The AfterDawn.com staff would like to wish all our users merry christmas and a happy new year! The year 2003 has been yet another year of amazing growth at our site, and we owe it all to you. Thank you!
Now it's time to take a little break, sit back and devote some time to the important people in our lives.
On behalf of AfterDawn.com,
Jari Ketola
We will be switching to a new ISP this week. You will probably see this as downtime and occasional glitches on the service. We will of course do our very best to keep the outage as short as possible.
The recent actions by our ISP and their total lack of intrest or effort to fix the problem lead to the switch earlier than was planned. Originally the switch wasn't scheduled until late January.
I hope you bear with us during the transfer. The sites affected by the transfer are AfterDawn.com, Dawnload.net, cd-rw.org, MP3Lizard.com, Blasteroids.com and the associated.forums
Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD-Jon was acquitted of all charges by the appeals court in Oslo, Norway. The appeals court upheld the earlier ruling in which Johansen was also found not quilty of the alleged copyright violations.
The ruling was now made by three professional judges backed up by four laymen. Two of the layman members were IT professionals with technical expertise relevant to the case. The ruling came surprisingly quickly -- it even managed to surprise Johansen's own lawyer.
The Norwegian white-collar crime unit, Økokrim is carefully evaluating the most recent verdict before deciding whether or not to appeal to Norwegian Supreme Court. Since Johansen has already been cleared of all charges twice, it will take quite a bit of convincing from the prosecutors to get a quilty verdict from the judges.
The Motion Picture Associaton of America issued a statement saying it was disappointed by the ruling of the Olso appeals court.
Source:
Aftenposten
Streaming media provider RealNetworks sued Microsoft on antitrust charges on Thursday. According to Real Microsoft is using its Windows monopoly to restrict PC manufacturers from installing alternative media players on pre-installed computers.
Real's General Counsel Bob Kimball estimates that the damages suffered by the company could exceed $1 billion in lost business. In addition to compensation to the damages the lawsuit also seeks an injunction against Microsoft to stop it from misusing its monopoly.
Microsoft downplayed Real's allegations and stated that the intense competition in the digital media marketplace shows that all parties have been successful. According to Microsoft Real's own growth figures in fact show that Real has thrived on Windows and other platforms.
Microsoft has faced several antitrust lawsuits in the past, and is currently under investigation by the European Union.
Source:
News.com
Washington D.C. appeals court delivered a major blow to RIAA's legal tactics yesterday by making a decision that RIAA can't force ISPs to hand out their subscribers' personal information before RIAA has officially sued those customers.
Original decision in this case, between Verizon and RIAA, was delivered by a district court judge in January, 2003 and it was heavily positive towards RIAA, allowing RIAA to squeeze personal details of ISPs' users without filing a lawsuit against those users first. Privacy groups, such as EFF have lobbied heavily against the original decision, stating that it makes it possible for any intellectual property owner to get anyone's personal details from ISPs without proving their claims of illegal activity of the user.
So, at least now it should be less of a possibility to get "randomly" sued or harassed by the RIAA. But it also means that there's no way of settling the lawsuits before they're filed, as RIAA will be required to file the lawsuits before they can get the contact details at all.
It is highly likely that all existing subpoena requests to ISPs will be "vaporized" and will be replaced by actual lawsuits later. RIAA says that it plans to launch yet another wave of lawsuits against P2P users in January, 2004.
..there's not much in there. Ahead Software made some sort of site layout, added a little bit of information and an example trailer. Some time ago our sources indicated that Nero Digital would get a support community web site, but so far nothing has happened that support this. For those who do not know what the Nero Digital is:
Nero Digital is the premierNerodigital.com
technology for audio and video compression standards available to date.
Compatible with MPEG-4 Video and MPEG-4 High Efficiency AAC, Nero Digital will offer you high quality surround sound and high definition images for your home entertainment theater.
Our database server, which contains all the users, forum posts, news, software downloads, etc was wiped totally out by our friendly, very soon former, ISP today without notifying about the issue at all.
