Google Music went into beta earlier this year, and started as a streaming-only service. Users could upload music directly from libraries, and others could stream the music.

Google has partnered with music labels in order to sell music downloads to customers via the Android Market. They have stated that the companies they have signed deals with include EMI, Sony, and Universal. ”You don’t need to search the web anymore for music,” Google said during its presentation, “just search the market!”

This will be amazing for independent artists. They will no longer have to work through a label and third-party to get their music on iTunes. Google Music will also have the top hits from professional music artists if they so desire to upload it. Google will even have their staff monitor and keep track of the Front Page so that the more professional music is even easier to find.

Songs will also be able to be shared on Google+, where they can listen to each song you share once, as well as shared playlists. The new store is online at market.android.com and will be on Android devices running Android 2.2 or higher in the “next few days.”

Source: Ars Technica

Well, have you ever wondered just how big the “industry” of pirating is? The following information (not quoted, but gathered) is from a market research firm NPD Group:

In 2007, pirating accounted for 16% of all Internet users. Today, pirating is down to just 9% of all Internet users. This data comes from the fourth quarter of 2010, so technically the numbers could be a little higher or lower, but the likelihood of the values changing too much are very slim.

Warner Bros. estimated 13% in the beginning of 2010, but also wanted to note that even pirates more than likely spend at least some money on music from time to time, as the pirated music has to come from somewhere.

Many people have been complaining that music is more expensive due to the pirating of music. Here’s an interesting quote from Ars Technica:

A major three-year academic research project has just concluded that piracy in developing economies is a “global pricing problem” that enforcement alone cannot fix.

Piracy isn’t all that bad, though. Slug from the band Atmosphere believes that as long as people are still buying the music, pirates are helping the discovery of their band. The principle is this: when people pirate a song or two, they will be more likely to buy their next album.

Source: Ars Technica

• A copy of the game’s soundtrack.
• Two new single-player maps
• Two new multiplayer characters
• A new skin (look) for Ezio
• Map of Rome
• Behind-the-scenes video

All in all, it sounds like a pretty good idea, and I might even catch myself listening to the songs from time to time just for the fun of it.

However, there’s a catch. A user by the name of “plginger” on Reddit.com noticed something strange. In the ID3 tag of the soundtrack, 22 of the 23 songs have “encoded by arsa13.” Who is arsa13, you ask? Well, he just happens to be a “member of the semi-private BitTorrent tracker,” Demonoid. And to add on to this impressive feat, he added this very soundtrack 4 months ago to their torrent engine.

The evidence lies in the fact that arsa13 left out one song called “Apple Chamber” when he uploaded the soundtrack, the very song that is missing the “encoded by arsa13″ ID3 tag from “Ubisoft’s” version of the soundtrack.

Why would Ubisoft do something like this? Surely they have the songs already. While that may be true, what they don’t want is to spend time trolling around their internal databases extracting and reuploading songs onto a separate disc when they could very well just download a “full,” or missing one song, soundtrack via BitTorrent.

But this wouldn’t be the first time that something like this happened. Back in 2008, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 users who had digital versions of the game were having issues, as the game required a disc to be playable. Ubisoft updated the game with a patch that allowed the game to be played without a disc. Problem was, that patch was actually created by pirate group Reloaded and used without attribution.

Ubisoft has even told Eurogamer that the “situation is under investigation.” Could it be that the team(s) responsible for the soundtrack cut some corners, as one of their teams did in 2008? Only time will tell it seems in this mess.

Source: Ars Technica

Source: Engadget

So, I’m sticking with last.fm. It’s far more robust, and has a huge userbase that isn’t just tied to iTunes. I can install the scrobbler on my PC, Mac, or Linux machine, and it works with a huge variety media players on those operating systems. In addition, it will also scrobble from your mobile devices too. Again, Apple, open networks>closed. But I guess this is just another way for Steve to keep the walled garden alive.

Source: Pitchfork.

Source and obvious joke: