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Global music piracy crept up in 2022, marking the second straight year it has increased after a period of steady decline, according to a report from MUSO, a U.K. technology company. MUSO, which tracks consumption across websites around the world to “to understand the true picture of digital piracy,” logged more than 15 billion visits to music piracy sites in 2022.
Piracy has been a thorn in the music industry’s side for more than two decades. In recent years, however, the widespread adoption of streaming has led to a steep drop in the types of peer-to-peer and file-sharing behavior that once threatened to bring the music business to its knees.
In a world driven by streaming, rather than downloads or CD sales, the industry is increasingly focused on a different set of issues. Key among them is streaming fraud, which is not driven by fan’s desire to have more music at their fingertips. Instead, this activity often involves bad actors siphoning money away from the music business — by running bot networks that play 31-second white-noise recordings nonstop on Spotify, for example.
Growth in streaming revenues shows signs of slowing, meaning that every dollar that leaks out of the music ecosystem is becoming more important to labels. And MUSO’s report shows that piracy, even if it has faded from headlines, isn’t negligible.
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For example, Justin Bieber‘s songs, albums, or “music bundles” — which could include an entire discography — were illegally downloaded over 1 million times across the peer-to-peer/torrent network in 2022, for example, with more than 40% of those downloads coming from the U.S. MUSO detected more than 950,000 illegal downloads of David Bowie‘s music, more than 780,000 across Bruce Springsteen’s catalog, and more than 750,000 involving Bob Dylan releases.
The U.S. accounts for 7% of all piracy traffic picked up by MUSO, third only behind Iran (15.05%) and India (10.29%). Despite the prevalence of streaming among U.S. listeners, their appetite for piracy far outpaces their peers in other major music markets like the U.K. (1.86% of piracy traffic) and Germany (1.92%). And more than half of all the piracy in the U.S. takes place via stream-ripping, which relies on programs to get around YouTube’s copyright protection and convert audio into MP3s.
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In 2019, the RIAA said it was monitoring more than 200 stream-ripping sites. Labels have taken legal measures to go after some of these: In December 2021, a U.S. judge ordered a pair of Russian sites to pay more than $80 million — $50,000 for each of the 1,618 copyrighted works infringed — in damages. The judge wrote that 1,618 was “likely on the low end of Defendant’s indeterminable number of violations.” Tofig Kurbanov, the owner of the sites, subsequently appealed the ruling.
RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow said at the time that “this litigation sets out vital first principles that should chart a path for further enforcement against foreign stream-rippers and other forms of online piracy that undermine the legitimate market for music.” The ruling, he said, “is a major step forward to protect artists, songwriters, record labels, and consumers from one of the most pernicious forms of online piracy.”
Despite the judgement, MUSO’s data indicates that stream-ripping remains the most prevalent form of piracy in the U.S., accounting for more than half of piracy demand in the country (51.3%). This is well above the global average, which MUSO found to be 33.4%.
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Overall, music piracy has fallen by more than half since 2017, according to MUSO. But the company predicts another small rise in 2023.
“For the Film and TV sectors, MUSO’s data indicate that piracy demand will continue to increase across 2023, as inflationary and economic pressures result in subscriber losses for the various legal streaming services,” the company’s report notes. “This will drive users to illegally stream or download the content they want to watch via piracy sites. MUSO does anticipate seeing a similar uptick in music piracy across 2023,” but one that will be “less marked than [in] other industries.”
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Source: Activision / Call of Duty / The Shredder
One of the greatest villains in pop culture history is coming to Call of Duty.
Wednesday, Call of Duty announced on its official Twitter account in a teaser that players will be able to play as The Shredder, the notorious villain from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as an operator.
The brief teaser didn’t showcase any gameplay but did give us a glimpse of how Oroku Saki will look in the video game.
The Shredder will be donning his signature villainous drip with a Call of Duty twist while dishing out pain with not one but two katana swords.
Another cool feature is a mutagen canister with TCRI written on it that fans will recognize from the cartoons and films.
