"However the industry decides to help listeners hedge risk, it is important to note that the mechanism used should make strategic sense, rather than just rely on price competition, which is what might happen under iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster 2.0, or Musicmatch schemes."

"A group representing Canada's songwriters will ask the Supreme Court of Canada to force Internet service providers to pay them royalties for the millions of digital music files downloaded each year by Canadians."

"Are we practicing good DRM if deny our content to analog or digital radio? Of course not. If we fail to deliver content, we will not be paid. So it seems quite obvious that conditioning access on locks and keys doesn't work today, and is purely a theoretical, hypothetical suggestion that has never proven value in the marketplace."

"The new program circumvents iTunes' anti-copying program, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding, by legally opening and playing a protected music file in QuickTime, but then, essentially, draining the unprotected music data into a new and parallel file."

Diebold "has decided not to take the additional step of suing for copyright infringement for the materials at issue. Given the widespread availability of the stolen materials, Diebold has further decided to withdraw its existing DMCA notifications and not to issue any further ones for those materials."

"Just weeks after an antitrust suit was filed against the RIAA by webcasters, the music labels' lobby group, is, along with Hollywood, seeking a permanent exemption from similar litigation. The proposal seeks to extend the exemption to anything covering mechanical copyright: a sweeping extension of the copyright cartel's immunity."

"The Australian Recording Industry Association plans to sue Internet service providers who failed to stop consumers illegally downloading music."

"Small movie production companies sued the Motion Picture Association of America Monday to try to force an end to a partial ban by Hollywood studios on sending special video copies to awards groups."

"Most companies mistakenly believe that content protection is about protecting content. Consider that renting a new video release for a single night costs $4 to $5, but renting an old video for five days costs $5. Most content makes the majority of its revenue in the first few weeks of release. Thus, content protection is really about protecting the release window."

"Record labels have long been accused of stealing musicians' copyrights as soon as the ink is dry on the contract. Now, one small independent label in Great Britain is doing the opposite: It's giving the rights to the artists -- and anyone else who wants to use the music, too."

"University of Florida officials say they're simply enforcing the law. But civil libertarians say the school has become an enforcer for the recording industry."

"The Ohio State Legislature has passed House Bill #179 which, among other unrelated issues, makes it illegal to make an AV-recording in any theater or retail store where a motion picture is being displayed."

"Corporations routinely flout copyright laws when they claim ownership of works that are free for everyone to use. These false claims undermine free speech, weaken copyright protections, and fuel cavalier attitudes toward intellectual property."

"A crackdown by the music industry has one local family singing the blues. They're being sued because their 15-year-old daughter is accused of illegally downloading and sharing music over the Internet."

"As it turned out, Charles Kok Hau Ng, 20, and Peter Tran, 19, were each sentenced to 18 months' jail, but their sentences were suspended. In Australia's first criminal prosecution for online music piracy, Ng and Tran were the brains behind a music-swapping site, MPW3/WMA Land, which carried 390 CDs and more than 1800 tracks."

"The technology might also spur sales of PCs and devices that use trusted-computing hardware--controversial technology that uses encryption, special memory and security software to lock away secrets on a PC from prying eyes."

"A new piece of file-swapping software for Macintosh computers is drawing thousands of downloads by offering peer-to-peer options previously available largely to Windows computers."

"A group of patent holders issued licensing terms for its latest digital video technology, in a move to promote its widespread adoption among consumer electronics manufacturers and broadcasters."

"The TiVo-addict friendly PVRBlog reports that HDTV-capable TiVos will be available for sale the first quarter of 2004 [...]. What this means, of course, is that such devices will be available without broadcast flag implementation, at least until July 2005, as many of the commentators on PVRBlog note."

U.S. Representative Kucinich: "By abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Diebold has intimidated numerous internet service providers to comply with its requests. The damage is two-fold: 1) limiting the public’s information about the security of its voting machines, and 2) expanding corporate control over our most free medium of expression, the Internet."

"And I've always had a suspicion that shutting down these independent channels for music distribution, more than cracking down on piracy, has been the real goal of big record labels. The technology for making music, after all, has gotten steadily cheaper."

"Really, which is more burdensome, forcing cable companies to carry a few more channels or seizing control over huge swaths of the hardware market? I think the answer has more to do with which industry has the most effective lobbyists in the FCC."

