Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song—and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track—but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public. IDG News Service reports…

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is gearing up with another campaign designed to keep the online ad industry’s “self-policing” regime in place as Congressional scrutiny intensifies, USA Today reports. The proposed guidelines say that IAB members should give users the choice of “opting-out” of ad targeting programs that use cookies to…

The RIAA has won a nearly two-year-old copyright infringement suit against news-sharing and communication network Usenet.com; the verdict comes on the heels of a similar win against file-sharer Jammie Thomas (to the tune of $1.92 million). In 2007, the RIAA accused Usenet (a precursor to social networks like Facebook and…

If the stories of other file-sharing firms that sold out are any indication, Pirate Bay’s move to sell itself and go legit might not play out so well. Here’s what happened to some of its peer-to-peer predecessors that were put up for sale: Company: Scour Buyer: CenterSpan Sale Price: $9…

Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly…

Julius Genachowski started work as the head of the Federal Communications Commission this week and quickly named his key staff. Appointments include litigator and former prosecutor Ed Lazarus as chief of staff, and, from the digital side, Sherrese Smith, most recently VP and general counsel of Washington Post (NYSE: WPO)…

Swedish publicly listed software company Global Gaming Factory X says it wants to buy The Pirate Bay SEK60 million ($7.8 million) and will begin compensating copyright ownersfor material its users find and download. GGF announced today said it will also buy P2P technology company Peerialism and plans “to launch new…

Some more reaction and analysis of Cablevision’s remote DVR win, which we wrote about earlier today: —a statement from Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) COO Tom Rutledge: “We are mindful of the potential implications for ad skipping and the concerns this has raised in the programming community. We believe there are ways…

The media companies got one on the chin, sort of: The U.S. Supreme court has rejected an appeal by the Hollywood studios and TV networks to block Cablevision’s use of remote network-DVR technology, which means the cable company and others may soon be launching it later this year. The media…

Almost lost in the news overload: the U.S. Senate confirmed President Obama’s choice of Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission, finally moving with speed after several delays since the March nomination. The confirmations of Genachowski and Republican Robert McDowell, nominated for his first full term, were unanimous consent…

Another twist in the Spot Runner saga, as the once white-hot company, already being sued by WPP for $13 million for securities fraud and breach of contract, faces more legal trouble—this time in the form of an arbitration ruling nearly two years in the making. An arbitration panel has awarded…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) executives will answer charges of criminal defamation in a Milan court on Tuesday, stemming from a three-minute Google Video of a boy being bullied for having Down Syndrome. The four execs are chief legal officer David Drummond, privacy chief Peter Fleischer (pictured), former CFO George Reyes (now…

Julius Genachowski is closer to heading the Federal Communications Commission following approval Wednesday by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. Robert McDowell, currently the lone Republican FCC commissioner, also was approved for a second term. Both nominations now go to the full Senate for a vote; no sense of timing yet.…

New legislation on behavioral-ad targeting is starting to look more and more likely for later this year—at least that was the strong suggestion during opening statements at this morning’s congressional hearings. Members of the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet for the most part said they…

Another day, another major label legal challenge… Elio Leoni-Sceti’s EMI has filed a lawsuit against Florida-based music streaming site Grooveshark, as AllThingsD reports. The site currently offers tracks from all four majors and has escaped the attention of their lawyers, until the suit was filed in New York in May.…

The long-delayed digital translation finally is here—but the Obama Federal Communications Commission isn’t. Team Obama pushed to have the analog-to-digital switch moved to June 12—as in this Friday—to avoid as many last-minute glitches as possible, but it hasn’t been able to get its FCC nominees confirmed, starting with Julius Genachowski…

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has been ramping up its lobbying effort to get Congress and regulators to let the ad industry police itself with behavioral targeting. Now it’s trying pound home its message with some numbers. The IAB claims in a new study that it commissioned that online spending in…

A union pension fund manager has emerged as the first public suitor for the Boston Globe. Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. confirmed its interest to the Boston Herald, saying the Globe fits its investment profile and that is has been pursuing a purchase for about 10 weeks. The company, which…

The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has hired Goldman Sachs to manage a possible sale of the Boston Globe, according to the paper. The investment bank already reps the company in its efforts to sell its 17.75 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, LLC, the company that owns…