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FTC sets its sights on BurnLounge

For some time there's been skepticism surrounding the questionable business model of BurnLounge, the Web music retailer meets multi-level marketing scheme. Now it would appear the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been keeping a close eye on the online retailer too. In court documents filed against BurnLounge last week the FTC has accused the Web retailer of running an illegal investment scheme naming, amongst others, BurnLounge CEO, Alex Arnold, and former American Football player Rob DeBoer, one of BurnLounge's most prominent retailers.

According to news reports, the FTC has asked to examine BurnLounge's books in order to determine if more money is made from recruiting new members than from actually selling music. We're betting the FTC won't have too many late nights sorting that mystery out.

For some time BurnLounge has been an outsider in the online music industry, despite high profile supporters such as Justin Timberlake, Shaquille O'Neill and Public Enemy's Professor Griff the underlying business model when it came to selling music didn't match up with its impressive celebrity endorsements. BurnLounge music stores priced songs at a similar level to iTunes, yet in the beginning those songs couldn't even be played on iPods.

BurnLounge's supporters were vocal on forums with their claims of a transformative business model, but most of the time came off sounding like they had been drinking too much digital music Kool Aid. Ultimately BurnLounge is most disappointing because it took a great idea like syndicating music sales to music fans and turned it into a cynical marketing scheme for the benefit of very few.

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Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

CiviballsI have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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