Buzz Out Loud 824: I am the thumb

In today's show, featuring co-host Dan Ackerman, we discuss the benefits of being an independent musician (Dan says it's a great time!), the increasingly furious-yet-futile fight between the MPAA and RealDVD, Delta preemptively filtering porn on planes, and Kid Rock finding a home on the Web, regardless of whether we want him there.

EPISODE 824

eBay buys Bill Me Later, lays off 1,000
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10058660-92.html

Judge temporarily halts sales of RealDVD in wake of lawsuit
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081005-judge-temporarily-halts-sale-of-realdvd-in-wake-of-lawsuit.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10058574-93.html

Ask.com, now with more answers
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10058007-2.html

“Iron Man” release brings down Paramount’s servers
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/04/2158212

Analyst: Half of ’social media campaigns’ will flop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058509-36.html

Delta to filter porn on planes
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10058786-94.html

Kid Rock comes to Rhapsody
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10057638-27.html

MySpace Music: 1 billion songs streamed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058708-36.html

Musicians band together for more control in digital age
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-musicians-band-together-for-more-control-in-digital-age/

Virtual fence could modernize the Old West
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/06/1253233

VOICE MAIL
Tami from SC: How could you forget the GameGear?

Joe in Sacramento: tip for Molly!

E-MAIL

Dear JoMoTo++,

I must begin with a confession: I am not a regular listener, but my boyfriend often tells me what you all are discussing, and yesterday I discovered something awful--something I had to tell someone--and I believe you would be most understanding of my distress. I am the proud owner of a “fat” iPod Nano and I’ve been waiting for the googleplexes of companies that make MP3 accessories to start making some for the new shape. Yesterday, I visited the Apple store and, to my dismay, saw the fourth generation Nano--back to the old shape, or a close approximation thereof. Now I’ll never get all my totally-don’t-need-them-but-so-much-guilty-fun gizmos and blinged-out cases! Am I the only one who feels this this way? Appreciators of the fat nano must unite!

I would bemoan my poor fat nano’s fate,
But Steve Jobs is impossible to move.
Alas, my cries of anguish are too late:
My cause is lost; there’s nothing left to prove.

Sincerely,
Melissa Marx

Hey Guys,
So i have noticed over the past few weeks how often Molly talks about her love for Hulu. So I decided to give it a try. I was watching one of my favorite childhood shows Married with Children when I came upon a shocking realization. The original theme song for the show had been replaced with this crappy knock off tune. At first i thought it was something just for that season or episode, but when I watched other episodes they all had the altered theme song. So I was wondering if you guys knew if TV theme songs had copyrights that could expire? Or any other alternate explanation for the altered song. Thanks

Show Love They I

Endy

Hey JaMoto,

I've been, err...conversing...with Comcast about the 250GB cap and after a few emails telling them how wrong they are to have a cap and not have any way to measure it, I got this interesting revelation from one of their customer support techs:

It's important to note our new threshold will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.

So, given that, it seems like they're not going to pull the plug on everyone who goes over 250GB, but only those they find to be the top (ab)users. I guess it's also important to keep in mind that this was just one support tech, probably just trying to get me off their back, but hey, it's an interesting development anyway.

Keith in Spokane.

Hi BOL,

After trying to use the Amazon music store and other DRM free stores without any luck since I reside on the other side of the pond I started thinking:

“What’s up with this ? They can’t get us DRM free music stores and decent none platform dependent streaming video services so they give us the bandwidth to pirate the whole shebang instead ?”

No seriously, I found a local alternative here in Sweden (and baltic countries) cdon.com, which since I last wisted them acutely have started with regular DRM free MP3:s instead of only the nasty WMA:s. Not everything but still, they have started!

But you can never guess what I found there, sure in WMA format but still, Kid Rocks "conceptual album" Rock N Roll Jesus, available for purchase, in single track format !! Not that I would even pirate his music but still, so much for "conceptual album".

Great show!

Sincerley
Bejron