Bridget Jones is a load of old WAP

Bridget-type mobile content is being developed by Helen Fielding and Riot Entertainment. You'll be able to get daily diary updates, personality tests, a 'guide to life' and discussions on what the publicity blurb describes as the "important global topics - dieting techniques, inner poise, dating strategy, self-help theories, alcohol units and thigh circumference."

See http://www.riot-e.com . If you must.

In a quotation which was almost certainly not made up for her by some PR flunky, Helen Fielding says in the press release: "For singletons like Bridget, the phone is becoming a major means of human contact. Texting allows one to be much more obsessive even than email. You can be in communication with significant others anytime and anywhere (or not, which can be heartbreaking and obviously requires major analysis and discussion through further texting)."

First obvious pun of the week: could this be classified as a case of textual frustration?

In a move completely lacking in irony, Alanis Morissette has put her oar in to the mucky waters of the Napster debate.

At a Washington DC senate committee hearing on Tuesday, she stepped right out of character and had a bit of a moan.

She said that until now, very few artists had criticised Napster for fear of being maligned. (Metallica being the obvious exception, but then maybe they think their fan base is big enough and loyal enough not to abandon them in droves just because their idols speak their minds.)

But the arch wingher did have a dig at the record companies too. "History has not been kind to artists who have candidly expressed points of view that differ with that of their record company."

Ahh, diddums.

Don Henley stepped out of the Hotel California and joined Alanis at the hearing. He's a tad worried too. He was quoted in US reports as saying: "There's a ping-pong game going on over [musicians'] heads about business models when we don't know how our rights are going to be protected."

So the musos are coming late to a debate they don't really understand in an eerie parallel of the record companies' own behaviour. Not for the first time, the establishment has been caught on the hop by technological developments its members refused to acknowledge as a threat until it was very nearly too late. (Look no further than Microsoft and Netscape for a classic example from recent history.)

But thanks to their huge coffers, they can fight back. And win.

AOL Time Warner, Bertlesmann and EMI, which between them own 60 per cent of the world's pop music, are soon to launch their own download site with the help of RealNetworks - MusicNet. Users will have to pay an as-yet undisclosed fee for the privilege of accessing the material on the site.

Microsoft too is getting in on the act with MSN Music, a service which will webcast thousands of radio stations from around the world. The technology includes a search engine, purchased last year from start-up MongoMusic, which will recommend stations to suit listeners' musical preferences.

This won't compete directly with MusicNet's Napster-style service or Napster itself (should it manage to survive), but it is the first time Microsoft has included music in its online repertoire.

So the old stalwarts have finally woken up to Napster - and that's something of which the Napster founders can be very proud, whatever happens from here on in. They've changed the way a whole industry operates.

The long-term effect may not be as clear cut though. Amazon.com hasn't exactly shut too many bookstores on my high street. The music download phenomenon may follow a similar route.

Arch miserabilist Morrissey, the former main man with The Smiths, spoke briefly about Napster in last month's Mojo magazine. He said: "I think human beings still want to walk into a record store and buy their music. And I think they still want to be vividly involved in everything. And I don't think the internet offers that. It's so easy. And when we get things very easily, we don't really appreciate them that much, and we just throw them aside."

Morissette and Morrissey in one Round-Up? Heaven knows, I'm miserable now.

(Log on to http://www.silicon.com/backslash and post a reader comment to let us and everyone else know your thoughts about this - or indeed anything else).

Microsoft wants to own your brain. At the heart of its .NET initiative is the Passport website. Passport has existed for a while, but is set to become the communications hub for most things you'll do online with Microsoft software in the future, including Hotmail and MSN Messenger.

The terms of use for Passport, which can be found at http://www.passport.com/consumer/termsofuse.asp , are interesting.

"By posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, submitting any feedback or suggestions, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Passport website... you are granting Microsoft and its affiliated companies permission to:

1. Use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any such communication.

2. Sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights granted with respect to the communication."

There's more, but you get the idea. As a loyal silicon.com reader pointed out, it's probably best not to use any of the Passport services to send someone a business plan. Or the idea for a novel. Or a sound file of a song you've written...

Weirdly enough, Microsoft has promised to temper these Ts and Cs in response to the fuss that they've caused since some eagle-eyed people first spotted this. But they've been in use for a couple of years, and it does make you wonder quite what ethos is driving the Microsoft machine as it reaches further and further into the online world.

If these clauses don't change soon, you could always engage in a bit of online skullduggery. It sounds like Big Bill wants to own the intellectual property of everything passing through his servers. And we all know what a legal minefield that is. If, say, you sent a deliberately libelous mail, Microsoft has by dint of these terms pretty much accepted ownership of and responsibility for its contents. Which means it could be sued... Not that we'd condone that sort of thing of course and knowing Microsoft it would get out of it. But it's a nice idea...