Consumer groups across Europe are pressing for radical changes in how the music industry does business with DRM. Reverberations are being felt all the way over here in North America – you can thank Europe that someone is fighting the good fight! If Steve Job’s recent letter is any indication, they seem to be making an impact. Anyone ...

The XM / Sirius merger rumor started late last year but it's been resurfacing again lately. Language used in recent speeches by executives from both Sirius and XM include lines like “Consolidation creates value…” and “Significant benefits…”. So it looks like we're up for another round of satellite radio merger rumors. Why would Sirius and XM, the ...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Microsoft, including whispers of a viral DRM on its upcoming Zune device. The rumor was probably spawned by a mis-blog on the Zune Insider. Ceasar Menendez originally said that Zune would wrap all songs up in a DRM when conducting Zune to Zune file trading. But it’s not true; Ceasar has corrected ...

As if all the new iPods weren’t enough for a press release, Jobs went on to add information about iTunes 7. According to Mr. Jobs, a host of new graphic navigational features promise to make browsing iTunes easier and more intuitive - this includes Cover Flow, a feature that lets you view album covers. It’ll allow you to casually browse your ...

Those of you thinking of defecting to Microsoft’s Zune Nation this year will now be competing with ‘next gen’ iPods. In a press release yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced several key improvements to the new line of iPods, and then added: “One last thing...” It’s a tagline Jobs is becoming famous for in his press releases, ...

Microsoft is planning to go head-to-head with Apple, the current king of the MP3 player, in a battle not only over the hardware but the service that sells online music. The first bit of info to trickle onto the web was a story by the New York Times (and Seattle Times); it told of a meeting where entertainment industry execs were briefed on ...

In April, Samsung Electronics Co. announced it was awarded a major contract with Apple Computer Inc. The South Korean consumer electronics firm won its bid to produce the chips that will appear in Apple's next generation of iPod MP3 players. Samsung already makes many of the iPod's NAND flash memory chips; so the new contract only further ...

Contributing Writer's Viewpoint - by graham As a Roger's customer (Canadian Data Service provider) I receive the occasional promotional email. Sometimes I even read them. This spring Rogers offered a Yahoo! Music Unlimited trial, and so I did a little research against other online music services (notably Napster). Based on their larger song ...

The online music industry is setting the rate of a DRM-less MP3 at $2 dollars a song. Yahoo Music and Sony BMG have got the ball rolling on the $2 songs that have no DRM encoded, with Jessica Simpson. The first MP3 is Jessica Simpson's - A Public Affair from a yet to be released recording. So, those with incredibly poor taste can pay $2 for the ...