This will mark the first time The Shredder leaps out of the TMNT franchise into another IP. His eternal enemies, the Ninja Turtles, have frequently appeared in other video games.
The Heroes in a Half Shell have appeared in Injustice 2 thanks to a character DLC pack, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, Splatoon 2 Splatfest, and Knockout City.
Call of Duty Has A Rich History of Featuring Movie Characters
The Shredder will join the likes of The Terminator, John Rambo, Die Hard’s John McClane, Godzilla, Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, and Saw’s Billy The Puppet as other popular movie characters to join the game.
The news of The Shredder coming to COD is a huge surprise and follows the release of the first trailer for Seth Rogen’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem animated film.
You can bet there will be more TMNT-related crossovers coming down the pipeline, and we will be looking forward to all of them.
The Shredder will arrive in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 on March 21.
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Photo: Activision / Call of Duty
In the latest bid by lawmakers to crack down on TikTok in the United States, on Tuesday (Mar. 7) a bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill that would empower the White House to rein in the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Led by Sens. Mark A. Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) and co-sponsored by 10 others in the chamber, the RESTRICT Act would “comprehensively address the ongoing threat posed by technology from foreign adversaries” including China, Russia and Iran by authorizing the Department of Commerce — led by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — “to review, prevent, and mitigate information communications and technology transactions” that are found to threaten U.S. national security, up to and including an outright ban, according to a press release.
The White House has also come out in support of the new bill, with U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan noting in a press release that the legislation “presents a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans.”
Though TikTok is not named in the text of the RESTRICT Act, both Warner and Thune invoked the platform in their own statements on the legislation.
“Congress needs to stop taking a piecemeal approach when it comes to technology from adversarial nations that pose national security risks,” said Thune. “Our country needs a process in place to address these risks, which is why I’m pleased to work with Senator Warner to establish a holistic, methodical approach to address the threats posed by technology platforms — like TikTok — from foreign adversaries.”
A representative for TikTok did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
TikTok has been subject to increased scrutiny by the U.S. government recently over fears that national security and consumer privacy could be compromised by the platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill that prohibits the use of the platform by nearly 4 million government employees on devices owned by its agencies, joining at least 27 state governments and several universities that have passed similar measures. And last month, the administration drew a sharp rebuke from the Chinese government after it gave all federal agencies just 30 days to wipe TikTok from government devices.
Tuesday’s Senate bill follows a separate one introduced in December by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) that would have required President Biden to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to restrict U.S. citizens’ access to the app.
In the House on Wednesday (Mar. 1), another bill advanced out of committee that would direct the Treasury Secretary to prohibit Americans from engaging with TikTok and other entities found to be directed or influenced by the Chinese government — though it was criticized by Democrats who said it had not been properly vetted and could affect innocent U.S. businesses. That legislation would additionally empower the President to impose sanctions on TikTok and other companies tied to China.
TikTok has long attempted to assuage fears that the platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has ties to the ruling Chinese Communist party and censors content critical of the Chinese government and other authoritarian regimes. In June, the company announced it had started routing U.S. user data to Oracle cloud servers located in the U.S., instituted audits of its algorithms and established a new department to solely manage U.S. user data for the platform.
The U.S. government has so far been undeterred. “We look forward to continue working with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to act quickly to send it to the President’s desk,” said Sullivan on Tuesday.
Concerns about TikTok have also been prevalent in other corners of the West, most prominently in Europe. In January, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with European Union officials over concerns about child safety and data privacy, among other matters. On Feb. 16, TikTok’s general manager of operations in Europe, Rich Waterworth, attempted to allay some of those concerns in a blog post where he noted that the company plans to establish two additional European data centers, citing a commitment “to keeping our European community and their data safe and secure.” He added that the company is “continuing to deliver against” a data governance strategy they set out for Europe last year, which includes plans to further reduce employee access to European data, minimize data flows outside Europe and store European user data locally.
