The Morning After: The music industry battles the Internet Archive
Plus, SBF is in jail, and the Messi effect is real.
The big music labels, led by Sony and Universal, are filing a lawsuit against the Internet Archive to stop the non-profit’s Great 78 Project. It’s an effort to digitize and preserve recordings on old 78 RPM records, a format discontinued in 1959. The labels feel the Archive, the closest thing the web has to a public library, is infringing its copyrights after digitizing tracks from big names like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. And the labels are asking for damages of $150,000 per still-copyrighted recording – the better part of $372 million in total.
The project’s aim is to preserve “underrepresented artists and genres” that might otherwise languish in obscurity. For all the songs of yore that still linger in the public’s consciousness, there are countless more now consigned to the dustbin of history. For them, the best-case scenario is their publisher properly stores the masters in case there’s ever a need to reproduce them. But given how easy it is for a company to junk material for a tax write-off, like in the recent case of Warner Bros., we can no longer rely on companies to treat their own history with the proper respect.
It doesn’t help that 78s are notoriously fragile, and if work to digitize them isn’t handled properly, their material could be lost forever. If we’re being honest, most of it is probably now only of interest to historians as a snapshot of what culture was really like. But, as weird as listening to Conrad Veidt’s When the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay is to our modern ears, we all deserve a chance to listen to what was pop music in 1933.
– Dan Cooper
You can get these reports delivered daily, direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!
The biggest stories you might have missed
The best 60 percent keyboards in 2023
The best iPhone accessories for 2023
Rockstar recruits the team behind the biggest GTA V roleplay community
Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones and earbuds are reportedly on the way
Zoom now says it won’t use any customer content for AI training
Instagram's musical photo carousels are a lot like TikTok's Photo Mode
Jabra is reportedly readying new Elite 8 earbuds with premium ANC
Biden administration earmarks $1.2 billion for two large-scale carbon capture projects
America's original hacking supergroup creates a free framework to improve app security
California deploys AI to detect wildfires before they spread
Baldur's Gate III localization studio apologizes for omitting contract workers from credits
Sam Bankman-Fried sent to jail for witness tampering
Pro tip: Don’t use a paper of record to harass witnesses. People might notice.
Sam Bankman-Fried had his bail revoked after a court accused the disgraced FTX founder of tampering with witnesses. Last month, Bankman-Fried showed a New York Times reporter a selection of personal writings from his former partner, Caroline Ellison. Ellison pleaded guilty to criminal charges in December and has since been cooperating with the FTX investigation. Prosecutors said Fried’s sharing of those materials was a fairly blatant attempt to undermine her reputation with prospective jurors.
Chip implants get under your skin, so you can leave your keys at home
And, you know, it makes you look like you can do magic.
There’s a small subset of techie types who love nothing more than to get an RFID implant to make their life easier. A small chip inserted into the skin of their hand can help them access buildings, pay for the subway or share their contact details. If you’re curious, you should check out Katie Malone’s new story covering the benefits and burdens of getting one.
Scientists genetically engineer bacteria to detect cancer cells
It’s the first step on a long road for easier detection.
CATCH is a new experimental technique using genetically modified bacteria to detect cancer cells in otherwise hard-to-reach areas. An international coalition of researchers found positive results while testing for colorectal cancer tumors in mice, but it’s early days. There’s still much more testing required before we can talk about using this for detection in human subjects, and plenty more work to see if the same technique could be used for treatment.
Apple TV's MLS Season Pass subscriptions have doubled since Messi's arrival in the US
Shock: People will pay to see the world’s biggest footballer.
Apple’s decision to go all in on Major League Soccer and Lionel Messi has already started to pay off. Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas tweeted that, since the World Cup winner came to the US, Apple has seen MLS Season Pass subscriptions more than double. That his missive was retweeted by Apple CEO Tim Cook suggests the otherwise notoriously secretive company is happy to brag about the virtuous cycle Messi has had on football’s impact in the US and Apple’s bottom line.
