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Jim Carruthers reported here last week that the music journalist Bill Wyman had received a cease and desist order from using the name “Bill Wyman” from the ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman. Now Bill Wyman is authorized to be Bill Wyman again: Former Bay Area music critic Bill Wyman is again …

This Friday, the 39th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, NPR’s All Things Considered airs a tape of discussions between the White House and officials in an airplane on their way to Japan: Using coded language, they go back and forth about what has — or has not — transpired that …

New service TVTonic offers “DVD quality” video over the Internet for $1.95 per month: But you can use TVTonic for two months at no cost. Just download and install the TVTonic software and start receiving video entertainment channels of the highest quality. You’ll have two months to decide if TVTonic …

Mobile entertainment moving swiftly: Zingy, a provider of ringtones and other mobile entertainment products, said it reached a distribution deal with Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT.O MSN service. Under the agreement, Zingy’s ringtones, screen logos, group graphics, voice messaging, voice greetings and other mobile entertainment products will be accessible through MSN, via …

I’ve been bitching about the Arab media a fair amount lately for various sins including functioning as a mouthpiece for terrorists and spreading bizarre disinformation about sex. In today’s WSJ, Jon Alterman voices his own concerns: new communication technology has changed the information environment in the Middle East, as it …

Queen Latifah busted for drunk driving in LA: Latifah was pulled over by police at 3:15 a.m. after she was spotted making an unsafe lane change on Los Angeles’ Hollywood Freeway in her 2002 Cadillac Escalade SUV. The CHP says the 32-year-old hip-hopster cooperated with police. She handed over a …

The Kernel of the Corn, Dave Hogberg, asked and ye responded. In a nutshell (heehee), Dave took on a local columnist, whom he fondly calls Ms. Crunchy Granola Pants: her most recent column is just too good to pass up. In this one, she talks about shopping for a “Relief …

This sounds like the tobacco companies, or maybe the baseball owners: united in their front until someone gets greedy or scared, in this case scared: Bertelsmann Music Group today will launch what the company calls a “fairer, more transparent” accounting system for royalty payments, a move that artist representatives say …

Oscar-winning actor, Australian pub-rock singer Russell Crowe canceled plans for a US Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts tour citing a “massive level of stress” – that and his head still hurts from his latest brawl: announced he has headed home to Australia to spend time with his ailing father and …

You can comment on the anti-circumvention language of the DMCA with the US Copyright Office until December 18. Declan McCullagh writes: When enacting the DMCA in 1998, Congress ordered the Copyright Office to conduct regular reviews of one portion of the law. The librarian of Congress, who oversees the Copyright …