DRM’d music is dead. DRM’d video will be next. As CD sales plummet, the record labels have realized that they have to get with the 21st century. They have to have a place on your iPod, if they expect you to listen to them, and they have to get rid of DRM if they want […]

DRM’d music is roadkill, steamrolled by iPods, iTunes and fair use. Businessweek reports that Sony BMG is finalizing plans to sell songs without DRM, the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of […]

Apple’s had to deal with a lot of stupid lawsuits over the years, but this one takes the prize. An antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple on Dec. 31 charges the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market – because iPods don’t support Microsoft’s WMA format. “Apple’s iPod is alone among mass-market […]

On Monday, December 31, 2007, President Bush signed into law the “Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007,” which amends the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by: establishing a definition of “a representative of the news media;” directing that required attorney fees be paid from an agency’s own appropriation rather than from […]

There’s been a lot of controversy in the last year over the use and reuse of coyrighted content in videos published at sites like YouTube. A new study on copyright and creativity from the Center and American University‚Äôs Washington College of Law may help clear things up. The study (pdf), Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted […]

Simon Iddol has put together a free download of the best mashups of the year. The 19 track collection includes Billy Idol vs Pink on Pink Wedding, Eric Clapton vs Depeche Mode on Strange Love Cocaine and Christina Aguilera vs Lionel Richie on Easy Hurt. It’s available as a .zip download from the site. Here […]

Netflix and LG Electronics are reported to be prepping a Apple TV killer, a set top box that will let users stream video content from the Internet directly to HDTVs. Netflix has 7 million members. If it can convince even a small percent of its members to try the service, it could quickly leapfrog Apple’s […]

If you’re planning on buying an iPod, Zune or other portable media player for your kids, you may want to think twice before buying it at Wal-Mart. According to several reports, the company has been selling used media players as new ones. Some parents have even found that the players that they bought for their […]

There’s a lot of misinformation going around the Internet as a result of a report in the Washington Post that suggests that the RIAA is suing people for ripping music for personal use: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music […]

Saudi political blogger Fouah al-Farhan is being held for ‚Äúpurposes of interrogation‚Äù. Farhan‚Äôs blog criticizes official corruption and advocates government reform, and has become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, a monarchy, restricts free speech and does not allow public political gatherings. The Saudi press has not reported Farhan’s arrest. […]