Big thanks to them, we have now lost couple of thousand messages, few news and over one thousand users as the latest database backup we had was from 20th of December which has been now put online.
So, if your account information is somewhat whacked or you wish to re-post your comments about our new layout (and enter into the T-shirt draw) or whatever, please re-enter the data/messages/comments again.
The database is currently running on a backup server and it's affecting the performance of the server quite dramatically. Especially the forums are suffering from the slowdown.
We're sorry about this and promise that we'll move rest of our five servers to some other ISP hopefully today.
-Petteri Pyyny
http://AfterDawn.com/
It has been a long time coming, but the new AfterDawn.com v3 (version 3) layout is now here! It has taken literally hundreds of hours of designing, coding, and testing to get to result you are seeing before your eyes. To celebrate the release, we are giving away ten AfterDawn.com T-shirts to our members! If you already entered the draw before December 22nd, please enter again!
The best jukebox software in the world (yeah, right..) receives a minor update and so does the QuickTime too.
What's new in QuickTime 6.5:
Ahead has released a hotfix for Nero Recode 2 that fixes issues with dual processor systems.
The file is available at our mirror site and Ahead's ftp server.
Nero Recode 2 is a state-of-the-art program for importing, recoding (or compressing) and burning DVD-Video titles that would normally be too large to fit onto recordable or rewritable 4.7 GB DVD discs. First you import the complete contents of non-copy protected DVD-Video discs or DVD-Video file structures from your harddrive.
NEC has built and demonstrates the first optical drive with a dual red/blue-laser optical head. The single head is capable of reading both existing red-laser based DVDs as well as next-generation blue-laser based HD-DVDs.
NEC and Toshiba's Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) technology was approved by DVD Forum to be a candidate for next-generation HD-DVD discs. Meanwhile Sony is doing its best to push the Blu-Ray format, aka Professional Disc for DATA (PDD).
Two HD DVD format specifications are currently being promoted for standardization by. One is the ROM (read-only-memory) disc with 15GB of storage capacity on a single layer and 30GB on dual layers and the other is the rewritable disc with 20GB of storage capacity. In November, the DVD Forum's steering committee approved the proposed HD DVD-ROM format in version 0.9.
Sony is currently focusing on data storage markets with its PPD technology, and is already shipping products to OEM manufacturers. NEC will be demonstrating the dual-format AOD drive next month at 2004 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA. However a final product will probably take quite a while to hit the stores.
The DVD recordable market is evolving at a breath taking speed. The speed of the drives is increasing, dual layer technology is on its way and the next generation formats are already specified. During the 2003 prices have sunk and DVD-R may well be one of the hit products for this Christmas.
Now Sony drops the bomb as they announced to stop DVD recordable drive production and start outsourcing drives from Taiwanese manufacturers. Sony was one of the largest drive manufacturers. It is predicted that the most likely partner would be LiteOn.
As Sony already gives up on competing with the Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers, ti will be interesting to see what will other the other well branded companies do. Especially it is interesting to see how can the Pioneer take the heat?
Source: DigiTimes.com
According to IFPI's (The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, kinda "mother of all world's RIAAs") chairman, Jay Berman, European P2P users should expect same kind of treatment as their American counterparts have had from RIAA during the last year. This means that recording industry associations around the world and specially in Europe, are preparing to sue hundreds, probably thousands of individuals who distribute music illegally through P2P networks.
Just recently, Nielsen/NetRatings Internet traffic study found out that there are now more European users in Kazaa than American users. Europeans have already had the pole position in most of the other P2P networks, including eDonkey and DirectConnect. Recording industry considers this (number of American users in Kazaa dropped to half) to prove that RIAA's hard tactics in States have been successful.
Mr. Berman wouldn't comment on specific plans, but mentioned the lawsuits as one tool to combat against growing Net music piracy.
More information:
Guardian
IFPI
Sony Corporation was forced to drop out some of the features that were in the original PSX specs in order to meet the pre-Christmas delivery date in Japan. Features missing include support MP3 , DVD+RW, CD-R playback and the support for certain image file types.
