• According to Digital Music News, Universal Music Group is "actively discussing" DRM-free downloads with Apple. (Digital Music News)

• Music, book and video distributor Baker & Taylor has signed a long-term lease for a 500,000-foot warehouse in Indianapolis. (Inside Indiana Business)

• Sony BMG Nashville has sent a cease-and-desist letter to radio stations demanding that they stop playing the album cut of Tracy Lawrence's "Find Out Who Your Friends Are." The album version features vocals by BNA (and Sony BMG) artist Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw while the single version has only Lawrence. Sony BMG's SVP of legal and business affairs claims the company did not grant singles rights to Lawrence's label. In response, one program director said, "I'm not a legal expert, but I don't think anybody can tell us what album cut we can or cannot play. It's available out there for public consumption, and if I choose to play cut nine off an album that I think is going to work for our radio station, I'm going to play it." (Billboard.biz)

• Some feel stripping DRM and improving audio quality is going to create a classic download boom. For as long as recorded sound has been in existence," said Mark Forlow, the vice president of EMI Classics US, "the people who buy classical music like to have the best sound." (Christian Science Monitor)

• A recap of a hearing before the House Committee on Science and Technology. University officials are divided on how to combat campus piracy -- social versus technological means -- while the committee's chairman believes technology "will be the first line of defense." Read the hearing's charter here. Click here for the webcast. (Ars Technica)