After years of clamor against the ever limiting Digital Rights Management (DRM), many record label companies has yielded to the popular demand of the online community. The latest casualty is Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

According to BusinessWeek, the company has decided to sell part of its collection without this copyright protection software, starting this first quarter. Perhaps the decision of other major companies such as Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group to go DRM-free is the strongest motivator for rather this sweet surrender.

But don’t get excited now. When Sony BMG declared it will share part of its collection, it is the non-selling, crappy part of its catalogue. The first batch of DRM-free audio files will come from those artists selling less than 100,000 units. This cunning yet clever lip service can lure many innocent online music buyers to believe that they can buy any song without this copyright protection.

Then again, let’s give Sony BMG a chance to prove its sincerity. After all, this DRM-free downloads is just a trial phase which will run for six months.

Oh, by the way, t-shirt here is available at Giant Robot Printing

via bit-tech

With many social networking sites considered as hot items in the investment world, there are also rumors that online address book service/social network site Plaxo is also up for grabs.

According to Reuters, the company is contemplating an unsolicited offer worth $200 million and has hired Revolution Partners to be its adviser. However, both firms are tight-lipped on this issue.

Is this a logical step? Analysts believe this is the best recourse for any mid-tier company like Plaxo if they want to survive in this very cutthroat playing field.

Who’s willing to acquire Plaxo? Osterman Research head Michael Osterman said Facebook and LinkedIn might be interested because it makes a lot of sense for a consumer-oriented social network to augment its service by adding a business-oriented social network.

Well, this is not the last of any social network acquisitions. Osterman predicts bigger social networks will acquire smaller social networks over the next 18 months as a way to expand their business.

Face it: Facebook is petrified of bloggers’ fury. Less than a day after the controversial news that Facebook banned Robert Scoble, he’s back once again perhaps more eager to run another automated script to test the mettle of this popular social networking site!

Ahhh, fame sucks (if you’re not famous that is). In his video, he denied (of course) using any Facebook data outside of Facebook.

Here’s the e-mail from Facebook he posted on his blog.

Hi Robert,

Facebook’s Terms of Use broadly prohibits the running of automated scripts on the site because they can be used to commit malicious attacks, send spam, and generally try to undermine the integrity of the site. When our systems detect these types of scripts, they immediately disable the account of the user responsible as a preventative measure. This is what happened in your case – your automated script was exhibiting the same behavior as other malicious scripts that we have blocked before so your account was disabled.

Our standard process for handling cases when an account is disabled for security violations is to allow a user to appeal and remedy the situation. This is the process we have followed here. Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, we have reactivated your account. You should now be able to log in with your normal email and password. In the future, please refrain from running these types of scripts again.

Thanks,

Jerry
User Operations
Facebook

photo via PRNewser

Not because you’re a famous Internet figure you can do anything. This is a hard lesson learned by tech geek bloggerRobert Scoble when Facebook disabled his account for violating its ToS.

In his blog, Scoble mentioned he was using a unidentified software (Update: Scoble identified the software as that of Plaxo) to transfer his social graph or contacts to other places. Afterwards, he received an e-mail from Facebook stating:

Our systems indicate that you’ve been highly active on Facebook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that we suspect you may be running an automated script. This kind of Activity would be a violation of our Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.

As a result, your account has been disabled. Please reply to this email with a description of your recent activity on Facebook. In addition, please confirm with us that in the future you will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from our website except as permitted by our Terms of Use, and that you will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information you may have previously obtained.

And just like any celebrity, expect Facebook to concede and activate Scoble’s account or else suffer the harsh backlash of the blogosphere.

via Mashable

I have this funny feeling that the Chinese government wants to be known as the world capital of Internet censorship. Soon after the Australian government announced its intention to filter online contents, China has taken another major step much to the dismay of privacy groups.

This time, the government wants to limit broadcasting of Internet videos to state-controlled companies. Will this be the end of video-sharing sites such as YouTube and popular Chinese site, Tudou.com? According to a news article, the fate of these companies is not yet clear. Both companies did not respond about this inquiry yet.

As usual, the objective is to fight malicious video contents, protect the reputation of China, and prevent anyone from broadcasting videos about the country’s national secrets.

