Apple's DRM heading to court

The iPod is great, but what if you don't want to use iTunes to sync your music to it? For a while, you could consult a website called BluWiki, which offered crowdsourced advice on how to use other software to load your device. But then Apple leaned on BluWiki, and the forum was closed.

The computer comnpany suggested that, should BluWiki have continued to share the advice, it could be considered to be inviting people to "circumvent the DRM". God forbid that if you pay a couple of a hundred quid for a music player, you be able to decide how to use it.

Now, though, the lawsuits are flowing in the opposite direction, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation co-sponsor a claim that Apple are stifling free speech:

According to the EFF, Apple alleged this type of discussion constituted copyright infringement, as it strongly guards iTunes' status as an exclusive content delivery and management tool for all iPod and iPhone hardware.

Fred von Lohmann, EFF senior staff lawyer, argued: "It's legal to engage in reverse engineering in order to create a competing product, it's legal to talk about reverse engineering, and it's legal for a public wiki to host these discussions."

Free speech versus DRM. Which is better? There's only one way to find out...

Don Henley wants his songs back

The 2010 Senate election is now heating up in America, with Republican senate hopeful Charles DeVore getting the first major lawsuit of the campaign, as Don Henley sues him for using two songs on a YouTube video:

Mike Campbell, Henley's producer, is also named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

"Don Henley and Mike Campbell brought this action to protect their song, 'The Boys of Summer,' which was taken and used without their permission," Henley's spokesman said. "The infringers have vowed to continue exploiting this and other copyrighted works, as it suits them, to further their own ambitions and agenda. It was necessary to file a lawsuit to stop them."

I'll bet DeVore is cursing the party who danced attendance on music industry guys, tightening up copyright law to the point where even parents posting videos of dancing babies get take down notices, right?

"We're responding with a counter-claim, asserting our First Amendment right to political free speech," the site said. "While the legal issues play out, it's time to up the ante on Mr. Henley's liberal goon tactics. By popular request, I have penned the words to our new parody song."

Oh, yes - it's not just slapping The Boys Of Summer on the top of some videos, Grove is also enjoying himself writing skits based on his opponent's alleged desire to tax.

To be fair to Grove, his sixth-form parodies are probably better protected by US law than simply claiming using a song as a video soundtrack is "political free speech". After all, if that's a defence, couldn't all peer-to-peer users claim they were making a political statement?

I'm curious to know when "using copyright law to request an unauthorised file be removed" moved from being a vital bulwark in protecting the creative industries into "liberal goon tactics".