groups

Mystery surrounds Universal's takedown of Megaupload YouTube video

Legal sparring between hosting site Megaupload and Universal Music Group has taken an interesting, if confounding, turn.

To summarize: Megaupload posted a promo video on YouTube a week ago featuring a raft of hip-hop stars. It was quickly removed after Universal Music Group (UMG) complained. Megaupload sued UMG on Monday and asked the court to bar UMG from blocking the distribution or display of the video. The video was back up on YouTube last night, but Megaupload vowed to continue the court case. (For the longer replay read "In SOPA's shadow, Megaupload strikes back against Universal.")

The … Read more

In SOPA's shadow, Megaupload strikes back against Universal

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While Congress debates the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a real-world copyright dispute has been unraveling with a major music conglomerate flexing its muscle against an online content hosting company based in Hong Kong.

Megaupload posted a promo video for its online hosting and file transfer service on YouTube on Friday, and Universal Music Group quickly had it removed for alleged copyright violation. The video features Kanye West, Puff Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, and others voicing, and even singing, their praise for the service. UMG claimed some of the artists had not consented to appearing … Read more

How to easily edit group photos

There are about 14 million (number not scientifically accurate) ways for a group photo to go wrong. People blink, sneeze, look the wrong direction, or otherwise get distracted and the potentially perfect shot gets ruined as a result. Fortunately for any Windows user, software is available with tools to help you splice pieces of different photos into one problem-free picture.

What you'll need:

Windows Live Photo GalleryLots of pictures--you'll want to take the same photo a few times to make the near-perfect shot a reality.

Step 1: Open the Start menu and type Windows Live Photo Gallery into … Read more

Universal Music's digital chief plots new course (Q&A)

Who are the people making decisions at the big labels? Do they bear any resemblance, in appearance or attitude, to the people listening to the songs they sell?

Or do they look like those men in the photograph of Ray Charles, the one taken in 1965 when he was negotiating a new contract with ABC Records? There's Ray, laughing and laid back, the image of cool. But down the long conference-room table is a group that is almost comically uncool: graying, balding, sober men all wearing dark suits.

But that was a long time ago, and that's not … Read more

Warner Music's losses widen even as digital sales grow

The music industry is supposed to be showing signs of renewed vigor, but just try finding signs of a turnaround in Warner Music Group's fourth-quarter earnings report.

Warner, home to such acts as Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, today reported a net loss of $103 million in the quarter ending September 30, compared with a $46 million loss in the same period a year ago. For the fiscal year ending the same day, the record label saw a $205 million loss.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter was down 7 percent to $707 million and for … Read more

Does the Kindle Fire have serious usability issues?

A consultancy has spotlighted difficulties people have using Amazon's Kindle Fire. But the "usability sessions" can hardly be considered exhaustive testing.

A summary of Nielsen Norman Group's tests said the Kindle Fire "offers a disappointingly poor user experience," and cites the size of the screen as the main culprit.

Then the group adds this caveat: "This was a small study, with only four users, but qualitative studies often generate deeper insights than bigger, more metrics-focused quantitative studies." The link to the findings first appeared on Daring Fireball.

Highlights of Nielsen Norman Group findings:… Read more

Grooveshark email: How we built a music service without, um, paying for music

Grooveshark deliberately set out to build a huge online following without paying for the music it streamed and shared in order to establish a stronger negotiating position with record labels, according to internal emails included in court records.

Earlier this month, Universal Music Group, the largest of the four top record companies, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court against Escape Media Group, parent company of Grooveshark, a music service that enables users to share songs with other users. In the complaint, Universal Music accuses Grooveshark's leadership of copyright infringement and claims that managers uploaded pirated songs themselves.

Grooveshark … Read more

Four ways to share your printer

How many computers are in your household? Two? Three? More? Many households have more than one computer, but having multiple printers is probably overkill. Here are four ways to share your printer:

1. Integrated Ethernet/Wi-Fi printer The most obvious and convenient way to share a printer is to use a printer with a built-in Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection, like the Brother HL-2270DW. Wi-Fi printers are convenient if you want to put your printer somewhere that isn't near your router, but using the Wi-Fi connection isn't the only way to print wirelessly. If your printer has an Ethernet … Read more

Grooveshark slams Universal's copyright lawsuit

Grooveshark.com said today that a lawsuit accusing it of posting copyrighted music is based on a "gross mischaracterization of information."

The comments came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by Universal Music Group accusing the music-sharing site of posting more than 100,000 pirated songs to its site. The lawsuit identified executives at the company as leading the effort by personally posting thousands of copyrighted songs.

"Universal's claims rest almost entirely on an anonymous, blatantly false Internet blog comment and Universal's gross mischaracterization of information that Grooveshark itself provided to Universal," Marshall … Read more