Zi Chew is slated to appear before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on March 23, when he’s expected to comment on TikTok’s data security and user privacy policies, the app’s impact on children and ties with the Chinese Communist Party.
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Elon Musk is facing heavy criticism on Twitter Tuesday morning (May 7) after an exchange with an employee took a turn that shocked many. Musk was seen questioning the person’s disability and dismissing them in what some viewed as insulting.
Elon Musk, 51, was called out by former Twitter designer Halli Thorleifsson in a tweet asking if he was fired from the company after losing access to his work computer.
Dear @elonmusk [waving emoji]. 9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees. However, your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You’ve not answered my emails. Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” Thorleifsson tweeted on Monday (May 6).
Thorleifsson’s thread also contained a message for former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey.
“Hi @jack. I would really appreciate your help on this one. My company was acquired on your watch and I joined because I believed in what you were building,” Thorleifsson added.
Gaining Musk’s attention, the Twitter boss asks, “What work have you been doing?” in the thread to which Thorleifsson fired back with, “I would need to break confidentiality to answer this question here. If you have your lawyers share in writing that I can do that then I’d be happy to discuss that openly!”
Another Twitter user, Alex Cohen, who tweets under @anothercohen, shared a screengrab of the exchange between Musk and Thorleifsson and got a response from Musk.
“The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that,” Musk wrote.
Truthfully, it appears that Elon Musk is determined to bring the once-mightly social media platform to its knees and there are even reports that he currently walks about Twitter headquarters with bodyguards in tow, according to a new piece from The Daily Beast.
On Twitter, folks are giving the Telsa founder the business. Keep scrolling for those reactions.
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Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty
February was a big month for music and NFTs. Spotify plugged into Web3 with a token-gated playlist experiment, while Def Jam Records signed a virtual band. Snoop Dogg returned with a fresh NFT drop and Rihanna fans got the chance to own streaming royalties in “Bitch Better Have My Money,” right in time for her Super Bowl halftime show — although the NFT drop was not without controversy.
Overall, crypto prices crept higher in February, with Ethereum now up 46% from the start of the year. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the 10 biggest-selling music NFTs and collections in February 2023.
1/ Rihanna – “Bitch Better Have My Money”Monthly trading volume: $532,452Primary sales (Feb.): $63,000Secondary volume: 284 ETH ($469,452)Drop date: Feb. 9
While Rihanna was making history at the Super Bowl, her music was making headlines in the NFT space. A portion of streaming royalties in her track, “Bitch Better Have My Money”, were sold via NFTs on Web3 platform Anotherblock, netting $63,000 in sales and a further $469,452 in secondary trading volume. The hype was amplified as Rihanna opened her Feb. 12 halftime set with the track, sending global streaming figures 594% higher in the week ending Feb. 16.
The NFT drop was controversial, though. It was not officially endorsed by Rihanna; instead, the royalties were unlocked through producer DEPUTY’s share in the track, and it’s unknown whether Rihanna was aware of it. The NFTs also quadrupled in value on the secondary market, shooting far beyond logical expectations for return based on the streaming calculations.
The collection was later halted on OpenSea for “promising fractional ownership and future profit based on that ownership” — something OpenSea doesn’t allow — proving that NFT projects positioning themselves purely as investments are still at risk of regulatory scrutiny.
View the collection on OpenSea.
2/ Violetta Zironi – “Another Life”Monthly trading volume: 167 ETH ($276,552)Primary sales (Feb): ~110 ETH ($182,160)Secondary volume: 57 ETH ($94,392)Drop date: Feb. 17
After a successful genesis drop last year, singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi returned in February with a new collection, Another Life — an EP encompassing five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the ability to use the songs for their own projects. To celebrate the drop, Zironi hosted a 14-hour Twitter Spaces marathon with her community.
View the collection on OpenSea.
