BlueBeat says Beatles songs are its own creations

Recently Macworld wrote about BlueBeat, a Web site that was not only selling MP3 downloads of The Beatless (something the Fab Four doesn’t yet allow, although you will be able to buy an apple-shaped USB drive with the remastered catalog soon), but also selling music in general for the cut-rate price of 25 cents or 15p a track.

Something seemed fishy.

A few days later, EMI—the record company that controls the Beatles’ music — and others filed a lawsuit against BlueBeat for copyright infringement and asked for a temporary restraining order (TRO).

And that’s where things get really weird.

As Ars Technica reports, Media Rights Technologies (MRT), the company behind BlueBeat, has a very reasonable explanation for why what it’s doing is legal.

You see, according to MRT’s co-founder and CEO Hank Risan, the songs BlueBeat is selling are in fact his original creations.

How’s that, you wonder? Apparently Risan told the RIAA’s general counsel Steven Marks that he authored the songs using “psycho-acoustic simulation” so they are new recordings and not subject to copyright restrictions. Well, that explains everything.

In its response in opposition to the TRO, BlueBeat’s lawyers claim that the Website is “entirely lawful and does not constitute piracy” and that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed.

Also, the plaintiffs are well aware that the defendants “developed a series of entirely new and original sounds that it allows the general public to purchase” and that “copyright protection does not extend to the independant fixation of sounds other than those conatained in their copyrighted recordings.”

Uh huh.

Even if BlueBeat could somehow convince a judge that it’s completely legit—and that isn’t going to happen, mind you—there’s still the fact that the company doesn’t actually tell you that you’re not buying the originals.

The Abbey Road album page, for example, lists the artist, album title, track titles, record label, and release date—you would reasonably assume that’s what you’re buying. So at the very least, BlueBeat is misleading users into believing they are buying something that’s not actually for sale.

Oh yeah, and the Website’s FAQs say, “our mp3s are fully-licensed audio-visual works and BlueBeat.com pays all applicable royalties,” yet at the bottom of every page it reads, “All audio-visual works copyright BlueBeat.”

So which is it? BlueBeat pays royalties or it owns everything it sells? Seems like if its own Web site is so schizophrenic, there’s not much chance of convincing anyone else that it deserves to survive.

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Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom sign final agreement to combine T-Mobile UK and Orange UK

Two months after first announcing plans, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom have signed a final agreement to combine T-Mobile UK and Orange UK operations.

"Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom have committed themselves to a long-term partnership with this joint venture contract," Telekom's finance chief Timotheus Hoettges said in a press release. The companies won't be able to implement any changes until the joint venture secures regulatory approval sometime in 2010.

"We hope that we can close the deal and implement the joint venture by the middle of next year," T-Mobile UK Managing Director Richard Moat told Dow Jones Newswires.

Both brands, Orange and T-Mobile will remain separate for at least 18 months before any decision is made on combining the two. The UK merger should see T-Mobile also offering Apple's iPhone at some stage. Orange starts selling the smartphone from next week, Tuesday 10th November.

T-Mobile's Moat confirmed Deutsche Telekom is talking to Apple about selling the iPhone in countries that it doesn't already offer the smartphone. Deutsche Telekom have rights to the iPhone in Germany, Hungary, Croatia and the Netherlands.

The pair predict 4 billion euros savings through the joint venture.

T-Mobile hops to follow Orange in selling the iconic iPhone.

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Two thirds claim Spotify stops them illegally downloading

Nearly two thirds of UK Internet users that illegally download music online said Swedish music streaming service Spotify has encouraged them to reduce their illegal file-sharing activities, says Moneysupermarket.com.

Research by the comparison site revealed that 12 percent of Brits have illegally downloaded files online in the past month, while men prove to be bigger offenders than women with 16 percent of men illegally downloading compared to just nine percent of women.

Moneysupermarket.com also said that that younger generations were more likely to offen with just under a third of under 20s claiming to illegally file-share.

