Vivendi Blasts iTunes Contract Terms as "Indecent"
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Universal music renegotiates its deal with Apple's dominant music service.
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A watchdog group asks a consumer-protection agency to look into the higher price of songs on Apple's British version of its iTunes service. Wendy M. Grossman reports from London.
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The creator of Half-Life 2, Valve, has won a legal fight to stop Vivendi distributing its titles to cyber cafes. The ruling bars Vivendi distributing games such as Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike to these pay-for-play venues.
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A London security analyst working with the open source group GNUCitizen has discovered a potentially serious exploit that could affect users of the Firefox browser and Apple's QuickTime movie and music player - especially iTunes customers - on Windows XP-based machines. BetaNews tested and verified the severity of the exploit.
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It's a freedom of speech thing A Swedish company owned by the founders of controversial torrent tracker site The Pirate Bay is hosting a site that defends paedophilia.â¦
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Digital flatline looks ominous for music labels The leading DRM digital download service, Apple's iTunes, has experienced a collapse in sales revenues this year according to analyst company Forrester Research.â¦
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Vivendi's Universal Music has agreed to  buy BMG Music Publishing for 1.63 billion euros ($2.1 billion)  in a long-expected deal that makes the world's biggest seller  of recorded music also the largest in music publishing.
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Apple&#39;S iTunes caused upset yesterday by securing the Band Aid charity single Do They Know It&#39;s Christmas for sale at 79p, instead of the Â£1.49 its rivals, from Napster to HMV, are asking customers to pay.
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Universal wants monthly deals to sell its music through Apple's iTunes rather than an annual one, a report says.
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France's stock market regulator has filed complaints against Vivendi Universal SA and its two highest executives as part of an investigation into convertible bonds that the French company issued three years ago, Vivendi said Tuesday.
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Apple has taken steps to take ownership of the iTunes.co.uk domain name from its current owner, with the company formally complaining to Nominet, the UK domain name registrar, that it is entitled to the domain.
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Warner Music rejects Apple's call for the removal of copy protection software from music downloads.
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Vivendi's Universal Music has agreed to   buy BMG Music Publishing for 1.63 billion euros ($2.1 billion)   in a long-expected deal that makes the world's biggest seller   of recorded music also the largest in music publishing.
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Buzz off, says sex toy supplier Hardware Widow Apple has set the lawyers on the makers of the iBuzz iPod-driven vibrator. The company claims the website established by UK supplier LoveHoney to promote the stimulatory accessory violates its copyright.â¦
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LONDON -- Apple Computer&#39;s three-month-old European iTunes service came under attack Wednesday from Britain&#39;s Consumers&#39; Association, which asked the Office of Fair Trading, a business watchdog, to investigate why the service&#39;s prices are higher than
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(InfoWorld) - Just because three major online music retailers bind their music stores to specific portable players doesn't make it acceptable, a Norwegian consumer group leading the charge against Apple's DRM (digital rights management) policy says. "ITunes Music Store and others are unfair to consumers no matter how many download services follow the proprietary approach," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior advisor at The Norwegian Consumer Council, in response to a letter written by Apple CEO Steve Jobs andÂ posted on the Apple Web siteÂ on Tuesday. Jobs examined why DRM exists and discusses alternatives to the current set-up in his open response to calls for Apple to allow users to buy songs from the iTunes store and play them on any device. Norway's consumer representative hasÂ threatened legal action against AppleÂ for violating Norwegian law by limiting iTunes customers to playing their music only on iPods. Consumer groups in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany haveÂ joined Norway's complaintÂ against Apple. Jobs points out that Microsoft and Sony also sell music that can only be played on their players, supporting a model that serves customers well with choice and a continuing stream of innovative products. He also suggests that groups like Waterhouse's "redirect their energies" toward convincing the music labels to sell music without DRM, technology that aims to restrict how buyers can copy or use the music. The four biggest record labels forced Apple to employ a proprietary DRM system as a condition of the agreement that allows Apple to sell their music, he said. Ideally, he said, the labels wouldn't require DRM. "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," Jobs wrote. While Waterhouse agrees that the record companies carry some fault for the situation, the iTunes music store and others like it are ultimately responsible. "They're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering a fair deal according to Norwegian law," he said. Still, with his letter, Jobs' appears to have stirred up some additional pressure on the record labels to change their DRM policies. EMusic.com Inc., which claims to be the second largest music download site, only sells DRM-free music from thousands of independent labels. But the site would like be able to sell music from the four biggest labels. "We are hopeful the remaining four will one day join [the independent labels] by licensing their complete catalogs and reap the benefits of consumer demand," David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, wrote in a response to Jobs' letter. Even though Jobs didn't hint that a solution might be impending, Waterhouse appeared to see a glimmer of hope. "If this means that Apple is willing to the kick the lock in technology from the [iTunes/iPod] combination this is really good news -- news that should be put into action as soon as possible to bring us all one important step closer to a well functioning digital society," he wrote.
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Sex podcasters have an on-again, off-again relationship with Apple as a distributor. In Sex Drive Daily.