"Disney are desperate to stop their latest animated film Finding Nemo being recorded and put onto the internet."

"A day after developers at America Online's Nullsoft unit quietly released file-sharing software, AOL pulled the link to the product from the subsidiary's Web site."

"In a packed courtroom Thursday, the argument focused mostly on whether a computer program should be considered "pure speech" afforded the full protection of the First Amendment, or a mixture of expression and functionality protected by a lower standard."

Not satire: "Sony is to sell self-destructing downloadable movie files, using new digital rights management software to prevent piracy."

Not satire: "A subsidiary of the electronics maker Sony is to sell downloadable movie files that self-destruct after a given time."

Press release: "Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a layer of reasonable copyright, announced today that it would begin development of the Sampling License, a copyright tool designed to let artists encourage the creative transformation of their work, for profit or otherwise."

"Saying California's economy is threatened by computer-aided piracy, Attorney General Bill Lockyer joined the movie industry Thursday in urging the state Supreme Court to forbid the Internet posting of a program that lets users copy DVDs."

"Saying copyright concerns have slowed getting high-quality content to online consumers, AOL and Microsoft plan to build consumer awareness around intellectual property and the need to respect copyrighted works, they said, and will work jointly on public policy and legal initiatives."

Australia: "The universities had proposed searching by file type, where the record companies believed that a search of file headers was necessary to find any material that infringed copyright."

"The crucial question swirling around abandonware is whether or not it's legal to possess or download. The justification for such activity usually hinges on the fact that the product is no longer in the market, cannot be purchased (or in some cases may not even run on modern hardware), and is generating no royalty for the company, which may even have gone completely out of business in the meantime."

"A U.S. court has extended the power of the DMCA even further with a ruling this week that backs up copyright holders' ability to shut down a Web site on 'good faith.'"

"The Australian Federal Police raided the University of Technology, Sydney on Wednesday this week in connection with a AU$60m music piracy case before the courts."

"AOL Time Warner's settlement with Microsoft on Thursday brings the software giant a powerful ally in extending its digital media technology--part of Microsoft's plan to keep Windows the world's dominant operating system and to expand onto new devices."

"As millions of songs figuratively fly off the shelves of Apple Computer's recently launched iTunes Music Store, analysts are looking at Amazon.com as one of the likeliest candidates to take the next crack at the retail music-download business."

"A legal dispute that threatened to derail Gateway Inc.'s GTW.N groundbreaking plan to load music on its computers has been quietly resolved amid growing interest in such offerings by rival PC makers, executives and analysts said on Thursday."

"Real Networks Inc., the Internet media player company that is evolving into a major content provider, announced today that it is launching an online digital music store, only weeks after Apple Computer Inc. started a similar service."

Satire: "Instead of the standard low-powered laser most DVD players are equipped with, the SD-DVD player from Sony has a high-powered laser which will eventually burn through the DVD and ignite the highly flammable material from which the player is made."

"Both Mr. Parsons and Mr. Gates emphasized that their collaboration could accelerate the delivery of various forms of digital information and entertainment over the Internet."

"Instead of squabbling over browser market share, the two companies said they will work on new digital media technologies that will combine ease of use with tough defenses against illegal copying of digital music and video files."

"As impressive as [Apple's] numbers may seem, however, they are overshadowed by the vast usage of free file-swapping services. On Music Store's opening day, a check of the Kazaa file-swapping service showed more than 4.2 million people online at once. The week after 1 million songs were sold through iTunes, more than 2.5 million copies of Kazaa software were downloaded, according to Download.com, a software aggregation site operated by CNET Networks, publisher of News.com."

"California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called DVD-cracking software DeCSS a tool for 'breaking, entering and stealing' during a hearing before the California Supreme Court on Thursday."

Joint statement from AOL and Microsoft: "We look forward to others in the media and entertainment industries joining together with us to help to advance the digital distribution of content to consumers while maintaining copyright protection."

"In December of that year, MCI's UUNet division received an e-mail from Mediaforce demanding it cut off access to a UUNet subscriber who was allegedly distributing a copy of the Warner Bros. movie 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' from his hard drive. At the bottom of the e-mail was a detail of the file in question: a one-kilobit text file titled 'harry potter book report.'"

"Despite the highly publicized efforts of copyright holders to fight the piracy of their digital content, implementation of digital rights management (DRM) solutions has been held up by outstanding issues of contention betwen those content developers and distributions and IT vendors, a new study said."

"This decision rules that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require a copyright holder to conduct an investigation to establish actual infringement prior to sending notice to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) requiring them to shut-down an allegedly infringing web site, or stopping service all together to an alleged violator. The DMCA states that a "good faith belief" of infringement does not require a copyright holder to make any investigation to act against the accused."

"The Yankee Group, a global technology research advisory and consulting firm, today reported that music downloading by teens, a major revenue-loss and copyright issue for music artists, producers, and distributors, will increase dramatically as broadband penetration increases."

"The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) today praised Oregon Senator Charles Starr (R-Hillsboro) for withdrawing his sponsorship and support of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)-backed bill, S.B. 655. Deceptively promoted by the MPAA as legislation solely designed to prevent communications piracy, the overly broad bill would have extended the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to criminalize lawful products and consumer conduct."

"In a recent report, high-tech market research firm, In-Stat/MDR notes that there has been little tangible progress in the deployment of viable DRM solutions. In fact, much of the past year has been marked by continuing disagreements between the two industries, primarily based on different strategies for combating content piracy."

Near the bottom: "The US District Court of Hawaii has ruled that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require a copyright holder to establish actual infringement before compelling an Internet service provider to shutdown an allegedly infringing Web site, or stopping service altogether."

"Paul Kocher's technology would allow investigators to track pirated material's provenance -- without snooping on the innocent."

"'I suspect those consumers who want to violate copyright laws will continue to violate copyright laws, because any price is greater than zero,'' said Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org, a consumer education Web site."

