After criticizing Lanier on his arguments about the problems with “digital collectivism” I am finding some of his other arguments more compelling. He gets closer to hitting the mark, for example, when he talks about the detrimental impact of the “free culture” movement on knowledge producers who increasingly rely on indirect methods like advertising to [...]

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Here’s one of the more bizarre prosumer stories that I’ve seen of late. Upon releasing his second solo album, drummer Josh Freese (of Nine Inch Nails and Devo fame) has offered his fans a sliding scale of “limited edition” offers. For $7 you get a conventional digital download, including three videos. But check out the [...]

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A couple of months ago Wikinomics co-blogger Lawrence Chen wrote about Riffworks, an online recording application that allows guitar players around the world to compose music in a collaborative fashion. I recently had an opportunity to chat with Riffworks co-founder, Doug Wright, about Apple II classics, midi keyboards, and notator programs and how much [...]

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My colleague Denis Hancock has a great post on the curious and circular logic of DRM on our Wikinomics blog. Check it out. Abbreviated version below (yes, Denis can be a little long-winded
In February Steve Jobs issued some thoughts on music that were tied mostly to the continued use of DRM. In short, [...]

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The jury has weighed in on the Alcatel-Microsoft case, forcing Microsoft to fork over $1.5 billion to Alcatel for violating two audio patents held by Lucent Technologies (which merged with Alcatel). Ironically, the patents cover standards for converting audio into the open MP3 format that spawned the digital music revolution back in the early 1990s. [...]

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