In the past month, Winwood's label has seen a noticeable increase in record sales thanks to a promotion that included releasing a free song and video over file-trading services. The campaign was part of an experiment in whether peer-to-peer can be used to create buzz around an artist and drive up sales.

Winwood's independent record label, Wincraft Music, said sales of About Time have sold up to eight times the number of records in some regions since June 15 when an audio file of one track, Dear Mr. Fantasy, made its way on to peer-to-peer networks. At the same time, a video of Winwood performing the song live and another video of a rehearsal were distributed on Limewire, eDonkey and RazorPop. The album has also been promoted through television commercials.

The Recording Industry Association of America declined to comment.

The UK's mobile phone retailing industry kept up its appalling record of misleading the punters when Phones 4U got caught sending out a misleading text message. A customer received this text: - "Collect your free phone from phones 4 u next to wool worths [sic] you are due an upgrade its free!"

Naturally he bowled straight into the Liverpool store and naturally when the staff took a long, hard look at his individual circumstances, it was going to cost him £50.

He took his complaint straight to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) who upheld the complaint. They told Phones 4U to seek guidance in future from the CAP Copy Advice team.

A typical CAP training sessions? Q: "What am I holding in my right hand, then?" A: "A multipurpose agricultural implement?" "No, it's a spade."

Inventors usually try to come up with things that will change people's lives. But Robert Barrows is hoping to make an impact after their death. He is patenting video-equipped tombstones to let cemetery visitors watch messages from the dead.

Barrows, of Burlingame, California, has filed a patent application for a hollow headstone fitted with a flat LCD touch screen (US 2004/85337). It also houses a computer with a hard disc or microchip memory that allows the deceased to speak from the grave through a video message.

Barrows is not first to come up with an electronically enhanced tombstone. Scott Mindrum, president of Making Everlasting Memories in Cincinnati, Ohio - which hosts memorial tributes on the internet - has a patent on a gravestone that displays a collection of the deceased's photographs, alongside tributes from their friends.

Early in the week, anti-Moore Web site MooreWatch.com posted a link to a pirated version of the film available elsewhere on a file-sharing network, noting that the director himself has publicly backed downloading the movie online.

The result has been a torrent of criticism from Moore supporters and his distribution company, Lions Gate Entertainment. The site was even the target of a denial-of-service attack a few days ago. But MooreWatch co-founder Jim Kenefick, a Web programmer in Hamden, Conn., is taking it in stride.

"Moore has said on many cases that he doesn't care if people download his movies or steal his book or sneak into his movies," Kenefick said. "If I can use his own words against him to be a bee in his bonnet, then I will."

Like many early pirated releases, the copy was shot by a handheld camcorder, with poor-quality audio and shaking visuals, Kenefick said.

Funny. For the past few recession-impacted years, every time an article came out talking about how CD sales were down, they included an ominous quote from a recording industry official claiming that online downloads were destroying the industry and the American way was about to be wiped out by hoards of pirates. So, where are those people when (as the economy rebounds) sales actually begin picking up? As Ernest Miller notes, they don't seem to be "blaming" file sharing for their new found success. They don't seem to be saying much of anything, actually, even though file sharing continues at about the same pace it did a few years ago. Maybe, just maybe, there were other factors involved in the decline in album sales. However, with such an easy scapegoat, don't expect the industry to buy it.

Controversial film-maker Michael Moore has welcomed the appearance on the internet of pirated copies of his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and claimed he is happy for anybody to download it free of charge.

"I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that," he said.

"I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I'm happy this is happening."

Moore said: "Is it wrong for someone who's bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it's not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared."

Microsoft says a U.S. antitrust court victory last week has a lot to teach Europeans at a time when the software giant faces a major antitrust case here, but experts differ over whether the U.S. decision will make a difference.

The two courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington and the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, have different procedures, different precedents, interpret different laws and have different cases at issue.

In the United States, both Microsoft and the government applauded the Washington decision because both had been in the same corner, which had been challenged by the state of Massachusetts and two anti-Microsoft trade groups.

"This is a resounding victory for the Justice Department and American consumers," said the head of the antitrust division, Assistant Attorney General R. Hewitt Pate.

Both sites have left themselves open to online "vandalism" because of errors in their scripting codes, Richard Smith says on his site.

Mr Smith says Bush's site uses a third party company to track user habits on the campaign site through web bugs.

Although both sites have good privacy policies, an explanation of why the Bush site makes use of a third party to do this is not made very clear in the statement, claims Mr Smith.

"Both banner ad schemes allow the campaigns to track visitors to web pages where the banner ads appear," explains Mr Smith.

"In addition, the Bush JavaScript scheme allows the Bush web server to run any script code inside of other people's web pages.

"This scheme doesn't strike me as a very good idea from a security standpoint," he says.

Microsoft's top legal counsel said Thursday that the software giant needs further details from the European Union before it will be able to comply with an order to remove its Media Player from Windows.

Shortly before that deadline expired, Microsoft appealed to the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to suspend the commission's order until the case is completed. This could take years.

RealNetworks, which makes a rival media player, demonstrated at a closed hearing in the case a method for removing the Windows Media Player files. It said the method would not damage the Windows operating system.

The commission also ordered the removal of Media Player and the disclosure of information that would help level the playing field for rival makers of work group server software for printing documents in offices.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry is criticizing President Bush for featuring Nazi images in an ad on his official reelection campaign website, but the images in question come from an ad featured on the website of liberal advocacy group.

"The fact that George Bush thinks it's appropriate to use images of Adolf Hitler in his campaign raises serious questions about his fitness to spend another four years in the White House," said Singer in a statement.

"Using images of Hitler and terminology from the Nazi regime in campaign attacks is offensive and demeaning to the memory of the six million and others who died in the Holocaust," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the ADL, in a press release.

The words "God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them" are shown over top of a picture of Adolf Hitler while Hitler is heard speaking in German. The picture of Hitler disappears and is replaced by a picture of Bush, while the words "...and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did," are centered on the screen.