• Pirate Bay sells out to Swedish software firm for $7.7m
  Awesome. On so many levels.

• Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer: Traditional media will not bounce back
  Really, Steve Ballmer media peron of the year? Was there a memo or zeitgeist or something we missed?

• AP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff
  We quote: “Monitor your profile page to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards: any such material should be deleted.”
• Amazon Warns Calif. Lawmakers on Sales Tax Bill
  Working in Amazon’s favor? The fact that California lawmakers are so screwed up, they can’t get anything done.

• FTC Targets Internet Affiliate Programs
  We believe is this part of the government stimulus package: monitoring and resolving these things will require A Lot Of Manpower!
• Under Misspelled Banner, Buchanan And White Nationalist Brimelow Argue For English-Only Initiatives
  Some days, the jokes are too easy.

Amazon has created the most painless ebook experience any consumer could possibly ask for. No other system makes the discovery, purchase, and transfer of ebooks so frictionless. As a result, Kindle has become the standard everyone else in the ebook business will have to match just to compete. So far no one comes close.

But Kindle has a dark side that is starting to emerge with startling regularity.

This past weekend Dan Cohen was surprised to find that he could not re-download some of his Kindle books. After several lengthy exchanges with Amazon customer support Cohen was informed that some (but not all) Kindle books have download limits. Or maybe it’s a limit on the number of devices they can be transferred to. Or it might be both…

To be honest, Amazon’s customer service department isn’t entirely sure of what limits are imposed on DRM protected Kindle books.

This isn’t the first complaint we’ve heard about Amazon’s Kindle policies. Not long ago a Kindle owner found that he’d lost access to his books after Amazon terminated his account. And a dispute with the Authors Guild has lead Amazon to allow publishers to disable text to speech capabilities AFTER consumers have purchased books.

Imagine buying a product with one set of capabilities then having that product downgraded after purchase. That scenario would never be tolerated with a physical product and it shouldn’t be considered acceptable simply because the product in question is digital.

In the past I’ve argued that Amazon has an obligation to fully disclose the DRM limitations of every Kindle title so that consumers can make an informed decision before they make a purchase. What the latest incident has revealed is that, in many cases, even Amazon doesn’t know what those limits are. Surprisingly, this seems to be by design.

Jeff Bezos says the Kindle is “DRM agnostic” and that it’s up to publishers to determine whether their books will be locked-down by DRM. While that may sound like an enlightened approach that gives publishers complete control over DRM, it’s a position that creates serious problems for both Amazon and Kindle owners.

By allowing each publishers to set its own DRM policy, Amazon has no idea what restrictions are in place for any given book, and no way of enforcing anything resembling a standardized DRM policy for the Kindle marketplace. The otherwise stellar Kindle user experience suffers as a result of these inconsistencies.

It’s obvious that Amazon has learned a lot from studying Apple’s iTunes strategy. The company has used this knowledge to build a product that offers a superior user experience. There’s one thing that Amazon apparently didn’t learn from Apple — the importance of maintaining a consistent and standardized DRM policy throughout your digital marketplace.

When Apple launched iTunes the company gave into record label demands and used DRM to protect downloads. What Apple didn’t do was allow each label to set its own DRM policy. Instead, Apple created a predefined DRM standard that was applied uniformly to every song sold through iTunes. Regardless of how you feel about DRM, the result was that consumers had a pretty good idea what they were getting when they downloaded a song from iTunes.

Imagine the chaos that would have ensued if Apple had allowed each record label to define its own DRM policy. Warner Brothers might decide that a song can only be transfered to two devices instead of five, and Sony might disable burn privileges. Then Steve Jobs would throw up his hands and say something like, “we have no control over DRM, we let the labels make those decisions.”

As absurd as that scenario seems, it’s exactly what Amazon is doing with the Kindle. And we’re just now starting to see the first signs of chaos as 1 million plus Kindle owners realize they have no clue what it is they’re buying.

It’s not hard to envision where this is heading. In the future, Kindle owners could find themselves with vast digital libraries, each ebook having a slightly different set of restrictions imposed on it. If nothing else, digital reading will be an adventure.

