Oct 26th, 10:28 am

By:
Mike

DVD John - A Blessing in Disguise?

On October 25th news reports came out about a Norwegian hacker dubbed DVD John, most notably known for cracking the copy-protection technologies on DVDs back when he was only 15. DVD John is all grown up now, and at 22 years old he recently announced that he has cracked the DRM protection on iTunes music. The DRM protection on songs downloaded via iTunes will only allow users to play that particular music on their iPod. What DVD John has said to have archived, is crack that protection, opening up iTune downloaded music to all the flurry of mp3 players out there.

What does this have to do with the Zune? Many people have said how they would love to switch to the Zune and ditch their iPods, but are tied down due to having hundreds of dollars $$$ of their music collection in iTunes, and rather not lose all of their much beloved music. This crack that DVD John has done could possible open the flood gates and allow iPod users to switch to the Zune and bring all their iTunes music along with them for the ride.

At the moment the crack is not out yet, DVD John plans to cash in on his work via his technology firm DoubleTwist Ventures, and is currently looking for a buyer for the crack. Will this crack come out into the main stream? Who knows. If it does, it could very well be a blessing in disguise for iPod to Zune converters.

[Thanks Ty]

Digg This Story

Sep 28th, 10:49 pm

By:
Mike

Bitter Sweet Interview

Following on from last post about the Bitter Sweet band who is a Los Angeles-based Pop/Electronic act, Cesar from Microsoft has published an interview between him and the Zune preloaded content band.

Interview by Cesar Menedeze with the band Bitter Sweet

So I hear you two met on Craig’s list. How did that happen?

Yes, it’s true. Kiran and I were in a pretty
strange place when he placed that add. We had both
been a bit frusrated with our recent experiences in
the music buisiness, and as a last effort, we both
needed to break away from everyone we knew in our
respective circles and remember why we were doing this
again….to make music we just really wanted to listen
to.
Upon meeting, we realized we knew many of the same
people and had recorded one wall away from each for
over a year.
We tried writing one song together just to see how it
would feel, and that song became the first song on our
record. Our chemistry was just amazing.

Cool. And how are you involved w/ Zune?

We were lucky enough to be chosen out of thousands
of bands to have our song pre down loaded on the
device! It’s such an incredible opportunity to be
exposed to this many people at one time.

What’s it like to have your album art right there on most every Zune image on the web?

It’s overwhelming. Being on an indie label, there
isn’t a ton of money to get the same kind of exposure
that a band on a major label would get. It’s really
nice to see a company as big as big as Microsoft
embracing emerging artists like ourselves to help get
the word out, not to mention, having our friends
calling like crazy because they are seeing us
everywhere!

For a (relatively) new group, you guys have also been in a lot of hot things: Nip/Tuck, Entourage, Grey’s Anatomy, and (of course) Zune. How did those come about, and how has the response been?

People keep telling us that our music is very
cinematic and we can only assume it is because we
touch on real feelings, real life experiences and
draw from a plethora of eras, and emotion.
We were fortunate enough to get two of our songs
placed in the “The Devil wears Prada” and since then,
music supervisors from all of these hot shows and
upcoming films have been extremely receptive to us.
The response has been just wonderful, and again, we
are getting the chance to introduce our music to an
audience that would otherwise never know us.

Are you touring anytime soon?

We are. We just got back from a tour of the
northwest that kicked off at the Bumbershoot festival
in Seattle. We have plans to get to the east coast
very soon and of course will continue to play the west
coast whenever possible.
Touring is really expensive for a band like us so
without sponsorship we have to take baby steps to get
ourselves out there.

How old were you when you got your first email? Do you remember it?

(Shana) To be honest, I was a bit of a late bloomer
to the whole cyber world. I still believed in calling
people or writing them up until only about 3 or 4
years ago. I think my first email came from my best
friend Krista who made me sit at my computer and
embrace technology. She walked me through the whole
process of setting up my yahoo account. Now….I
couldn’t imagine life without it!

Who would you love to open for?

Wow! Portishead, Massive Attack , Bjork, Tribe
Called Quest, Beck, GoldFrapp, Gnarles Barkley,
Madonna…. hmmm.., there are so many brilliant acts
out there that we would be so honored to play with we
can’t even fit them on the page!

Can you get me tickets to your next Seattle show? (sorry, I’m always trying to get free stuff)

Absolutely! The moment we go back there you will be
the first to know.

Sweet.

If you would like to find out more about Bitter Sweet then you can visit their MySpace page or you can view all the band to come preloaded on the Zune and their website in this post

Make a Comment 2 Comments