Free Republic

Some concerts go down in history and the 1991 ‘Monsters of Rock’ festival in Moscow was no exception. Known as one of the biggest concerts to ever take place, with a huge 1.6 million attendees, it marked the most momentous of performances for the heavy metal band Metallica. Metallica - "Enter Sandman" Live in Moscow, 1991 (crowd of 1.6 million)

"Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering. The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory...

If you are having trouble syncing your iPhone, iPod, or iPad after the Windows 10 update, don't worry. With just a few clicks you will be back up and running, and able to sync your device with your computer again. It appears as though the Windows 10 update is marking the iTunes folder as Read Only, meaning that your computer won't allow it to sync with the device you have plugged in. So, how do you fix this -54 error? Simple. Open Windows ExplorerHead to the Music folderRight click on your iTunes folderGo to PropertiesUncheck the Read Only option...

From the moment an account is created, Microsoft begins watching. The company saves customers' basic information - name, contact details, passwords, demographic data and credit card specifics - but it also digs a bit deeper... and finding answers is not easy, as one privacy expert exclaimed, "there is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes 'real transparency'."

Once again, Microsoft screwed the world with its Windows 10 feature called Wi-Fi Sense. This nasty feature has serious legal implications for it will automatically connect your personal Wi-Fi network to anyone in your e-mail list using HotMail, Skype, or Outlook, and even Facebook, making those friends questionable. If any such person comes within range of your home Wi-Fi, they could secretly access your system from hundreds of yards away. The real problem with this is rather sinister. The government would no longer need a search warrant for your surrendered privacy; good luck finding a judge who will uphold the...

HAVE YOU UPDATED TO WINDOWS 10 AND HAVE A DATA CAP ON YOU INTERNET PLAN THEN YOU MUST READ THIS Windows 10 is using yourbandwidth to offer updates to others Windows 10 uses an individual’s internet connection to share updates with others across the internet. Microsoft calls the feature Windows Update Delivery Optimisation and says it is designed to help users get updates faster. It is enabled by default in Windows 10 Home and Pro editions. Windows 10 Enterprise and Education have the feature enabled, but only for the local network. This is the same way that torrents work: A...

California prosecutors have declined to file charges against a sheriff's deputy who struck and killed a prominent entertainment attorney and former Napster executive with his patrol car last year. Deputy Andrew Wood was apparently distracted by his mobile digital computer when his patrol car drifted into the bike lane, running over cyclist Milton Olin Jr. [snip] Prosecutors said in a letter released Wednesday and cited by Los Angeles Daily News that because Wood was acting within the course of his duties when typing into his computer, criminal charges are not warranted.

Reboot in San Francisco this summer with young Republicans.Startup employees Aaron Ginn, 26 -- a former Mitt Romney campaign worker -- and Garrett Johnson, 29, are looking to do what Democrats have done for almost a decade: connect conservative and libertarian "technologists" with old-school political campaigns with like minds. There just isn't enough opportunity in Silicon Valley. For a dyed-in-the-wool, true-red conservative. So, a pair of Silicon Valley denizens with right-wing politics are planning their answer to Netroots Nation, according to the Huffington Post. Startup employees Aaron Ginn, 26 -- a former Mitt Romney campaign worker -- and Garrett Johnson,...

In the next year, Bitcoin will start its transformation from a mere currency into an entire open-source, decentralized exchange for everything from futures contracts to car rentals. FORTUNE -- In 2013, bitcoin's valuation didn't just skyrocket, but its infrastructure, services, and adoption exploded as well, culminating in recent announcements that major online retailer Overstock.com and NBA team the Sacramento Kings would accept the digital currency as payment. Some still doubt bitcoin's usefulness and durability, but 2014 may leave skeptics even further behind -- developers and entrepreneurs are already hard at work building features on top of the Bitcoin protocol that...

Milton Everett Olin Jr., 65, died around 1 p.m. Sunday after he was involved in a crash in the 22000 block of Mulholland Highway. A report in the Los Angeles Times identified Olin as the former chief operating officer of file-sharing service Napster, according to court documents cited by the Times.

Bertelsmann, the privately owned German media group, is considering the outright sale or closure of its online books and music operations - the second largest in the world - in the latest phase of its restructuring. The move signals a strategic U-turn following the resignation of Thomas Middelhoff as Bertelsmann chief executive following in a boardroom coup in July. Mr Middelhoff had hoped to transform the company into the global leader in book and music retailing. Bertelsmann's management board, however, has approved plans to scale back or withdraw entirely from e-commerce operations. The German group is understood to be in...

