Amazon redacts Orwell on Kindle like it's '1984'

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork," George Orwell wrote in his 1949 tale of a totalitarian regime “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

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Microsoft Copy Protection Cracked Again

Microsoft Corp. is once again on the defensive against hackers after the launch of a new program that gives average PC users tools to unlock copy-protected digital music and movies.

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The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad.

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"Piracy" – as done by teenagers, all my friends, pretty much everyone I know, is simply demand where appropriate supply does not exist. Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies – in other words, anti-copying, anti-fair use - are also anti-accessibility.

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Jammie Thomas, a single mother of four who has to pay them $1.92 million for downloading songs. That's more expensive than murder and six other crimes

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Part of the AP's plan is to charge for use of its articles if you quote 5 words or more. They signed a deal with iCopyright in April to accomplish this goal. iCopyright is a widget that handles not only print and email, but republishing as well.

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The use of DRM by Amazon shows why it is a bad idea.

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The Associated Press, reeling from the newspaper apocalypse, has a new plan to "wrap" and "protect" its content though a "digital permissions framework. But there's (way) less here than meets the eye.

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The author of this piece, Larry Magid, appears to have had a vastly better experience with existing eBook Readers than I have. That said, I think I agree with his main point - that better technology and less DRM will one day make digital libraries the norm.

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The RIAA have finally declared DRM dead for music, according to all-things-BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak.

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Amazing that in this age of technology, we cannot come up with some way to manage music, movies, and now e-books that makes the publishers/agents happy and the consumers happy. Seems like it's always one way or the other.

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For years the RIAA has defended the use of DRM, much to the dislike of millions of honest customers who actually paid for their music.

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If you're into keeping tabs on irony, check this out. Amazon apparently sent out its robotic droogs last night, deleting copies of the George Orwell novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from Kindles without explanation, then refunding the purchase price.

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The music industry would be in better shape now if it had engaged with Napster rather than fought it. So says Geoff Taylor, head of music industry body BPI, in a column written for the BBC.

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I love my Amazon Kindle. I love reading with it, I love how light it is, and I love the battery life. I also love the fact that it automatically syncs with the Amazon Kindle application on my iPhone and iPod touch.

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The recording industry has spent (and continues to spend) millions of dollars on its litigation campaign against accused file-swappers, but if two lawyers have their way, the RIAA will have to pay all the money back.

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Peer-to-peer developer Vuze has commissioned a study that finds BitTorrent users actually spend more money on movies than the general Internet population does—they just don't spend it online. Vuze's CEO blames high prices and DRM.

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A UK researcher has spent years interviewing people about whether DRM has affected their ability to use content in ways ordinarily protected by the law. Surprise! It has, even leading one sight-impaired woman to piracy.

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While EA may be backing off the practice of using invasive DRM in its games, piracy continues. The newest casualty? Sims 3 has leaked to the torrent sites two weeks before the game's release.

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[Michael] Robertson--the controversial founder of MP3.com, Linspire, and MP3tunes.com--has accused Lala, of attempting to transfer control of its users music to the recording labels.

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The ad-supported music download site Qtrax is ready to roll now that the first version of its software is available. Ars gave it a runthrough and found that the P2P-based music service sounds much better on paper than it does in real life.

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The same day iTunes raised popular songs' prices, both Amazon and Wal-Mart's digital stores also introduced "variable pricing." Amazon didn't seem to boost as many songs to $1.29, while Wal-Mart has the lowest bottom-end price.

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Radiohead, the band that made millions of dollars by giving away their music for free, has very little to complain about when it comes to piracy. On the contrary, in a landmark file-sharing case, Radiohead has responded positively to a request to testify against the RIAA.

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All you really need to know about the dangers of digital commodification you learned in kindergarten. Think back. Remember swapping your baloney sandwich for Jell-o pudding? Now, imagine handing over your sandwich and getting just a spoon.

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Criminals are always looking for new ways to steal your identity and take money from your bank account. Luckily, our free software could stop the fraudsters in their tracks.

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Left in dire straits by downloading, the music industry is in desperate need of retuning.

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"Amazon is agnostic when it comes to DRM with e-books," Amazon spokesman Cinthia Portugal told Wired.com. "We give content owners the choice — we just want to make the content available to readers."

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