US record industry pressured to own up on wholesale track costs

The US record industry is resisting an attempt to force it to reveal the wholesale prices that it charges for digital music tracks. The Recording Industry Association of America has refused to comply with a judge's order that they pass the information to an attorney defending Marie Lindor, who it is suing for allegedly sharing copyright music files. According to Lindor's attorney, Ray Beckerman, the RIAA will only supply the data if he commits to keeping it confidential. ...more

News roundup... [10/06/2002]

Here, in brief, are some of the day's other stories. World Cup Web The World Cup has already proved its popularity, in terms of generating Web traffic. Newly crowned as the 'most successful sports event site ever', the official FIFA World Cup site has recorded a record number of page views (106 million) for 7 June, the day of England v Argentina. ...more

Free security tools released

PGP has released a set of basic tools for protecting files from unwanted editing, copying and distribution. PGP Freeware includes the same core PGP Mail software that can be found in the leading commercial PGP Personal, Desktop, and Enterprise packages. It allows you to encrypt files as well as the contents of the clipboard, and also provides the ability to create and manage PGP keys. ...more

Nokia licenses disputed BlackBerry patents

The long running dispute between RIM, the manufacturers of the BlackBerry handset and NTP could be entering its final phase. It has been announced that Nokia has licensed the disputed patents from NTP that will enable the company to sell its BlackBerry based 6820 handset in the US. The dispute is also likely to be ended sooner rather than later following reports that Thomas Campana has died from cancer. ...more

Scams on the increase

Don't be taken in by rising scams, warns the DTI Consumer Affairs Minister Melanie Johnson has warned consumers of the growing numbers of scams using text messaging, email and fax. Speaking at the launch of National Consumer Week, she said people should be wary of any offers that seem to good to be true, particularly if you have to dial a premium rate number to avail of the offer. One such mobile phone text message scam, dealt with by telephone regulator ICSTIS (Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services), told the recipient 'I Fancy You', and invited them to ring a premium rate number to find out who the sender was. ...more