"After a bruising three-year slump, CD sales are showing signs of turning up, and analysts expect that another big stocking stuffer this year will be digital music players, driving traffic to a range of legal download services struggling to make a name in the burgeoning market."

"Of the 200 professionals responding [...], 55% considered it an inequity that it's against the law to make a copy of your own bought CDs, make a personal use compilation (CD or tape) or copying them to a digital device."

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren: "The FCC's plan sounds a little like the old Soviet Union. And we know how well centralized state control worked for them. That's why Congress never gave the FCC the power to dictate the design of new computers or consumer electronics devices."

"Know your rights before the copyright cops read them to you."

"A federal judge in San Jose, Calif., heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by student activists seeking to disseminate internal documents from Diebold Election Systems, an Ohio company that sells e-voting software."

"In separate ads aimed respectively at entertainment moguls and at consumers, Sharman exhorted executives to stop treating file swappers as pirates and asked computer users to lobby record labels and movie studios to put aside their animosity toward Kazaa."

"Software company Microsoft Corp. plans to roll out a song-downloading service next year that will rival offerings from Apple Computer and Roxio Inc.'s Napster."

"The move aims to reduce the drain of what domestic DVD makers consider exorbitant patent royalties they must pay to a group of mostly Japanese electronics conglomerates."

"Microsoft has at last confirmed plans that it will launch its own music-download store next year, putting it on the path to direct competition with Apple Computer's iTunes and a growing list of rival digital song stores."

"Despite their legal blitzkrieg to stop online song-swapping, many music labels are benefiting from — and paying for — intelligence on the latest trends in Internet trading."

"Although it's not entirely clear, it seems that Chamberlain could invoke the protection of the DMCA by simply making it clear that it forbids its customers from using unauthorized transmitters to open Chamberlain doors."

"It's not just that people want to pirate movies, though there are those out there; rather, I like to think that most people are resentful of the incredibly unfair and rent-seeking copyright laws as a whole, and piracy is one way of protesting the system."

"Indeed, the problem of piracy arises in part from the way our love of, and fascination with, movies is laced with entitlement and resentment. The spots offer a kind of social realism unusual for Hollywood, and thus a reality check: behind the magic for which stars and directors receive credit, and studios reap profit, are working stiffs like us."

"San Francisco-based CNET Networks said it has signed a definitive agreement with Vivendi Universal Net USA to acquire the assets of MP3.com, with the deal scheduled to close in December."

"The case was widely viewed as an extreme example of the application of digital copyright law and was held up by critics of the DMCA as a reason the law should be scaled back. On Thursday, a federal judge said the law didn't apply, because Chamberlain had not publicly stated in any way that other companies' products couldn't be used with the door."

"But if the old-liners continue to get their way, the public domain in the U.S. will virtually disappear. And early-stage Internet innovations from digital music stores to virtual actors will forever be stuck behind legal firewalls. [...] Somewhere in the middle of cyberspace, the kids and the grown-ups have to lay down some ground rules. Even the U.S. Constitution was a compromise."

"UK users of peer-to-peer (P2P) websites could soon find themselves running the same legal gauntlet as their US counterparts."

"Three new respondents have been added in a civil case launched by six record companies over the mp3s4free.net website, including an employee of an internet service provider."

"With a software attestation scheme that treats you as an adversary, software publishers and service providers would have a remarkably sophisticated toolset for locking out competition, forcing upgrades or downgrades and deliberately breaking interoperability. [...] Fortunately, this problem is fixable. TCG should empower computer owners to override attestations deliberately to defeat policies of which they disapprove."

"The Nov. 6 letter bases the legal request on assertions that the advisories and programs created by Luigi Auriemma, an independent researcher, violate the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that makes it illegal to break the security that protects copyrighted content."

Quoting a mailing list: "Basically the court held that Chamberlain never restricted the use (the way Lexmark did--by marking it on the package etc); so Skylink was not 'circumventing access control technology'... Shame that the court didn't out and out rule that people have a fair use right to use replacement parts, or that Skylink's garagedoor opener is not in violation of the DMCA because the Chamberlain garagedoor is not one of the types of works that the DMCA applies to."

"The Northern District of Illinois District Court today ruled that the universal garage door clicker sold by Skylink Technologies that interoperates with Chamberlain Group garage door openers does not violate the DMCA."

"Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens refused Wednesday to give an emergency stay to the founder of file-sharing service Madster."

