(entry last updated: 2002-09-02 13:16:18)

!Yay! It took lots longer than it should have, but I have finally gotten my new Verizon PPPoE DSL link tied into the home network So, I should be able to stay a little more on top of things.

Today’s news seems to center on speculation that Bertelsmann is finally giving up the Napster ghost and on the supposed availability of the Two Towers online - 4 months before theatrical release. And a chance to help J. Zittrain and B. Edelman broaden their research sample!

AOL is going their own way in Internet music - and bringing along some big names.

And since this is MIT (and I come from Materials Science & Engineering), I can’t avoid continuing to cover this: MIT Steals Comic Book Character - there’s a little more at The Boston Globe - MIT’s soldier draws book artists’ ire.

(7 items listed below)

• Lots on the suspected BMG WWW pullout: The Guardian; CNN; The Register; Slashdot

• Matt Drudge reports that The Two Towers is available online, but Slashdot posters are from Missouri on this one

• A little more on the CleanFlicks lawsuits from Slashdot: Clean Flicks’ Preemptive Strike For the Right To Edit

• Help out Jonathan and Ben by testing some URLs for Chinese filtering! Slashdot discussion: Real-Time Testing of China’s Internet Filters

• AOL’s Sessions@AOL is making some noise in music promotion - another new way of thinking in this space that seems to be working for the moment, anyway.
• An interesting look at the forces of modernism in Iran; weblogs, internet music, etc.
• The continuing effort to get Verizon to turn over a KaZaA-user’s name gets attacked from a new quarter. The ZDNet version includes some TalkBacks.