Culture and Society

Napster selling prepaid music download cards in convenience stores and elsewhere: Prepaid cards for tunes from the Napster online store soon will be on sale at 14,000 electronics retailers, supermarkets, convenience stores and other outlets around the country, Santa Clara-based Roxio Corp. plans to announce today. The cards are being …

Very compelling telling of the Alex Halderman-“shift key”-copy protection-SunnComm tale of madness and hilarity in USA Today: About every 30 seconds, the phone rings in the Phoenix offices of SunnComm Technologies. When the receptionist at the 28-employee company answers, someone on the other end curses into the phone. That’s happening …

I want to take a moment and commend Henry Copeland and Blogads for doing what a year ago looked impossible: turning blogs into a viable advertising medium. When Blogcritics was getting off the ground 14 months ago, the notion that blogs could generate traction enough to interest advertisers was viewed …

Only two days until Halloween – why do the holiday, movies, attractions, stories, etc., that trade in fright find such resonance with us? I looked into this and the bizarre rise of Internet “ghoul pools” on MSNBC.com: “It’s a dead man’s party, who could ask for more?Everybody’s coming, leave your …

Stalwart, omnipresent Farhad Manjoo calmly eviscerates Hollywood’s calls for a “broadcast flag” that would prohibit the transfer of digital television programs over the Internet, and that really entails telling electronics manufacturers how they must make their machines: On its Web site, the Motion Picture Association of America provides a handy …

A pair of MIT students have developed a music sharing system that is in compliance with current copyright law: Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel may soon be the most popular guys on campus. They say they’ve discovered a way to give their fellow students at MIT and elsewhere dorm-room access …

Accumulating pearls of wisdom at the feet of my personal digital music guru Jim Griffin: get your collective act together or risk having government authorities slap compulsory licences on the business. In a hugely entertaining and passionate speech, Griffin expressed his clear preference for voluntary negotiations, advocating charges to be …

In a strong challenge to the hegemony of Apple’s iPod, Samsung offers a new digital audio player with the Napster brand: FOR TWO YEARS, Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod has reigned supreme among hard-drive music players, both for Windows and Macintosh users. Now the competition is getting serious. Just in time …

I am very unhappy about this, but I certainly can understand it from her point of view: An anonymous Boston College student yesterday ended a legal fight to keep her identity secret from the music recording industry, which wanted to sue her for allegedly distributing copyrighted songs over the school’s …

California socks spam firm with $2 million fine: The state’s attorney general, Bill Lockyer, brought the case against PW Marketing of Los Angeles County and its owners, Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin in 2002, under a 1998 state anti-spam law. ….PW Marketing, Willis and Griffin were charged with sending out …