Music retailer Tower Records is preparing to take the shrink-wrap off its digital download store on Tuesday, when Tower.com/Digital goes live with a comprehensive service powered by Puretracks. Tower will market the digital alternative across all media in tandem with the chain’s retail business, which comprises 89 stores in the United States. Initially the store will offer a catalog of …

France has given the thumbs-up to the defanged version of a controversial law that would have forced Apple Computer to open up its iTunes digital rights management to players other than its iPod. The Dadvsi law, which originally included provisions to allow people to crack DRM protections and oblige Apple to interoperate with its rivals’ music download services and vice …

Early in 2005, more than a dozen Sony employees from the company’s consumer electronics divisions gathered for an unusual meeting in the tiny Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters of digital media start-up Kinoma. Kinoma Chief Executive Peter Hoddie, an Apple Computer alumnus, had been put in charge of high-profile Sony software development, including the Connect digital music project. For a company …