"It would be a lot easier to get the free-market crowd behind the revised ownership rules if there were a simultaneous effort to open new spectrum, eliminate cable franchise monopolies, make it easier to get a broadcast license and repeal (or at least reform) the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

"Growing consensus from manufacturers suggests that consumers who have HD-capable displays that only have analog (Y/Pb/Pr or RGB) high-definition connections won't be left out in the cold, which is good news. However, while Hollywood may allow legacy equipment to remain in service, they prefer the potential copyright protection that's available through digital signals."

"High-speed Internet access in Europe continues to grow at a healthy rate, boosted by consumer demand for file sharing, pornography and music, according to a study released Thursday."

"As previously reported, AOL has been planning the switch to Dolby AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) for months, in the latest sign that the digital audio format is gaining momentum against competing technologies such as MP3."

"Louis Trager at the Washington Internet Daily reports that the Texas Super-DMCA bill appears to be dead, as this year's legislative session ended without any action on the bill. [...] Trager quotes MPAA Vice President Vans Stevenson as saying that 'Time is on our side. We have all the time in the world.'"

"Microsoft has lobbied the entertainment industry for years to endorse its Windows Media technologies as a way to secure digital distribution against online piracy, and its plan is quietly starting to pay off."

"If you're among the 6.3 billion stubborn holdouts, here's the deal with DVR's. They're like videocassette recorders, except that they record shows onto a hard drive instead of tapes."

"The cost of downloading songs from the internet has been cut in the first round of a price war."

"While the record industry sweats over how to prevent consumers from transferring music from commercial CD's to digital files and swapping copyrighted material online, two labels are exploring a different approach to the format battle. In early April, the Palm and Mute labels began to release discs that include unprotected MP3 files along with conventional CD audio tracks."

"Apple Computer seems to have the future of online music in its hands for the moment. Its new service, iTunes Music Store, has been the first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet. In just its first month of operation the service, by the company's estimate, has sold three million songs online, at 99 cents each."

"I'm a fast reader, but I've just found a machine that can read faster than me. It simplifies book scanning and could transform how we build digital libraries. Assuming, of course, that we can solve the serious copyright issues that keep digital libraries from happening."

"Kazaa is indirectly responsible for the ongoing turmoil in the multi-billion dollar music industry. It is on the verge of making copyright an obsolete concept, igniting a battle between those who provide content and those who provide connectivity."

Second part of AlwaysOn Lessig interview: "Companies dissolve, and often there is no way to find the owner. If we don't remove the copyright, nobody is going to restore this old nitrate-based film, and in 20 years it will literally be gone. [Hal Roach] said there is a whole generation of American film that will have turned to dust by the time the copyrights expire."

Press release: "Music history was made at 12:55 PM ET, Tuesday May 20, 2003 when, for the first time, a major record company completed the delivery of music files securely from recording studio to record label to radio stations across Canada via the Internet using Musicrypt's Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS)."

"Although a judge ruled in favor of Morpheus and Grokster, University students' file sharing has not increased."

"Atlantic Records is offering something extra to Jewel fans who buy her forthcoming album '0304,' due June 3, during its first week of release. Each copy in the first run of '0304' will include a download card with a unique PIN number allowing access to a secure site from which users can download solo live MP3 versions of 'The New Wild West' and 'Life Uncommon.'"

"'In the United States, you can publish just about anything that teaches people how to break the law,' said Parry Aftab, a lawyer who has represented Yahoo, Disney and other major firms in Internet-related issues. 'That's the beauty and the problem with the First Amendment.'"

"The Madrid company, called Puretunes, says its selection of downloadable MP3s from big name artists like Madonna and the Beatles is completely legal since the firm pays royalties to two official music publisher and artists organizations in Spain."

Boing Boing quotes BumperActive following up on Starbucks. Their Public Affairs department says that "Starbucks does not have a photo policy for the general public. Our policy is not to allow media to photograph within our stores without prior approval from our media relations marketing team."

"A Spanish Internet company called Puretunes is offering digital music buffs a deal that sounds too good to be true: unlimited downloads of hit music recordings at a very low price. But Puretunes faces intense opposition from the leaders of the music recording industry, who say the company doesn't have the legal right to distribute their wares."

"Apple Computer has limited a music-sharing feature from the latest version of iTunes after some Mac owners used it to swap songs over the Internet. [...] Version 4.0.1 of iTunes removes the ability to share iTunes play lists over the Internet, limiting the feature to streaming songs over a local network."

"RealNetworks on Wednesday will cease selling the music-subscription service MusicNet in favor of one from Listen.com's Rhapsody, which also plans to charge a new low of 79 cents per track to rip CDs."

"Years of paralyzing litigation, industry intransigence and failed strategies are finally giving way to promising efforts backed by major labels and artists--most notably Apple Computer's new iTunes Music Store."

"Facing competition from Apple Computer's iTunes service, Listen.com will lower the price to download songs from its Rhapsody music service by 20 cents to 79 cents, marking the latest move by paid music services to attract and retain new ears."

"A security researcher recently found a potentially critical vulnerability in the program which drives the FastTrack network. FastTrack is used by peer-to-peer software service including Kazaa and iMesh."

"Chip designer ARM Ltd. will add extensions to its processor core next year that incorporate hardware-based security technologies, the company announced today."

"ARM, the UK firm whose technology is a de facto standard for mobile phones and handheld computers, has introduced a hardware-level security technology for protecting copyrighted content, secure passwords and other sensitive data on mobile devices."

"The Business Software Alliance (BSA) today commended Representatives Robert Wexler (D-FL), Tom Feeney (R-FL), and Adam Smith (D-WA) for creating a new congressional caucus aimed at protecting intellectual property in the digital age."

"Napster is being reborn as what it should have been from the outset, a music-download megastore."

"Four years later, DVD makers, while still fighting numerous legal battles to prevent copying, have been forced to concede their secrets are out the Internet's barn door. However, their case against Bunner lives on and has been transformed into a precedent-setting conflict between the First Amendment and California's tough trade-secret protections."

"Two artists whose work has been shown at Tate Modern are threatening legal action against Honda UK, claiming the company's hit "Cog" commercial is a rip-off of their award-winning short film."

"Despite the increasing worries of the industry that online music is putting a serious dent in the sales of CDs, the study found that online CD retailers were attracting higher audiences than any of the paid-for download sites."

