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 its collection available without so-called digital rights management software some time in the first quarter.

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 Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format,” states the suit. “Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice, and to restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets.”

Plaintiff Stacie Somers alleges that Apple has a monopoly in online video, music and portable media players that constitutes a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Somers’ attorneys are seeking to have their lawsuit certified as a class action.

Somers’ case may be hindered by the facts that

• Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been the most notable critic of DRM’d music;
• iPods support MP3s, the most commonly used music file format;
• Everybody and their mother now sells DRM-free MP3s;
• The vast majority of music on portable media players comes from ripped CDs;
• Microsoft did in its own Playsforsure partners; and most importantly
• The judge’s got an iPod.

via InformationWeek

Podcasting News is headquartered in Iowa’s capital city, Des Moines, so we’ve had a front-row seat for the preparations to the first-in-the-nation Presidential nominating caucus.

I’ll be busy this evening working at our neighborhood caucus, but may have time to post some Seesmic videos later. Look for videos from podcastmama.

Here are some resources you can check out to find out more about the caucuses:

• You can follow the caucus results with CNN at CNNPolitics.com CNN, by the way, calls the Iowa caucus process arcane.
• On Twitter, @IowaCaucus will have local reports from Iowa caucus-goers. You can follow us there via @podcastmama and @podcasting_news
• There are some kids from out of state who are podcasting from the caucuses
• Brave New Films is sponsoring election video coverage from bloggers
• Join Scott Sundstrom, an Obama supporter, podcasts about New Year’s day canvassing in the cold

Elections blogger Jacob Soboroff of WhyTuesday caught up with veteran ABC Newsman Sam Donaldson at the Polk County Convention Center and got some insight into the process:

If you’re talking about the caucuses, let us know in the comments!

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:

1. establishing a definition of “a representative of the news media;”
2. directing that required attorney fees be paid from an agency’s own appropriation rather than from the Judgment Fund;
3. prohibiting an agency from assessing certain fees if it fails to comply with FOIA deadlines; and
4. establishing an Office of Government Information Services in the National Archives and Records Administration to review agency compliance with FOIA.

The legislation expands the definition of who is a “representative of the news media”, making bloggers and other non-traditional journalists eligible for reduced processing and duplication fees that are available to “representatives of the news media.”

In other words, citizen journalists are journalists under the act.

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 Material in User-Generated Video, shows that many uses of copyrighted material in today’s online videos are eligible for fair use consideration.

Nine Types Of Fair Us In Online Videos:

• satire
• parody
• negative or critical commentary
• positive commentary
• discussion-triggers
• illustration
• diaries
• archiving and
• pastiche or collage (remixes and mashups)

Fair Use And Internet Video

Fair use is the part of copyright law that lets you, in some situations, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying the owners. According to court precedents, fair use should be “transformative” Рadding value to the original work and using it for a purpose different from the original.

Here’s an example:

When makers mash up several works — say, The Ten Commandments , Ben-Hur and 10 Things I Hate about You to make Ten Things I Hate about Commandments (above) — they aren’t necessarily stealing. They are quoting in order to make a new commentary on popular culture, and creating a new piece of popular culture.

This type of fair use mashup and others is threatened by industry practices that are being introduced to control piracy. While content creators have a legitimate right to protect themselves from getting ripped off, that shouldn’t be at the expense of fair use.

Here are examples of each of the 9 fair use ways to reuse online video:

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 are the track details…..

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 Internet television device.

“This could shape up to be a boxing match between Apple and Netflix over video streaming content to TVs and PCs,” says Michael Olson, an analyst at Piper Jaffray.

According to Olson, Netflix’s set-top box needs to cost about $100, with a monthly subscription rate of $12 for rentals of two to three titles at a time, in order to succeed.

“The potential is huge over the next 10 years,” as millions of Americans buy HDTVs and increasingly pipe Internet content straight to them, says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

Netflix is the leader in DVD-by-mail rentals, but has to adapt to the growing interest in Internet video. There’s no word if Netflix’s solution will support video podcasts or other Internet videos.

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 kids were filled with porn!

In Cookeville, Texas, the family of a 10-year-old girl who received an MP3 video player for Christmas was shocked when it found the player was loaded with explicit songs and porn.

“Within 10 minutes, my daughter was crying,” Cookeville resident Daryl Hill told Nashville, Tenn., TV station WSMV.

The Hills had bought three MP3 players for their children that came from a Wal-Mart store in Sparta, Tenn. It turns out one of the MP3 players had been returned to the store from a previous owner who loaded sex clips, graphic war scenes and songs that they found offensive.

In a similar case in Orangeville, Ontario, Mike Matthews was disturbed to find out that the iPod that Santa left for his 10-year-old son was filled with material he considered inappropriate.

The first thing he found on the iPod was a song titled I F- – – g Hate You.

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 recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry’s lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.

A lot of bloggers now seem to think that ripping your own CDs is illegal:

• Boing Boing says “CD ripping isn’t fair use”;
• Electronista says “RIAA claims CD rips are piracy in lawsuit”;
• The Drudge Reports says “Ripping CDs is Illegal”; and
• On Slashdot “Ripping CDs to iPod not ‘Fair Use'”.

While the RIAA might want to turn back time and make ripping CDs illegal, that’s not what it’s doing.

Saudi political blogger Fouah al-Farhan is being held for “purposes of interrogation”. Farhan’s 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.

Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office. In a note written shortly before his arrest, he said that he suspected he was going to be taken in because of his political views:

I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me. They will pick me up anytime in the next 2 weeks.

The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I’m running a online campaign promoting their issue. All what I did is wrote some pieces and put side banners and asked other bloggers to do the same.

he asked me to comply with him and sign an apology. I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that. An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?

To expect the worst which is to be jailed for 3 days till we write good feedback about you and let u go

there may be no jial and only apologizing letter. But, if it’s more than three days, it should be out. I don’t want to be forgotten in jail.” hat there is an order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me. They will pick me up anytime in the next 2 weeks.

Mr. Farhan was one of the first Saudi bloggers to post items in Arabic and to use his real name.

via the New York Times and Voice of America