3/ Kids of the ApocalypseMonthly trading volume: 10748 SOL ($243,979)Primary sales (Feb): 6,666 SOL ($151,318)Secondary volume: 4082 SOL ($92,661)Drop date: Feb.. 9
Several years in the making, Kids of the Apocalypse (KOTA) is an ambitious, immersive music NFT project built on the Solana blockchain. It features graphic novel characters, dystopian storylines and a dark-pop soundtrack from veteran Swedish producer Stefan Storm, previously of pop duo Sound of Arrows. KOTA is now the biggest music NFT project on Solana, a blockchain that offers faster speeds and cheaper transaction fees than Ethereum.
View the collection on OpenSea.
4/ MyFi Studio – “Wind Tunnels” + “Circles Are Bad”Monthly trading volume: 94.48 ETH ($156,458)Primary sales (Feb): 70.33 ETH ($116,466)Secondary volume: 24.15 ETH ($39,992)Drop dates: January 2023 (“Wind Tunnels”) and February 2023 (“Circles Are Bad”)
“Wind Tunnels” and “Circles are Bad” are innovative NFT instruments that you can play and interact with in real-time. They are fully coded onto the Ethereum blockchain itself, which is a significant departure from most music NFTs, in which music is typically stored on an external server while the NFT simply contains a link to the music. “Wind Tunnels” and the follow-up drum machine project “Circles are Bad,” however, are fully coded onchain.
View the “Wind Tunnels” and “Circles Are Bad” collections on OpenSea.
5/ Shilly: The Access PassMonthly trading volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)Primary sales (Feb.): N/ASecondary volume: 82 ETH ($135,792)Drop date: Jan. 31
Shilly — a Bored Ape that makes chaotic pop-punk records — dropped a series of access passes in January, letting the community get involved in music releases. The most exclusive pass, the Band Pass, gives fans the opportunity to work on music with Shilly and even feature on tracks. The project was incubated by Universal Music’s NFT imprint Probably a Label.
View the collection on OpenSea.
6/ KINGSHIPMonthly trading volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)Primary sales (Feb): N/ASecondary volume: 76 ETH ($125,856)Drop date: July 11, 2022
The Bored Ape supergroup was part of a new pilot experiment with Spotify in February, through which KINGSHIP Key Card holders can now access an exclusive ‘token-gated’ playlist on the streaming platform. The news triggered a fresh wave of buying activity in the KINGSHIP collection, which captured 76 ETH in volume last month. Spotify has partnered with a total of four projects in the NFT space to test the new feature.
View the collection on OpenSea.
7/ Snoop Dogg – XYZMonthly trading volume: 45.2 ETH ($74,851)Primary sales (Feb): 44 ETH ($72,864)Secondary sales: 1.2 ETH ($1,987)Drop date: Feb. 3
Snoop Dogg returned to Web3 to capitalize on one of the biggest current trends in the space: open editions. Rather than a fixed supply of NFTs, with open editions — which are typically sold at a lower price to make them more accessible to collectors — fans can mint as many editions as they want within a set time frame. Web3 music pioneers RAC and 3LAU both dropped open editions this month, but Snoop Doog blew the doors off. The rapper sold more than 10,000 editions in a 3-day period via Sound.xyz. Snoop Dogg’s “XYZ” sold for 0.0042 ETH (about $7) each, totaling more than $70,000.
View the collection on OpenSea.
8/ Sammy Arriaga – “Metagirl (remix) featuring Nessy the Rilla”Monthly trading volume: 30 ETH ($49,680)Primary sales (Feb): 30 ETH ($49,680)Secondary volume: N/ADrop date: Feb. 25
Following in Snoop’s footsteps, independent country artist Sammy Arriaga also launched an open edition on Sound.xyz in February, aiming to beat Snoop Dogg’s 10,000 sales with a series of NFT incentives. The biggest collector will receive a special reward, while the rest will be entered into a lottery to win a valuable NFT. At the time of writing, Arriaga has generated 5,000 sales. One collector purchased more than 1,000 NFTs, briefly becoming Sound.xyz’s biggest all-time collector in terms of NFTs held.
View the collection on OpenSea.
