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A number of new music gadgets, accessories and technologies were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Association’s Annual Show last week.

Carly Fiorina announced that HP will offer an “HP” iPod Photo, as well as a couple of new home media center boxes.

HP is also partnering with Nokia to provide a service called “visual radio” which will broadcast music to phones using GPRS and regular old FM. The service will provide artist information as well as embedded e-commerce (e.g. ringtones, concert tickets).

Verizon kicks out the mobile jams with it’s rollout of a fat 3G wireless multimedia network and services, called Vcast. According to Engadget—

The service will cost $15 per month for unlimited access to basic video clips and WAP content. Premium content like music downloads, 3D games, NBA, NASCAR and probably some exclusive video content will cost extra. All of the video content is produced specifically for the small screen, so it’s not shmooshed TV clips but actual phone-centric video, and it looks sharp. Verizon won’t just get exclusively formatted content, they’ll also get exclusively produced content. Fox will create 3 new series specifically for the VCAST service, Love and Hate, 24 Conspiracy and Sunset Hotel. MTV and other broadcasters will also provide programs.

The Verizon release is here.

iPodlounge has an excellent roundup of iPod-related accessories, which seems to have become an industry unto itself.

Samsung announced a not-shipping-yet MPEG4 portable.

Alpine announced an impressive lineup of auto-centered satellite radio and mobile multimedia devices and accessories.

Creative takes a shot across the bow of the iPod Mini. More at Engadget.

Satellite radio is blowing up, with portable announcements from both XM and Sirius. Both companies also announced upcoming video services. (XM, Sirius)

Bill Gates, in a glitch-ridden demo, previewed a bunch of crappy Windows stuff backed by lame marketing slogans like “PlaysForSure”. He also referred to those advocating copyright and intellectual property reform as “Communists”. The response from the Creative Commons blog.

_via Copyfight, another chilling example of the “corporates'” view of fair use and it’s incremental efforts to completely abolish it. HBO plans to implement some sort of DRM scheme next year that will cause certain DVR’d shows (Six Feet Under is noted) to “expire” after a set period to be determined. An HBO executive calls it “transitional fair use“. With recently increased restrictions implemented by Tivo, the noose continues to tighten around fair use and time-shifting rights. Additional Copyfight post and commentary here.

Excellent interview with Jeff Jarvis, touching on just about every “hot” issue in new media. For example—

One tangible result of this is nichefication of media. Some would say that’s a bad thing; they wail about the death of great shared experience of American media. But the truth is that the shared experience lived only from the ’50s to the ’90s as the growth of three networks resulted in the death of competitive newspaper towns and we lived in a world of one-size-fits-all media. That is over. Now you can find the content that suits your needs. And that’s good. That’s about control…

on the FCC—

EM: What role should the FCC and other regulators play in this new media environment? What should our legal/regulatory structure for broadcasters and existing media look like? If it should be changed, how does this change come about?

JJ: The FCC should get the F out of the way.

In First Amendment terms, it is outmoded and offensive to think that broadcast speech should be excluded from constitutional protections of free speech. It is offensive in this country for the government to decree what can and can’t be said by citizens.

Which is especially important given the recent FCC powergrab noted by Susan Crawford—

The FCC’s brief, filed in response to PK’s challenge to FCC’s jurisdiction in the flag matter, is breathtaking. FCC’s position is that its Act gives it regulatory power over all instrumentalities, facilities, and apparatus “associated with the overall circuit of messages sent and received” via all interstate radio and wire communication. That’s quite a claim.

FCC believes that it has simply been restraining itself up until now. Since 1934 (or 1927, depending on how you count), FCC has had power over all equipment used in connection with radio and wire transmissions. When the need arises, it can exercise its authority — including its authority over PCs, PVRs, and any new gizmo that has something to do with a communication of some sort.

For more on the subject(s) of “citizen media”, check out We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People By Dan Gillmor, which you can download for free.

Donna Wentworth at Copyfight called it back in September:

Here’s a worst-case scenario: We have a House copyright bill (PDEA) and a Senate copyright bill (Induce). November rolls around, and ’tis the season for appropriations. Someone takes out the scissors and tape, and PDEA and Induce become PDEA+Induce. There’s an appropriations bill that looks a little lonely. Suppose we staple PDEA+Induce to the bottom? That way, it’ll be sure to sneak by — because you can’t hold back government.

