Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com Issue Cease and Desist to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Real Networks  —  SANTA CRUZ, Calif., May 10 /PRNewswire/ — The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998 to disseminate and protect the arts in the digital age.

Paul Miller / Engadget:
Apple and friends hit with C&D for "actively avoiding" use of DRM tech

Forbes:
Apple, Microsoft threatened with possible digital copyright lawsuit

YouTube's New Inline Ads: Screenshots  —  YouTube is experimenting with inline ads, showing a text ad at the bottom of its player as a video is playing.  If a user clicks on the text, a video ad expands and appears layered on top of the player.  The ads are also clickable from a static post-roll.

Google Searches for Mergers Big and Small  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google Inc. has become more comfortable doing big acquisitions but still sees small technology deals as its primary thrust for buying businesses, its chief executive said on Thursday.  —  Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters …

Reuters:
Google focus on software, not just search/ads-CEO

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Gets A Tag Line: "Search, Ads & Apps"

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Mac utilities  —  It's not always the full-blown software applications that make the biggest difference on your computer; often it's the small do-one-thing-well utilities that enhance our computing experience that much more.  —  Today's top 10 covers the system utilities …

The Streisand Effect  —  A Web user and his information are like a grizzly and her cub.  Come between them, and you're likely to get mauled.  —  That's what a group of heavyweight tech and entertainment companies learned last week when they tried to keep the lid on the code that could help break the electronic locks on HD-DVDs.

The New Journalism?  —  I got this comment last night on my 15 million post from Kevin Farnham: … There's more to the comment, so click thru on the link to the post above to read the whole thing.  Kevin makes an interesting distinction.  Blogs are journalism.  Twitter and MySpace are not.

Apple iPhone: more secrets revealed  —  Considering third-party software; smaller iPhone on the way  —  It looks like Apple may open up the iPhone to third-party apps after all.  The news came at an Apple shareholders' meeting held in Cupertino, California yesterday.

GROKKING A NEW APPROACH TO SEARCH ADVERTISING EXPERIENCE: SEA DRAGON AND MORE  —  Gary Flake (I posted on my meeting with him earlier this week here) has sent me files from his demo at SAS.  I missed that demo, but you can get the picture, literally, by checking out these images.

TechCrunch20 Agenda  —  I'm working on the program for the TechCrunch20 conference I'm co-hosting with Mike Arrington in September and I wanted to get a little feedback from you guys.  —  Oh yeah, we also announced three more experts for our really amazing (if I do so say myself!) panel of judges.

What's Online: Online Ads vs. Privacy  —  FOR advertisers, and in many ways for consumers, online advertising is a blessing.  Customized messages rescue advertisers from the broad reach of traditional media.  And consumers can learn about products and services that appeal directly to them.

Congress Stares Down YouTube, HDNet  —  Members of Congress on Thursday tangled with leading video providers over how to preserve the open architecture of the Internet while improving its quality and protecting intellectual property rights.  —  Representatives from YouTube, Sling Media …

David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Online Video No Threat To TV, YouTube Tells Congress; Cuban …