Fab Four Coming To Rockband!

You can't legally buy their music digitally but today Apple Corps Ltd. - the company founded by the Beatles in 1968 and Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks will announce that they have signed a deal that will see the Beatles' songs coming to the popular Rock Band franchise. "It is a bit of a coup since [MTV] has been able to license it and Apple [Inc.] still couldn't get the music," said Josh Martin, analyst at the Boston-based Yankee Group. It's uncertain whether MTV Networks will give the band it's own addition, similar to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, or if the music will be downloadable for current Rock Band games. The move is being seen as a bit of a cue as Apple Inc. has been working hard to get the Band's music included in the iTunes music store. Globe and Mail article.

Standalone Instruments Coming For Rock Band

G4's The Feed is reporting that Harmonix and MTV have announced the upcoming release of Rock Band standalone instruments. "The Rock Band drum set will ship on Feb. 12, for $79.99. The wireless Stratocaster guitar will ship April 1 and will cost $59.99." It's a natural move and one that will make my kids happy as they were only able to find the software version on the release date back in December. It also will make replacing instruments a whole lot easier.

Why are we drawn to someone else's embaracing moments?

While word of Britney Spears' sub-par performance at the MTV Video awards made the news, web surfers flocked to MTV.com to witness the spectacle. According to c|net's news.com more than 7 million streams of the video were served up by 3:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time breaking the previous daily record of 6.7 million. I doubt it had anything to do with the other acts that preformed, it seems that we are drawn to these public displays of ineptitude, I for one will not view it, I'd prefer to see a highlight real on mlb.com or read another Apple story...

Day of silence observed in protest of music royalties

A number of online broadcasters have gone silent today to protest new rates for royalties that were awarded by a 3 judge panel earlier this year and are set to come due on July 15th. The new rates fail to take into account the lean years when a company is getting up and running and so MTV, Pandora, Live365, and others have all vowed to be silent. Soundexchange, the music industry group in charge of collecting the royalties appears not to be phased by the action saying they are in negotiations with many smaller players and the protest is a "moot point". I don't subscribe to any of these services so it hasn't affected me, I prefer to ignore the music industry association all together and listen to podsafe music and recordings. The only one of the above that I have listened to on occasion is Pandora, but it shut Canadians out after the new rates came into effect. CBC has the story here.