James Parker, broadband manager at moneysupermarket.com, said: "With Spotify joining the ranks of legal music sites, illegal downloading seems set to become much less popular".

"Streaming music for free or for a reasonable fee while on the move could spell the end for illegal downloading and could even send the CD the way of the mini-disc and cassette tape."

Spotify allows users to create a playlist of songs they want to hear from its catalogue. They can also create 'collaborative' playlists, which are assigned their own web addresses, and can then be added to by other Spotify listeners.

The tracks are broadcast in a style similar to commercial radio, in that they are peppered with adverts.

However, for 99p, Spotify users can purchase a whole day of ad-free listening, or alternatively pay a 10 monthly subscription and never hear an advert again.

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Developer finds major coding errors in Facebook, MySpace

Social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook have apparently fixed coding errors that could have allowed an attacker access to all of their users' data and photos.

The simple coding errors are alarming considering the extent to which social networks have gone to reassure their users that their data will be safe. The problem involved the way those sites handle requests for data from other domains, known as the "cross-domain policy."

Sites such as MySpace and Facebook typically block other domains from requesting and receiving data for privacy reasons, except for their own vetted subdomains.

Facebook disallowed access from other applications on its main domain, but a developer in the Netherlands, Yvo Schaap, found that Facebook would allow data to be given out from one of its subdomains.

Yvo Schaap discovered the Facebook issues.

Since the subdomain also hosted all of Facebook's data, it would be possible to steal data by luring a victim to a URL with a Flash application rigged to grab the data if the victim had their auto-login enabled, which most people do, according to Schaap's blog.

A "more invasive and hidden exploit could harvest all the user's personal photos, data and messages to a central server without any trace, and there is no reason why this wouldn't be happening already with both Facebook and MySpace data," Schaap wrote on his blog.

He also found the problem on MySpace, which allowed a domain called "farm.sproutbuilder.com" to access data. A Flash application could be uploaded to that site, which would then be allowed access to the data if a victim visited a malicious URL.

A look at Facebook's latest crossdomain.xml file shows that the bug appears to have been fixed. MySpace also appears to have taken "farm.sproutbuilder.com" out of its cross-domain list.

Facebook and MySpace could not be immediately reached for comment.

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Mubaloo offers £5,000 iPhone business app in new competition

Mubaloo, a company who creates and develops applications for smartphones including the iPhone, is offering one business the opportunity to have free iPhone application, to the value of 5,000 developed in a new competition.

The competition in association with Real Business, asks businesses to come up with an idea for a useful business application in 200 words or less.

The competition launched today, runs until 11th December.

The competition is free to enter and full details are available here.

A detailed Macworld Mubaloo profile is available here.

Mubaloo create and develop business applications on the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Microsoft and Palm Pre handsets including Fuel Prices UK.

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Official: Apple confirms 100,000 iTunes App Store apps

Apple has officially confirmed reports from last week and announced today that the iTunes App Store now has 100,000 applications available for download.

iPhone and iPod touch customers in 77 countries can choose from an range of applications in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel Apple says.

"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

"The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating."

"The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve," said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile in an Apple press release.

"With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers."

"With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations," said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. "The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future."

iTunes App Store users have so far downloaded well over two billion applications Apple added.

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iPhonky intros Gangster Rocco for iPhone, iPod touch

New iPhone developers iPhonky have announced Gangster Rocco for iPhone and iPod touch.

The game promises fun addictive gaming with the ability to pit mice against cats.

Gangster Rocco has three lives and gamers must survive over five levels in the game, each level difficulty increasing in terms of more mouse traps and stronger cats as you venture on.

Gamers need to tilt iPhones and iPods left or right to avoid the cats mouse traps, at the same time collecting the red cheese and yellow cheese for more points.

Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Gangster Rocco costs 59p and requires the iPhone 2.2.1 Software Update or later.

A recent iPhonky Macworld profile is available here.

