Richie Ramone, one of the drummers for The Ramones, lost his fight to get paid for 6 songs he wrote because a judge said that digital files are not “manufactured or sold” but are instead transmitted and licensed.

Wha? So when I pay someone (e.g., Apple) to “buy” a song, and I download the song and do whatever I want with it (listen to it, share it, give it someone as a gift, etc.), I did not “buy” it? Apple did not “sell” the digital file to me? Sure, music from iTunes and other online music retailers has restrictions, but they are easy to circumvent and hardly change the fact that the digital file is “sold” in an online music transaction. Except, apparently, according to this judge, that’s not true.

See why I don’t practice copyright law?

You know you’re living in a wonderful world when you can just open a web browser and read a chronology of the events in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. (And here I must point out that the old paperback book cover is, um, infinitely superior to the new cheap imitations.) I found this out by reading this review of Evernote, a new online “brain extender” that “allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime, from anywhere.” Now who wouldn’t like that? Of course, I can see the person who drops everything into evernote and just forgets it, then ends up somewhere w/out internet access and is just useless to himself and the world. That could be a problem. AT&T, please when will you allow me to have an iPhone here?

Steve Jobs put on his show yesterday and it was pretty cool. I admit, I watched the streamed version b/c what else is a Mac junky to do? The Macbook Air is freaking sweet—exactly what a laptop should be. Cool trick to introduce it in a standard manilla envelope. The multitouch trackpad looks fun, too. Imagine having this in your bag everywhere you go. Sweet. Two things it still needs: Ubiquitous wi-fi (e.g., built-in wireless broadband like the iPhone has) and half the price. Maybe in a year or two.

The new Apple TV, Take 2, is also neat. At $229, it comes close to being affordable, and since we’re never going to have any new televisual content again because of the greed of the studios and their refusal to actually pay their writers what they deserve, none of us are going to need to pay for cable tv anymore and we can just get out content off the internet through Apple TV. Cool.

Randy Newman got all political at the end. I bet Steve was cringing.

Congratulations and best wishes to Andre Agassi now that he’s ended his pro tennis career. I’ve always been a pretty abstract and detached tennis fan — I don’t play and rarely watch, although I’m usually sort of mesmerized when I do watch — but I sort of grew up w/Agassi as the main force in men’s tennis so it does seem like the end of an era for him to retire. For a little look back the ATP offers a tribute to Agassi, including some good photos, and Wikipedia does its usual job of covering most of the bases.

If you’re not really that into tennis, try reading something about the game by David Foster Wallace. For example, he recently wrote a sort of “tribute” to Roger Federer for the NY Times that just might make you think of tennis as the most incredible and beautiful sport you’ve ever seen. (Thanks to TDQ for the link.) [tags]tennis, agassi, federer, sports, david foster wallace[/tags]