"The market has already topped $1 billion globally and has been all the rage in Europe and Asia for several years. Sales in the United States are igniting, with young people leading the charge."

"The same forces that took on file-swapping companies Napster and MP3.com are quietly setting their sights on what some regard as the next digital copyright battle: selling ring tones for cell phones."

"A bill pitting telecommunications and entertainment companies against some of their customers won't come up for a vote in the General Assembly this year, its sponsors said yesterday."

Fred von Lohmann: "These MPAA-sponsored bills represent the worst kind of special interest legislation, sacrificing the public interest in favor of the self-serving interests of one industry."

"For a few dollars per flick, customers with special set-top boxes attached to their TVs will be able to start, pause, rewind and replay movies as if they were on tape or DVD."

"A new generation of peer-to-peer tools is finding its groove on the Internet, spelling tougher times ahead for movie studios' attempts to quell online piracy."

"With sales of CDs on a three-year slide, the music industry sees mobile phones as powerful outlets for promoting artists and a new way of distributing music for profit — something it failed to do in the early days of Internet music-swapping."

"Suddenly, the major labels have a new mantra about digital distribution: Let someone else do it. That's the lesson industry insiders are drawing from the surprise decision by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group (UMG) to sell their service, Pressplay, to Roxio."

MusicMatch and Radio Free Virgin "are planning to add paid digital downloads to their services within the next nine months."

"Celebrity yoga guru Bikram Choudhury has copyrighted the 26 poses taught in his studios and has filed a lawsuit against one California yoga studio he claims is infringing on his copyright."

"Ignoring art history in his Oscar- winning epic 'Titanic,' director James Cameron shows Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' going down with the famously doomed ocean liner - leading to a copyright infringement lawsuit from the Picasso estate, which was settled out of court."

"Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, wants colleges to license songs and charge students to listen to them online. He has proposed that schools increase each student's tuition or fees by perhaps a few dollars in exchange for unlimited listening, though the ability to burn songs onto a CD might cost extra."

"Now [the Washington-based International Intellectual Property Alliance] wants Pakistan placed on the priority watchlist and has urged withdrawal of trade privileges on its exports to the United States if the government fails to tackle the problem."

"A recent report by CNET Asia said that as many as 65% of all ringtone companies are unlicensed, thus depriving the copyright owners of siginificant revenues. The senior vice-president for new media at music label EMI Group Jay Samit reportedly estimated that earnings from ringtones would account for 10% of the recording industry’s earnings in coming years."

"Similar to Adobe's PDF system, or Windows Media Player files, Elisar's MediaRights software can be used to download a content viewer, so a person can see the images, at the same time securing the client's digital content from unauthorized use or redistribution with the use of time locks and other features."

Director of The Italian Job: "It's unfortunate, but you almost have to hire the Secret Service to make sure that the film is protected."

Lessig: "There is this Civil War between north and south—between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The distribution architecture for content can be radically different."

Lessig quotes a firsthand report about photography inside Starbucks: "[the manager] insisted that she had to have the disposable camera because this was an absolute violation of Starbuck’s copyright of their entire 'environment'--that everything in the place is protected and cannot be used with Starbuck’s express permission."

"TiVo Inc., the maker of a digital video recorder that can pause and replay live television, said yesterday that its quarterly loss narrowed as sales more than doubled."

"While Apple Computer grabs publicity for its new 99 cent music download store, Microsoft is quietly preparing for a counterattack by improving its own technology for supporting subscription music services."

"Easycinema says it is being denied the rights to screen the blockbusters because film distributors are opposed to the company's radical pricing policy."

"Viacom Inc.'s CBS television network on Thursday backed down from a threat to pull its digital 2003-2004 lineup unless federal regulators adopted a mechanism to protect shows from being pirated by this summer."

"In most cases, a cease-and-desist letter (or the fear of receiving one) is sufficient to quash expression if you're a struggling artist who can barely afford lunch, let alone an expensive lawyer."

"Four employees of Norwegian technology firm Eterra, which provides communications platforms, are under police investigation for illegal distribution of movies and music on the Internet, Oslo police said on Friday."

In Tennessee: "A bill pitting telecommunications and entertainment companies against some of their customers won't come up for a vote in the General Assembly this year, its sponsors said yesterday."

Slashdot reports that Oregon super-DMCA "SB 655 is slated to die in committee this session. It is no longer an immediate threat, however, there will be a study commission appointed over the interim."

"Now ISPs say that as much as 60 percent of data traffic zipping around their networks is in the form of large music, movies and software files. For a large ISP, experts say, the bandwidth costs needed to accommodate the traffic could run into the millions, if not tens of millions of dollars per year."

"Microsoft released a plug-in for Internet Explorer that is designed to protect sensitive documents from unauthorized editing or copying--an early step in its effort to encourage corporations to use its software to share sensitive information."

Valenti on backing up DVDs: "That question has nothing to do with fair use because a DVD is encrypted and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act says to circumvent an encryption violates that law."

"Recording Industry companies have recently stepped up their assault on the rampant online sharing of copyrighted music and video, known as "online piracy," and their efforts have caused more than a few casualties in the massive army of file swappers."

Norway: "Police staged a major raid after getting tips that computer security firm Eterra, a Merkantildata company, was using its servers to download and distribute copyrighted music and new Hollywood films. The piracy ring involved over 70 employees and charges were filed against four for violating copyright laws."

"A discussion of privacy on peer-to-peer networks raised varied questions and accusations of spying and carelessness, but brought few answers and no plans for legal action, at a recent Congressional hearing."

"Roxio Inc., the software company that owns Napster, named Mike Bebel president and chief operating officer of the online music service, which it has promised to restart by early next year."

"The glaring dearth of a copyright law in The Gambia is slowly snuffing the life out of Gambian arts. As long as this law continues to be away, musicians can strode into studios and create albums needlessly simply because piracy will not them let them enjoy the fruits of their labour."

"Despite the loss of its original administrator, a student-operated computer file-sharing network at Ohio University continues to hum away in the face of continued efforts by record industry and university officials around the country to target students suspected of using similar networks to illegally obtain copyrighted music and movies."

"ReplayTV, the digital video recorder maker purchased last month by Japan's D&M Holdings from bankrupt Sonicblue, said it is mulling the fate of ReplayTV's features that skip commercials and send saved programs over the Internet."

"Colorado Gov. Bill Owens on Wednesday vetoed a state law backed by the Motion Picture Association of America to broaden that state's communication piracy laws. In his veto message, Owens said that while the bill may be required, it wasn't defined clearly enough."

"Sharman Networks on Thursday said its Kazaa file-sharing software was on track to set a record and become the most-popular free program on the Web with more than 230 million downloads."

"In fact, consumers should want to pay for creative work. It is through prices and markets that they can send signals that something is valued and that more of it should be produced. And all non-market forms of financing - taxes, subsidies, pooled funds - depend on committees of bureaucrats for their allocation, the antithesis of consumer sovereignty."

"An outline for the strategic promotion of intellectual assets released Wednesday by the government's Strategic Council on Intellectual Property is designed to reform various fields, including the judicial system, customs rules and the educational system, to steer Japan toward becoming a society that places great importance on patents and copyrights, much as the United States does."

"Put another way, HDTV has been something you watch, not something you create. But not anymore."

"A government report has identified more than 100 companies developing or offering copy-protection technologies to prevent infringement of copyrighted materials."

"Currently, a mere 2 percent of releases account for 80 percent of music industry sales. Online distribution could help rebalance that ratio, building careers for hundreds of artists who now linger in obscurity, and drawing in millions of new fans bored and alienated by the industry's star-making machinery."

"Web site Puretunes.com has joined the ranks of Web sites taking advantage of the willingness of Spanish authors' and performers' rights societies to sign deals allowing unlimited downloads of digital music."

"Many people have compared NGSCB to Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which is bogus, other than the fact that few people understand DRM either."

"ReplayTV on Wednesday said it would likely leave untouched for now some controversial features on its home television recording machines but may strip them from new models."

"When usually staid jurists of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to overrule a Southern Illinois federal judge, they turned to an unlikely character to help explain themselves: movie spy Austin Powers. And the litigants were Billy-Bob and Bubba. No kidding. The issue was neither espionage nor international tension but a copyright dispute about oversized, crooked and chipped fake teeth."

Press release: "In a recent Harris Interactive survey, 82% of Americans say they want the right to purchase aftermarket toner and ink cartridges that work with brand name printers -- often at a considerably lower price."

"Today sees the launch of www.pro-music.org, a new international initiative to promote legitimate online music services and confront the myths surrounding online music piracy."

"Singapore is reviewing its intellectual property laws to bring it more in line with international practices and requirements in the United States, following the just-concluded free trade agreement with the US."

"For all its virtues, the Internet hasn't won many fans in the music industry. That's because rampant online pirating has put CD sales on the rocks quicker than a marriage to Jennifer Lopez, depriving copyright holders of bucketloads of income. But composers and publishers are beginning to change their tune, thanks to prestissimo gains in revenue derived from an unlikely source -- downloadable ring tones for mobile phones."

"Michael Rossi, who runs InternetMovies.com, is renewing his attempt to hold the major movie studios legally liable for accusing him of copyright infringement and causing his Web site to be yanked by his Internet provider."

"Accounts of the battles over file sharing at colleges often have combatants who include frustrated administrators, petulant students, and litigious recording-industry executives. Mr. Negra says independent record stores like his, common to college towns, are the overlooked casualties of the file-sharing craze."

Felten quotes Linda Seebach: "In his veto message [Owens] said the bill 'could also stifle legal activity by entities all along the high tech spectrum, from manufacturers of communication parts to sellers of communication services.' He urges the legislature, if it returns to this topic in the next session, 'to be more careful in drafting a bill that adds protections that are rightfully needed, but does not paint a broad brush stroke where only a tight line is needed.'"

"A website which says it has found a legal way to offer music online without the consent of the major labels faces a fight with the record industry."

"In a deal soaked with irony, the world's two biggest record labels sold their online music service to a Bay Area firm that hopes to use the acquisition to resurrect a name the industry loved to hate: Napster."

"The Web's leading standards body on Tuesday finalized a patent policy banning the use of most royalty-bearing technology in its technical recommendations, an issue that sparked a clash between open-source advocates and software makers."

"The window, then, in which one could become the Beatles, occupy that sort of market position, is seen to have been technologically determined. And technologically finite. The means of production, reproduction and distribution of recorded music, are today entirely digital, and thus are in the hands of whoever might desire them."

"Academic-library groups have joined 33 other organizations in filing a legal brief in support of Verizon Communications. The company is trying to conceal from the recording industry the names of music fans who have used Verizon telephone lines to trade copyrighted material illegally."

"'It's unintelligent and illogical to take a durable, reusable product like a DVD and turn it into a product that becomes waste in 48 hours,' said David Wood, organizational director of the Computer TakeBack Campaign."

"The music industry on Wednesday launched a new Web site aimed at informing consumers where to look on the Internet to buy music downloads, its latest effort to win over fans from free file-sharing networks."

"It boggles the mind that these services don't exploit the potential of the Internet. Any number of improvements could make them more attractive than other video outlets. Online movie stores could offer tens of thousands of movies, dwarfing the selection of video stores. Digital rentals could last two weeks, not 24 hours, without costing the companies a penny more. And there should be a choice of download speeds; people willing to wait longer for superior quality should be allowed to. It is executives, not technology, who keep these services from greater success."

"The universe of downloaders is enormous, and their behavior is interesting to almost everyone, for legal, ethical, social, financial and musical reasons. But that's not what's being measured here. What's being measured is, apparently, what a group of people, a group on average a tiny fraction of the larger downloading community, are offering up to the world."

"I would assert, however that it does make the case in cold, hard numbers that the RIAA's claim of digital piracy ravaging their sales must be taken with a rather large grain of salt. The CEOs of Eastman-Kodak are in a nearly identical economic situation as the RIAA, yet do not have the luxury of blaiming digital piracy."

"The RIAA Radar is a tool that music consumers can use to easily and instantly distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America."

"The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market feels that the draft proposal, first issued in January and concentrating on major commercial abuses rather than individual infringements, does not reflect to a large enough extent the needs of rights holders."

