Category: Stories
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VoIP is Dead. It’s just another feature, now
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Andrew Orlowski
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Business-wise, Skype is a basketcase. But that’s just one of the things that makes it one of the most emblematic companies of our time – a real, Ur-Web 2.0 company. Like so many internet companies, Skype has millions and millions of users. Like these internet companies, too, it can’t make very much money off all…
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Sadville is great for bubblewrap kids – BBC
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Andrew Orlowski
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TV shrink Tanya Byron blamed over-protective parents for keeping “bubble wrap” kids away from real social interaction and tethered to technology such as the internet, we reported yesterday. The government is hiring Byron to tout a “Live Consultation”, soliciting views on how the internet might affect children. That’s your taxes at work, Part One. How…
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In The City: Vinyl lives!
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Andrew Orlowski
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Manchester’s In The City music conference this year was the first without the presence of co-founder Tony Wilson, who died two months ago. But the local music network – and some parts of the London business – rallied to bring the event back to its roots. Unlike the endless circuit of “Future Of Music” talking…
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Apple, Tesco ‘most to blame’ for music biz crisis
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Andrew Orlowski
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A new report suggests that Apple and Tesco, not P2P file sharers, should take the most blame for the woes of the British music industry. The report, prepared privately by consultants Capgemini for the Value Recognition Strategy working group, set out to examine the “value gap”, the amount sound recordings revenue has fallen in the…
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Ursula le Guin dings surly Boing Boing
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Andrew Orlowski
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Science Fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin has given the anti-copyright fanatics at the Boing Boing weblog a quick refresher in authors’ rights. The blog posted a short piece by Le Guin, erroneously slapping a Creative Commons license on it. “This is incorrect,” wrote her representative. “Ms. Le Guin has not placed this work under…
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World’s dumbest file-sharer mulls appeal
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Andrew Orlowski
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Ironically-named P2P user Jammie Thomas, who was fined $220,000 for copyright infringement in a case brought by the RIAA last week, wants to appeal the Minnesota jury’s verdict. The lady is certainly unlucky. But is she ill-advised by her attorney Brian Toder – or is she just incredibly stupid? You decide: Jammie Thomas had used…