iLounge is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing a new Zune on Monday:

We’re hearing that Microsoft’s holding an event in Redmond on Monday to preview/announce a new Zune Рmost likely the flash-based one the company’s been hinting at for a while. No other details yet; if there’s something worth telling you about on Monday, we’ll let you know.

There’s speculation about whether it will be a flash-based Zune or a Zune phone.

Odds are against a Zune phone. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, right, recently pooh-pooohed the idea of a Zune phone, saying “It‚Äôs not a concept you‚Äôll ever get from us.”

The biggest question is not whether Microsoft will introduce an flash Zune or whether Steve Ballmer will talk about squirting, but whether they will be able to do anything to recover from the Zune’s botched introduction and change the perception of the device as just another iPod-killer wannabe.

Interest in Apple’s upcoming iPhone appears to be growing.

According to ChangeWave analyst Paul Carton, their research reveals “exceptionally high levels of excitement surround the iPhone‚Äôs upcoming release. Nearly one-in-10 respondents (9%) say they are likely to buy the new iPhone once it becomes available in June.”

“Another 7% say they are likely to buy the iPhone as a gift for someone else,” adds Carton. According to the ChangeWave analysis, the survey provides strong evidence that Apple should be able to exceed their iPhone sales goals.

Of those that are not currently interested in purchasing an iPhone, 53% would be interested if Apple could offer the phone for $199 or less.

“The real issue for Apple isn‚Äôt meeting its first year iPhone sales goals. The survey shows that‚Äôs very doable,” said Carton. “The real issue is whether they can keep up with consumer demand ‚Äì including having enough parts to fulfill orders ‚Äì while maintaining product integrity.”

via MacDailyNews

UK’s Football Association Premier League Limited and indie music publisher Bourne Co. filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in New York Friday to stop the unauthorized use of their works, and those of all other similarly situated copyright holders, on YouTube. The lawsuit names as defendants two YouTube affiliates (YouTube, Inc. and YouTube LLC) as well as YouTube‚Äôs corporate parent, Google, Inc.

According to the complaint filed earlier today in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, “Defendants are pursuing a deliberate strategy of engaging in, permitting, encouraging, and facilitating massive copyright infringement on the YouTube website” in order to build traffic to the site. The complaint alleges that the YouTube defendants have long been aware of this pattern of massive infringement yet refrain from employing readily available measures to curb it because the defendants understand that the popularity of YouTube derive primarily from the ability of website visitors to view copyrighted materials without having to pay the owners.

The complaint further alleges that it was this very business model that persuaded defendant Google to pay $1.65 billion to purchase YouTube in November 2006, and that Google has endorsed and directed YouTube’s infringing conduct since becoming its corporate parent.

“The $1.65 billion paid by Google to purchase YouTube in 2006, and the concomitant $4 billion increase in Google‚Äôs market capitalization, vastly understates both the value of the intellectual property rights of the Class that YouTube has misappropriated and the harm to the Class caused by Defendants‚Äô unlawful conduct,” according to the complaint.

Earlier in the year, Viacom sued Google for 1 billion dollars, arguing that YouTube business is built on ripping off other people’s work.

The lawsuit seeks a court-ordered injunction to prohibit the defendants from continuing to violate various copyright protection laws. The lawsuit also asks for unspecified damages for YouTube’s past copyright violations. A copy of the complaint can be found at www.youtubeclassaction.com.

Responding to an Internet revolt over the censorship of sites that have posted a number key that can be used to unencrypt HD-DVDs,¬† Advanced Access Content System (AACS) head Michael Ayers said that they’ve received “good cooperation from most folk” in response to takedown requests intended to ban the information from the Internet.

It looks like the “lolcats” at I Can Has Cheezburger didn’t get the takedown notice, yet. (lolcat above). Neither did the people behind the 891,000 (and growing) Web pages that have published the forbidden number.

The situation pits free speech advocates against the copyright owners that want to use encryption to limit what you can do with DVDs. While copyright owners currently have the law on their side, they appear to be fighting a losing battle.

“It started out as a circumvention effort six to eight weeks ago but we now see the key on YouTube and on T-Shirts,” said Ayers. “Some people clearly think it’s a First Amendment issue. There is no intent from us to interfere with people’s right to discuss copy protection. We respect free speech.”

“But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention,” adds Ayers. “You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then.”

AACS has already sent a cease and desist letter to Google, asking it effectively to ban any site that publishes the forbidden key from Google’s search results:

• remove or cause to be removed the above-specified AACS circumvention offering and any other circumvention offering which is designed, produced or provided to circumvent AACS or to assist others in doing so, and/or any links directly thereto, from the URL identified above and from any other forum or website on which you have provided any circumvention offering; and
• refrain from posting or causing to be provided any AACS circumvention offering or from assisting others in doing so, including by direct links thereto, on any website now or at any time in the future.

“Failure to do so will subject you to legal liability,” warns the AACS.
Can a number be banned?

The situation begs the question of whether or not discussing a number can be banned.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), discussing a number can be banned under current law. They note that the DMCA does not require that a circumvention technology (like decrypters using the “forbidden number”, be copyrightable to enjoy protection.”

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday called on Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to make video from any Democratic presidential debates available “for free and without restriction.”

Obama supports a call from Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig to share the debate videos and eliminate unnecessary regulation of political speech.

“Technology has exploded the opportunity for people to comment upon, and spread political speech,” writes Lessig. “Democracy is all about encouraging citizens to participate in that debate. And all of us, whether Democrats or Republicans, should push to remove unnecessary burdens to that participation.”
The move would let people freely share the videos over the Internet and to include them in video podcasts and other Internet videos.