The policy dictates that only state-owned and state-controlled companies can apply for government permits to broadcast and upload video contents. The permit is renewable every 3 years. The problem is that majority of Internet video providers operating in China are private companies.

What could be next? Ban the music lyrics?

Bilawal Bhutto, the 19-year old son of the assassinated freedom fighter Benazir Bhutto, has broken the silence with a public statement over the popular social networking site Facebook.

As the next co-head of Benazir’s political party, Bilawal is the new primary target of assassination. The Internet provides a safe and very effective way to air his side and reach out to his people.

Moreover, some observers believe the combination of new technology combined with direct communication to the public is the key success factor for this young Oxford University student to climb the political ladder of Pakistan.

The downside, however, is this strategy might alienate the people in the rural areas of Pakistan, one of the biggest supporters of the late Benazir Bhutto.

According to a news article, about 10 million out of 160 million youths in Pakistan are online. Then again, the Internet can only do so much. Bilawal has to face his enemies and socialize if he wants to win the respect and votes of his fellow countrymen.

Most people see the start of the year as the best time to make fearless predictions. That’s why writers and editors at BusinessWeek have played the modern-day Nostradamus once again to expose the 10 likely events in 2008.

From consolidation of airlines to NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to run for President in February, the online magazine cited 4 major events related to the online world.

Very notable is the depletion of financial resources and lack of acquisitions that will eventually lead to the so-called Web Crash 2.0. in 2008. This will definitely expand the DeadPool list of TechCrunch and perhaps lessen the coverage of KillerStartups.com.

Also, the online community might suffer Facebook Fatigue or waning interest on social network sites given the increase in privacy-intrusive advertising platforms.

On the bright side, digital music will continue to grow at the expense of CDs. Without a doubt, iTunes and Amazon will dominate the market once again. Moreover, the much-awaited Internet TV will become a reality this year.

Mark these predictions and see if these will hold true by the end of the year. Too bad BusinessWeek made these prophecies with zero money on the line.

Perhaps the Australian government has not learned from the experience of China and some countries in the Middle East – filtering Web sites leads to massive criticism.

According to a news article, the new government plans to filter the content from Internet service providers so it would be free from pornography, violence and other malicious contents.

However, the privacy groups fear this will lead to state censorship happening in China today. Moreover, they emphasized this effort is not only futile but out of the government’s jurisdiction.

Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke believes it is the responsibility of parents and guardians to protect children from such contents.

On the technical side, it can slow down the Internet service and can block pages that should not be blocked in the first place. Since most providers already offer free filters, they doubt the feasibility of this initiative to help solve these problems.

Content-sharing site Digg is plagued with controversies and denials these days. Despite its recent discussions with investment bank Allen & Co, Digg CEO Jay Adelson has insisted the company is not for sale anytime soon. Moreover, he turned down the speculations that the company will go public next year.

Adelson also downplayed its rumored acquisition plans for Spanish-language content-sharing site Menéame and another social voting platform coRank, saying they do not have “large cash pool to ‘go and make crazy acquisitions’ with.”

Well, this is not really a denial game for Adelson. He has revealed to BusinessWeek the general direction of Digg in 2008 – international expansion and more new features designed for better customization and personalization.

Some of these new features include alerts for new stories preferred by users, rating system similar to eBay’s, and “story suggest” function which recommends articles similar to what a user has recently read or rated.

There are rumors started by Financial Times that Apple and News Corp’s 20th Century Fox have reached an agreement to develop a unique online video-on-demand service promising to alter the conventional way of paying online film content.

Under the alleged agreement, online viewers can download Fox’s latest DVD releases via iTunes but for a limited time only. Apple is also rumored talking with other major studios such as Sony, Warner Brothers, and Paramount Pictures for this same distribution agreement. With the alleged rental price set at $2.99, this is significantly lower than the regular price ranging from $10 to $15 for owning a video.

While both parties opted to keep mum on this deal, I bet the major online movie rental companies such as Blockbuster and Netflix are now trembling with fear and cracking their brains in crafting strategies to preempt the imminent assault of Apple.

Via Mashable and The Web Services Report