| Major labels approve free music downloads
QTRAX, a new legal online file-sharing service that allows fans to download songs for free, announced this week that it will launch with 25 million to 30 million copyrighted tracks with backing from major labels. The free service will be funded through advertising revenue that Qtrax will share with the music companies. Qtrax executives said the company's digital rights management (DRM) technology will count the number of times each song has been played in order to fairly compensate artists and rights' holders, without restricting consumer use. The company has focused on ensuring that its network is free of spyware or adware such as pop-ups that are common on many peer-to-peer networks to improve the customer experience. .
White House Press Briefing on the Second Major Economies Meeting
Thank you, and good morning to everyone here in the United States, and I think perhaps good afternoon to those of you from across the Atlantic. This is a background briefing in preparation for the next -- on the record, just to give you some background in preparation for the next major economies meeting, which will take place next Wednesday and Thursday in Honolulu, Hawaii, with the technical meeting that will take place on Tuesday in Honolulu, Hawaii. We are continuing to work with other countries in developing the new post-2012 energy security and climate change arrangement. And again, as you know, we agreed in Bali that we want to try to complete that work by 2009. And to further remind you -- the President I think laid it out pretty simply in his speech in September -- that it's the work we do this year that makes reaching international agreement in 2009 possible.
Economic stimulus a big break for home buyers
You could get a big break on your mortgage from the economic stimulus package announced Thursday. Besides its core purpose of providing tax refunds, the tentative package - which still has several hurdles to clear - essentially rewrites the definition of "jumbo" loan, raising the cap from its current $417,000 to as high as $729,750 in high-cost areas for one year. That would mean home buyers who need the high-ticket mortgages this area requires could qualify for the benefits now limited to non-jumbo, or conforming, loans: an interest rate that's roughly a full percentage point lower. On a $650,000, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the savings could be $417 a month, according to California Sen. Barbara Boxer's office. "This is exactly what we need for California," said David Crane, Gov.
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