Music articles

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The music industry's latest problem: Archive hard drives from the 90s are failing

TL;DR: The music industry is grappling with a looming crisis regarding its archive of 90s recordings stored on aging hard drives. According to data storage experts at Iron Mountain, around 20 percent of drives from the era are now unreadable. The company is raising concerns that, due to deteriorating formats, insufficient metadata, and increasing disk failures, a significant portion of these historic recordings could be lost forever if urgent action is not taken.
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Man charged with streaming his AI-generated music billions of times using bots, generating $12 million

Crime does pay, until you're caught
What just happened? In what appears to be a devious use of generative AI and bots, a man has been accused of conning music services out of $12 million by uploading AI-generated music tracks and using an army of over 1,000 bots to repeatedly stream them. Unfortunately for the man in question, he's been arrested for his actions and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
winamp with video

Hobbyist revives the beloved Winamp player into a polished physical marvel

The big picture: Teenagers and young adults of the late 1990s will remember Winamp as the de facto music player on their Windows PCs. If tinkering with electronics and fabrication is your jam, give Linamp a look. It brings Winamp to the physical plane, allowing you to touch this piece of history. It is a testament to one's passion and creativity, taking something old and giving it a new lease on life.
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European Commission fines Apple almost $2 billion over music streaming subscription policies

What just happened? Spotify has spent five years accusing Apple's music streaming subscription policies of being anti-competitive, and the European Union just ruled overwhelmingly in Spotify's favor. Apple argues that it deserves a cut for its role in Spotify's success. Meanwhile, another battle looms between the companies over sideloading and new fees.