Still Sony PSX is ahead of its competitors and reasonably priced for such a feature rich package. The 250GB hard drive model is sold in Japan for approx Â758 and the cheaper 160GB model for Â606.
Source: TheRegister
A small CD burning software developer company, Optima Technology, has sued one of the biggest CD/DVD software makers, Roxio. Optima claims that Roxio's bruning products violate its patent, number 5'666'531, which details a "recordable CD-ROM accessing system".
Optima wants Roxio to pay damages, unpaid royalties and lawyers fees. Optima's patent basically describes a situation where the CD or DVD burning software creates an "image" of the disc that's going to be burned, organizes it and allows user to make modifications to it before burning the disc. Company also stated that "Optima believes most every company in the CD burner industry may be infringing."
More information:
The Register
Reuters
Nullsoft has unveiled Winamp v5.0, the long awaited media player combining the best features of previous Winamp versions, 2.0 and 3.0.
In addition to looking pretty damn good, the new version includes nice features, such as Winamp Media Library.
Download Winamp v5.0.
Apple's immensely popular online music store iTunes has sold 25 million songs since its launch in April, Apple announced today,
According to sources, the 25 millionth song sold was Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Frank Sinatra.
"With over 25 million songs purchased and downloaded to date, the iTunes Music Store is hands-down the most successful online music store," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "Music fans are buying and downloading almost 1.5 million songs per week from the iTunes Music Store, which is a rate of 75 million songs per year."
Apple has also sold more than $1 million worth of $20 and $200 gift certificates, which have been quite popular in the holiday season. The profit margins are extremely slim, but iTunes' popularity is also fueling the sales of iPod -- Apple's portable digital music player.
Apple currently holds a 70 per cent share of the music download market.
Source:
News.com
Digital music services provider Loudeye and Microsoft announced yesterday that they will be working together to promote Loudeye's new music store concept in co-operation.
Loudeye provides companies with the underlaying technology needed to start a branded digital music store. It's aimed for companies who wish to provide added value to their service -- not for those who wish to make business with it.
"There are a lot of companies that are not your usual suspects that will pay to have services that will drive cross promotion," said Loudeye CEO Jeff Cavins. "What it comes down to is that there are companies that are learning that using digital media is a good way to cement a brand."
So far Loudeye has focused on providing other music stores with pre-encoded music files and storage solutions. Its two initial music store customers include AT&T Wireless and Gibson Audio.
Source:
News.com
UPDATE: Ahead Software pulled back the Nero Vision Express package, due to some last minute changes that caused bugs when using the Nero Digital. They pulled the release back for a while, fixed it and then re-published, but the version was not changed. Everyone is advised to download the Vision Express package again.
The Nero Recode v2 has been released, as a part of the Nero Vision Express package v2.1.0.3. But suprisingly Ahead also has released a Burning ROM version 6.3.
The changelog for Nero Burning ROM v6.3.0.0 reads:
321 Studios has released an update to DVD X Copy Gold that brings its development to par with other X Copy products. The update is available to registered customers at DVDXCopy.com
The Copyright Board of Canada has deemed downloads from peer-to-peer networks legal in Canada. However, much like in other countries, uploading files is still considered illegal. So as long as you're not sharing any copyrighted material, you can use P2P networks in Canada with a clear conscience.
Claude Majeau, the secretary general of the Copyright Board said regarding P2P downloads: "As far as computer hard drives are concerned, we say that for the time being, it is still legal."
Canadian Recording Industry Association doesn't agree with Copyright Board's views. "Our position is that under Canadian law, downloading is also prohibited," said Richard Pfohl, general counsel for the association. "This is the opinion of the Copyright Board, but Canadian courts will decide this issue."
The Copyright Board also decided to impose surcharge on hard drive -based music players, such as Apple iPod. MP3 players with up to 10GB of hard drive capacity will have a $15 government fee added to their price, while larger devices will carry a hefty $25 fee. Players with less than 1GB of memory will get away with $2. The charges put MP3 players to the same category with blank audio tapes and CDs. The money collected will go to a fund, from which artists are compensated for losses caused by consumers' personal copying.
