RIAA loses mistrial appeal

A federal judge has denied the Recording Industry Association of America's request for an appeal of an earlier decision to grant a retrial in its copyright infringement case against Jammie Thomas.

Earlier this year a jury found that the Minnesota woman had violated copyright laws by illegally sharing more than 1,700 songs. The jury ordered the woman, Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay US$220,000 to six of the top music labels.

But a few weeks after the verdict was handed down, US District Judge Michael Davis threw out the verdict on the grounds that he originally misguided the jury by indicating that simply the act of making a copyrighted song available for sharing amounts to infringement. A new trial has been rescheduled for March.

In an attempt to avoid another trial, the RIAA appealed the judge's decision to declare a mistrial. But now it looks like the RIAA's latest attempt to gain a conviction for copyright infringement has been thwarted.

This case has been closely watched because Thomas is the only individual charged with copyright infringement by the RIAA who has taken her case to trial. Since 2003, many of the 26,000 persons sued by the industry association have simply settled the cases out of court by agreeing to pay a few thousand dollars. But Thomas, who has been accused of sharing music via a peer-to-peer service, Kazaa, has always maintained her innocence.
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"I Love Katamari" for the iPhone and iPod touch

I Love Katamari for the iPhone and iPod touch was released recently, and iPhone/iPod touch owners everywhere rejoiced. OK, only Katamari Damacy fans would rejoice, but c'mon, who isn't a fan of a game where you can roll up pretty much anything and everything into a giant ball?

When I heard the news, I immediately went to the App Store and plunked down US$7.99 of my own money for the game. I absolutely loved playing Katamari Damacy as well as its sequel, We Love Katamari on the PlayStation 2, and looked forward to see how the iPhone/iPod touch version would fare.
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Job posting reveals Zune-Xbox integration

Zune speculation is an armchair sport here in the tech sector of the Pacific Northwest (especially when we're all housebound because of a few inches of snow), and today Todd Bishop at TechFlash posted some interesting excerpts from the Zune team's job listings. Based on his post, it looks like the Zune Marketplace will begin to use the back-end from Musiwave, the European provider of music for mobile phones that Microsoft acquired a little more than a year ago--and if that doesn't point to a Zune service for mobile phones, nothing does--and will continue to feature DRM (couched in ever-so-reassuring phrases like "to let consumers enjoy music in new and interesting ways").
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Monster Beats Dr. Dre Tour In-Ear Headphones scream style

Fashion-forward designs have recently been making quite a bit of headway in the headphone space. It doesn't take much effort to find a pair that matches your MP3 player or can be coordinated by outfit, although manufacturers with true eye for design take things a step further. Take Monster Cable's Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones, a super stylish set of cans announced at CES 2008. The company is now adding to the fashionable line with the Tour In-Ear Headphones, an ultraportable set that sports the signature red and black coloring. This US$150 pair once again proves that hip hop-branded headphones won't necessarily offer an overwhelming low-end response, and also leads us to believe Dr. Dre may have the deepest ear canals known to man.

Cowon S9: Available from Friday in the UK

The most hyped Cowon media player for some time--the S9--is passing UK customs as we speak, and will finally be in stock this Friday. Advanced MP3 Players will be carrying the first units, and hope to be able to deliver S9s to homes across the country on Monday or Tuesday next week.

For those of you who need your neurons and synapses massaging, the S9 is the curvy new music and video player from Cowon. If you've not heard of Cowon, you're missing out on some of the best-sounding audio players on the market.

The S9 will come in 8GB and 16GB capacities, costing US$262 and US$308 respectively. It's got a 84mm (3.3-inch) touch-sensitive AMOLED screen, support for MP3, WAV, WMV, FLAC, OGG and APE audio files, WMV video files (plus others to be confirmed), stereo Bluetooth and 55 hours of claimed battery life.
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