Will allow users to convert almost any song into a ringtone for an additional fee. I’ve talked before about how its interesting that amidst all the lamenting by the RIAA about declining CD sales revenue is the fact that ringtone sales are quietly rising by leaps and bounds every year.In fact, people bought over $9 [...]

Dispute with network over lack of pricing control, piracy protection, and inability to bundle videos to increase revenue takes a sudden turn. Apple announced today that iTunes will no longer be selling NBC TV shows for the upcoming Fall TV season. The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple [...]

EFF Releases Comprehensive Report on Recording Industry’s Litigation Campaign San Francisco – As college students across the country head back to class this fall, they need to worry about more than keeping up on their schoolwork. The Recording Industry of America (RIAA) continues to target college campuses for hundreds of new lawsuits each month. Meanwhile, [...]

Xbox LIVE will offer episode downloads beginning September 2, 2007. Xbox Live’s Marketplace continues to grow, offering tons of movies and TV shows for download from the comfort of your living room. Starting September 2nd users will be able to count "Family Guy" among available content, and will be able to purchase full episode downloads [...]

Will offer tons of music, but apparently tons of DRM as well. Nokia announced yesterday that it is opening a new digital music download store called the “Nokia Music Store” that will offer a combination of download and streaming services from millions of tracks from major artists, indie labels, and local hits. Using a desktop [...]

Lucky and Flo take Manhatten. After having helped in the seizure of millions of dollars worth of bootleg DVDs across Asia, despite threats from "syndicate bosses" and others upset with their efforts, Lucky and Flo, the MPAA’s much heralded DVD-sniffing antipiracy dogs, have made an appearance in NYC to apparently demonstrate their abilities as a [...]

A workprint of the much anticipated horror flic makes it way to BitTorrent tracker sites everywhere. Following in the footsteps of “Sicko,” “Hostel 2,” and a number of other movies, a workprint of Rob Zombie’s upcoming remake of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” horror classic has been leaked to BitTorrent tracker sites. Not due to hit movie [...]

“Acts to protect privacy” and decides to prevent US courts from violating its user privacy rules. It appears that TorrentSpy, one of the more popular public BitTorrent tracker sites around, has decided to circumvent a federal court ruling ordering it to begin tracking user activities on the site by opting instead to formally cut off [...]

Australian man had never been to the US nor ever even owned a passport, but thanks to US copyright laws he’s currently serving a 15-month sentence in a US jail. Hew Griffiths was convicted by a Federal Court in Virginia back in June of this year for being a ring leader of DrinkOrDie or DOD, [...]

Will propose federal legislation requiring them to send a warning letter to customers if they access pirated content. In an antipiracy panel held last Thursday before a gathering of members of the US Chamber of Commerce in Hollywood, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Los Angeles) has stated his intention to introduce legislation that would require ISPs to [...]

Takes into account losses not only to the owners of intellectual property, but also to US consumers and taxpayers. We regularly read stories about studies in which economic losses due to music piracy are quantified and then trumpeted before the press and elected representatives in order to paint a dark and gloomy picture of the [...]

Thanks to the Pirate Bay, the legendary BitTorrent tracker site has returned after an almost 3 years-long absence, and even incorporates BitTorrent client-free downloads! As I mentioned before for those of you who don’t remember, SuprNova was a Slovenia-based BitTorrent tracker site that was started in late 2002 by Slovenian teen Andrej Preston, aka Sloncek, [...]

Prices range from 94 cents for a single 256kbps MP3 track to a little over $9 bucks per album. The war for dominance of the digital music market continues to heat up with the launch this morning of Wal-Mart’s new online music download store, and as usual, it appears that Wal-Mart is the “low price [...]

A 60yo guy in black suit and tie sporting night-vision goggles helps take creepy to the next level. The Consumerist is running an interesting letter from a reader named “Sam” today who writes to retell a creepy incident that occurred at a viewing of Nicole Kidman’s “The Invasion” during its opening weekend at the AMC [...]

Will offer DRM-free music downloads at a cut rate price of 99cents. Tomorrow marks the start in what may become a heated battle with iTunes for control of the quickly expanding digital music download market. It has been announced that in a surprising new twist to Universal’s confrontation with Steve Jobs and iTunes for control [...]

503 "lucky" new students get to start the Fall Semester even deeper in debt. The RIAA has announced that it has targeted 503 new students in its latest "deterrence program" aimed at eliminating college campus piracy across the country. This brings the approximate number of targeted students to 2,926 and counting thus far. The pre-litigation [...]

The first known pirated copy of “The Simpsons Movie” to make it onto the Internet was tracked to a home in Australia. According to Australian authorities said, the first known pirated copy of “The Simpsons” to be uploaded to the Internet was tracked to a home raided by Australian police earlier today. Police ordered a [...]

“Save a Film” campaign works to digitize and upload academic films to a searchable internet archive in order to preserve and make available to the public. The mission of The Academic Film Archive of North America is to “acquire, preserve, document, and promote academic film by providing an archive, resource, and forum for continuing scholarly [...]

Play locally, earn money globally. Everybody knows that the future of music lies in digital distribution, which offers not only lower costs, but also the ability to reach a global audience like never before. New and independent artists however, often have a tough time figuring out how to monetize digital distribution aside from MySpace links [...]

School orientation now includes warning about illegal file-sharing. As part of their fall semester 2007 orientation this weekend, the thousands of students moving into residence halls at the University of California, Berkeley will learn that if they use campus computer networks to download copyrighted music illegally, they’ll soon find themselves without an internet connection. Under [...]