"How tempting will a Hollywood studio find the capability to revoke all licenses it sold to a movie when it decides it's time to re-release it to the theatres? Those sensitive company files that an ex-employee can be barred from accessing might include his original employment contact, for example. Or perhaps documents revealing company misdeeds that a whistleblower was about to leak to the press could suddenly disappear for all time. Would there be such a thing as false advertising when any traces of the misleading ad can be made to disappear?"

"People who steal copies of films and albums and post them on the Internet before their official release dates could face felony charges under legislation scheduled to be introduced Thursday in the U.S. Senate."

"A forthcoming copyright bill backed by key U.S. senators would place file swappers in prison for up to three years if they have a copy of even one prerelease movie in their shared folders."

"Kazaa parent Sharman Networks plans to unveil its first offline advertising campaign next week, in which it will exhort computer users to defend file swapping and tell entertainment companies they can make money too."

"File-swapping company Sharman Networks on Thursday said it will digitally distribute a feature film from Bollywood, using its peer-to-peer application, Kazaa."

"Altnet, a company that distributes files legally through Kazaa and other peer-to-peer services, has sent legal threats to nine companies that monitor or meddle with file-trading networks, accusing them of violating its patent rights."

"The documents pointed to possible security breaches and flaws in one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of electronic voting machines—Diebold Election Systems. [...] But Diebold countered that posting the documents was a violation of copyright and that they may have been tampered with between the time they were stolen and the time they were released to the public by the hacker."

"If this is true, students at Swarthmore, followed by students at many other institutions including those above at Berkeley, in spreading the Diebold memos around [in violation of the DMCA], have accomplished the goal of causing those with review power over Diebold systems to take another look at Diebold's work."

"Since the user of GPL Software is the main beneficiary of its protections (including zero copyright fees), it will become the only way for users and organisations to ascertain a priori that by using this software they not breaking copyright laws, and cannot be sued, penalised, or espied upon, under the pretext of copyright infringement."

"The mail has been sent by the Gamespy's lawyers asking me to remove my bug research stuff from my site. The stuff is composed by my proof-of-concepts and advisories written to test and explain the bugs in the Gamespy's products found and signaled to them a lot of months ago and completely ignored by Gamespy."

"TiVo television recorders that allow viewers to replay programs and skip commercials have turned casual TV watchers into prisoners shackled to sofas, unable to keep up with the flood of their favorite shows."

"Any sympathetic press coverage of these issues is welcome. However, this article is as confusing as it is informative. The main problem is that the article conflates three separate elements of the DMCA into, seemingly, one confusing mess: the notice-and-takedown provisions, the anti-circumvention provisions and the super-subpoena power."

EFF press release: "DVD backup software vendor 321 Studios today announced it will donate as much as $1 million over the next year to online civil liberties organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)."

"Perhaps most disturbing to critics and privacy advocates is the fact that schools are responding to subpoenas from the music recording industry with as much alacrity -- and as many privacy-invading techniques -- as they are to subpoenas related to national security."

"A prestigious music school is encouraging musicians to swap audio and video clips of course material over peer-to-peer networks."

Press release: "The independents point out that the crisis in the recording sector is mainly the result of supply problems and the majors' trading practices, which are themselves the product of concentration."

"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has stepped squarely into a fight roiling the Web by agreeing to re-examine the Eolas patent for a browser plug-in, a development likely to bring cheer to Microsoft and software patent foes alike."

"The bigger worry is that Hollywood now has momentum to lobby for even more copy restrictions in the future. The studios are pushing their own encryption-based technology for makers of TVs, PCs, and other devices to adopt. That technology could easily be upgraded to include instructions to prevent copying in any form. However, the FCC or Congress will have the last word -- and they could simply spell out what consumers can or can't do."

"Despite recent speculation about a possible conflict of interest, Penn State trustee Barry Robinson said his work with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) played no role in a recent agreement to bring the Napster online music service to Penn State students in the spring."

"We should never forget that copyright and patents are a bargain, a deal between the people and the creators of anything from a story to a song to a great film, and the bargain needs to work for both sides."

What links a southern office-supply manufacturer and a global next-generation Internet technology? A wafer-thin computer chip not much larger than a fingernail and a law unfamiliar to most: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

"The success of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store has prompted yet another paid music service to offer single-song purchase and downloads."

