Music publishers license guitar tabs for the Web

The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) - a subsidiary of The National Music Publishers' Association - has begun licensing websites that want to reproduce guitar tabs, the notation that tells guitarists where to place their fingers in order to play a tune. Such websites have been around for some time, publishing the tabs without the consent of the copyright holder. The US Music Publishers Association (MPA), for example, announced a legal crackdown on these, as well as sites that reproduced song lyrics, in 2005. ...more

File sharing has no impact on CD sales - research

File sharing has had a negligible effect on the decline in CD sales over the past five years, according to a detailed study by two academics, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard University and Koleman Strumpf of the University of Kansas. Their statistical analysis of file sharing activity in 2002 found that contrary to music industry claims, there is no evidence that sharers would have bought CDs containing the music that they had downloaded over p2p networks. According to p2p research firm Big Champagne, there were an average of 10 million simultaneously active file sharers in 2006. ...more

09-06-2001 Essential news of the week

Brought neatly together and presented on a plate, here is a roundup of some of the week's main news stories from the world of IT. IBM makes chip speed breakthrough Palm moves to make Bluetooth more mainstream Fast Internet access for ?19.99 announced Intel waving not drowning, in new digital wave New 1. ...more

Thin's back in, says NEC

NEC is attempting to breathe new life into the thin client market with the launch of its Virtual PC Center. The company claims the Virtual PC Center offers all the functionality of a desktop PC environment, but with the security, cost and manageability benefits of thin clients. Its desktop thin client - the US100 - is the size of a hardback book (155 x 104 x 34mm) and can be attached to the back of an LCD screen, so that it has no desktop footprint whatsoever. ...more

Panasonic follows the Sony print path

Panasonic has announced the UK release of its digital photoprinter, the NV-APD1, for printing photo quality prints straight from the camera or media. Released in October, the NV-APD1 weighs in at 2.4kg. ...more