Yahoo! is the world’s largest email services provider and handles 200 million accounts, but it said on Monday that only “a very small fraction” had been infected.

The worm has been dubbed Yamanner and landed in Yahoo! mailboxes bearing the subject line “New Graphic Site”. Once opened, the message infects the computer and spreads to other users listed in Yahoo! users’ email address books, security companies said.

The email containing the virus need only be opened - in contrast to most worms that are hidden in attachments and require users to take an additional step - to release the virus, according to computer security company Symantec.

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Former head of the RIAA, Hillary Rosen, says she regrets the RIAA’s decision to sue individual downloaders, noting that it the policy simply ignores the reality of an evolving technological landscape.

She’s say that people regularly accuse her “…of suing college students and other “innocents” in my past role as Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America The lawsuits against individuals initiated by the RIAA was (were) started after I left.”

In a blog posting on “The Huffington Post,” she makes plain her opinion that the RIAA’s strategy is altogether wrong and irrational as it fails to address the root causes of the problem or even address the future of technology and media sharing that they have long watched pass by them from the sidelines.

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Peter Jamieson, chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, said consumers would only be penalised if they made duplicates of songs for other people.

Currently anyone transferring music to portable devices breaks copyright laws.

The music industry has traditionally turned a blind eye, however, in favour of targeting “professional” pirates.

“We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties,” said Mr Jamieson, whose organisation represents the UK’s record labels.

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We reckon this will appeal to anyone who’s trying to organise a wedding reception and is dreading the obligatory “yeah, well, the map you sent was bloody awful so we ended up driving the wrong way up the M1 for three hours” - a smart new initiative which allows you to mark a spot on Google maps, stick a pin in it with added text details and then email the link.

Yup, try Pin in the map, developed by Winchester-based software outfit Eden Development. Company supremo Chris Parsons explained: “Pin in the map was designed for the simple reason that we discovered we needed it. Before this, we were forever printing out maps to write on, and or marking the exact location on a map in a paint program.

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There have been a few stories about this, but it hasn’t been clear just how widespread this is. In the article, the claim is made that an astounding 93% of domain names registered last month were for such scams — though, it would be nice to see something to back that up. Either way, consider this the next evolution of the typosquatting obsession.

A recent study reveals the Web search engine terms that return the most malware-ridden sites, including:

• “Free screensavers”
• “Bearshare”
• “Screensavers”
• “Winmx”
• “Limewire”
• “Download Yahoo messenger”
• “Lime wire”
• “Free ringtones”

The study, which tested almost 1400 of the most popular search terms, also showed that the sponsored results for these keywords are also very likely to try to install adware and spyware. Call me naive, but shouldn’t there be some kind of screening process or something for the ads?

MTV, the television company that is credited with popularising music videos, is turning its attention to the online and digital download market. Its music service Urge will offer users 2 million songs from Wednesday that can be bought either separately for $0.99 (£0.53) or via a monthly subscription.

The service will be the featured music player on Microsoft’s Media Player. Urge will be compatible with more than 100 digital music players but not with the market leader, Apple’s iPod. ‘Well-recognised brand’ “We will concentrate on people who don’t have iPod’s,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music Group.

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Here’s a surprise. Russia’s AllofMP3.com is more popular than the disinterred Napster, says XTN, basing its finding on Alexa.com stats.
Actually, given Napster’s dismal performance, that’s not much of a compliment.
Moreover, Alexa.com data are far from representative and in the real world of online music, AllofMP3.com downloads probably easily exceed those of iTunes, usually cited by the lamescream media as the standard for the all-but non-existent corporate music industry online music business.

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Like millions around the world, you have an iPod, the market-leading digital music player made by Apple Computer Inc. and have spent perhaps a few hundred dollars buying songs from the company’s iTunes music store.

But do you really own the tunes? Whether you do, however, depends on how you define ownership.

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The US Patent and Trademark Office has published two patent applications today which offer some clue to the future shape of the iPod, and also Apple’s ambitions as a digital media distributor. As well as an intriguing glimpse of what a wireless iPod could do, it potentially sets Apple on a collision course with the major cellular phone networks.

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Warner Music Group reported on Friday soaring digital music sales, even as the company continues to lose money and faces numerous lawsuits related to alleged price fixing of music downloads.
In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Warner Music said the company has been named in 14 class-action lawsuits, most of which allege a “conspiracy among record companies to fix prices for downloads.”

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Warner Brothers is to start selling film downloads via the internet using the same technology once blamed for helping people swap illegal copies. The Hollywood studio has reached a deal with the web company Bit Torrent, which uses peer-to-peer technology to allow the quick distribution of large files.

Warner says users will be able to buy downloads of films and TV shows on the same day they become available on DVD.

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The NewTorrents forum has been hacked by “some bunch of script kiddies hidden under the name TeamElite,” posts Martin on the site’s home page
The TeamElite “retards” used a 0day exploit, he says, going on:
“The hacker, using nick Ninja, also logged in under my nickname and wrote some comments, I already deleted this crap and chaneged some passwords, but all threads are still gone - two years of discussion lost.

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Companies and organisations involved in digital music have come together to form a new standards body, the Digital Data Exchange (DDEX). All the big players have signed up for the new body.The likes of EMI Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and music rights societies from the US, UK and Spain represent the music industry, while Apple, Microsoft and RealNetworks represent the data services side of the equation when it comes to delivering digital music.

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ohn Thys still hasn’t figured out how much his company has paid Google Inc. for bogus sales referrals caused by “click fraud” — a sham aimed at a perceived weakness in the Internet search leader’s lucrative advertising network.But Thys says he has uncovered enough of it to conclude that Google is trying to shortchange his company and thousands of other advertisers by offering refunds totaling $60 million to settle a lawsuit.

“It’s almost like an insult that they expect us to take this token money,” said Thys, director of Internet marketing for Radiator.com.

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