The disk drives powering Dropbox, Amazon’s Cloud Drive, and Google Music likely issued a small sigh of relief Monday, after a federal court judge found that the MP3tunes cloud music service didn’t violate copyright laws when it used only a single copy of a MP3 on its servers, rather than storing 50 copies for 50 users.

For Amazon and Google’s nascent cloud music services, the decision clears the way for them to make it easier and faster for customers to use their music services; gives them legal cover to reduce the amount of disk space needed per user; makes it less likely that new customers o...

Back in 1955, when Bill Haley And His Comets were hitting their stride and “jet set” referred to people who actually flew places, General Motors introduced the Chevrolet small block V8 engine. A marvel of compact design, technical innovation and (relative) fuel efficiency, it didn’t take long for the potent powerplant to end up in everything from milk trucks to race cars.

The little engine that could was heralded with the usual corporate fanfare, but few expected it to be the unmitigated success it became. It transformed Chevrolet, helped drive America’s love affair with performance and became ...