World's largest movie rental chain, Blockbuster, has pledged for movie studios to drop the region coding system found on most of the commercial DVD-Video discs sold in the world.
According to Blockbuster's president and COO, Nigel Travis, the "extra time and windows created by regional coding is an opportunity that pirates exploit". Region codes were included to DVD-Video discs to allow movie distributors to fix the prices in different market areas and also to allow the typical delayed movie distribution chain to exist. With most of the Hollywood releases, the movie theater premiere is appx. 30 to 90 days in the U.S. before the same movie hits the big screens in Japan, Europe, Australia, etc. And when the movie is showing in movie theaters in Europe, there's already a DVD version released in the States of the same movie. And when the same movie is released on DVD in Europe/Australia/Japan/etc, the movie rights are already sold for pay-per-view TV channels in the U.S. and on it goes.
Now, this finely tuned money-maximizing effort has been spoiled by various countries, including most of the European Union countries, that consider it to be perfectly legal to sell hacked DVD players that allow playing movies from all the regions -- and this practice is legal and therefor virtually every single DVD player sold in, for example, the United Kingdom -- even when bought with manufacturer's warranty from a high street store -- is already region free.
Flexplay Technologies, a company behind the environment-destroying EZ-D format, which is also known as "disposable DVD", says that it has managed to develop a dual layer version of its product. So far the EZ-D discs have been limited to DVD-5 size, i.e. 4.38GB per side, but with the new technology, each side can hold the same amount of data as a single DVD-9 disc can (appx. 8.5GB).
This makes it easier for movie studios to distribute their material in two different formats -- currently virtually all new DVD releases are released in DVD-9 format, but the current EZ-D format requires DVD-5 -sized, thus requiring a separate authoring and possibly encoding process for the material.
Only company which has tested EZ-D commercially, is Disney. Each movie disc costs between $5.99 and $6.99 and are packaged in air-tight wrapping. Once the wrapping is opened, the disc will develop a chemical process which makes the disc unreadable after 48 hours. After that, consumer simply throws the disc to a bin.
Source: Video Business Online (requires registration)
The trial against Jon Lech Johansen, the author of DeCSS, closed today in the Oslo Appeals Court. The prosecutors are demanding a 90-day suspended jail sentence and a fine of NOK 20,000 (about $3,000) to cover legal expenses. Johansen's lawyer in turn demanded that Johansen be acquited of all charges.
Johansen was cleared of all charges in January, but was immediately sued again, when the Norwegian economics crime division appealed the ruling.
A final verdict from the Appeals Court is due on December 22nd. Both sides can still file a new appeal to the Supreme Court, should they wish to do so.
Source:
Routers
Aftenposten
BusinessWeek looks at different aspects of the "broadcast flag" proposed by Federal Communications Commission in November. The flag would limit the way consumer's can record and view digital TV broadcasts on, for example, DVD.
Hollywood wants to limit copies since digital TV and DVD recorders allow pixel-perfect copies to be made. Some manufacturers, such as Sony, have welcomed FCC's proposal, but others, like Philips, aren't quite as satisfied. Philips argues that implementing the broadcast flag restrictions would soon render the 74 million DVD players in U.S. homes obsolete.
"We're concerned because as an electronics maker we have a pact with the consumer that says old stuff and new stuff will work together," says Michael Epstein, manager of technology and standards at Philips. "A Hollywood solution like the broadcast flag creates problems for consumers even when they aren't doing anything wrong. It's a side effect that stops them from doing something they legally should be able to do."Since many electronics manufacturers are also involved in the entertainment business as content providers, Hollywood will probably be able to get its way with the protection demands.
Apple's iTunes music store seems to continue to dominate the legal music download sector, despite ever-growing competition in the market. iTunes' director of marketing, Peter Lowe, told today in Music 2.0 event that Apple has now sold over 20 million music downloads through its service since its launch in April.
Interesting fact that he revealed was that 45 percent of all music purchases were made by purchasing a full album, putting in shame the loud complaints from various artists who don't want to see their music to be sold in single-track basis.