Guess what? Senate May Ram Copyright Bill. Like clockwork.

Several lobbying camps from different industries and ideologies are joining forces to fight an overhaul of copyright law, which they say would radically shift in favor of Hollywood and the record companies and which Congress might try to push through during a lame-duck session that begins this week.

The Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players and other products criminally liable for copyright infringement. The bill would also undo centuries of “fair use” — the principle that gives Americans the right to use small samples of the works of others without having to ask permission or pay.

…from Wired:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed a final review of the Induce Act after negotiations among the principal parties involved in crafting the bill collapsed.

Technology organizations, consumer groups and the entertainment industry failed to reach a consensus on the language of the proposed bill, which would make it illegal to encourage copyright infringement.

In light of Senate passage of the “Pirate Act“, authorizing civil copyright enforcement by the Justice Dept.—the content industry gets Justice to do it’s work for them—and the House’s passing of H.R. 4077: The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act (PDEA), it’s time to oppose the onslaught of current legislation aimed at keeping the future of music under the lock and key of the corporate content industries.

Let’s start with the Induce Act—”The IICA (“Induce Act”) is one of the most dangerously misguided and malicious pieces of technology legislation to rear its ugly head in the last decade.”

According to Ernest Miller, today’s scheduled markup of S.2560 (The Induce Act) in the Senate Judiciary committee isn’t happening. Instead,

the (Sen.) Hatch staff has invited a bunch of people, most of them content people, to a massive negotiation session at 1 p.m. in Dirksen 226. This is not a public meeting, but could be staked out. MPAA, RIAA, BSA, AOL-Time Warner were invited.

CopyFight has the worst case scenario

We have a House copyright bill (PDEA) and a Senate copyright bill (Induce). November rolls around, and ’tis the season for appropriations. Someone takes out the scissors and tape, and PDEA and Induce become PDEA+Induce. There’s an appropriations bill that looks a little lonely. Suppose we staple PDEA+Induce to the bottom? That way, it’ll be sure to sneak by—because you can’t hold back government.

This is what could happen if the Induce Act becomes law.

Check out The Induce Act Blog and Miller’s Hatch’s Hit List for more information and analysis of the ramifications of this legislation. Be sure to check out IPac, the new geek/technology political action committee, as well. IPac’s mission:

IPac is a nonpartisan group dedicated to preserving individual freedom through balanced intellectual property policy.

We believe that technological innovation and individual creativity are vital to the future of this country. We believe that a prosperous and democratic society depends on freedom for all individuals to pursue scientific invention and artistic expression. Unfortunately, new intellectual property laws threaten to stifle these freedoms and restrict public participation in science, art, and political discourse.

NPR’s Morning Edition is running a 3-parter called Paying for Music in the Internet Age, where they spotlight a number of ways artists are changing their business models. Part one covers Patronage, part 2 covers micropayments and part 3, Friday, covers attempts at taxing ISPs, similar to the royalty payments on blank media.

A group of peeps from various backgrounds get together to produce an ad-hoc, distributed audio book of Larry Lessig’s Free Culture (PDF downloadable here). Additional post and comments on the project here—including the idea of aggregating everyone’s work using RSS.

This is where the light bulb goes off.

Since the main purpose of record labels is aggregation, could the “functionality” of record labels be replaced with RSS? Artists could distribute compilations, “albums”, EPs, remixes, playlists, etc…using RSS 2.0 with enclosures. Some discussion on RSS 2.0 at Joi Ito’s blog. See also Dave Winer’s Payloads For RSS.

For an example, see Christopher Lydon’s blog, where he aggregates an impressive list of interviews for syndication using a RSS2.0 feed.

While noting BMI’s record breaking fiscal year, ArsTechnica asks:

…why is civil law being revised when the industry is seeing all time highs? Why is there an open and vicious attack on Fair Use when record companies are making more than ever?

Why do they want to spare themselves the cost of civil lawsuits against infringers by goading the Department of Justice to bring civil cases themselves? Why is it that relatively no one is discussing how the RIAA bends its statistics to wrangle for more and more support for their business model? Why is it that the RIAA wants legal rights and powers that are not even available to law enforcement? Fair Use.

Rafat Ali, founder of PaidContent.org, Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt, Jason Schultz, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Derek Slater of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School discuss the online music store marketplace on Ernest Miller’s radio show (mp3).