In a victory for neo-Luddites the Author's Guild, Amazon has announced its intention to disable the speech to text function its new Kindle 2 ebook reader. Amazon announced its intention to selectively disable the device following criticism from the Author's Guild President Roy Blount Jnr. that the Kindle 2 would undermine the billion dollar a year audiobook market.

In a statement released to the press, Amazon argued that the text-to-speech feature was legal, but said that it would give authors the right to decide whether or not to disable the feature for their books:

'Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given... nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat... Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rights holders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title.'

It's unclear if the Author's Guild plans to now campaign to receive royalties from all other text-to-speech programs, but its hollow victory is sure to be received poorly by the visually impaired and any other consumers who are forking out around $350 bucks for their new Kindle and want to actually use the legal functionality that it has been designed with.

Hopefully Amazon will flag up which cheapskate publishers have disabled the text to speech functionality of their books very clearly, so that Kindle users can be sure to vote with their wallets and boycott those responsible for this shameful decision.

[Via the New York Times]

Amazon agrees to cripple Kindle 2 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The latest version of Amazon's ebook reader, the Kindle 2, has been attracting plenty of positive attention for its slimline form, style and functionality but has also drawn criticism from an unexpected quarter - from Authors Guild President and humorist, Roy Blount Jr, who isn't amused about the Kindle's new text to speech functionality.

The Kindle 2 has a function that allows published works that are downloaded onto the device to be converted into speech and played back through the small speakers in the device in either a male or female voice, functionality that will no doubt be attractive to the visually impaired, drivers on long trips or for people who are simply too damn lazy to read the book themselves.

The Authors Guild is in a tizzy because it feels that the Kindle 2 is going to undermine the billion dollar a year audiobook market. Blount apparently wasn't joking when he wrote in a New York Times editorial this week that 'authors have a right to a fair share of the value that audio adds to Kindle 2's version of books'.

Continue reading The Kindle aint no swindle, Roy

The Kindle aint no swindle, Roy originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's fairly difficult to muster up sympathy for Facebook's management when it comes to the current user revolt over changes to the site's terms and conditions of use (or T&Cs as they are commonly know). After all we've seen it all before, anyone remember lefty singer songwriter Billy Bragg's 2006 MySpace Revolution? Putting aside the irony that it's likely that the MySpace revolution is the only one that Billy Bragg will ever lead, the 2006 Revolt was a blueprint for Facebook's 2009 controversy.

Back in 2006 MySpace changed its T&Cs to provide for an ongoing license to any content posted on the service as they saw fit, fast forward to 2009 and Facebook has done substantially the same thing. Back in 2006 an activist user revolt lead by Bragg forced a turnaround from MySpace, fast forward to 2009 and (absent Billy Bragg) Facebook has done exactly the same thing.

So, what were they thinking at Facebook? Why would a massively successful site show such a disrespect for its users?

While people may put up with the most draconian clauses drafted into the T&Cs for Windows Vista or Adobe Acrobat, generally because they never read them and they couldn't change them if they wanted to, when it comes to online media and the Web things are different. Facebook users should be concerned about the T&Cs, they constitute the terms of the contract between Facebook and its users and is a legally binding document. In an ideal world contracts for services should be negotiated between the parties, in the case of most Web sites and software companies that rarely happens, but this time the users have struck back and are now appear to be collectively negotiating that contract through online activism.

The drafting of Terms and Conditions for Web sites is a tricky business, lawyers must weigh up the potential risks of litigation against the possibility that the terms and conditions will sufficiently turn off users from using the site. When it comes to social media sites there is another significant concern - that users will revolt, start discussion groups, stop posting photos of their cats, and make statements to the media that generate poor publicity for the site.

Lawyers for social media sites need to have a nuanced understanding of the site's fundamental business and pay attention to risks that might impact the business both inside and outside the courtroom.

Given that Facebook would have been well aware of the MySpace case, a cynical observer might suggest that the manner in which Facebook clearly highlighted the changes to the T&C showed that Facebook's management was well aware of the possibility of a user revolt and that their subsequent response would have been mapped out in advance. Facebook's subsequent response to revert back to the previous T&C an to enter into a process of consultation

Users have good reason to be worried about large corporations infringing on their IP rights or privacy. How many users would want to be featured in a Facebook tie up with US Magazine of top ten of "Facebook Funniest Drunken Party Photos" or see their "25 Random Things About Me" reprinted without permission or compensation in an
"Official Facebook 25 Things" book?

