RIAA

Usenet.com has lost its copyright lawsuit vs. the RIAA over MP3 filesharing. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers debate the latest battle in the copyright war and the legal nicities of the Betamax Defense.

By Richi Jennings: your humble blogwatcher, who selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment. Not to mention how we used to play games on phones...

The RIAA and Capitol Records have been awarded $1.92 million damages from Jammie Thomas-Rasset. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers marvel at how 24 songs can cost $80,000 each.

By Richi Jennings, your humble blogwatcher, who has selected these tidbits for your enjoyment. Not to mention Victoria Silvstedt: My Im-Perfect Life...

In today's podcast: RIAA decides to stop piracy lawsuits; Qimonda gets bailout package; and Lenovo offers laptop with two screens.
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The RIAA today announced it is giving up on suing individual users for distributing music over the Internet. Although they will still serve notice to ISPs which have customers who are big offenders, they have effectively given up on trying to put up walls around music.

The Recording Industry move is a tacit acknowledgment that the business landscape has permanently changed and that it can't sue it's problems out of existence.

What do retired billionaires, supermodels, search engines, supervillains, energy drinks, whacked-out actors and fried breakfast pastries have in common? They're some of the things I'm thankful for this year.

Your tax dollars are not only saving billionaire bankers from their own bad habits, they're also helping to bail out the recording industry. Does the RIAA really truly need our help? I don't think so.

Wireless music systems can bring your tunes to every room. But they're hardly created equal.

The PRO IP Act is like a parting gift to Hollywood from Congress. It could have been much worse -- but it should have been much better.

In Monday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings listens to the music industry's latest wheeze to sell us their choonz: a drm-free album on a microSD card for under $10. Not to mention a "clbuttic" mistake...

Arik Hesseldahl gets the party started:

As the Recording Industry Association of America continues its sacred quest to prevent consumers with access to technology from doing anything that even hints of media piracy (apparently by hiring unlicensed investigators to help), it looks like media companies are employing older technologies to try to stop viewers from even thinking about copying their TV programs.

Pop quiz: The RIAA's claim last week that digital rights management (DRM) is the Wave Of The Future was...

The mere act of making music available for sharing on a P2P network does not automatically mean the music is actually being illegally distributed, a District Court in Arizona ruled last week.

It's the last IT Blogwatch of 2007: in which the Recording Industry Association of America is loved by precisely nobody (not even the artists it claims to represent). Not to mention a 50 ft. Hungarian bird...

Today's NPD survey reveals a lot of information.

Some results:
50% of Apple Users buy music online. 16% of PC Users do.
Apple's share of the personal computer industry went from 6% in 2006 to 9% in 2007 according to NPD's "consumer panel data" (does this exclude enterprise business?)....