

Over 250 copyrights are covered by the deal signed today by Universal Music Publishing Group for Elton John’s back catalogue. The worldwide agreements administer the post-1974 publishing interests of Elton John and his collaborator, Bernie Taupin. As UMPG already owns the copyrights of songs written up to 1974, these new agreements put the entire Elton John catalog under one roof.

Streaming radio service Live365 is being scrutinised by the Recording Artist Association of America (RIAA) which is interested in user-generated stations that do not properly comply with various DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) statutes. The RIAA says it will “reserve the right to shut them down or otherwise restrict access” and Live365 has emailed its users with exactly that warning. What this means, of course, is that the glittering new world of ‘user generated content’ may turn out to be a mirage, killed off by a hail of lawsuits.

Is Podcasting turning into a viable media business? Maybe. Podshow this week add 30s shows to its network and plans a major marketing push to lure more podcasters into its fold, broadening the network of shows it can sell to advertisers. Meanwhile Paige Heniger and Gretchen Vogelzang, who’s “Mommycast” is about the joys of motherhood have signed a 12-month sponsorship agreement with Dixie paper products, worth more than $100,000.

Microsoft’s XBox site has published a document that shows how to turn the XBox 360 gaming device into an iPod accessory:

“We’re happy to report that the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system works with MP3 music files on Apple iPod portable audio players, right out of the box. Just connect your iPod’s USB cable into any controller port on your Xbox 360 console, then go to the Media area of the Xbox Dashboard to select or create a playlist.”

However, it doesn’t look like it will play iTunes files, given that “Xbox 360 is compatible only with AAC files that are not protected by DRM.” We knew there’d be a catch…

It’s interesting that a Chinese company – a part of thew world normally notorious for copyright violation – is suing other chinese firms for just that. The Chinese-based music and video company, Guangdong Meika Music and Video, has filed 50 piracy lawsuits with the courts against companies it claims are producing and selling pirated versions of its goods. The company is demanding defendants stop violating its intellectual property rights and pay 8,000 yuan (US$987) in compensation for each of the pirated products.

The San Francisco Chronicle (R.I.P. CDs) argues that there’s no reason to buy another compact disc ever again now that we have iPods, satellite and digital radio and the Net. MP3 blogs like The Hype Machine and Largehearted Boy offer daily links to free music available online.Online radio stations are “becoming a safe haven for anyone who just wants to hear some good music.” With subscription digital music services like Rhapsody and Napster, “Owning music is so last century.” Social networking sites like MySpace.com can showcase 55,000 unsigned bands (of varying quality of course). In the US, satellite radio like Sirius offers more variety than “even a 60-gig iPod and more unpredictability”. Of course, there#039s the iTunes Music Store and BitTorrent. Even Amazon is touting free music MP3s to entice people to buy new music.

It’s always nice to write about a company that has the potential to genuinely do some good. The Starsight Project is just such a company. It has come up with an ingenious system for providing solar power, Internet access and street-lighting (and potentially a lot more) all from a network of lamp posts in developing cities. The first trial will be in Cameroon. My article for the Financial Times about the project is here.

[MacUser]: Apple is facing legal action of the alleged breach of two patents in its iPod, iTunes and Mac products. Illinois-based Premier claims that the Apple products violate patents which describe a system for creating lists of audio works – in other words playlists. Premier is seeking an injunction and damages, while Apple doesn’t comment on legal disputes.