Given the dominance of Facebook in the social media world it seems unlikely that this hiccup will only result in the cancellation of a tiny number of hardcore users while at the same time continuing to generate headlines and page views for the site. Facebook and other social media sites need to establish exactly how far they can go when
it comes to the user generated content that drives their world and ensure that lawyers don't kill the golden goose by overreaching and draconian T&Cs. Ultimately Facebook needs to understand that when it comes to user generated content people do actually care and show some respect.

Hey Facebook - where's the respect? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Pandora may be on the brink of self-destruction, but upstart music download service GrooveShark clearly believes in its style of predictive music programming with the launch of its new service, GrooveShark Autoplay.

GrooveShark originally launched with a radical new model which proposed to commercialize P2P by allowing users to be rewarded for sharing songs that were purchased by other users.

Since the initial launch of GrooveShark the company has also launched a Web based download solution 'GrooveShark Lite' which features a substantial music library to compliment the service's P2P features which also allows for full previews of songs on the site.

The addition of the Autoplay service to GrooveShark Lite turns the site into a Pandora style radio station as it allows consumers to search for tracks, listen in and then click on Autoplay which will build a playlist based on your initial choice. Autoplay can then proceed to build a picture of your listening interests with then subsequent user feedback on the selected tracks which allows the user to give any particular track the thumbs up, thumbs down or add the track to your favorites.

With Pandora threatening to close down, it will be interesting to see if GrooveShark can avoid the royalty woes that have afflicted the Web radio giant and prove that Web radio and music downloads can both be made to pay.

[Via GrooveShark Lite]

GrooveShark adopts Pandora style radio player originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A far reaching transformation of domain names could be in store as Internet guardians, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meets to discuss changes to top level domain names.

According to a report from the BBC, ICANN has plans to deregulate top level domain names to allow any string of letters to be used as a top level domain, paving the way for long proposed domains such as .xxx, for company names like .Disney or even personal names such as .gordonfinlayson to be used as a domain name.

The proposed system would also allow for internationalization of domain names so that additional new languages and characters could be used to register domains which will be a plus for the billions of people who don't use Latin alphabets.

ICANN will vote on the proposal on Thursday on the last day of a series of public meetings which are being held in Paris this week. ICANN acts as the guardian of all Internet domain names and more informally as a global regulator of the Internet, but such services don't come cheap and the new domain names could see the cash rolling in for ICANN.

The release of a new domain name system could see a feeding frenzy as people individuals and companies compete to acquire catchy or unique domain names, and will no doubt be a considerable disappointment to all the poor saps who have paid good money for quality .com, .net or .tv domain names. All this is is inevitably going to result in a ton of new disputes over precedence for registrations, trade marks and issues like obscenity so lets hope ICANN has a really good dispute resolution procedure in the works.

[Via the BBC]

.XXX back on the drawing board as ICANN plans big domain name changes originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A visit to www.barackobama.com shows that the Obama campaign has established itself firmly in the social media world with an offical presence on major services such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and more specialist sites such as Glee, Eons, MyBatanga, AsianAve and Faithbase.

On the Republican side, John McCain's presidential campaign has developed its basic Web presence with a mult-faceted Web site but McCain lags far behind Obama in terms of presence and supporters in the key online social media battlegrounds.

Continue reading Election 08: candidates face off in social media

Election 08: candidates face off in social media originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Having an emotional moment but just can't seem to express yourself with words? Well send a TinySong and tell the World how you feel with music instead.

TinySong is a nifty new application from the folks at GrooveShark that allows you to search for a track on the GrooveShark database, then gives you a short link that you can cut and paste into into an email, instant message or add to a blog entry if you want to funk it up.

TinySong is the latest project from the folks at GrooveShark who have recently been aggressively marketing their service with dirt cheap music download offers such as their Mothers Day 49 cent download offer. TinySong links in to GrooveShark's' marketing efforts as it not only allows users to share songs, but also allows the TinySong recipient to purchase the track they are sent if they are getting into the groove.

