It seems to me that my perception of "major news" is slightly (and perhaps more-than-slightly) skewed by the fact that I ride the subway towards the end of rush hour every morning, and as such see the cover of AM New York and Metro several hundred times, whereas I rarely if ever see a hard copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street journal* (presumably because their readership gets to work earlier or takes cabs or doesn't take the A or doesn't sit near me or something). Which is, presumably, why I'm aware that there is an outcry among some number of musicians (quite possibly just the five or six actually pictured on the AM New York cover) asking the presidential candidates to stop using their songs without permission.

Which made me think that it's a sad (or just new! and different!) state of intellectual property rights when even candidates for the presidency can't be bothered to ask permission. I think a couple of years ago there was a rumbling going around that people who played at open mic nights should have to pay for the rights to perform a song and this, while obviously different (though it might be fun to hear "Times They are a Changin'" from one of the candidates -- either, really), is also obviously farther down the fair use road. It doesn't necessarily mean that Barack Obama or John McCain think people should be able to download songs for free, but it feels a little inconsistent nonetheless.

* Then again, if everyone's reading AM New York and absolutely no one's reading NYTimes, maybe this just is the state of news for the average consumer.