Build It Great And They'll Interoperate

Jon Healey's stories for the Los Angeles Times are always interesting, and today's is no exception: Music Industry Taking Cues From File Sharing. Among the developments chronicled there, Healey previews RealNetworks' new strategy (due out tomorrow) of making its files compatible with other player platforms.

In the meantime, RealNetworks Inc. is trying to chip away at another advantage of the pirate networks by making it easier to play legally downloaded songs on any device the consumer chooses, provided it uses anti-piracy technology from Real, Apple Computer Inc. or Microsoft Corp.

On Tuesday, the Seattle company is expected to unveil software that can transfer songs bought from Real's store to any MP3 player or other gadget. Other stores support only one kind of anti-piracy technology; for example, Apple's iTunes Music Store works only with Apple's iPods.

Real's 'Harmony' technology will give people who buy music the same flexibility as those who download it illegally, said Richard Wolpert, Real's chief strategy officer.

This means Real's tunes will be playable on your iPod (and tacitly acknowledges that if they weren't, you'd have precious little reason to buy them). PCWorld has more, including speculation about how Apple will take this, and Slashdot gets right to the point: Real Networks Hacks iPod...

Paperless Tail — Er, Trail

I'm still reading through the Virtual Roundtable on electronic discovery in which I participated for the ABA's Law Practice Today: A Gold Mine of Electronic Discovery Expertise: A Conversation Among Veterans of Electronic Discovery Battles. It's lengthy and there's quite a bit of good information there. Editor/moderator Dennis Kennedy asked six questions to a cross-section of electronic discovery buffs. My favorite section so far is the one with anecdotes and war stories, which includes this from Craig Ball: "Most of my stories involve the astounding stuff I find on workplace hard drives, but I can't share them, except to wonder, 'Does anyone work anymore, or is the entire business day spent watching porn and surfing the 'Net?'"

Clean And Green

Technorati has a nice new look and the politics section is live. Dave Sifry has more.

Link Lovable

Dave Winer has helped create this amazing site, Convention Bloggers, aggregating the posts of those blogging the Democratic National Convention, credentialed bloggers and delegates alike. There's also an official Convention Blog. (Speaking of link love, the Convention site and blog need to be linking to the Convention Bloggers aggregator, pronto, don't you think?) And let's not forget politics.technorati.com. All that's left to do, apparently, is organize a drop-off site for all those unneeded televisions, because the killer coverage of the DNC is going to be on the Web.

INDUCE Blog

Bad proposed legislation, good new blog. Not to be confused with INDUCE vomiting. (Remember, it's not actually "the Horrible Orrin Hatch," no matter how much your lazy vision and political views may try to persuade you otherwise.)