Company News: ITunes to sell downloads of Lennon albums

Apple Inc. has begun selling downloads of tracks from 16 of John Lennon’s albums, including “Working Class Hero” and “John Lennon/Platic Ono Band,” on iTunes, the company said Tuesday.

The albums represent Lennon’s recording output while he was with Capital Records, a unit of Britain’s EMI Group PLC.

While many of the late singer-songwriter’s solo recordings have been available for download commercially elsewhere, this marks the first time they have been available on Apple’s online music service.

Songs on two albums — “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” — were being made available for download exclusively on iTunes, the company said.

Video content was also being included with the purchase of some of the albums for a limited time.

“A federal judge has ruled that The SCO Group Inc. doesn’t own the software it claims was misappropriated by developers of the open-source Linux operating system.

In a 102-page ruling, U.S. District Court Dale Kimball ruled that Novell Inc., not SCO, owns copyrights covering the Unix operating system, which SCO claims is what makes Linux sturdy and reliable. Kimball said SCO didn’t acquire ownership rights to Unix when it bought the licensing and development rights from Novell in 1995.

SCO is a business software developer that earns money licensing Unix software for corporate servers. The Lindon, Utah-based company has blamed competition from Linux for the ongoing slide in its revenues and operating losses.

“Nokia Corp. warned Tuesday that up to 46 million batteries used in some of its cell phones could be faulty and pose a risk of overheating.

The advisory applies to batteries manufactured by Matsushita from December 2005 to November 2006, the world’s largest mobile phone maker said. Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan is one of several suppliers that have together made some 300 million BL-5C batteries.

The lithium-ion battery is one of 14 different types of battery used in Nokia phones.

“Qualcomm Inc. said Monday its head lawyer resigned after a string of legal setbacks at the world’s second-largest chipmaker for cell phones.

Lou Lupin, 52, joined Qualcomm in 1995 and was elevated to general counsel in 2000, a position from which he led efforts to build and defend the company’s vaunted business of licensing rights to its patented technology to other companies.