To prevent this from happening Amazon needs to take control of Kindle DRM and establish a standardized policy. Apple rightly acted as a mediator between the demands of copyright holders and the needs of consumers — Amazon should do the same.

Amazon needs to act quickly to address this issue. Once consumers stop thinking about how easy the Kindle is to use, and start thinking about DRM instead, the magic will be gone and it won’t ever return.

• ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings
  Because, well, paying for the ringtone isn’t enough!

• A Strategy for Authenticity
  Don Linn covers O’Reilly’s Twitter Boot Camp and comes away a bit depressed by all the talk of planned spontaneity.
• Why Doesn’t Anyone Want a Blu-ray Player?
  Amazingly, this article claims that HD-DVD ownership actually doubled over the past year, during a period of time when the format was being discontinued. Consumers undoubtedly took advantage of close-out deals to buy into a dead format. There are probably many lessons here.

Yesterday, on Twitter, of all places, it was revealed that artists such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2, and The Rolling Stones all have editions in the pipeline. Naturally, each version has its own idiosyncrasies, based upon the artist to which it is dedicated. Since a lot of you still aren’t on the Twitter, I thought that I would give you a sneak peek at what you can expect when you buy some of the upcoming special editions of Rock Band.

• Rock Band: Led Zeppelin will come with its own violin bow, lemon, and shark.
• Rock Band: Ramones will only have one song. Repeated 135 times.
• Rock Band: The White Stripes will deduct points if you hit more than one of the drum pads at any given time.
• If the first edition of Rock Band: Pink Floyd is a huge success, subsequent editions will have songs about how much you suck for making it a success, and how you don’t really play the game right.
• Rock Band: Prince will force you to play all of the instruments at the same time.
• Rock Band: The Grateful Dead will deduct points if you don’t play it for at least four hours in a single session.
• Rock Band: Bob Dylan will deduct points if you sing all of the words exactly as they come up onscreen.
• You will have to reprogram the colored buttons in order to play Rock Band: Sonic Youth.
• Rock Band: Bruce Springsteen won’t start a song until you’ve told a story for at least two minutes.
• Every time you play Rock Band: U2 absolutely perfectly, an indebted country becomes debt-free.
• Rock Band: The Hold Steady will only allow you to sign in as either “Charlemagne” or “Holly.”
• Rock Band: Oasis will deduct points if the singer smiles or looks at the television. It will add points if the guitar player is also the singer.
• Rock Band: The Rolling Stones will require that you play the same 20 songs for 30 years.
• As will Rock Band: The Who.
• Rock Band: The Red Hot Chili Peppers will only be available in California
• Sometimes Rock Band: Sly and the Family Stone will boot up, sometimes it won’t.
• Rock Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival will sue you if you actually play any of its songs.
• Rock Band: Fallout Boy will cry if you don’t play it perfectly.
• Rock Band: Neil Young has been delayed until 2029.
• Rock Band: Boston and Rock Band: The Violent Femmes will only be good the first time you play them.
• The first edition of Rock Band: Pearl Jam will be incredibly popular, but they will then put out later editions designed to make it less popular.
• Rock Band: Ryan Adams will never quite live up to its potential.
• Rock Band: Elvis Presley will be a hero to most, but it will never mean shit to me. It will be available for a short period of time, but after that, some people will swear they can find it on eBay. There will be many knock-offs.
• Rock Band: David Bowie will be a different game each time you play it.

(Hat tip to whichever AVCC person came up with this concept!)

• #IranElection And The Death Of News As We Knew It
  A look at how established news sources have failed to utilize speed and new media effectively during the Iranian election crisis.
• MySpace Slashes Staff by 30 Percent
  Start up culture? Does that mean long hours and stock options instead of a living wage?
• Iran’s Disputed Election
  Stunning. Inspiring. Humanizing.
• The Girls’ Guide to Comic Con 2009
  Really, Los Angeles Times?

• Times Editors Bomb in Daily Show Visit
  Hilarious. Sad. Not necessarily in that order.
• Rove: Dowd ‘twisted, deranged’
  Uh, pot? Kettle.
• Massive Layoffs Coming To MySpace – 25% Or More May Be Cut
  Ouch. We feel awful for the staff.
• Poor Betty! Archie will propose to Veronica
  Men.