“This Ain’t No Picnic” Says One Angry TMT Staffer. Yes, Actually It Is, And With The Roots. (Also: Tour with Erykah Badu)
By The Friz on Apr 24 2008
Last Sunday, we here at the TMT offices decided to take a little break from the daily news grind and go out for a picnic. After packing as many staffers as we could in the TMT Winnebago, we hit the road for the nearest state park. I’m not saying some writers didn’t get left behind (the interoffice feuds have been getting awfully heated lately), but what I am saying is that a good time was had by all. Tunes were bumped, volleyballs were tossed, white hots were roasted, and some staffers (I’m looking at you Reviews) even had a little 4/20 fun on an extended nature hike. Even after P put us all to shame with his fabulous beach bod (photos to come), we still managed to find room for a S’more and Creamsicle nightcap.
In fact, our TMT staff picnic went so well that The Roots decided to have a picnic of their own June 7 in Philly. Unlike us, who invited only each other and our parents, The Roots are bringing along Gnarls Barkley, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Santogold, Deerhoof, J*Davey, Diplo, Esperanza, The Cool Kids, and YOU. Tickets are $50, but since you’ll be getting them from Ticketmaster or LiveNation.com, they’ll probably end up costing somewhere in the thousands.
And if you can’t make it, it’d be awfully charitable to play The Roots' new record Rising Down at a picnic of your own sometime after it comes out April 29. Then again, maybe not. But you do have a chance to check them out on tour, a majority of which will be shared with Erykah Badu, who released New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (TMT Review) earlier this year.
The Roots have an awful lot of free time:
# Erykah Badu
“A Load of Bollocks”: Virgin Media On Net Neutrality, Customers, Fairness, Children, Puppies
By Joseph Coscarelli on Apr 24 2008
The industry news mavens over at TorrentFreak continue to drop jaws, this time with a story on Virgin Media's new outspoken CEO Neil Berkett. The man has made no secret of his lust for money and disdain for flowers and candy by literally scoffing at the very concept of net neutrality, a concept saying all data carried over the internet should be treated the same, leaving no preference to higher-paying websites or corporations. In an interview with Television magazine, Berkett called this idea "a load of bollocks" (and then proceeded to gut the stuffing from a teddy bear).
Instead, he was proud to announce that Virgin had already begun to speed up traffic for specific, deep-pocketed "media providers," who likely also supply him his nightly glass of lamb's blood. According to the article, Virgin Media boasts 3.5 million users countrywide -- a number that is likely rising rapidly -- and due to high volume traffic can't support the stress of all the added bandwidth. The very public slap in the face is highly disheartening to evil, heartless users of file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent, which makes large-sized transfers as easy as a couple of clicks.
To them, Berkett says "phooey," but he decided to cast his net a little wider and call out the BBC as well. With his cross-hairs on their popular iPlayer service, the seething CEO lashed out at all public broadcasters, noting that if they did not pay a higher premium for speedier service, they would be designated to "bus lanes." This process, known as throttling, has recently come to worldwide attention when it became clear that mega-giant ISP Comcast had been throttling many of its users when it noticed high-volume activity, with no inquiry into the legality of the bandwidth being used. Still, as Virgin Media has made clear, you pay for a service and they dictate how you use it.
“A Load of Bollocks”: Virgin Media On Net Neutrality, Customers, Fairness, Children, Puppies
By Monocular Cognition on Apr 24 2008
The industry news mavens over at TorrentFreak continue to drop jaws, this time with a story on Virgin Media's new outspoken CEO Neil Berkett. The man has made no secret of his lust for money and disdain for flowers and candy by literally scoffing at the very concept of net neutrality, a concept saying all data carried over the internet should be treated the same, leaving no preference to higher-paying websites or corporations. In an interview with Television magazine, Berkett called this idea "a load of bollocks" (and then proceeded to gut the stuffing from a teddy bear).
Instead, he was proud to announce that Virgin had already begun to speed up traffic for specific, deep-pocketed "media providers," who likely also supply him his nightly glass of lamb's blood. According to the article, Virgin Media boasts 3.5 million users countrywide -- a number that is likely rising rapidly -- and due to high volume traffic can't support the stress of all the added bandwidth. The very public slap in the face is highly disheartening to evil, heartless users of file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent, which makes large-sized transfers as easy as a couple of clicks.
To them, Berkett says "phooey," but he decided to cast his net a little wider and call out the BBC as well. With his cross-hairs on their popular iPlayer service, the seething CEO lashed out at all public broadcasters, noting that if they did not pay a higher premium for speedier service, they would be designated to "bus lanes." This process, known as throttling, has recently come to worldwide attention when it became clear that mega-giant ISP Comcast had been throttling many of its users when it noticed high-volume activity, with no inquiry into the legality of the bandwidth being used. Still, as Virgin Media has made clear, you pay for a service and they dictate how you use it.
Microsoft Fucks Consumers Again, Ditches Support for Its DRM
By Mr P on Apr 23 2008
Microsoft has announced it will soon no longer provide support for music purchased from its now-defunct music store. According to an email from MSN's Entertainment and Video Services general manager:
As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.
Which means: if you bought music from the MSN Music store (which of course came with some good ol' DRM), then you will have to either own the same computer and operating system for the rest of your life or lose all the digital music that you actually paid for. You could get around this by burning CDs of everything you downloaded and then ripping them into a playable format, but is this really the way Microsoft wants to treat their customers? Can you imagine someone trying to play music on Windows XP 10 years down the line?
Wonder what would happen if Apple stopped supporting its FairPlay DRM. Yikes. If you're 20 and purchasing tons of DRM music, either you should be thinking of a backup plan or you have tremendous faith in big companies.