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No EMI, no iTunes but Beatles back catalogue available online from 15p

Those hoping for a Beatles on iTunes announcement at Apple's September music themed rock and roll event had to make do with Norah Jones, the antithesis of rock and roll.

Last week Santa Cruz, California-based website BlueBeat.com began selling The Beatles back catalogue without EMI's permission, with individual tracks, including 2009 Remasters, available for just 15p or 25 cents.

The MP3s are encoded at a lossy 160 Kbps, while the file's song information tags list "2009 BlueBeat.com" as the copyright holder.

Over 500 Beatles tracks are available on the BlueBeat.com site, ranging from the remastered albums to the 1996 Anthology collections.

It is known that EMI has investigated launching The Beatles' back catalogue digitally, perhaps from a dedicated website, although those plans appear still to be on hold.

Earlier this year on the eve of Apple introducing new iPods, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono claimed surviving Beatles plus spouses had signed a deal with Apple and iTunes although that proved premature at best.

Ex-Beatle and multi-millionaire Sir Paul McCartney has previously expressed piracy concerns should The Beatles ever be made available digitally online. "If one [EMI] employee decides to take it home and wap it on to the internet, we would have the right to say, ‘Now you recompense us for that.’ And they’re scared of that," McCartney told The Observer newspaper.

Beatles piracy is of course not new. Self-styled electronics wizard and one time Beatles associate Magic Alex, aka Yanni Alexis Mardas, looked at ways back in the late 1960's, on the Fab Four's behalf, to prevent people taping vinyl records and recording songs from the radio.

"He [Mardas] had an idea to stop people taping our records off the radio – you’d have to have a decoder to get the signal, and then we thought we could sell the time and put commercials on instead. We brought EMI and Capitol in from America to look at it, but they weren’t interested at all," Ringo Starr said in The Beatles Anthology book.

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50p per month broadband tax will see 100,000 homes going without claims TalkTalk

According to TalkTalk CEO Charles Dunstone, the UK's proposed 50p broadband tax will force 100,000 low income households to give up their broadband lines.

The tax is expected to start in 2010 and last for seven years, raising about 1 billion. It's designed to help fund the roll-out of superfast broadband access, but Dunstone says the increased availability of high-speed internet will come at a cost.

"This is an unjust and regressive tax on all phone customers which will subsidise mostly richer rural households that can afford high priced super fast broadband services," said Dunstone.

"We estimate that the increase in price will mean that over 100,000 mostly low income homes will be forced to give up their broadband lines. This is wholly inconsistent with the government's plans to tackle digital exclusion by increasing uptake and use of broadband," he added.

TalkTalk's director of strategy and regulation, Andrew Heaney, is due to give evidence to a Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) Committee later today to outline the company's concerns.

Hearney is expected to express concerns to the BIS Committee that the government has avoided proper public debate on the issue by including the levy in the Finance Bill which traditionally is not consulted on.

TalkTalk believes that investment in the UK's broadband infrastructure should be focused on delivering essential basic internet access, rather than developing premium services that favour the private sector.

"Crucially the scheme is likely to delay next generation broadband roll-out in rural areas rather than hasten it as private investors will wait for public funds to be made available. This will mean that much of the tax will be wasted investing in networks that the private sector would have built themselves anyway," said Dunstone.

"When broadband first started people said the networks would only reach 60 per cent of the population. The private sector, unaided, actually got to 99 per cent coverage, far further than in most other countries. We now need to let the private sector drive next generation broadband as far as it can. Public funding at this stage - in what appears to be an effort to ‘keep up with the Joneses in Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands - is simply going to waste customers' money and slow down roll-out."

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DOOM Classic comes to iPhone, iPod touch

id Software has released DOOM Classic for iPhone and iPod touch.

The acclaimed first person shooter, which helped define the genre, and sees gamers play as a space marine stationed on the planet Mars, battling to prevent an invasion of earth.