9/ Tycho – “The Science of Patterns”Monthly trading volume: $19,000Primary sales: $19,000Secondary volume: N/ADrop date: Feb. 25
Electronic producer Tycho reissued his 20-year-old EP, The Science of Patterns, in February as a digital release for the first time. As a twist, the record is only available as an NFT through Tycho’s Web3 fan club portal. Powered by Web3 tech company Medallion, the multitrack album format is brand new to Web3, allowing fans to stream the entire album within the NFT itself, unlike previous album NFTs which simply unlocked access to music elsewhere.
10/ WVRPSoundMonthly trading volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)Primary sales (Feb): N/ASecondary volume: 11.09 ETH ($18,365)Drop date: January 17, 2022
WVRPSound is the biggest music NFT project ever in terms of trading volume. Since launching in January 2022, the collection of AI-generated music and animated characters have earned more than 6,000 ETH in volume (approximately $7.3 million). The project recently announced plans to launch playable versions of its characters in The Sandbox metaverse.
View the collection on OpenSea.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between Feb. 1 – Feb. 28, 2023. Conversion rates from crypto to US dollars were calculated on Feb 28.
TikTok is one step closer to being effectively banned on mobile devices in the U.S, though an outright prohibition still faces significant hurdles.
A House committee voted along party lines on Wednesday to advance a bill to block U.S. activity on the popular Chinese-owned video app used by more than 100 million Americans. The measure was forced through by Republicans on the committee over opposition from Democrats, who said that the legislation has not been properly vetted and that it could ensnare U.S. businesses that don’t pose a national security risk.
Before the vote, it appeared that the gap between Democrats and Republicans over TikTok’s threat to the U.S. was diminishing. Democrats have increasingly been supporting measures to take action against the social media app, with the White House on Tuesday giving all federal agencies 30 days to delete the app from government devices and a member of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy calling for the separation of TikTok from its Chinese parent company. Wednesday’s vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee represents a split between both sides in the severity and speed of measures that should be taken.
Democrats, for now, are on TikTok’s side concerning a national ban. That will have to change for the bill to pass the Senate.
“Everybody knows what TikTok is,” said committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Tuesday when the measure was being considered. “It’s too dangerous to be on our phones as members of Congress. In my judgment, it’s too dangerous to be on our childrens’ phones. That’s the whole point of this bill.”
The legislation directs the Treasury Secretary to issue a directive prohibiting Americans from engaging transactions with entities that could transfer sensitive personal data to entities directed or influenced by the Chinese government. It also empowers the President to impose sanctions on certain transactions relating to connected software applications controlled by entities that could facilitated China’s intelligence, censorship or surveillance activities, including efforts to steer U.S. policy and regulatory decisions. Under the bill, the president can waive certain sanctions and make a decision on whether TikTok or any of its affiliated companies meet the criteria for sanctions.
There’s no evidence that the Chinese government has demanded American user data from TikTok or parent company ByteDance or influenced the content users see on the platform.
In a statement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said that a “U.S. ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide.”
“We’re disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok,” she added.
The bill could violate the First Amendment. In a letter sent on Monday, The American Civil Liberties Union detailed constitutional concerns with the measure.
“In a purported attempt to protect the data of U.S. persons from Chinese government acquisition, this legislation will instead limit Americans’ political discussion, artistic expression, free exchange of ideas — and even prevent people from posting cute animal videos and memes,” wrote ACLU federal policy director Christopher Anders. “While the ACLU’s opposition today rests on free speech harms, we note that with more time to review this legislation, we anticipate finding other sweeping implications.”
The ACLU also took issue with the legislation creating a loophole to the Berman Amendment, which removes the president’s authority to regulate the exchange of cultural goods between the U.S. and hostile nations. It said that the bill creates a “slippery slope” that could “leave U.S. residents without some of their favorite international books, movies, and artwork.”
TikTok in 2020 successfully argued that the former president’s effort to force a sale of the company to a U.S. firm violated the Berman Amendment.