YouTube has announced a new program to expand its revenue sharing program to top YouTube video bloggers, including LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh, and valsartdiary.

Participating user-partners will be treated as other content partners and will have the ability to control the monetization of the videos they create. Once they’ve selected a video to be monetized, we’ll place advertising adjacent to their content so participating user-partners can reap the rewards from their work.

The program is limited at this time, but the company plans to expand it:

So now that you’ve read this, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get in on the action?” This is only available to the initial participants. But if you create original content, have built and maintained an audience on YouTube, and think you might qualify for this program based on what’s above, you can express interest on our partnership lead form.

We hope that this program inspires people to keep creating original videos, building audiences and engaging with the YouTube community. What we’re really excited about, beyond our new partners, is that literally, at any given moment, thousands of creative people from throughout the world are posting new, original content to YouTube. It’s this community that’s shaping what the YouTube experience is now and will be in the future, and we’re incredibly excited for the prospect that holds.

NASA has launched a new video podcast, NASA EDGE, that provides an offbeat look at the nation’s aerospace program. The hosts of NASA EDGE offer an unscripted take on the latest events at NASA.

Chris Giersch and Blair Allen host the show, with Franklin Fitzgerald as its news anchor. In the latest episode, Giersch and NASA scientists Dr. Nicky Fox and Troy Cline join forces to educate Allen about the importance of understanding space weather.
“NASA EDGE is like David Letterman and The Daily Show for NASA,” said Allen, “Just without David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Hollywood stars, a band or live audiences. But it is still funny. And we have science and news.”

You can preview the latest episode below or find out more about the show at the NASA EDGE site.

Rob Greenlee informs us that technology business magazine Red Herring has just announced that mobile podcasting company Melodeo Mobilcast has been named to their Red Herring Spring 2007 Top 100 technology company list. Rob is Senior Marketing Manager at Melodeo Mobilcast and longtime player in Internet radio and podcasting.

Red Herring’s May 1 – 3 Spring Conference was billed as “celebrating ten years of innovation and disruption.” Other honorees on the Top 100 list include video sharing sites blip.tv and dabble, music/social networking services iLike and Pandora Media, mobile phone/social networking services jangl and jaxtr, and web analytics (but no social networking) company Web Trends.

SplashCast, a startup site that lets users create channels of media content, has found itself in hot water over its new MyPodcastNetwork service, a social networking service for podcasts introduced earlier this week. Instead of generating excitement in the podcasting community, the introduction has generated a furor of anger from podcasters that feel that SplashCast is hijacking their content.

‚ÄúThis service is directly affecting the ability of real content owners to get income from advertising dollars or whatever other business model they might employ,‚Äù commented Ken Medlock on the service’s introduction.

MyPodcastNetwork lets you create a channel of podcast content, built from one or more podcasts. You can then share your channel as an RSS feed or embed it as a Flash player into Web pages, similar to the way you can embed YouTube videos.

Podcasters have voiced many concerns over the ways SplashCast has implemented MyPodcastNetwork.

Their concerns include:

• SplashCast is hijacking RSS feeds. SplashCast offers a republished podcast feed for each podcast. For example, Daryl Hannah‚Äôs podcast feed (http://dhlovelife.com/feed.xml) is republished as a splashcast.net feed (http://media.splashcast.net/xml/feeds/LPTU4833MN.xml) This could confuse subscribers and steal income from the publisher. SplashCast could address this concern by not offering feeds for individual podcasts.
• SplashCast is republishing people‚Äôs content without their permission. The site republishes video podcasts, for example, instead of pointing viewers to the original content. This is being done for technical reasons, according to the company. ‚ÄúWe cache non-FLV video podcast files on our servers just so we can transcode them to play in our Flash player,‚Äù explains SplashCast‚Äôs Marshall Kirkpatrick. Unfortunately, this means the podcaster loses viewers to SplashCast and could lose income. SplashCast could address this concern by requiring opt-in from podcasters prior to republishing their content.
• SplashCast is stripping podcaster‚Äôs information from feed items. For example, the podcast feed for Robert Scoble‚Äôs video podcast, ScobleShow, (http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/feed/) has nine links in one show ‚Äúitem‚Äù that point back to Scoble‚Äôs site. The SplashCast feed for ScobleShow (http://web.splashcast.net/catalog/channel_details.aspx?code=RHEN7094VH) has zero links in the item for PodTech. This steals traffic away from podcasters and could also violate the podcaster‚Äôs copyright. SplashCast could address this concern by retaining the information from podcasters‚Äô feeds when including items into aggregated feeds.

In addition to specific complaints about SplashCast’s new service, the overarching concern of many podcasters is that SplashCast is hijacking their content and that the company should know better. In 2006, PodShow found itself in a similar podcast hijacking controversy when it introduced a new version of its directory that republished podcasters’ content under podshow.com URLs.

Pure Digital Technologies has introduced Flip Video, a new line of digital camcorders designed to seamlessly upload directly to YouTube and other online video sharing sites.

Flip Video’s built-in software allows people to share videos as easily as they would digital photos. In addition to instant emailing, the program allows videos to be uploaded directly to popular Internet video sharing sites, including YouTube.

“Flip Video is a new breed of camcorder that recognizes and leverages the tremendous demand for video sharing.” said Kelly Liang, Business Development, YouTube. “Not only does Flip Video make it easy to capture video, it also makes it simple to instantly share it with friends, family or the world via YouTube.”

Can a WiFi version be far off?

The camcorder retails at $119.99 for the 30-minute model and $149.99 for the 60-minute model.