After two days in the capable hands of Messrs. Friedman and Snell, you’re stuck with me again. Just in time to talk cloud licensing (the legal distinctions between stratus and cumulonimbus are really quite fascinating), Verizon’s tiered data plans (your choice of large, extra large, or patently ridiculous), and Apple’s latest trademark defense (what is this “App Store” of which you speak?). You’re in good hands with the remainders for Friday, May 20, 2011.
Apple Secures Music for ITunes Cloud Service (Bloomberg)
Three of the four major record labels have supposedly signed on to Apple’s rumored cloud music venture, the latest addition being Sony. Fortunately, Apple rode roughshod over the company’s insistence that Sony music only be streamed in ATRAC.
Verizon eyes family data plans (Reuters)
Verizon is preparing to follow up on earlier promises to deliver tiered data plans for its wireless service, but part of that equation may be family data plans. Under such plans, families could conceivably pay for a single pool of data to share among multiple users and multiple devices. Of course, they’ll probably require you to validate that you’re actually family—call it the DataGenePoolPlus plan.
Apple: An ‘App Store’ Is Not a Store for Apps (PCMag)
Apple hasn’t yet backed down on its attempt to trademark the term “App Store,” fighting off its impending generalization. In its latest legal defense, the company’s crack legal team writes “Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words ‘app store’ together denote a store for apps.” I mean, there are so many other things the words could refer to. Like a playground. Or a toaster strudel.
Apple, Facebook, Google appear at Senate privacy hearing (MacNN)
In an encore performance before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, Apple and Google reiterated their stances on mobile privacy, this time joined by Facebook. “Apple does not track users’ locations—Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so,” testified Catherine Novelli, Apple’s vice president of government affairs. Sure, whatever—that’s what Steve Jobs said about a video-playing iPod. And look at the oppressive video-playing iPod regime we find ourselves in today.