In addition to offering songs from iTunes without DRM restrictions, Apple plans on selling songs to iPhone users “over the air”–that is, you can buy them directly from your handset, wherever you are. I’m told that Apple has struck deals with the major labels to start selling songs to iPhone 3G owners sometime this spring.
It took nearly a decade for the penny to drop. But the music labels finally acknowledge that their lawsuit strategy hasn’t stopped piracy. Now they’re asking the cable and telco companies for help. They may get it.
This may make it easier for Barack Obama to kick his well-publicized BlackBerry addiction: News that Verizon employees have been snooping through his phone records. The phone company says the handset in question is a “simple flip-phone,” and not a Berry, and that it has been inactive for several months. But the startling public admission should be enough to convince Obama, if he needed any more prompting, that he’s going to have to give up his prized gadget.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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