Users compensated in Sony CD row

Record label Sony BMG will compensate customers in California whose computers were damaged by anti-piracy software on CDs sold by the firm.

It settles a long-running lawsuit between Sony BMG and a number of US states about the nature of digital rights management software on CDs.

The episode caused a great deal of embarrassment for the world’s second largest record label.

Agreements with other states are expected to follow.

See Sony BMG settles with 39 states - pdf

Special Treat in a Box

In less than a week the official uncensored version of the video has been viewed by over two million people on YouTube alone. In the process “Saturday Night Live” appears to have become the first scripted comedy on a broadcast network to use the Web to make an end-run around the prying eyes of both its internal censors and those of the Federal Communications Commission, whose jurisdiction over “Saturday Night Live” effectively ends at the Web frontier.

Court threatens download search

The Federal Court in Canberra backed a previous copyright ruling involving Australian web firm mp3s4free.net.

By providing links to websites which enabled illegal downloads, mp3s4free had effectively authorized copyright infringement, the court said.

The ruling could have implications for search engine websites such as Google.

Record firms sue Russian MP3 site

The lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of Arista Records, Warner Bros, Capitol and UMG recordings.

They are suing Moscow-based Mediaservices, which runs Allofmp3.com and another music site, allTunes.com.

The record labels say the sites are selling songs without permission. But Allofmp3.com argues it is paying royalties to a Russian licensing body.

The music industry says that the Russian licensing group does not have the authority to collect and distribute royalties.

Later: Slashdot story says the RIAA is going for broke - RIAA Goes for the Max Against AllofMP3

H, everyone.

Sorry about the slow posting rate. A mishap has left me with a broken ankle and downtime to put myself back together. While, under some circumstances, that might mean *more* posting, this one is having an opposite effect. I expect that will change soon, but not immediately.