The service has only had a soft launch, so you'll have to excuse any quirks, according to the good people at GrooveShark next steps include Twitter and Tumblr integration before a wider launch of the service.

Tell the World how you feel with TinySong originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 28 May 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Radiolab takes on themes relating to science, nature or culture and examines them through a prism filtered by scientific method, social history, personal experience and sound production methods. Produced in series of 5 parts at a time, with its innovative subject matter, high quality production, creative writing and detailed research Radiolab is one of the most innovative podcasts available for download online.

Click here to subscribe to the Radio Lab RSS Feed.

Click here for subscribe to Radio Lab via iTunes.

Reinventing Science in the Radiolab - Download Pod originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a statement on the Sonific Web site, founder Gerd Leonhard, said that the economics of the music industry made it impossible for Sonific to continue with its current business model. Leonhard pointed to the attitude of major labels as one of the key issues in developing the service, noting that the Majors would often make unreasonable demands to license their music, 'we have routinely faced demands for very large cash advances and fixed per-stream minimum payments, pressure to give them 'free' company equity, and requirements of utterly bizarre usage restrictions.'

According to Leonhard the site had around 80,000 registered users and had managed to aggregate over 200,000 songs from independent labels and music aggregators, but had found it difficult in the current business environment to carve out a realistic business model for the service.

According to Leonhard's statement 'the bottom line is that this industry is certifiably dysfunctional and that we do not see a plausible path to take at this time. We neither want to engage in so-called copyright infringement nor do we have millions of dollars available to buy our way in when it is abundantly clear that doing business under the existing rules of the major labels will simply amount to economic suicide.

Major label economics forces Sonific to the wall originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

P2P music community site Grooveshark has entered a new phase with the launch of Grooveshark Lite, a Web based application to allow community users to share and purchase tracks. Grooveshark differentiates itself from other music Webtailers by giving community members credits every time a fellow user purchases a track from their music library.

Grooveshark lite allows you to organize your music and build playlists or makes recommendations on top tracks from other users to build playlists if you can't be bothered to build your own. Grooveshark also lets you stream entire tracks from other users before you make your purchasing decisions.

The Web site is the latest incarnation of a service that launched in beta as a P2P application that maps your music library and then allows you to share it with fellow community users, as Download Squad wrote last year. Music that is then made available through Grooveshark can be purchased by other users, and community members are rewarded with credits each time purchases are made from their library.

Continue reading Grooveshark takes to the Web with new incarnation

Grooveshark takes to the Web with new incarnation originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Grooveshark is a radical new service that attempts to fuse community services and P2P music file sharing with a product that will motivate users to share music files and simultaneously accrue credits towards music purchases from the process. Subscribing to Grooveshark turns your own personal library of music into a music store available to family, friends and any other passing consumers that you can draw in. The service is an ambitious attempt to commercialize a P2P distribution distribution with social networking model of distribution.

Grooveshark requires the user to download a Java app that interfaces between the Web service and your library of tunes. The site operates like a music laundering service, no questions are asked as to where the tracks came from, but when one of your contacts chooses to download the track from your computer, Grooveshark will bill your contact for the full cost of the track and then pay a share of the money to the label and credit a portion to your account against future purchases.

Continue reading Making P2P pay: Grooveshark review

Making P2P pay: Grooveshark review originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Earlier this week I wrote about being banned from Facebook, wrongly accused of being a spammer. Needless to say there was in fact no justification for allegation, I managed to inadvertently triggered Facebook's anti-spam mechanisms by emailing a set of similar questions to a number of Facebook developers for an article I was writing.

Today Facebook gave me back my account but there wasn't the slightest bit of contrition in sight. In an email from customer service, they continued to assert that the emails that I sent to Facebook developers could still be seen as spam.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Facebook takes action against spammers, but it would be nice if they acknowledged when the system had made a mistake. After all I wasted a considerable amount of time trying to research an article on Facebook development, time that was completely wasted since none of the developers would have been able to respond to my suspended account. Further, Facebook customer services even had the gall to suggest that if I violated the Facebook Terms further that they would terminate my account for good.

