Wired News: Rescue Your Stranded Tunes

There are no hardware or firmware restrictions that stop you from transferring music off an iPod, and so a number of non-Apple, third-party developers have released tools to help you reclaim your iPod's contents.

Listening Post

The main discovery was that the Zune runs on a Freescale iMX31L processor, which can also run Linux.
This is not unrelated to the link above.  Unless there's some serious hardware encryption on there, the Zune's much-discussed DRM may be moot quite soon, nothing more than another example of DRM as speed bump, not road block.

Wired News: The Song Doesn't Remain the Same

Community sites like Jamglue, Splice and SingShot are combining social networking with innovative tools that let users create, share and remix each other's songs inside a web browser.

Slashdot | Clear Channel Goes Private and Streamlined

Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nations largest radio, billboard, and entertainment outlet, announced their intention this morning to sell the company to a consortium of private-equity firms for over $26 billion.

Slashdot | Skype Unleashed onto Cell Phones

Today Hutchinson announced that it would provide unlimited cell phone to cell phone Skype calls via a 3G connection. SNIU

Slashdot | Mark Cuban Declares War on GooTube

Cuban is so convinced that GooTube will be a failure that he is in the process of acquiring the news agency owned by Robert Tur, currently involved in serious litigation with Google over copyright violations.

Slashdot | Are New DRM Technologies Setting Vista Up For Failure?

Trusted Platform Module, Output Protection Management, Protected Video Path and various Windows Media software components are designed to 'protect' copyrighted content against security breaches and unauthorized use. The article notes that many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry, but that may not garner Microsoft or Hollywood any sympathy with consumers.

Slashdot | CSIRO Wireless Patent Reaffirmed in US Court

The CSIRO has won a landmark US legal battle against Buffalo Technology, under which it could receive royalties from every producer of wireless local area network (WLAN) products worldwide.

Slashdot | British "Secure" Passports Cracked

The Guardian has cracked the so-trumpeted secure British passports after 48 hours of work.
Someday, politicians will understand encryption.  Today is not that day.

Lawrence Lessig

You might wonder how it could be a problem to save a YouTube video to your machine, when it isn’t a problem to save a television show to your VCR? Welcome to the terror of the Terms of Service world: Whether or not it is a violation of copyright law (which it isn’t, though the lawyers for YouTube seem to assert to the contrary), the view of many is that “fair use” rights can be promised away just as your first born male son can be promised away (wait, except he can’t).
I'm surprised no one's tried shrinkwrap licenses for CDs/DVDs yet, unless LA lawyers are certain it wouldn't work....

News from PC Magazine: Dell to Sell PCs on Second Life

On the island, customers will pay for their virtual Dell machines in Linden, the official Second Life currency. Customers who want to order a physical machine to be ordered to their home will pay in US dollars.

The shady one-man corporation that's destroying hip-hop. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine

First, in 2005, Bridgeport convinced Nashville's federal appellate court to buy into its copyright theory. In that case, Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, the defendants sampled a single chord from the George Clinton tune "Get Off Your Ass and Jam," changed the pitch, and looped the sound in the background.
I'm not sure that a specific exemption for sampling is the answer here.  It's easy to villify my thug sample troll here, but mainstream record companies haven't exactly been derivative works-friendly in any way, shape, or form. Artist-controlled copyrights might help, though.

--Ari