In another case dealing with a ban on a Chinese-owned app because of national security concerns that same year, a federal judge blocked a government directive requiring Apple and Google to remove Tencent’s WeChat from their app stores. U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler found that the order could infringe on users’ First Amendment rights by making the app unusable.
Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, told The Hollywood Reporter that “there are other ways to protect American data than to ban an app because it is foreign-owned.”
“We shouldn’t borrow the Chinese strategy of banning foreign information apps like Twitter and Facebook,” he added. “Banning TikTok would prove the Chinese right in banning our apps. The strength of our democracy is its openness.”
The US Committee on Foreign Investment, which reviews business dealing that may be a threat to national security and is empowered to force TikTok to sell to a U.S. company, is currently reviewing ByteDance’s 2017 merger of TikTok and Musical.ly. In August, TikTok proposed to permit ByteDance to continue owning the app in a deal that would silo U.S. user data and restrict access by employees in China.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
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Source: Xbox / The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X Bundle
The folks are Xbox are back with another exciting giveaway that fans of Disney’s original Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, will absolutely love.
To celebrate season three of The Mandalorian, Xbox partnered with Lucasfilm to celebrate the return of the hit show starring Pedro Pascal as the titular character to giveaway Mandalorian-inspired gear.
Fans can enter a sweepstake right now where they can hope to win custom Xbox Series X and S consoles featuring Mando and Grogu, oops, we mean Baby Yoda and a custom controller that looks like The Child and a controller hoodie playing off his drip.
That’s not all. Fans can also win a life-size version of the Baby Yoda’s hovering ride, called The Pram XL, that they can actually sit in and either game or watch the new season of The Mandalorian.
Before you ask, no, it does not hover. Still, it is a fully operational gaming station featuring massaging cushions, cupholders, LED lights, and holders for your controllers and headphones, making it the best gaming chair on the planet and in a galaxy far, far away.
Source: Xbox / The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle
Here’s How To Win
Retweet the official Xbox Twitter account starting today to enter for a chance to win the custom Mandalorian-inspired gear. You have until May 11 to enter the contest.
If you want to land the Pram XL, you will have to enter with Microsoft Rewards for the chance to win a full entertainment package by heading here starting March 16 until May 11.
In more Mandalorian news, Disney partnered with Xbox for a season three launch event in Los Angeles at the iconic El Capitan Theater.
In attendance were stars of the show Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Katee Sackhoff, Emily Swallow, Chris Bartlett, Rosario Dawson, and more. Series creator Jon Favreau, plus directors Rick Famuyiwa and Dave Filioni were also on hand for the big night.
Source: Xbox / The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
So, may the force be with you when trying to win that custom Mandalorian swag.
For more photos from The Mandalorian’s season 3 launch event, hit the gallery below.
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Photos: Courtesy of Xbox
1. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
2. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
3. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
4. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
5. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
6. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
7. The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
Source:The Mandalorian Season 3 Event
The Mandalorian-Inspired Xbox Series S & X bundle xbox,the mandalorian,xbox series x,xbox series s
Generative artificial intelligence is currently one of the hottest topics in Silicon Valley, and its impact is already being felt in the music industry. BandLab — the music-creation app that has become popular on TikTok — relies on AI as the engine for its tool SongStarter. Users can lean on it to generate beats or melodies at random, or prompt it to spit something out based on specific lyrics and emojis; BandLab’s 60 million registered creators are churning out more than 17 million songs each month, including breakout hits for dv4d and ThxSoMch.
The tracks that emerge from BandLab depend on the interaction of human creators and AI. That holds true for some of the companies focusing on functional audio as well. LifeScore, which uses AI to “create unique, real-time soundtracks for every journey,” relies on “Lego blocks of sound all made in a studio by real musicians playing real instruments through lovely microphones,” says co-founder/CEO Philip Sheppard. Even the sound of a stream trickling through a forest comes from “someone going out with a rig and standing in that stream and recording it.”
The AI kicks in when it comes to assembling that sonic Lego. “The AI is saying, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be delightful if these could arrange themselves in this different way?’” Sheppard explains. “’How about if we could turn that into eight hours that felt like it was original every time you listened to it?’”
