Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I just synced an mp3 album I had downloaded and copied into iTunes on my iPhone (1st gen, not a 3G), but every song was stuttering and skipping. The files themselves are fine–they all play fine in iTunes. The file I was trying to play had the following attributes:

Bitrate: 96 kbps
Encoder: FhG
Tags: ID3 v1/v2
Sample Rate: 44.100 khz

Trolling through online forums, the following advice was offered:

• Use the “Rock EQ” preset (didn’t work for me, and I tried turning EQ Off / Soundcheck On/Off too)
• Restore the iPhone (that sounds like a pain)
• Delete the playlist and remove all the songs from the phone, then create a new playlist and resync them
• Convert the music to AAC (right-click, convert to AAC)

Since the last option is the easiest, I tried it. And it worked–smooth playback. It’s possible that there really was something horrible with the files, as they stutter in VLC too!

The Zune 2.0 is coming out, but with more of a whimper than a bang. The new features include new flash models, a black 80GB hard drive model, WiFi syncing, podcast and recorded TV support, according to An in-depth look at the new Zune lineup by Ars Technica. Additionally, these new features will be made available to Zune 1.0 users through a firmware update.

Is this a new product announcement or an apology?

The Zune 2 is basically what the Zune 1 should have been. Its online music store / syncing tool has been rewritten to be as easy to use as iTunes. Hopefully this new Zune will sell more than the paltry 1.2 million units its predecessor sold, but I’m not optimistic. Now that Apple has released their touch-based devices, Microsoft, and every other portable device maker not using touchscreens, is simply a loser. Why would I buy a device with a tiny screen to watch movies on when I can buy a device that removes all the clunky wheel controls and fills all the available space with a gorgeous widescreen?

Specification-wise, the new Zune and iPod touch are basically identical, but interface wise, its a completely different story.

I just finished reading this Ars Technica article detailing the case Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, where a jury delivered 24 guilty counts of infringement after four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony. Because the infringement was determined willful, they awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, for a total of $222,000 in damages.

Jammie Thomas, a single mother, was identified by MAC and IP address, and her KaZaa username tereastarr which she used with other websites. Interestingly, the plaintiff’s made the argument that the “eclectic musical tastes” reflected in the KaZaa shared music folder were consistent with Jammie Thomas’s actual tastes.

The New York Times reports the actually scary, precedent-setting part of this case:

Michael J. Davis of Federal District Court, ruled in the industry’s favor on a hotly contested technical question, saying that for jurors to find her liable, the record labels did not have to prove that songs on Ms. Thomas’s computer had actually been transmitted to others online. Rather, the act of making them available could be viewed as infringement, the judge ruled.

I hope this is appealed, as loaning a CD to a friend is also an act of making “music available for copying,” and the precedent is both technically incorrect and stifling to freedoms Americans take for granted.