EA launches music label

Electronic Arts has recognised that by playing the same track over an over during one of its games, the tune skewers its way into the mind of the hapless games player. To take advantage of this musical indoctrination, the company has now teamed up with the Nettwerk Music Group to offer music clips from best selling EA games as ringtones, mastertones or mp3 files. The label is EA Recordings and its content will be made available to music downloads services including Apple iTunes, MSN, Yahoo Music, AOL Music. ...more

Apple considers next steps against iPod shuffle look-alike

Apple's lawyers are said to be 'weighing their options' after a company refused to remove its iPod shuffle lookalike from its stall at the CeBit technology show in Germany. Luxpro temporarily took the portable music player from its stand on Friday only to bring it back out on Saturday, leading to what has been described as a heated exchange of words with a distraught Apple representative. Luxpro's Super Shuffle is a near identical copy of the iPod shuffle, although its feature set differs slightly, with an FM tuner, voice recorder and support for WMA rather than AAC files. ...more

Music majors explore new horizons

Having finally woken up to the potential of the Internet to get new musicians heard by a large number of people at little cost, the music majors are now using the medium to try and promote newer artists by offering fans an attractive new proposition - MP3 versions of albums with no DRM attached. First out of the gate is the new album from tweenie heart throb Jesse McCartney. Yahoo! Music is offering the album 'Right Where You Want Me' for download in either MP3 or WMA format for $9. ...more

Web rivals team up on security

Web browser developers have put aside their differences to discuss a joint strategy for tackling security risks such as phishing, ageing encryption ciphers and inconsistent SSL Certificate practice. George Staikos, core developer for the open source KDE, hosted the meeting attended by Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera representatives with the main objective of addressing the 'fundamental flaws in Internet architecture and browser technology' that allow phishing attacks to take place. 'Primarily this will involve making the information presented to the user easier to recognise and understand and finding a way to make a distinction for high-impact sites (banks, payment services, auction sites, etc) while retaining the accessibility of SSL and identity for smaller organisations,' he said. ...more

High Court absolves ISPs for libelous Web postings

The High Court has absolved three UK ISPs of any liability for potentially libelous Web postings made by their customers. John Bunt was attempting to sue three individuals and their service providers - AOL, BT and Tiscali - for postings on a Usenet message board. Bunt's lawyers based their case on the basis of the 2001 Godfrey v Demon Internet ruling that determined that Demon was liable for posts on its own news server, although the post has been made by an unknown person via another ISP. ...more