A new era dawned in aviation Thursday when the Airbus A380, some 18 months late but creating the kind of buzz not heard in passenger jet travel in nearly 40 years, made its maiden commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney, Australia.

Painted in the gold and blue livery of Singapore Airlines, the plane that Airbus has called the flagship of the 21st century carried 35 crew members, including four pilots, and 455 passengers, some of whom paid a bundle in an online auction for seats on the historic flight — more than $100,000 in one case.

A Seattle restaurant is among more than two dozen venues swept up in a music-licensing crackdown for allegedly failing to pay royalties to play copyrighted music in public. Without a special license, owners of bars, clubs and restaurants could be sued for playing any one of 8 million recorded songs, even from their own CDs. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) says that equates to performing copyrighted music without permission, and the group is going after local businesses that haven't paid them for the privilege.

Digg.com has become one of the Web's top news portals by putting the power to choose the news in the hands of its users. Just how much power they wield, however, only became clear Tuesday night, when Digg turned into what one user called a "digital Boston Tea Party." When the site's administrators attempted to prevent users from posting links to pages revealing the copyright encryption key for HD-DVD discs, Digg's users rebelled. Hundreds of references to the code flooded the site's submissions, filling its main pages and overwhelming the administrators' attempts to control the site's content.