GOOD DAY FOR: Cubicle music, after Internet radio stations reached a deal with royalties collector SoundExchange, ending a 2 1/2-year legal battle that threatened to make Pandora and other online radio services prohibitively expensive to operate. Under the deal, which lasts until 2015, webcasters can pay musicians and record labels either discounted rates or a quarter of their revenue—a good deal for the many webcasters that don’t make much money. (Los Angeles Times)
BAD DAY FOR: Uncle Sam’s firewalls, after a massive cyber-attack beginning July 4, purportedly from North Korea, took down the websites of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service, and other U.S. government agencies, as well as South Korean government sites and some commercial sites, including WashingtonPost.com. The U.S. are refusing to discuss the attack, but South Korean officials blamed the “denial of service” attacks on hackers inside North Korea or Pyongyang sympathizers in South Korea. (AP in Google News)
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