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Release Date: August 05, 2009
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iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
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Discover New Music

  • Gimme Fiction

    • 10 out of 10
    • Spoon
    • Gimme Fiction by Spoon is a terrific album by an Austin band that I was lucky enough to catch on an Austin radio station during a Christmas visit.

  • Cocked & Loaded

    • 8 out of 10
    • Revolting Cocks
    • It's hard to believe it's been more than a decade since Ministry founder and front man Al Jourgensen's side project Revolting Cocks released any new material. 2006 brings us Cocked and Loaded

  • Never Let Me Down [ECD]

    • 4 out of 10
    • David Bowie
    • It must be a lonely place to be considered David Bowie's worst album by just about everyone, including the artist himself. As the last album before Bowie "rebooted" and formed the band Tin Machine, "N
  • Go Away White

    • 10 out of 10
    • Bauhaus
    • Go Away White is an album I've been waiting more than 20 years to hear, and the good news is that it was worth the wait.  The latest -- and last, no...for real this time -- album from

  • The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jason Robert Brown
    • The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr

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News

SanDisk Players Seized Over Licensing Dispute

SanDisk doesn't have much to display at its IFA show booth in Berlin after German officials seized its MP3 players on Monday. The Digital Lifestyles reports that German officials took all of the MP3 players from SanDisk's booth after the Italian patents firm Sisvel was awarded an injunction against the company.

Sisvel alleges that SanDisk has refused to pay licensing fees in order to play back MP3 files on its music players. There are about 600 other companies, including Apple Computer, already paying licensing fees for MP3 playback.


SanDisk doesn't have much to show at IFA.

SanDisk contends that it is using a different technology to play back MP3 files, and that it isn't subject to Sisvel's licensing.

Giustino de Sanctis, the head of Audio MPEG, Sisvel's U.S. based subsidiary, told the BBC that if a player supports the MP3 standard, the manufacturer is required to purchase a license. "By definition you have to follow the standard," he said. "It is just not possible to do it any other way."

The MP3 standard for audio compression was developed in the 1990s by a group of companies and institutes. Patent licensing for the group is managed by Sisvel and another firm, Thomson.

[Image courtesy of Digital Lifestyles]

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