Hollywood's New Zombie - The last days of Blockbuster. By Edward Jay Epstein

As far the studios are concerned, other than collecting the money that Blockbuster owes them for past movies, the video chain has little relevance to their future.

TechCrunch » Yahoo Acquires WebJay

Webjay is an interesting application that allows users to publish music playlists on the web.

The Cult of Mac Blog

In his keynote speech, Jobs demonstrated how photos and galleries in a new version of iPhoto can be pushed, or photocast, to subscribers' computers.

America Online Buys Developer of Video Search Service - New York Times

Furthering its efforts to focus on Internet video, America Online said yesterday that it had acquired Truveo, a private Silicon Valley company that runs a search engine for video clips.

Anonymous Internet annoyance illegal? Yes and no.

I believe that McCullagh has rushed to judgment somewhat

Study blames downloading for growing apathy towards music

While the conclusions of the study may be spot on, the issue of causality remains unanswered. Did music becoming more accessible create user apathy, or was it something else?

Apple unveils Intel-based Macs (and more)

Apple sold 14 million iPods in the holiday quarter and has sold 42 million since 2001

The Globe and Mail: Chinese ban on Wikipedia prevents research, users say

Others said the blocking of Wikipedia has been a major blow to their research projects and even to their prospects of passing civil-service exams. "How can I do my thesis now?" a university student asked on another Chinese website.

Mises Economics Blog: I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again

Early US records (eg Brunswick Records, who released, among others, Robert Johnson) had “Not for play on Radio” stamped on them, for fear that radio play might harm Sheet Music sales.

Holiday Music Downloads Set Records

For the year, digital downloads surpassed 350 million, an increase of 147 percent over 2004. The spike is attributed to a 7 percent drop in CD sales, a rush on MP3 players like Apple's iPod, and music download gift cards. Around half a billion dollars worth of MP3 players were sold in the month prior to Christmas.

p2pnet.net - the original daily p2p and digital media news site

"Advanced Access Content System will complement new innovations in the next-generation of optical discs, and enable consumers to enjoy next-generation content, including high-definition content." Moreover, it'll be a hit, just like CSS, otherwise known as Content Scramble System. That's what Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD Jon, believes. And he's probably right. But it won't be a lot of good at preventing piracy, he says on his blog. Because, "That’s not the primary objective of any DRM system. Anyone who has read the CSS license agreement knows that the primary objective is to control the market for players. Don’t you just love when your DVD player tells you 'This operation is prohibited' when you try to skip the intro?

The Patry Copyright Blog: In Praise of Imitation

Copyright is often cast as a battle between creators and users, but more importantly, it involves issues with other authors, and within ourselves. We will be poorer, as Kaplan noted and as Bloom cautioned, if we don't facilitate the working out of creative anxieties.

--Ari