"The Berklee School of Music, which has an alumni roster that includes Quincy Jones, Diana Krall, John Mayer and Melissa Etheridge, on Monday began giving away music lessons that are free to be downloaded, copied and passed around using popular file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and LimeWire."

"The international recording industry announced Tuesday a "one stop" international license for online radio broadcasters to stream music, hoping the removal of red tape will encourage the rise of legitimate Web music services."

"If Amazon's new search feature increases sales of my book, then I'll be a happy author. If, on the other hand, this search feature somehow enables the technically savvy to easily create and distribute electronic versions of my book, or otherwise substitutes for sales, then I'll be an unhappy attorney. For now, though, the author in me says the final chapter has not been written on the effect of this program, and, of course, the lawyer in me says the jury is still out."

Universal Music President Zach Horowitz "offered a blunt prediction: In a year, the outlaw file-sharing services that have helped send record company profits spiraling down would be crowded with movies and TV shows. If you're going to file lawsuits, he advised, do it right away before millions of people online are sharing movies and TV shows for free."

"Exams or jail? That is the question awaiting three university students who met on the internet, took their computer and music skills to the limit, and are now awaiting sentencing for Australia's first criminal prosecution for online music piracy."

"The advent of digital rights management (DRM) technologies has disturbed a reasonably legitimate politico-legal settlement over "fair use," challenging the existing balance between the rights of "creators" and the interests of users. The breakdown of the norms underpinning IPRs has prompted renewed debate regarding their legitimacy."

"Just as there is no direct evidence proving that file-sharing led to the industry's sales decreases, there is also no proof that the lawsuits have spurred file-sharers to mend their piracy ways and head to the stores."

"For the consumer, buying music is likely to mean lower prices, more choice and, possibly, higher quality. But for the music industry as it exists today, despite the optimism caused by iTunes and the new Napster, the future remains uncertain and, compared to the past, bleak."

Senator Edwards: "The first priority of intellectual property law is to foster innovation and progress for our society. To achieve that goal, the law must protect the rights of inventors. And there must be a fair balance between the scope of those rights and the public interest."

"What makes this ruling so tricky are the issues surrounding the restraining order. The DMCA was a law passed to protect copyright holders from having their digital assets disseminated via the Internet, i.e., music and movie files. Diebold's claim is a little more tenuous. Though the information being published on the Web involves proprietary information on Diebold's e-voting machines, the sites in question are only posting known and documented vulnerabilities in the machine, not something like the source code."

"The noisy legal battles that once defined online music may be fading but an equally contentious public relations war for the hearts and minds of consumers is only just beginning."

"Copyright lawsuits involving music have been based on the largely mythical concept of originality. [...] In the copyright cases below, originality, tradition, artistic creation, and the law collide in an often confusing manner. As these cases illustrate, copyright law is every bit as capricious as it is complicated."

"In one of the largest promotions of digital music subscription plans to date, cable Internet giant Comcast has agreed to distribute and market RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service."

"Showing signs of a music business struggling to adapt to new digital realities, Sony Music and the Bertelsmann Music Group agreed Thursday to create a new joint venture, merging the second- and fifth-largest record labels into a single entity."

"A United Nations committee on Wednesday approved the world's first Webcasting treaty, which has drawn criticism that it limits the use of works that are in the public domain."

"Bottom line: The FCC's order will be harmful; but it could have been much, much worse."

"Angry at what they see as a misuse of their funds, some Pennsylvania State University students are protesting their college's new deal with the Napster music service."

"Sony Music, home to such artists as Beyonce Knowles and Bruce Springsteen, said Monday it plans to introduce new CD technology in Germany that prevents users from copying songs to file-sharing sites, but allows them to make copies for their personal use."

"About 15,000 internal Diebold e-mail messages also found their way to the Internet. Some referred to software patches installed on Diebold machines days before elections. Others indicated that the Microsoft Access database used in Diebold's tabulation servers was not protected by passwords. Diebold, which says passwords are now installed on machines, is threatening legal action against anyone who posts the files or links to them, contending that the e-mail is copyrighted."

"I don't think the Supremes will take the case and, frankly, I hope they don't. This would be a bad set of facts and argument to use as the basis for the court to take another look at Sony v. Universal."

"The Federal Communications Commission has figured out how to make digital television more appealing to the millions of consumers who haven't bought into it: Force manufacturers to make hardware that's less capable than what's sold today. [...] That amounts to a foreclosure on the future, and for some pretty thin reasons."

"Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and BMG Entertainment have signed a nonbinding letter of intent to merge, creating a goliath that would control a quarter of the world's music business."

"The problem, critics say, is that companies can all too easily turn DRM into a powerful tool for locking customers into proprietary technologies."

"What FCC officials did not stress, but their regulations do, is that the product definitions are broad enough to cover not just TV tuners but also PCs. [...] Three computer hardware makers contacted by CNET News.com on Wednesday said that the FCC's order would require them to redesign or stop selling their current products."

"The FCC seems to be trying to have it both ways. They have mandated technologies that are only strong enough to prevent casual copying by typical consumers. But at the same time, they somehow expect those technologies to prevent Napsterization. This incoherence is evident throughout the FCC's broadcast flag order."

"The FCC, apparently, believes that foreigners won't be pirates, but US citizens and residents will. Either that, or the FCC believes that foreign residents deserve to have media functionality that US citzens don't."

The FCC: "We seek further comment on the interplay between a flag redistribution control system and the development of open source software applications, including software demodulators, for digital broadcast television."

"Copyrights provide an incentive for creative or artistic work by providing a state-enforced monopoly. Like any other monopoly, this system leads to enormous inefficiencies, and creates substantial enforcement problems."

"You are claiming to preserve "free" TV when in fact you are increasing the cost to consumers--not just those of us who still view broadcast television, but also the vast majority of consumers who subscribe to pay-TV services as well as consumers who might not use television at all but wish to buy computers or other devices with electronic file-storage capability."

"At an Apple financial analyst conference on Wednesday CEO Steve Jobs admitted that Apple makes no revenue from the online download service, the iTunes Music Store, that he launched in April."

"In a dramatic move that gives a thumbs up to the music industry's efforts at creating legal alternatives to file sharing, McDonald's plans to give away up to 1 billion songs in a marketing campaign."

"In a move aimed at stemming wide-scale online piracy on college campuses, Penn State University on Thursday reached a deal to offer thousands of students free access to the Napster music service."

"More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August, a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, research company NPD Group said."

"DVRs are growing in popularity with PC makers, who are also expected to turn their efforts to selling digital entertainment devices, such as connected DVD players, this holiday season."

"Consumers will still be able to make unlimited copies of their favorite shows and likely watch them in various rooms at home, but they will not be able to send them over unsecured networks until protections are established."

"Federal regulators say broadcasters may embed an electronic marker in high-quality digital television shows to make it harder to copy and distribute the programs over the Internet."

Seth Finkelstein quotes from the FCC ruling: "We also recognize that with any content protection system, the potential exists that some individuals may attempt to circumvent the protection technology. We do not believe, however, that individual acts of circumvention necessarily undermine the value or integrity of an entire content protection system."

"Broadcasters had strongly urged the FCC to approve the flag. [...] But consumer groups said the electronic marker is not the solution to prevent illegal copying of TV programs."

EFF press release: "'The broadcast flag rule forces manufacturers to remove useful recording features from television products you can buy today,' said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. 'The FCC has decided that the way to get Americans to adopt digital TV is to make it cost more and do less.'"

Public Knowledge press release: "The Federal Communications Commission's decision today to impose a "broadcast flag" scheme may throttle innovation for a wide range of industries, leaving consumers with far less flexibility and choice, said public-interest groups Public Knowledge and Consumers Union."

"Even as record and movie companies remain locked in legal battles against file-sharing services, some are quietly experimenting with ways to use the piracy networks to their advantage."

"People are told to think of the DMCA as an "anti-piracy" law. It's supposed to stop copyright infringement. But in terms of implications, the DMCA is an anti-freedom-of-information-act. It's turned into an all-purpose gag-order tool."

"While the decision is a victory for those who think that copyright law is over inclusive, it is not a particularly important decision per se because the facts are rather unique. However, the case is an interesting one and certainly illustrates the complexities and strangeness of current copyright law."

"Semaan's company and others that produce this software say making backups of DVDs, for archival or strictly personal use, is perfectly permissible. [...] But Hollywood studios say this copying is flatly illegal, under provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that bar the circumvention of "access control" measures that protect digital content."

"SightSound Technologies, a digital media company, has won a ruling in its patent case against Bertelsmann subsidiaries that could have wide-reaching effects on the business of Net music and video downloads."

