According to the Guardian’s Tim Anderson, DRM’d music is going to stage a comeback, and Apple’s going to be the one making it happen.
The music industry wants to sell new services, like music subscriptions, and DRM’s is central to making these services viable. To succeed, though, subscription music services need to work with iPods and [...]

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an international, nonprofit association of computer, information, and communications technology firms, is asking consumers to complain to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection about statements and warnings attached to CDs, DVDs, and broadcast programming that forbid copying and sharing.
According to the CCIA:
“These warnings intimidate [...]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization that fights for online rights, is publicly asking why Apple is embedding its customers’ names and email addresses in files purchased from the iTunes Store.
The name and email embedded into the file can easily be read, and iTunes can display the name and email of the person who [...]

Buzz about Apple’s introduction of iTunes Plus, which offers DRM-free music tracks for $1.29 each, has turned into concern for some. Posts at Ars Technica and TUAW have revealed that Apple is embedding personal information, such as your name and email address, in¬†music files (including the DRM-free ones) purchased at iTunes.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a [...]

Audible has announced that it is shuttering its proprietary podcasting alternative, Audible Wordcast:
Dear Audible Wordcast customer,
Regretfully, as of September 1, 2007, the Audible Wordcast service will no longer be available for public use. In the coming 90 days, we’ll provide you with details regarding the process of shutting down or moving your podcasts to another [...]

Apple today launched iTunes Plus, offering DRM-free music tracks with 256 kbps AAC encoding, for audio quality almost as good as the original recordings, for just $1.29 per song.
iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, [...]

PayPlay.FM announced today that it is offering its 1,300,000-track catalog in unprotected MP3 format at the price of 88 cents per song. The tracks are 192kpbs VBR encoded, offering higher quality sound reproduction.
The move continues PayPlay’s strategy for uniform support of Mac and UNIX platforms, iPod, Zune and other portable players incompatible with Windows Media [...]

An unusual ruling in Finnish courts appears to have declared that it’s open season for hacking DRM’d media.
In an unanimous decision, the Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of [...]

The movie industry is considering changes to HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc licensing agreements that would formally give consumers the right to make several legal copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies they’ve purchased. The agreement would let buyers make a backup copy in case their original disc is damaged and another copy for [...]

Amazon.com today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels, including EMI. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software.
Amazon’s announcement [...]