'Please do not send or post any more form messages. Further violations of our Terms will result in the termination of your account.'

The interest in my earlier article showed that my case was far from novel, numerous Download Squad readers commented with similar complaints and questions about Facebook's standards. For a site such as Facebook which is entrusted with the personal data of millions, this kind of arbitrary action raises questions about the management of that data. Recent questionable recruiting tactics from other social networking sites such as Quetchup has raised questions about privacy and management for other companies such as Facebook.

So thanks Facebook for giving me my account back, but no thanks for squandering any goodwill that I previously held for your social networking site.

Dear Facebook: thanks for giving me my life back, I think? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

On Saturday night Facebook took my life away, now I'm asking nicely, can I have it back please?

As a blogger for Download Squad I've followed the rise and rise of Facebook with fascination as the social networking site has expanded on the scale of an influenza pandemic. I watched with avid interest as my inbox was bombarded with Facebook friend requests from seemingly every part of my life and every corner of the globe.

Succumbing to the Facebook phenomenon, I was quickly drawn in by the combination of applications, messaging and of course the competitive instinct to rapidly gather a vast following of like minded friends who would be able to share with me the excitement of online photo albums, holiday maps, interest groups, online graffiti or the simple pleasures of turning fellow Facebookers into zombies, vampires or pirates (arrrr).

And then, on Saturday night I was framed for a crime I didn't commit, and now I'm on the run Richard Kimble style - trying to clear my name of one of the worst crimes that an Internet user could be accused of - being a spammer

Continue reading Dear Facebook: may I have my life back, please?

Dear Facebook: may I have my life back, please? originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While MySpace may have long cornered the attention of the music industry as far as social networking sites goes, with its phenomenal growth over recent months Facebook can no longer be ignored as a channel for music marketing and distribution. Recently English developers Pushhit turned their attention to Facebook as a music distribution channel with the launch of the MusicWall application (link requires Facebook login).

MusicWall is a Facebook application that allows for the streaming download of MP3 files, and the sharing of tracks with other Facebook users. After developing the application, the developers decided that it wasn't enough to have developed the delivery mechanism, they wanted a say in the music as well, and so OKCool Recordings was formed. Since launching the label and the Facebook application just a week ago , OKCool has been joined by Web savvy label SMtv Music and drum and bass artist DJ Krust and other labels are approaching Pushhit every day.

With MusicWall still boxfresh at only a week old, I spoke to Pushhit director Mark Panay about developing MusicWall, OKCool and developing for the world's fastest growing social networking site.

Download Squad: What is the background of Pushhit and the MusicWall?

Continue reading Interview: OKCool, the First Facebook Record Label?

Interview: OKCool, the First Facebook Record Label? originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For Apple users who want to save money on phone calls after paying all that cash for their expensive PC - help is at hand from Skype with the release of 2.7 beta. The 2.7 beta is the latest version from Skype for Mac and follows the release of 2.6 in April.

According to a post on the official Skype blog, the new version will build on the advances made in 2.6 and makes a number of incremental advances. The advances include being able to import contacts from your Apple address book, new public chat management features, auto redial and an improved sound transfer.

Skype 2.7 beta for Mac can be downloaded here, just scroll down the page and click on the link.

[Via the Skype Blog]

Skype 2.7 beta out for Mac originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

According to Brighton's The Argus, Blake formed four months ago after the four former choristers discovered their shared interest on Facebook and decided to put together a classical music boyband Blake attracted the attention of the English Rugby authorities after they were spotted on an breakfast television show and have been engaged to sing the official England Rugby anthem 'Swing Low'.

The Rugby World Cup is being held in France in September.

[Via The Argus]

Facebook band to sing for England originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's reported that Universal is saying that the DRM-free sales will be on a trial period up until the first quarter of 2008, however it is not clear if Universal will follow the lead of EMI and place the DRM-free downloads in the market at a higher price-point than its other DRM encumbered tracks.

The move also seems designed to continue to place pressure on Apple's in the ongoing dispute between Universal and Apple over royalties from iTunes and iPods. Back in June Universal told Apple that it wouldn't renew its agreement with iTunes to sell music through the online store for another year and would sell at will, allowing the major to potentially pull out of iTunes at any time. The DRM-free announcement seems designed to turn up the heat on Apple to reach a settlement on royalties.