"Madrid-based Puretunes.com has begun offering cheap unlimited downloads – without the consent of record labels. The site, which complies with Spanish copyright law, offers music downloads based on existing licensing agreements, with trade associations representing the artists."

"A battle has been joined, pitting consumers like the blind and their advocates against the publishing and entertainment industries. [...] The DMCA punishes people with disabilities, say some experts in law and technology. They contend it clashes with existing copyright laws and even the Constitution."

"Roxio said it planned to relaunch Pressplay under the Napster brand which it acquired at a bankruptcy auction last year."

CEO of Exploit Systems: "The adult industry is leading the way in peer-to-peer and begining to monetize it instead of fighting customers. Any smart merchant can't look at a mall filled with 200 million people and not look at the opportunities to set up a kiosk."

"A new all-you-can-eat music download service that claims to take advantage of a loophole in Spanish copyright law will launch on Tuesday and piggyback on a popular file-swapping network for distribution."

"There’s an increasing push by content donors to find ways to control the distribution of content - to protect their 20th century business model for making money with content. These technologies are increasingly interfering with the end-to-end freedom that the Internet originally created, and interfering with the opportunity of the Internet to create great innovation."

"Napster -- or at least a Napster-branded, for-pay version of the once popular and notorious music service -- is on its way back to consumers. Roxio Inc., a maker of compact-disc-copying software, announced yesterday that it has purchased online music service Pressplay from Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment and will base a new Napster service on it."

"The online music service launched by two of the world's largest record companies to combat Internet piracy may soon have a new and familiar name: Napster."

"Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives are creating a new congressional caucus devoted to combating piracy and promoting stronger intellectual property laws."

"When customer backlash over its antipiracy technology hit the company's bottom line, Intuit did the right thing: It dropped the feature."

"The Walt Disney Company is betting that demand by consumers for movies in their homes is strong enough to support a new technology that beams films through the air to boxes atop their television sets."

"When Hollywood studios go into court Thursday to argue that DVD-copying software is illegal, they'll stand alongside a lawyer who has quietly had as much influence on the Net as any well-known code-slinger."

"By pursuing anti-circumvention measures in a bilateral trade agreement, the Bush Administration had taken a new step in the progression by which the ownership and use of intellectual property have been increasingly politicized in recent years. This step will have international, as well as domestic consequences: If Congress approves the FTA, it will not able to alter the DMCA without violating its obligations to Singapore."

"Why not pay a record-industry-approved music service a yearly, blanket fee, Mr. Spanier wonders, and let students download songs as they please? Record-industry officials are skeptical, but say the idea is worth talking about."

"Several French online magazines and at least one big radio channel told about this story last week : RetSpan, a French association that is supposed to fight against online piracy, has publicly released the identity of several people who use P2P networks to download and distribute music. They wanted to prove that they are really able to identify "pirates" on P2P networks."

"What if I could write a `tarpit' script that could create a large number of interlinked automatically generated web sites. If their spider tried to scan my server it would be fooled into thinking that it had found a treasure trove of MP3 sites. Anybody who took the time to look at the site could see that the site contains no pirate content at all."

"Mr. Kahle then stated that these companies no longer maintain the hardware and software devices necessary to decrypt the aging software, and stated that software companies are in the business of releasing software not preserving antiquated versions, and that asking a software company for permission or help to decrypt their software is not an option."

"EZ-D will incorporate Flexplay's proprietary flexible play technology into a standard DVD. A Flexplay enabled DVD is similar to a conventional DVD, except that it has a 48 hour viewing window that begins when the disc is removed from its packaging."

"About a month ago, I started sounding optimistic about getting a bill introduced into Congress to help right the wrong of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I was optimistic because we had found a congressperson who was willing to introduce the bill. But after pressure from lobbyists, that is no longer clear. And so we need help to counter that pressure, and to find a sponsor."

"Roxio Inc. is near a deal to buy the online music service Pressplay from its owners, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sources familiar with the situation said on Saturday."

"Distributor Warner Bros. has revved up the release schedule of the last two 'Matrix' movies largely out of worries that pirated DVD and videotape versions would turn up, particularly in some Asian markets, before the films could hit theaters."

"AOL Time Warner, Sony and other entertainment companies suing the operator of the Kazaa online file-sharing system will be able to learn who has invested in it, a federal judge ruled yesterday."

"The ruling, which the entertainment companies plan to appeal, blew a gaping hole in the industry's anti-piracy strategy and legitimized a legion of file-sharing upstarts. By helping firms such as Grokster grow stronger, the decision also may increase the pressure on entertainment companies to work with file-sharing networks."

"Those opposing viewpoints show how both sides say they're the victim - Jordan says he's being singled out by an entire industry, and record companies say piracy is ruining their business."

"The Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment are close to a deal to sell Pressplay, their joint online music service, to the company that bought Napster's name and assets last November at a bankruptcy auction, people close to the negotiations said."

"Microsoft's strategy of selling the Xbox, its video game console, at a loss has wrought an unforeseen consequence. Some users increasingly view the Xbox as a cheap appliance easily rigged to operate as a fully functioning personal computer."

"The discs stop working after a change in color renders them unreadable. They start off red, but when they are taken out of the package, exposure to oxygen turns the coating black and makes it impenetrable by a DVD laser."

"Computer security researchers would be allowed to hack through copy protection schemes in order to look for security holes in the software being protected, under a proposed exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) being debated in official hearings this week."

"Do consumers have the right to make digital copies of the DVDs they buy, or is that just a thinly veiled argument that promotes piracy?"

"Today the much anticipated court room drama between major movie studios, represented by the MPAA, and 321 Studios, the developers of the DVD-Video backup tools such as DVD X Copy and XPRESS, began in San Fransisco."

"And so, we're finally starting to unravel how a piece of legislation drafted by the Motion Picture Association of America and pushed by the cable industry came to be sponsored in the Tennessee legislature virtually verbatim as SB 213 by Sen. Person. There's a family connection." Sen. Person is the father of Charter Communication's West Tennessee director.

