Yesterday, we posted that Blogger had rather surreptitiously shut down several popular music blogs.  Today, Pitchfork is reporting that Blogger has issued a statement in its defence.  In the statement, the Google-owned service explains its policy for enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the controversial American copyright law), noting that when it receives multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and has “no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner,” they will remove the blog (italics mine).
In other words, the burden of proof is on the blogger.  The …

Earlier today, Pitchfork reported that Blogger, the venerable Google-owned blogging service, has shut down several music blogs, including Pop Tarts Suck Toasted, I Rock Cleveland, Living Ears and It’s a Rap (none of which I have admittedly ever visited).  Apparently, the free music offered on the blogs violated Blogger’s terms of services.  As of about 11 a.m. PST, attempts to visit the blogs returned one-line ’Blog not found’ error messages.
The website The Daily Swarm has compiled several responses to the move, as well as a copy of an email sent from Blogger to I …

4080Records, thanks to some wonderful contributors, has been shown a website that will blow your entire mind.
Some enterprising fellow has been digitizing all his old LP’s.  Travesty, you say?  Sure, until you realise he’s been carefully categorizing and labeling them and putting them online as downloadable mp3s.
Aptly titled “My collection of 78 rpm records“, it’s got a ton of jazz and blues for your listening pleasure.  As well, he’s got quite the collection of foreign music, including some folk songs from various countries.
As you all know, sites like this don’t …

This type of trick is old hat when it comes to hiding files on your computer itself (yes, it’ll work to hide your porn or your terrible poetry).  And it can be done through any major photo sharing site.
All you have to do is rename your mp3 file to end in .jpg, upload it to the photo sharing site of your choice, and there you go.  You have a file that anyone can download, and once you rename it back to mp3 it’ll play just like new.
Obviously this should only …

Last Friday, Canada’s governing Conservative party introduced Bill C-61, an Act to amend the Copyright Act. According to a news release from Industry Canada, the bill “balances the interests of Canadians who use digital technology and those who create content … it’s a win-win approach.”
Josée Verner, the Minister of Canadian Heritage added, “Canadians are known around the world for their creativity and ingenuity, and many of their ideas are found in the books we read, the music we listen to, the movies we watch, and the new digital technology we use …

This post from CityPages takes a pretty funny look at the arguments record companies use to justify their war on piracy.  In fact, it goes back over the same arguments they used to make about how home tapers were ripping off the music industry and would essentially cause the same downfall the doomsayers are claiming mp3s caused.
Definitely worth a look.

The Source was a magazine that pretty much was the pinnacle of hip hop magazineness for Canada. For a while back in the 90’s it was the primary way to get hip hop news, especially in some of the cities where hip hop wasn’t nearly as prevalent. The April 1999 issue is especially interesting. They ran an article about the future of hip-hop and mp3s titled “MP3 and Hip-Hop: Sounds like the future”.
Here’s how it starts: “Imagine Downloading the latest album from Jay-Z or Method Man straight …

In case your music directory is insanely disorganized, take a gander at MP3 Check.  It’ll help you fix up all the gaps in your information, as well sort things for you.
Apparently, you can even search by things like gain and bitrate.  That way you can find the quieter and lower quality tracks in your library.  Not a bad deal, and worth checking out.  You can download it here.
[Source: Lifehacker]

Taking a page out of the Radiohead playbook and improving on it, Nine Inch Nails superstar Trent Reznor has decided to release the newest album for free on the web. Not backwards, not low quality, not snippets.
The. Full. Album. There are multiple versions to choose from. The audiophiles among you may actually choose to download a 1.2 GB monstrosity of the album in wav form. It’s not compressed so the sound should be nice and crisp.
You can download the album here.
My favourite part about this whole …