DOOM Classic includes the original three episodes as well as Episode Four, Thy Flesh Consumed, spread across 36 levels.

In DOOM Classic, multiplayer action is reborn insists id Software. With a wireless connection, gamers can battle up to four players in Deathmatch mode, or work together cooperatively and fight back against the demons of Hell.

Gamers can also choose from three different control types and customise the interface.

Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, DOOM Classic costs 3.99 and requires the iPhone 2.0 Software Update or later.

For more than 15 years, id Software, an independent game developer, has been creating some of the most popular and critically acclaimed games in the industry.

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UK police smooth over rift with Internet registry

UK police have apologised over a recent public presentation that linked a nonprofit Internet registry with money laundering by a notorious group of Russian cybercriminal gangsters.

The brouhaha started during a presentation by Andy Auld, head of intelligence of the e-crime department for the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), and Keith Mularski, supervisory special agent with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Division, at the RSA security conference on Oct. 21.

The seasoned cybercriminal investigators were describing the Russian Business Network (RBN), a well-known group linked to malicious software, hacking, child pornography and spam.

RBN showed how organized cybercrime had become: to support its activities, RBN received an IP (Internet protocol) address allocation so it could essentially act as its own ISP (Internet Service Provider). Those IP addresses were allocated by RIPE Network Coordination Center, which is one of five Regional Internet Registries (RIR) responsible for assigning IP address blocks to ISPs and other network providers.

In 2006, RIPE allocated addresses to a fake company registered in the UK that was a front for the RBN. RIPE contends it was duped and that at the time, it was impossible to tell that the front company wasn't legitimate. After repeated contact with law enforcement, RIPE eventually pulled RBN's IP allocation in May 2008.

Criminal funds

While describing law enforcement efforts to fight RBN and other cybercriminals, Auld singled out RIPE and the other four RIRs as points where criminal activity can be put under pressure. Since RIPE was paid by RBN for IP addresses, RIPE "was receiving criminal funds," Auld said.

That essentially made RIPE part of a money laundering operation, Auld said, adding the caveat that law enforcement didn't treat the situation that way. Nonetheless, Auld's comment ruffled RIPE's feathers.

"They apologised to us immediately when we called," said Axel Pawlik, RIPE's managing director, on Thursday. Pawlik said he has also met SOCA officials this week in Seoul at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) conference.

Pawlik said RIPE, which is based in Amsterdam, can revoke IP allocations if a company violates its guidelines or based on a Dutch court decision. RIPE has rarely banned companies, Pawlik said.

RIPE does take measure to vet new applicants, but in the case of RBN, "it's quite difficult to find those people if they are hidden behind those shell companies and fake fronts," Pawlik said.

RBN - believed to be based around St. Petersburg, Russia - also had the local police, the judiciary and government agencies "firmly in its pocket," Auld said. "The local police were unable to get anywhere near the group," he said.

After RIPE kicked off RBN, the group quickly tried to reconstitute its network, but law enforcement was able to interfere with it. Nonetheless, it is believed that those behind the RBN are back at it, albeit under a slightly different business model, Auld said.

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First Look: Apple TV 3.0 update

The Apple TV is a strange beast. Steve Jobs famously referred to his company's media-playback box as “a hobby.” In early 2008 Apple released a major software update, Apple TV 2.0, that revamped its interface and added movie rentals to the mix. Yet in a world increasingly full of Internet-connected TV boxes, Apple’s “hobby” has remained strangely static.

Thursday’s release of Apple TV 3.0 software doesn’t do a lot to change that, but for the unknown number of people who have bought an Apple TV box over the past two and a half years, it seems to be a pleasant improvement that addresses some lingering interface issues while adding whole new levels of mystery about exactly what (if anything) Apple is going to do with the product.

Revamped main menu

The highlight of the Apple TV 3.0 software update is its revamped main menu. Gone is the two-column grid introduced as a part of Apple TV “take two.” Instead, there’s a new interface that takes full advantage of widescreen TVs.