"A federal judge in Los Angeles has issued a complicated order in a case that could impact the ecommerce industry's ability to claim "safe harbor" protection against secondary copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)."

Hilary Rosen in Business2.0: "As I prepare to leave my post this year, I'm proud that part of my legacy will be the role I played in championing new technologies. But the financial incentive required to keep music fresh and popular must be a shared commitment between the music industry and the technology community."

"Internet users who download music and movies through free "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa may be unwittingly exposing their divorce letters and tax returns to strangers, computer experts told Congress on Thursday."

"Claiming that a controversial DVD de-scrambling code has long been available online worldwide, a man accused of improperly linking Internet viewers to the code asked earlier this year that the case against him be declared moot. On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court rejected his plea 4-1, ensuring that the closely watched case remains on the court's May 29 oral argument calendar in San Francisco."

"In combating digital piracy, the film, music and software industries have supported legislation and developed technologies that threaten the health of the public domain, free speech and ultimately our cultural heritage, according to Stanford law Professor Lawrence Lessig."

"Digital rights management tools, designed to prevent unauthorized copying of music and other media content, appear to be on their way out now that Apple's iTunes Music Store has shown early signs of success. Music Store allows unlimited copying of songs, with very little of the protections record labels once demanded."

NewsHour has an online forum about digital copyright.

"The judge in a closely watched lawsuit challenging the legality of DVD-copying software said she was "substantially persuaded" by past court rulings that favored copyright holders, but closed a hearing Thursday without issuing a ruling in the case."

"Adding digital-rights-management software to the company's tax preparation neither paid off financially in attracting new customers, nor in consumer satisfaction, Intuit spokesman Scott Gulbransen said."

From the EFF: "On Thursday, May 15, a federal court will consider the legality of software that enables backup copying of digital video disks (DVDs)."

Short blurb from Felten: "The Texas version of the Super-DMCA has been passed by the relevant committees in both the state House and Senate. It will probably come to a vote in the Senate later this week."

"The music industry has expressed concern that alleged "delaying tactics" by the University of Melbourne over access to information revealing possible copyright breaches may make Federal Court action over the issue immaterial."

"Privacy advocates warn that NGSCB can, and probably will, be abused by content providers to enforce draconian copyright protections. But Microsoft representatives insist these worries are rooted in an incomplete and incorrect understanding of what NGSCB is and can do."

"If the recording industry cannot create a compromise for its Internet strategy, the future is clear: P2P alternatives will continue to develop, and organizations like the RIAA will wind up in one court battle after another and end up with one heck of an image problem."

"But the fact that sometimes we resort to rules shouldn't lead us to think that they are the norm. In fact, leeway is the default and rules are the exception. Fairness means knowing when to make exceptions. [...] But in the digital world - the global marketplace of ideas made real - we're on the verge of handing amorphous, context-dependent decisions to hard-coded software incapable of applying the snicker test."

"The music industry's antipiracy efforts took an embarrassing turn Tuesday when the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that it has erroneously sent dozens of copyright infringement notices. [...] Erroneous takedown notices sent under section 512 can be disruptive. At Penn State, where a song by the astronomer a capella group The Chromatics about a gamma-ray satellite apparently triggered the RIAA's notification-bot, the astronomy department's system administrator spent four days dealing with the fallout."

"Three Sydney students have become the first people in the world to appear in court facing criminal charges over internet music piracy."

"The rise of the new services threatens to put Apple's software squarely in the center of a controversy that the company had hoped to avoid with the release of its new iTunes online music store. That site, which offers easy access to a huge music catalog of 99-cent songs, won strong kudos from record labels as a big step forward in the authorized distribution of music online."

"EMI's copy-protection technology has resulted in a Melbourne resident doing exactly what the company is trying to prevent - copy a music disc in order to listen to it."

"Sarah Faulder, chief executive of the Music Publishers Association, says that unless the websites have the permission of the copyright owners to display the lyrics (which most do not), they are breaking the law. [...] LyricFind has now been forced to remove all lyrics from its site, and others will probably close over the coming months."

"In its clumsy struggle with reality, the so-called Big Five recording companies have plenty of legal firepower, but no reasonable answer to music listening in the Internet age. Yes, swiping tunes without paying for them amounts to shoplifting, deprives artists of royalties and snubs copyright laws. But news-conference rants and scorched-earth court fights aren't going to change a pop culture trend."

"But net savvy file swappers are fighting back and creating tools that help people avoid the attentions of the piracy police as well as spot the bogus files."

"The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America developed the guide specifically to raise awareness regarding music and movie piracy through the Internet."

"The Internet Industry Association has denied that negotiations between itself and various copyright holders groups over mechanisms for taking down infringing content have fallen through."

"The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a coalition of six trade associations representing 1,100 U.S.-based copyright companies, today acknowledged the efforts and leadership taken by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in engaging with its trade partners to improve copyright protection and enforcement around the world."

"[S]ome intellectual property lawyers said the lawsuit was advancing a theory that stretches the traditional bounds of the law and that could have a chilling effect on investment in new technology companies."

Derek Slater quotes Digital Media Wire: "Internet service provider Verizon Communications announced that a federal appeals court has granted its request to stay a lowercourt's subpoena ordering the company to turn over the identity of one of its customers, an alleged music file-swapper, to the Recording Industry Association of America."

"Jackson says UMG has since released such albums and licensed songs commercially without his consent. He claims the label failed to provide him 'with a single accounting' and has not paid him 'a single dollar in royalties.'"

"A federal appeals court in Detroit today (May 12) revived a lawsuit by civil rights icon Rosa Parks against the rap group Outkast over a song that uses her name for its title."

"Universal Music Group said on Monday it is seeking to join a $17 billion suit brought by music publishers against Bertelsmann AG, alleging it aided the once-hugely popular Napster Internet music service in piracy."

"Comcast will shake up the digital video recorder business Monday by unveiling a system to go on field trial in Philadelphia midyear that records TV shows and uses cable lines to distribute them through the home."

"The Recording Industry Association of America apologized Monday to Penn State University for sending an incorrect legal notice of alleged Internet copyright violations. The notice and subsequent apology appears to mark the first time that a faulty notification has been made public. The incident also shows just how easily automated programs that search for copyrighted material can be fooled, as well as how disruptive such notices can be on college campuses."