All results of these processes may not work. “Unsuccessful soundscapes are generated all the time,” says Oleg Stavitsky, co-founder/CEO of Endel, which offers an app that generates music designed to help users focus, relax or sleep. “Each soundscape goes through a multi-step testing process: from automated testing, detecting sound artifacts and bad sound combinations to in-house testing to our community testing.” That community includes some 4,000 people who provide feedback through Endel’s Discord channel.
“We put human eyes on everything before it goes out,” says Alex Mitchell, founder/CEO of Boomy, a company that offers aspiring musicians the chance to make songs in seconds with help from AI tools. Since 2019, Boomy users have created over 12 million songs. “We have a generic content policy that basically means if all you’re doing is pressing buttons and we detect that, then your release probably won’t be eligible for distribution,” says Mitchell. “We reject way more releases than what gets submitted. That way we’re not flooding the [digital service providers] with a bunch of nonsense.”
How will Boomy scale this approach as it attracts even more users and generates even more millions of songs? “We’re hiring,” Mitchell says.
TikTok said Wednesday that every account held by a user under the age of 18 will have a default 60-minute daily screen time limit in the coming weeks. The changes arrive during a period in which there are growing concerns among different governments about the app’s security.
Families have struggled with limiting the amount of time their children spend on the Chinese-owned video sharing app.
Cormac Keenan, head of trust and safety at TikTok said in a blog post Wednesday that when the 60-minute limit is reached, minors will be prompted to enter a passcode receive a passcode and make an “active decision” to keep watching. For accounts where the user is under the age of 13, a parent or guardian will have to set or enter an existing passcode to allow 30 minutes of extra viewing time once the initial 60-minute limit is reached.
TikTok said it came up with the 60-minute threshold by consulting academic research and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Social media executives, including those from TikTok, have been called before Congress to explain how they are preventing harm for young users.
TikTok also said Wednesday that it will also begin prompting teens to set a daily screen time limit if they opt out of the 60-minute default. The company will send weekly inbox notifications to teen accounts with a screen time recap.
Some of TikTok’s existing safety features for teen accounts include having accounts set to private by default for those between the ages of 13 and 15 and providing direct messaging availability only to those accounts where the user is 16 or older.
TikTok announced a number of changes for all users, including the ability to set customized screen time limits for each day of the week and allowing users to set a schedule to mute notifications. The company is also launching a sleep reminder to help people plan when they want to be offline at night. For the sleep feature, users will be able to set a time and when the time arrives, a pop-up will remind the user that it’s time to log off.
Outside of exorbitant use by some minors, there are growing concern about the app around the world. The European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Council have banned TikTok from being installed on official devices.
That follows similar actions taken by the U.S. federal government, Congress and more than half of the 50 U.S. states. Canada has also banned it from government devices.
U.S. government bans on Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.
The U.S. government “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies,” Mao Ning said at a daily briefing.“How unsure of itself can the U.S., the world’s top superpower, be to fear a young person’s favorite app to such a degree?”
The White House is giving all federal agencies, in guidance issued Monday, 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices. The White House already did not allow TikTok on its devices.
TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teens, but there’s concern in Washington that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favoring China.
Congress and more than half of U.S. states have so-far banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices.
Some have also moved to apply the ban to any app or website owned by ByteDance Ltd., the private Chinese company that owns TikTok and moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.
China has long blocked a long list of foreign social media platforms and messaging apps, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Washington and Beijing are at odds over myriad issues including trade, computer chips and other technology, national security and Taiwan, along with the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the U.S. and its shooting down earlier this month.
On Monday, Canada announced it was joining the U.S. in banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices.
“I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters after the announcement.
Canadian Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said the Chief Information Officer of Canada had determined that TikTok “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
“On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone,” Fortier said.
The app will be removed from Canadian government issued phones on Tuesday.
The European Union’s executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure.
TikTok has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.