Universal Music Group and Microsoft are among the companies heading up a new advocacy group that is seeking to make it easier for consumers to share and distribute digital content. The formation of the group, the Content Reference Forum (CRF), was announced yesterday. Other members include cell-phone giant NTT ARM, ContentGuard, Macrovision and VeriSign.

Beyonce and R. Kelly were the queen and king of the 14th annual Billboard Music Awards, which were presented last night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and broadcast live on FOX. Both snared four trophies. Shania Twain, 50 Cent and Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz each took home three.

Alicia Keys debuts at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 with "The Diary of Alicia Keys" (J), with huge U.S. sales of 618,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album--which was preceded by a flurry of television appearances, including heavy exposure on BET and MTV and two performances last week on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno"--is the third-highest debut of the year so far.

Six employees lost their jobs yesterday in a restructuring of the promotion and marketing departments at Universal Music Group in Nashville.

Universal Music Group and Microsoft are among the companies heading up a new advocacy group that is seeking to make it easier for consumers to share and distribute digital content. The formation of the group, the Content Reference Forum (CRF), was announced yesterday. Other members include cell-phone giant NTT ARM, ContentGuard, Macrovision and VeriSign.

A new court ruling is shining a spotlight on the murkiness of copyright law. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held Nov. 6 that unauthorized use of extensive video footage of Elvis Presley for a "rockumentary" was not a fair use.