They Never Even Recouped Their Aqua Net Expenses#20 As grunge dawns, one label bets on hair metalIn 1989, with hair metal reaching its zenith, the A&R department at MCA Records finally decided to get in on the act—by tossing a rumored $1 million at L.A. band Pretty Boy Floyd, who at the time had played only eight shows. The band’s debut, Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz, peaked at No. 130 on the Billboard charts, and the  Floyd blew another mil or so of MCA’s money before the label finally dropped them in 1991 … right around the time the suits...

Now that Viacom has successfully ordered YouTube to remove 100,000 clips from its television shows, one big question hangs in the air. Could the popular video-sharing site survive an onslaught by old media? After months of failed negotiations, New York City-based media conglomerate Viacom ordered YouTube to remove its content from the site Friday. The company complied, and as of Tuesday most if not all of the offending clips were no longer viewable on YouTube (see Viacom to YouTube: Yank Videos) Viacom defends its actions. “YouTube is selling advertising in competition with us, using our own content,” said Michael Fricklas,...

Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to circumvent international copyright laws. The group has set up a campaign to raise money to buy Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation', and claims to be outside the jurisdiction of the UK or any other country. The Pirate Bay says it is the world's largest 'bit torrent tracker', and is a popular way of sharing music, films, software and other copyrighted material online. It has been under the scrutiny of authorities in Sweden...

You know your company is in trouble when the latest press release includes "continues to reduce cash burn" in the title. Napster shareholders got just that, along with the news that Napster lost $9.8 million, $0.23 per share, in the first quarter of the fiscal year. However, this was a "cash burn reduced" decline from $19.9 million, $0.46 per share, a year ago. Napster's subscription service also declined, down 7 percent to 512,000 users, including 4,000 at universities. Believe it or not, this is also good news, at least according to Napster CEO Chris Gorog.

Colleges Offer Music Downloads, But Their Students Just Say No; Too Many Strings Attached As a student at Cornell University, Angelo Petrigh had access to free online music via a legal music-downloading service his school provided. Yet the 21-year-old still turned to illegal file-sharing programs.P<> The reason: While Cornell's online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated. "After I read that, I decided I didn't want to even try it," says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in...

Grokster Ltd., facing a copyright-infringement lawsuit for developing software that can be used to swap pirated music and movies, is in talks to be acquired by a company that wants to build a legal file-sharing service, a newspaper reported Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the talks, said Mashboxx probably would work out a revenue-sharing arrangement with Grokster because Grokster itself likely would have little or no value. Before any deal could go through, though, the record labels would have to drop or settle the pending lawsuits against Grokster, the people familiar with the matter...

Leading Scientists Back File-Sharing Firms Tuesday March 1, 9:36 pm ET By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer Some Leading Scientists Side With File-Swapping Companies Against Music and Movie Industries LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Some of the nation's leading computer scientists are siding with file-swapping companies against the music and movie industries. They were joined by tech firms and consumer groups, among others, in urging the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to side with two online file-sharing firms in their high-stakes battle with Hollywood and the recording industry. The recording companies and movie studios are appealing to the high court to...

Chris Gorog is convinced that people won't continue to pay $1 a song for online music. That is despite Apple's string of recent achievements, including 200 million songs sold at its iTunes Music Store, and nearly 4 million iPod digital music players moved into consumers' homes in 2004. Gorog runs Apple rival Napster (www.napster.com), which offers digital downloads and a music subscription deal. Consumers get unlimited access to listen to 700,000 songs for $9.95 monthly. The hitch is that to move songs onto a portable digital device or to a CD costs extra: $1 a song. That's one of the...

QUEEN - THE TOP 100 BOOTLEGS Queen are one of the most widely pirated bands in the world. A large number of their live performances (over 700 in all) exist in unauthorised recordings - from the earliest college gigs in 1971, to the final open air spectacular at Knebworth Park in 1986. In response to public demand, large numbers of ‘bootleg’ LPs, tapes, CDs, videos and now DVDs, proliferated. There is a HUGE mass of bootlegs to choose from – an overwhelming volume. Only a tiny fraction of these are worth seeking out, as most are poor-quality, shoddily conceived packages...