Elsewhere: Sony settlements aplenty

There are brief stirrings on the Sony Boycott blog, where I’ve posted pointers to settlements made this week by Sony BMG to the tune of about $6.75 million so far. A drop in the bucket, to be sure… and there’s still an FTC investigation pending.

Combine these settlements with the recent news that major labels like EMI are investing in MP3 distribution rather than DRM models, and there’s a little trend. With the benefit of a year’s hindsight, maybe the Sony BMG debacle actually marked a turning point in the music industry’s long war against its customers.

MBTA.com not considered harmful

I saw the series of posts last week on Universal Hub about the new MBTA site, but didn’t think too much about them at the time. It’s honestly been a long time since I’ve even ridden the T. But today I found myself needing to find a T station, and my usual standby (go to Yahoo! Maps, find your starting location, and do a Yellow Pages search for transit) just didn’t appeal. So I hit the MBTA’s web page, and lo and behold, absent the crush of people that apparently Slashdotted it on Friday, the Google Maps powered trip planner is actually useful. Who’da thunk it?