This month in digital music libraries - March 2025
March 28, 2025 in digital music by Dan Gravell
This month we’re concentrating on law and a rather negative look at some music hardware and software - broken, cancelled and commodified!
Devices
Chromecast has become a staple casting device in many homes. It’s cheap and, until this month, “just worked”. However, this month it transpired that the certificate shipped in the device relied on a now-expired intermediate certificate. This breakage in the chain of trust meant the devices couldn’t be used to cast to.
Having issues with Chromecast 2nd Gen or Chromecast Audio? Don't reset your device! buff.ly/3I669uV
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 12 March 2025 at 16:01
[image or embed]
Since then, the issue has been rectified.
Elsewhere in playback hardware, a device that Sonos was rumoured to be working on, a pure streamer, has been cancelled. Likely this is because it was the pet project of the now-deposed (since issues with the last major app rollout) CEO.
Evidence that @Sonos has learnt from its recent problems, or simply the canning of the last boss's pet project? buff.ly/rpCxeF2
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 19 March 2025 at 16:01
[image or embed]
It seems a good choice to focus on rebuilding trust in the app and existing hardware, though.
The self-hosting community are gnashing their teeth as one of the most used features in Plex goes paid-for: remote playback. To make things worse, prices are also going on.
Plex has started charging for remote streaming...
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 25 March 2025 at 16:01
[image or embed]
Law
In a dash for growth, the UK government are allowing a relaxation of copyright law for AI models to be fed otherwise protected music.
The UK Government have introduced relaxations in copyright law to allow AI companies to train models on copyrighted music. buff.ly/03STJg7 Seems an own-goal for a country whose soft power depends a lot on the cultural capital of music?
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 6 March 2025 at 16:00
[image or embed]
Meanwhile, the record companies are still on the Internet Archive’s back…
I find it difficult to believe corporations would push for this if it was just a case of being vindictive. Wouldn't boards or shareholders shut down anything that was not in the commercial interest?
— bliss - automated music library management (@blisshq.com) 14 March 2025 at 16:00
[image or embed]
See you in April!
Photo by Bruno Bučar on Unsplash