Spread out across the screen is a row with seven columns which forms the backbone of the new menu system: Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos, Internet, and Settings. Clicking right or left determines which one of the columns is highlighted.

When an item in that row is selected, the Apple TV displays a column of menu items beneath it. Spatially, this layout seems to makes a lot more sense than the old Apple TV menu.

Apple TV 3.0 main interface.

Within the individual stacks of menu options, Apple has addressed the interface feature of Apple TV 2.0 that I disliked the most: the placement of all iTunes Store-related items at the top, with the menu item containing your own media placed all the way at the bottom.

Now your media—movies, TV shows, music, and more—can always be found behind the top item of each column. It makes the whole experience feel a bit friendlier and a bit less like the entire device was created as a vehicle for Apple to sell you more stuff.

bove the menu items, in the top third of the screen, is a strip of tiles similar to the ones used in Apple TV 2.0’s iTunes Store interface. But even here, Apple’s has showed restraint when it comes to commerce. The first few items of the strip all feature your content—unwatched movies or TV shows, Genius mixes and recently-added albums (as well as the currently playing track, if there is one), unplayed podcasts, photos, and the like.

For some media types, such as movies and TV shows, there’s also integration with the iTunes store: keep moving to the right, past your recently unwatched movies, and you’ll find top movies on iTunes. But it’s handled with the right emphasis. More than that, the appearance of the media tiles atop the menu items makes the entire main menu seem more vibrant and interesting.

(Font fans will be happy to know that the Apple TV interface is now drawn with famous, comforting, star-of-a-major-motion-picture Helvetica. It looks nice. Even non-font geeks may notice, though they won’t be able to put their finger on just what’s different. However, one of our editors reported that the lighter-weight font causes flickering on his older HDTV set.)

NEXT: Apple’s new packages

Continued... 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | NEXT >

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Sony announces better-than-expected results

Despite losing money on the back of lower sales during its fiscal second quarter, Sony said business was better than it had expected and has cut full-year loss forecasts as a result.

Sales during the quarter, the period from July to September, were down 20 percent on the same period last year at 1.7 trillion ($18 billion) and net losses were 26 billion, it said Friday. Last year during the same period it recorded a net profit of 21 billion.

More than half the losses were due to the strong Japanese yen, said Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's chief financial officer, at a Tokyo news conference. The strong yen reduces the value of sales and profits made overseas and makes Sony's products less competitive overseas.

Sales were down due to the global recession, which started during the October to December quarter last year. The company blamed the drop into loss on restructuring charges, poor results at its mobile phone joint venture Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and other affiliates, and the effects of the strong Japanese yen.

Of Sony's IT-related business groups, its consumer division was the only one to make a profit, although the 9 billion recorded was 87 percent down on last year. Sales in the division fell 36 percent led, by a decline in revenue from Bravia LCD TVs. During the quarter it sold 3.3 million of the TVs compared to 3.7 million in the same period last year. Sony put the lower sales down to price competition, primarily in the U.S. and Europe.

Weaker demand for Cybershot digital cameras, which sold 5.2 million units during the quarter against 5.7 million a year earlier, also pushed down sales. Video camera sales were 1.3 million units, down from 1.5 million.

The network division, which includes Sony's PC and game console business, saw sales drop 24 percent and losses extend to 59 billion. Despite the launch of a new version of the PlayStation 3 console, overall game sales decreased due to lower sales of the PlayStation 2.

PlayStation 3 sales jumped from 2.4 million units to 3.2 million units, while PlayStation 2 sales fell from 2.5 million units a year ago to 1.9 million during the quarter. The PlayStation 2 is Sony's previous-generation console but still sees demand because of the large number of games available and its low price.

Despite lower unit sales, Sony didn't downgrade full-year sales forecasts for any of its key products. Most were kept unchanged although it raised its DVD player sales target from 9 milllion to 11 million units and its Walkman digital music player target from 6.7 million units to 7 million.

