Music labels face anti-trust hearings

Apple and the major music labels are scheduled to attend a closed-door meeting with the European Commission over iTunes price concerns, says PC World.

The commission has set the date for anti-trust hearings into unfair pricing practices for online music sales through iTunes for 19 and 20 September.

In April, the commission accused Apple, EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony BMG of engaging in unfair pricing for online sales.

The US justice department said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge extra for priority Web traffic, reports Washington Post.

The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to network neutrality, the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

Several phone and cable companies, including AT&T, Verizon Communications and Comcast, want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than other content. Supporters of neutrality laws, including Google and Yahoo, argue that network operators should treat all Web services equally.

Federal agents and prosecutors have warned millions of people who use peer-to-peer software for downloading music or video files that they are effectively handing criminals the keys to their computers, reports Seattle PI.

The warning came after the arrest of a Seattle man on Wednesday on charges that he trolled through the vast peer-to-peer networks, downloading peoples' tax returns, student aid applications and credit card numbers instead of music.

The feds accuse Gregory Kopiloff, 35, of using the information to steal people's identities, then buying tens of thousands of dollars' worth of laptops, iPods and cellphones that he sold for "50 cents on the dollar".

Adobe Systems plans to release an upgrade of its Flash Media Server in the first quarter, the company said yesterday, reports News.com.

Flash Media Server 3, which streams multimedia content, such as videos, will be faster and make it harder to copy streaming media.

The media server will allow content producers to stream live video to Adobe Flash Lite 3, the version of the Flash for handheld devices that the company expects to be available by year's end.