"EFF attorneys say the case is the first time that someone who has received a "notice and takedown" request--one of the many Diebold made, repeatedly invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)--has attempted such a pre-emptive strike before being sued."

Sony executive at a recent conference: "[T]here is a least common denominator problem with the labels, every label wants the most restrictive rule, although Universal wants no rules and they are adamant, and upset that they can’t sell their stuff through iTunes with this least restrictive DRM but instead have to go with the lowest common denominator of iTunes which is set by the most restrictive models."

"MTV Networks is preparing to launch a music download service with plans to go up against Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes and other competitors, said MTV chief Tom Freston on Monday."

"Two college students who thought they'd found a way to give their fellow students access to a huge music library without running afoul of copyright law hit a snag when the school shut down the service in the midst of a licensing dispute."

EFF press release: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School are providing legal representation in this important case to prevent abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting, the very foundation of our democratic process."

"I just watched "60 Minutes" and its treatment of copyright infringement in the movie industry. It was as if Jack Valenti had written this report -- a screed that didn't even pretend to examine the nuances of the issue."

"The biggest drawback is that [HP's DVD recorder] supports copy-protection schemes built into many commercial videos, particularly Hollywood movies. So much for converting the closet full of films you've already bought on tape."

"Digital tracks are outselling physical singles by a growing margin, a sign that consumers increasingly are embracing the brave new world of Internet downloading."

"That portability of recorded content is part of what gives consumers the flexibility they have come to expect. [...] Broadcasters are well aware of this, and unless they've taken leave of their senses, they won't want to alienate their audiences so badly as to be overly restrictive in their copying rules."

"A new copyright law designed to curb the unauthorized exchange of music, film and software on the Internet went into force in Britain on Friday, reigniting the debate on the proper way to tackle rampant digital piracy."

"The EU Information Society Directive attempts to harmonize European copyright laws in light of challenges posed by the Internet, new communications technologies and the growth of e-commerce. However, the directive is ridden with compromises and fails to address many important problems concerning copyright in the digital environment."

"Although the industry's recent approach was controversial and resulted in major criticisms from legislators, academics, civil libertarians, consumer advocates, and university officials, the copyright holders' aggressive tactics are not new."

"Copyright law, and specifically the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, are being abused by Diebold, said Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. Copyright is supposed to protect creative expression, Ms. Seltzer said, but in this case the law is being evoked 'because they don’t want the facts out there.'"

"What this means is that you can no longer be sued under the DMCA for circumventing the copy protection on your own 5-1/4" disk or Super Famicon game cartridge in order to transfer the data to your computer--but copyright law probably still prohibits you from distributing that file to other people."

"Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society has launched a study to explore options for the future of copyright in a digital environment."

"The head of the U.S. House of Representatives panel that oversees copyright law on Friday applauded the music industry's recent lawsuits against peer-to-peer file swappers."

"The Web community is rummaging desperately through dusty technology archives, in a bid to overturn a sweeping patent verdict that could force major changes on the Internet's most popular software products."

"On Friday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it would temporarily shut down its groundbreaking Library Access to Music System until the licensing rights can be worked out."

"Last week, Swarthmore students launched a civil disobedience campaign against Diebold after the company sent a student and the college's ISP a cease-and-desist letter demanding they remove the memos, which the student had posted online. Diebold cited copyright violations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA."

"Acting on legal counsel, the Swarthmore administration has advised students on the process for filing under the copyright law a "counter-notification" against Diebold's take-down demand. In addition, the administration has alerted students that it is defensible on fair-use and free-speech grounds to use their web sites to describe the content of the memos they have seen and their implications for American democracy, and to use their sites to inform interested members of the public that the memos are available at sites not associated with Swarthmore."

"The record labels have placed most of the blame for the decline on the file-sharing networks on the Internet, and have sued or threatened to sue hundreds of people for illegally distributing free music online. But the older audience, typically more affluent consumers who grew up buying their music on vinyl LP's, seldom uses the free file-sharing sites, according to Forrester Research."

"Napster, once the bad-boy nightmare of music executives everywhere, has re-emerged like a clean-cut and reformed choirboy with its new, legal Napster 2.0 music service."

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has shut down a much-heralded campus music network that was supposed to provide a legal alternative to unauthorized file-swapping software."

"Some of the 1.2 million customers that have installed software maker Symantec's latest Norton PC security package have been unable to use the software because of new antipiracy technology, the company confirmed Thursday."