"Because operating profit significantly improved on our expectations we have revised up our forecast," said Oneda.

Sony now expects full-year losses to hit 95 billion, down from its July forecast of 120 billion. It left its sales forecast of 7.3 trillion unchanged. However the company cut its research and development budget for the current year by 8 percent to 460 billion. Sony will also reduce capital expenditure by 25 percent as previously announced.

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Beck's Gig Finder for iPhone offers reasons to get out the house

Drinks company Anheuser-Busch InBev has introduced Beck's Gig Finder for iPhone and iPod touch.

The free application promises to keep music fans informed and for those simply in need of a night out a chance to see what's on both locally and across the UK.

Beck's Gig Finder searches the extensive Last.fm database for concerts localised in the US, UK, Germany,Italy and Romania including information on venue location and directions viaGoogle Maps.

Beck’s Gig Finder features automaticlocation detection, allowing music fans to manually search for upcoming gigs in any city listed. Theapplication also auto-saves the last 20 location searches and allows the user to share theinformation with friends via email.

Users can tag gigs as ‘Favourites,’ automatically saving information about the event and enabling push notification about the gig - automatically sending a reminder notificationabout the upcoming show a day before gig.

Beck’s Gig Finder also enables music fans to browse their favouriteartist’s of choice information pages as well as tune-in to their YouTube videos.

Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Beck’s Gig Finder is free and requires the iPhone 3.0 Software Update or later.

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Apple's Magic Mouse spotted in stores

Thanks to Macworld reader Lee who spotted Apple's new Magic Mouse in the flagship Regent Street Apple Store and White City branch.

The 55 mouse, also included with all new iMacs, have only been available to pre-order or are 'temporarily out of stock' on many online stores including Amazon's UK store.

Apple's own website currently lists the Magic Mouse as 'Ships: 5-7 business days' online.

The Magic Mouse features a Multi-Touch surface with gesture support, the same technology first introduced with the iPhone.

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Twitter warns of fake messages, websites in new phishing attack

Twitter has warned users of a new phishing scam on the social networking site.

It's the latest in a series of scams that have plagued the site over the past year, designed to trick victims into giving up their user names and passwords.

"We've seen a few phishing attempts today, if you've received a strange DM and it takes you to a Twitter login page, don't do it!," Twitter wrote on its Spam message page.

The message reads, "hi. this you on here?" and includes a link to a fake Web site designed to look like a Twitter log-in page. After entering a user name and password, victims enter an empty blogspot page belonging to someone named NetMeg99.

The fake Web site is designed to look like a Twitter log-in page.

Neither of these pages appears to include any type of attack code, but both should be considered untrustworthy, according to Sophos Technology Consultant Graham Cluley. "It seems like this was a straightforward phishing campaign, rather than an attempt - at this stage at least - to spread virally," he said via email.

Victims get these direct messages only from people they follow on Twitter, so they seem more believable than other types of spam. Once a user has been phished by the attack, the criminals are then able to direct message all of the victim's contacts with the phishing spam.

"These sort of things have been happening for over a year on Twitter," Cluley said in an interview.

Hacked Twitter accounts are a great launching pad for more attacks, Cluley said. "We don't know precisely what they're going to do in this case, but often they will send spam messages to advertise a particular site."

Because about a third of users have the same passwords for all of their online activity, criminals can also use the same log-in information to try to get into other Web services such as Gmail or Yahoo, Cluley said.

"If you've fallen for one of these traps, don't just change your Twitter password; change your password on every Web site you use," Cluley siad. "Use non-dictionary words and use something that's hard to guess."

The Twitter attack comes as Facebook users are also under siege. Security researchers say that a spam botnet is has sent out hundreds of thousands of fake password reset messages.

When victims try to open an attachment that supposedly contains their new password, they end up running a Trojan horse program, called Bredolab, that then installs unwanted software on their PCs.

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