"Trawling Kazaa, the most popular online file-sharing service, reveals that dozens of anonymous people are offering what are purported to be pirated copies of "The Matrix Reloaded," a movie that doesn't open until Thursday. That none appear to be legitimate -- so far -- is a testament to the successful campaign by the film's producers and studio to prevent Internet piracy."

The "open music record label": "We are an Internet record label which sells and licenses music by encouraging MP3 file trading and Internet Radio. When you find an artist you like, pay what you can afford to show your support, starting at $5 for an entire online album. Companies can sublicense our music for commercial use using our no haggling, easy online forms."

"For months, maybe even years, I've asked Microsoft to tell me what they think people should be able to do with the content they "own." I use the quotes because, while you may own the physical manifestation of the content (a CD or book, for example), you never own the content itself."

"For Mr. Keller the most vexing challenges are neither labor costs nor technology. Librarians, he said, must find a way to address the copyright restrictions that appear to be tightening as a result of new federal laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Stanford is struggling to comply with copyright restrictions while making works that have recently lost their copyright protection available digitally."

"Several electronics makers are releasing new products that promise to do for radio what the TiVo digital video recorder has done for television."

"All of these legal tactics have something in common: They seek to punish people who write code instead of the people who do mischief with it."

"'It's a well-known dirty secret,' he said. 'Some labels buy their own records. It's part of the marketing plan, to buy CD's wholesale at $6 a pop, and Sound-Scan them.' Two years ago, a Los Angeles Times article reported that record companies hired 'independent consultants' to generate falsely high sales, and although all five record groups denied engaging in such duplicitous behavior, SoundScan eliminated some stores from its tallies because of what it called anomalies in the reporting system."

"On Tuesday, a Manhattan jury delivered the judgment in the penalty phase of the case in which [the chairman and CEO of Island Def Jam Music] was found liable for copyright infringement, breach of contract and fraud against an independent label, TVT Records."

"In short, don't assume that it is self-evident that people can own all the reproductions of the material they generate. It isn't self-evident at all. And don't assume, as the entertainment industry contemplates with horror its own destruction, that it's not going to be a pleasure for everyone else."

"Nievelt wouldn't say why he set up the site in the first place and admitted no wrongdoing for his actions. In fact, deciding to settle was not an easy choice, according to his lawyer."

Interview with the former head of the US Patent Office: "There’s a technology consortium in Cairo that had made digital images of all of the artifacts in the collection of the Egyptian Museum. [...] We sent a copyright lawyer to help them understand that when you create a visual image of something, even though it might be in the public domain, that you can copyright it and that you should license these things."

"When courts intervene to maintain copyright's balance, the inevitable consequence is that innovation is harmed. If every innovator with technologies affecting content must bear the burden of a lawsuit before his innovation can be allowed, there will be many fewer innovations in the distribution and creation of content. That in turn will harm artists and technologists alike. Better to let the innovation happen, and then consider whether the change caused by the innovation is so significant as to require new legislation by the legislature."

"Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has succeeded in a major coup, forcing tectonic change in an industry notorious for its dinosaur pace and dragon tactics."

"Eric Garland, CEO of Big Champagne, compares what his company does online to what the Nielsen rating system does for television. The company analyzes billions of search requests and song downloads with proprietary software that lives on public peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as KaZaA and Morpheus. Clients then get categorized lists of online music trends, right down to the city in which downloaders live."

"My problem with all these anti-piracy offensives is that they're punitive, rather than positive. The same goes for label-sponsored pay-for-play Internet services such as MusicNet and Pressplay, which have all been too restrictive and expensive."

"The company has been trying to impress upon Hollywood studios and music labels — currently in the throes of combating Internet piracy — that the Xbox is a safe place for their digital content."

"Police in Germany have made their first bust of an exchange for swapping computer music files, says the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Police in the southern town of Fuerth said they had confiscated eight computers after investigations initiated by the German branch of the IFPI led them to the house of a 25-year-old computer programming student."

"Ohio State University's seizure of student computers Monday was an unusual move in a nationwide war against Internet piracy that's turned college campuses into key battlegrounds."

"With the boundaries of federal copyright law, particularly the DMCA, unclear, Huang says tech-publishing house John Wiley & Sons got cold feet and withdrew its plans to publish the book sometime after Rocci's guilty plea."

"The bill, introduced by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), would make it a "fiduciary duty" for labels to accurately calculate royalty earnings owed to artists."

"The court found that the record clubs [owned by the major labels] failed to pay for mechanical licenses on the premium records given away. (Roughly 6-8 cents per song, per copy sold.) Songwriters' lawyers estimate that the record clubs ripped off their clients to the tune of about $100 million dollars a year."

"There are many of us who take great pains to distance ourselves from digital communists, but we nonetheless reject the rigid, dogmatic stance of the lawyers for Hollywood and the RIAA."

"Dre testified that before hiring a musician to play a bassline from the Fatback Band's 1980 song "Backstrokin'" for his 2001 track "Let's Get High," he consulted a musicologist who said the riff was commonplace. The jury agreed, calling the rapper's actions innocent infringement, but fined him anyway."

"One disc will include a digitally remastered high-definition version of [Terminator 2], with enhanced 5.1-channel surround sound, using a new Microsoft format called Windows Media 9. It promises almost three and a half times the resolution of a traditional DVD. But there is a catch: it will play only on a computer using Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. And to appreciate the effects, users will have to download the free Windows Media 9 player software."

"Duplicators, I discovered, will copy any disc that a computer with a CD or DVD 'burner' can copy, but -- the same as with computers -- won't reproduce copy-protected discs."

"If the decision is indeed upheld on appeal, will that be good news for consumers? That is a more complicated question. The answer depends heavily on Hollywood's reaction. Will it continue its battle on other fronts - focusing perhaps not on the services, but on their users? Or will it, instead, launch new strategies to take advantage of the powerful business opportunities that peer-to-peer might provide?"