The news is particularly good for Amazon who announced in April that it was going to launch a DRM-free record store, but with only EMI's DRM-free content to work with to date, the online mega-retailer was looking like it was going to enter the digital music space with a pretty mediocre offering. The news is also great for consumers, by leaving iTunes out of the loop for the minute, competitors to the dominant service may get a chance to catch up on a small piece of the market, thus increasing competition and hopefully providing more options for the digital music buying public.

[Via the New York Times]

Universal to go DRM free originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The number of pirate sites seems to have spun out of control recently with link site http://hubpages.com/hub/russianmp3site listing no less than 18 sites from Russia and the Ukraine, all selling unlicensed mainstream commercial music at bargain basement prices.

LegalSounds sells tracks at 9c each, or about a buck for an entire album download. For billing the site uses the 'Assist' payment gateway and requires you to download and install its software on your computer to buy tracks (needless to say I didn't take the risk of testing out what the impact the installation of such software on my computer would be).

The Russian Government finally closed down AllOfMP3 in response to US threats that it would block Russia's entry to the World Trade Organization, but the amount of time that it took to take down AllOfMP3 and the continued existence of sites such as LegalSounds demonstrates the extremely limited commitment of the Russian government to actually tackle piracy issues.

Unlike file sharing software such as Napster, the Russian music pirates actually charge money for the tracks that they're selling, so it's a pretty clear that it's simply stealing, yet there seems to be few practical ways to have the sites shut without any desire on the part from the Russian authorities.

Dodgy Russian music pirates make a comeback originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The rise and rise of blogging as an online phenomenon has relied heavily on the ability of social nature of blogs - as each blog links into one another or as larger blogs link to and report on stories breaking on smaller specialist blogs. But while linking and references may be the lifeblood of blogging, there's a submerged undercurrent of blogs and Web sites looking to get something for nothing, sailing the high seas of the Blogosphere with a view to plundering hard working Blogs for what they can in order to build up page views and Google page rankings.

We at the Download Squad noticed this recently when one of our readers not only decided to cut and paste one of our posts into their blog but, also linked to his blog from the comments section original Download Squad post. While we're flattered at the attention, and impressed at the initiative it was still a little rude. All of a sudden we realized that it had all the hallmarks of a Blog Pirate, a fly by night operation that swoops in, cutlasses blazing, to lift off a treasure trove of stolen blog posts to their Google adsense infested pirate lair Web site.

When we started to look into the phenomenon of Blog Piracy, it was like sailing through the blue waters of the Caribbean circa the 17th century - suddenly the Blog Pirates were absolutely everywhere. Googling recent posts from Download Squad likewise turns up a host of blog pirates, such as the so called Software Online Guide (which looks more like a homage site to Download Squad than an actual blog) these folks are cutting and pasting for fun and profit, but probably without that much of either.

Looking across the waves at our sister site Engadget, it didn't take very long at all to come up with a host of Blog Pirates that had ruthlessly plundered its wares. Take for example the recent story 'Microsoft envisions invasive approach to targeted advertising' the story was reproduced word for word plus images and 'file under' references on both http://news.techvine.org/ and http://www.blogjunkies.com/, the only thing that was missing was any mention of either Engadget, or Darren Murph - the guy that actually wrote the post to begin with.

Blog Piracy can take a number of forms: sites such as TopWebStuffs try to look like to have an RSS reader interface to transplant entire Download Squad articles onto their 'aggregation' site, except unlike an RSS reader, you only get what they give you, not what you subscribed to read. Other sites such as kods.net seem to be set up to plunder anything that comes through on an RSS feed.

Don't get us wrong, we're always keen to see our work being linked to or quoted, but m'hearties it would be fine to be sure to see some of those tharr golden links in exchange for all of our hard sailing.

Blog pirates on the horizon! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The codes will allow BK customers to download free sample DRM-free MP3 tracks from a BK branded microsite that will allow consumers to try out and download tracks from a variety of EMI artists. The promotion is the first launched through a collaboration between EMI and consumer marketing company VerveLife. So next time you go for a burger make sure you pack your iPod.

You want fries with that track? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.