A shareholder lawsuit filed by the New York City Employees' Retirement System against Apple for issuing backdated stock options to executives has been dismissed by a California judge. On what grounds? It's pretty difficult to claim injury when Apple's stock price has soared making the retirement fund more money. The judge is permitting NYCERS a chance to refile if they can show their organization actually incurred damages more severe than a papercut from opening those fat brokerage-account statements. [AppleInsider]

Digital music sales made up 15 percent of Universal Music's third-quarter revenues, bringing in $714 million — a increase of 47 percent from last year. How much of this growth is attributable to iTunes? Probably not enough to call a truce in the great iTunes pricing war of 2007. [PaidContent]

To the relief of Steve Jobs, the Beatles finally plan to let their music go digital in 2008, Paul McCartney told Billboard. Boom! McCartney says the holdup was contractual, but other reports suggest the last hurdle to bringing the Beatles online was resistance from the estate of George Harrison. But his music went online in October and his widow, Olivia Harrison, said she expects the Beatles to go digital in 2008.

Microsoft wants to buy Musiwave, a company specializing in mobile music services. The deal, among other things, would lay the foundation for a Zune wireless store, matching Apple's iTunes Store for Wi-Fi that lets iPhone and iPod Touch users download songs over the air. This copycat move is just one more sign of what's wrong with Microsoft's Zune strategy. It can't settle on one — so it just winds up latching onto whatever is the hot topic of the day. Here's what Microsoft should be doing instead of copying Apple.

Apple and China Mobile are in talks to bring the iPhone to China in 2008. Apple sold the first iPhones outside the U.S. last week, launching in Britain and Germany. Apple has said it wants to start selling iPhones in Asia in 2008. We suspect both companies want to launch before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing — and make some calls from Mount Everest too. [AP]

If you bought some Apple stock yesterday after its five-day, 20-percent drop, you've made out quite well. AAPL is up 11 percent today — lifting the rest of Nasdaq up with it.

British cell company O2, Apple's iPhone partner in the U.K., reports that "tens of thousands" of iPhones were sold over the weekend. Two thirds of iPhone buyers were new to O2 and the company says it has ordered "several hundred thousand" phones for the holiday shopping season. Sadly, though, first-day lines disappointed. [Times Online]

Apple had been on a serious tear as of late — rising almost 120 percent since the beginning of the year. All good things must come to an end. In the last four days, AAPL has shed 20 percent of its value. As Saul Hansell of the New York Times would tell you, this is a good thing if you don't already own shares of Apple. This drop isn't because of anything related to Apple. All of Nasdaq is down, thanks to fallout from the subprime lending crisis and the value of the dollar and oil prices and that gnawing fear in the pit of your gut that this is going to end badly, just like it did in 2000.

Anyone remember "Gore and Doerr"? That was Silicon Valley's dream presidential ticket in the late '90s, long before the Supreme Court nixed Al Gore's presidential career and John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins VC, torpedoed his own golden reputation by missing out on all the hot Internet companies of this millennium. Gore and Doerr are teaming up again, with Gore joining Kleiner Perkins as a partner specializing in greentech startups. Finally, he has a real excuse for buying that condo in San Francisco's St. Regis tower: His previous Valley gigs, as an Apple board member and a senior advisor to Google, were thoroughly part-time, if incredibly lucrative.

Because Apple CEO Steve Jobs wouldn't give NBC a piece of iPod sales, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker announced plans to yank his network's content from Apple's iTunes store in August. Over the weekend, NBC launched an ad-supported download site, NBC Direct. The word so far? So far, so dreadful. But at least they're trying.

For all you crybabies who complained that we quoted him out of context mwah mwah mwah, here's the long version of the short version of the wit and wisdom of John C. Dvorak. The guy impresses me, to be honest. He's made a career of pretending to have idiotic, badly-written contrarian opinions. He drives irony-challenged tech workers berserk. Their angry clicks turn Johnny the C's publishers a tidy profit. And like skunk-chasing dogs, the geekboys come back for more. After the jump, a Dvorak twofer: He tees off Apple and Google kooks in one post. Which I've edited, so you can get back to work.

Tech bellwethers are dragging the Nasdaq composite down. So much for tech's immunity to Wall Street's subprime crisis. The Nasdaq suffered its largest two-day decline in more than five years. Cisco's cautious outlook is blamed as the trigger for the broad selloff. The network equipment manufacturer has fallen more than 12 percent in two days since its announcement. Research In Motion has also fallen more than 12 percent. Apple declined 10 percent. IBM has tumbled nearly 5 percent. And even Google is down nearly 3 percent. Do I hear a bubble starting to hiss air? [WSJ]

OK, OK, maybe that's not exactly how thing went down — but I'm going to pretend it did. Earlier this week I wrote about how Apple will be bigger than Google because of the innovative money-making platform that is the iPhone. But it's not just the business model that has Wall Street analysts excited — it's Apple's innovative accounting (and I don't mean stock-options backdating).

Apple fanatics have uncovered some code in an iTunes software update hinting at a video rental service. Now every blogger on the planet is running around like decapitated chickens. Why the fuss? We all know iTunes video sales aren't rocking. This is an inevitable move on Apple's part as rivals move in. Rental is the business model of choice for Vudu, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and most likely Sony's PlayStation 3. For some reason, content producers feel it's more piracy-proof than direct sales. Don't cancel your Netflix memebership just yet, though. Building the code into iTunes is one thing. Striking agreements with balky Hollywood studios is quite another.

Apple and Ticketmaster have hooked up for a new promotion. Buyers of concert tickets can get the matching artist's album from the iTunes store for $1 off. Ticketmaster had already offered iTunes affiliate links on its site, which passes a kickback to Ticketmaster for any resulting sales. Additionally, a gift-card pack will be sold with a pair of $25 cards, one for Ticketmaster and one for iTunes. Last month, Ticketmaster gave away 5 free iTunes song credits to anyone who joined its Facebook group. No word on if you can be a "fan" of Ticketmaster on Facebook yet — or if anyone would "fan" the much-hated ticketing conglomerate without bribery.

"[Movie and television studios] make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who's making money? Apple! They should get a piece of Apple. If I was a union, I'd be striking up wherever he is." — Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner on the entertainment business and the Writer's Guild strike, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who played a big role in Eisner's ouster. By the way, Mikey? Apple's in Cupertino. Take 101 north, and then it's just a few exits off 280. If you'd spent more time there, maybe you'd still have a job. [CNET]

We believe that Android will give many phone makers their first access to software with full web browsing functionality, which the iPhone already offers ... Simply put, in our opinion, Apple is confident that its iPhone operating system is a compelling one, and developers will want to build applications for the iPhone ... [I]f the platform successfully proliferates to many devices and form factors, we do not believe Google will develop a mobile phone (hardware) product ... If the platform does not successfully proliferate, then Google may be forced to release a handset that exemplifies and displays the power of Android.

Great, now I have to destroy my iPod. And I love my video iPod. I've named it "GodPod" in my iTunes. But this coaster I spotted at Uneasysilence? It's just too much for me, fanboys.

Time has named Apple's iPhone its invention of the year. The iPhone is a big deal, but not for any of the reasons Time cites. The nonrelease of the Googlephone just highlights what Apple gets about consumers, and what Google doesn't. Apple knows how to design not just gadgets, but the businesses that go around them. And as a result, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is worth more than Google within two years.

A speedy operating system and long-lasting batteries top the reasons BlackBerry business users are more satisfied than working stiffs who lug Treo, Samsung and other smartphone brands. You say you and your iPhone weren't included in this J.D. Power survey of real businesspeople? Exactly.