"A Los Angeles jury yesterday (May 6) found that Dr. Dre (real name: Andre Young) illegally used segments of the 1980 tune "Backstrokin'" in his song "Let's Get High" (co-written by Eminem and others) [...]"

"Offering some insight to the recording industry as it struggles to boost sales online, a survey released on Wednesday found that Web surfers who download music from song-swap sites are more likely to buy music online, as well as offline at retailers."

"Though the recording industry has settled its copyright-infringement lawsuits against four university students, the defendants are left paying thousands of dollars out of their own pockets. [...] But the students might have some help. Pledges of support have lit up several message boards in the past few days with promises to pony up some dough."

"Our regression analysis finds that software patents have become a cheap form of appropriability. This cost advantage, not the profitability of software, accounts for most of their increased use. Also, software patents substitute for firm R&D rather than complement it. Their use is associated with substantially lower R&D intensity, consistent with strategic 'patent thicket' behavior."

Ballmer on DRM: "With rights-managed licensing, consumers can help sustain the flow of fresh creative work, confident that they have legitimately acquired rights to content that is authentic, of highest quality, and virus-free."

"Some developers assumed, from Gates' comments, that NGSCB would be a user-enabled option. But currently there doesn't appear to be any way to disable NGSCB, as it will be built into both a computer's hardware and its operating system. It's also possible that its protections would not work correctly or would prevent content from being viewed on non-NGSCB systems."

"Professor Bill Caelli, AO, of Queensland University of Technology, warned a Sydney audience of CIOs this week that the biggest immediate threat to the future of information technology is a Microsoft-fronted attempt by the content and copyright owners' lobby to seize control of IT hardware through a project codenamed Nexus."

"Aggressive legal action, drastic security measures and sophisticated counterattacks may not be enough to slow, much less halt or reverse, the illegal downloading that is taking a significant bite out of record sales. In its third year of slumping revenue, the recording industry has little reason to expect a turnaround."

Jesse Jordan: "I don't believe that their intimidation really is going to work, just like the recent rulings about Grokster (ph) and Morpheus. I think that the search engine that I ran is legal."

"Gates finally and officially confirmed on Tuesday that Microsoft's Next Generation Secure Computing Base will be a major feature in the next Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn."

"On Tuesday, the United States and Singapore signed a trade agreement that affirms both nations' commitment to punishing people who bypass copy-protection technologies--such as those used in most DVDs, a small number of CDs and some computer software."

Excerpt from the new Napster book: "The talks between Bertelsmann and Napster foundered, and Napster filed for bankruptcy in June. Now Bertelsmann agreed to buy just Napster's technology, cleansed of liability from the pending copyright suits."

Siva Vaidhyanathan: "We do know that the actions of the music industry have alienated their best consumers and degraded faith and trust in copyright laws. So it's the music industry that is destroying copyright law, not the fans."

"Consumers shouldn't be worried that Microsoft Corp.'s new security technology will wrest control of their PCs and give it to media companies, Bill Gates said Tuesday. They can always choose not to use it, he said."

"Free software called PeerGuardian creates a personal firewall that blocks the IP addresses of snoops. They can see the names of files being traded, but they can't download the file to tell whether it's a copyrighted file."

"The new CEO of Streamcast Networks is rejoining his old company--he left two years ago--just days after a federal judge issued a stunning rebuke to the film and recording industries, declaring that Streamcast's Morpheus and other decentralized file-swapping tools were legal."

Copyfight quotes the petition for cert: "Does the Copyright Act preempt a state law claim for breach of a standard form "shrinkwrap" license clause prohibiting reverse engineering of computer software and thus protect the public's right to discover and build upon that software's unprotected ideas and processes?"

"A few weeks ago, Tom Liston stopped giving away his popular security software. Liston, a network administrator in McHenry, Ill., got wind of a new Illinois law designed to thwart thieves of Internet music and video services. Although his project has nothing to do with piracy, Liston thought the law could also ban the software."

Tennessee: "The legislation to protect against various forms of theft including Internet piracy has been controversial in other states because technology activists say overprotective laws would make their legitimate home computers illegal and inoperable."

Tennessee: "Technology activists are saying a state bill being promoted by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to stop cable theft would strongly limit and invade everyday Internet use while creating potential monopolies on cable and computer equipment."

"Ohio State law professor Peter Swire says the students would have a stronger case if they hadn't posted their own MP3 files for sharing. 'If it's a plain search engine, they're offered lots of protection,' he says. 'To post MP3s puts them at risk.'"

"[...] The music industry has been quietly stepping up other efforts to pursue individuals by legal means--a risky strategy that could end up hardening some consumers' already-resentful attitude towards the record industry."

Apple press release: "Apple today announced that its revolutionary iTunes Music Store sold over one million songs during its first week. Over half of the songs were purchased as albums, dispelling concerns that selling music on a per-track basis will destroy album sales."

"The [B. C. Cancer] agency said Monday it has filed a provisional application for a U.S. patent for what could be the genetic code for the SARS virus to ensure the information remains public and is not hoarded by someone seeking to profit from it."

"But many states do have their own consumer protection statutes that allow victims to sue individually for deceptive or fraudulent trade practices, so it's not inconceivable that someday the recording industry might find itself on the wrong end of a p2p lawsuit -- maybe even from one of the Verizon customers the RIAA is attempting to identify."

"Sun Microsystems employees have been caught with their hands in the file-trading cookie jar, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is not happy about it."

Lessig: "There’s a standard dance that the IP extremists do well: When they lose in Congress, they go overseas and negotiate a treaty that imposes on the US the same obligation they just lost in Congress; then they come back and say, 'we must do this to live up to our international obligations.'"

"For established musicians, escaping the studio means better vibes; for acts that are just beginning, it means they can afford a professional-sounding demo or album without having to sell a kidney."

"Four college students learned Thursday that free music downloads can carry a hidden price tag — $12,000 to $17,500, to be exact."

"It is really time to start talking about [compulsory licensing] as a solution to current problems. We've done it for cable TV, player pianos, webcasting. Let's do it for p2p networks."

Berman on his bill: "The most important limitation in the bill is the narrow breadth of the safe harbor itself. The bill says copyright owners get immunity from liability under any theory, but only for impairi