Liquid Audio to fold and distribute cash reserves to shareholders: Under the decision announced Friday, shareholders will receive $2.50 per share on Dec. 20. Payments will only be made to shareholders of record as of Dec. 10. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company will continue operations until the board considers all …

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures names The Hours as best film of the year: Industry watchers look to the New York-based society’s picks and other upcoming awards for hints on possible Academy Awards contenders. “The Hours,” based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, was followed by “Chicago,” “Gangs …

The entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive, which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970, in now available online. Low-res previews of all the material is available for free, and high-res copies are available for license. What is British Pathe? British Pathe are one of …

Intel, IBM and AT&T create new Wi-Fi company to create public “hot spots” throughout the land: Intel Capital, along with Big Blue, AT&T and investors Apax Partners and 3i, announced the creation of Cometa Networks–formerly known as Project Rainbow–a new company focused on deploying hot spots throughout the United States. …

I know teenagers are congenitally dopey – freaky hormones, loud music, peer pressure, self-exploration, gestures of independence, etc. – but I know for sure that my two teens and their friends are a hell of a lot less stupid than my friends and I were, especially in the areas of …

$1 billion was spent on TV advertising in the just past midterm elections. Who gained? TV stations. Did the candidates benefit, did the public? I don’t watch that much commercial TV, but I know I saw a boatload of poorly made, vague, repetitive, boring political commercials that just ran together …

Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), and others, including the estates of early Motown star Mary Wells, Jackie Wilson and Curtis Mayfield, won a $8.4 million class-action settlement after a protracted legal fight against the AFTRA Health and Retirement Funds and (who else?) the major record labels: Soul singer Sam …

DRM will be examined from a variety of angles February 27-March 1 at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall: Music is being released on copy-protected CDs, movies on encrypted and region-encoded DVDs, and Congress is considering the mandate of technological protection for digital television. The next generation of information distribution will be …

I must have been on drugs: I haven’t mentioned the brilliant and exquisite Virginia Postrel in some time. I have been a fool. Virginia has a terrific column in the NY Times on the history of information: Indeed, a new book argues, to understand why the West not only grew …

John Fogde came up with a very nice list of Christmas songs he can still listen to, Bill Sherman, Jen Raj, and I added some faves. I forgot to add this one, which at one point I was burnt out on, but after a several year respite I find I …