Apple also announced that its official goal is to sell over 100 million songs before next year's April. This would mean that the current sales levels would have to be increased quite dramatically. To help the company achieving this target, Apple has already signed various promotional deals with likes of AOL and Coca-Cola. Apple also has plans to launch a service in outside United States, but the schedule for such launch is not clear yet.
Source: MacWorld
MPAA lost the first round in court last week in so-called "screener case", where indie film makers sued the movie industry association over its decision to ban screener tapes and DVDs. Now MPAA has announced that it will appeal the district court's decision.
"From Day 1, the screener policy has been about one thing: preserving the future of our industry for filmmakers of all sizes by curtailing piracy. We know, without dispute, that in the past, screeners have been sources for pirated goods both domestically and overseas. We will appeal because the impact and growing threat of piracy is real and must be addressed wherever it appears," MPAA's boss, Jack Valenti, said in his statement.
Screeners are promotional copies of movies, sent out to critics and people eligible to vote for various movie awards, including the Oscars. After the original decision to ban all the screeners, MPAA made a separate deal with Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make the organization, which hands out the Oscars, to be the only organization to receive screeners. This obviously angered various other organizations, including Hollywood Foreign Press Association (which hands out Golden Globe awards) and small film studios, who were afraid that without screeners, their movies wouldn't get any "airtime" with critics, etc.
As Ahead Software is putting a lot of effor in their MPEG-4 video compression, its largets competitor Roxio strikes back by licensng DivX technology. The press release however does not specify if Roxio will include DivX to their OEM products (bundled with drives) or just the retail version.
This is a clear strategic maneuver by Roxio and it seems that they will not sit on their butts while competition in expanding to the DVD and video storing market. On the other hand, this yet again increases the user base of DivX video, which is becoming the de facto standard of low bitrate video compression.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Roxio, Inc. (Nasdaq: ROXI - News), The Digital Media Company® and provider of the best selling digital media software in the world, announced today a licensing agreement with DivXNetworks, Inc. Under terms of the agreement, DivX® video compression technology will be integrated into Roxio's line of best-selling burning and digital video software. Roxio products that will include DivX technology include follow on releases of Easy CD & DVD Creator(TM): The Digital Media Suite® and VideoWave®.
The addition of DivX technology will enable Roxio customers to more easily acquire, edit and create video content using one of the most popular video formats available. DivX video content can then be burned onto CD and played back on DivX Certified(TM) set top players or shared over the Internet.
PayPal, the payment processing company, nowadays part of eBay, apparently wants to have its share of digital music download business. No, PayPal is not planning to launch a music store, but instead has introduced a payment processing plan that will most likely appeal to most of the stores selling legal digital music online.
As record labels typically charge between $0.65 and $0.80 per each downloadable music and the "industry standard" pricing structure has been set to $0.99 per song, the margins are already bit small (although compared to some other areas of IT business, 20 to 35 percent margins sound very good) for companies running the music stores. But the big problem is with payment processing, as most of the payment processing companies charge between $0.20 and $0.30 for each transaction plus appx 2 percent of the payment, profits seem to be virtually impossible to achieve for likes of iTunes. Some companies, most notably iTunes, "bundle" the customer purchases into bigger transactions to keep the fixed part of the payment processing costs as small as possible, but it usually means delaying the charges until the end of the business day and causes various other issues with payments.
The boom of online music sales is getting ridiculous. It seems that every high brand company is entering the market, no matter what on what industry they normally operate on. Even though iTunes has shown that songs can be sold online, one has to wonder where do all these, now dozens, e-tailers find the buyers for their music?
MyCokeMusic will launch in the U.K. and promises a selection of 250k songs from 8000 artists.
In different shapes and forms, we now have Apple, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Napster, Pepsi, Coke and maybe even Wal-Mart hawking songs online. All of these companies are rushing to enter a business with atom thin margins at best and business sinking losses at worst. In almost every case, the motive is to link to a larger sale be it pricey iPods or placing a brand in the consumer's face for other, profit-making goods.Source: The Register
Ahead Software has expanded their Nero product line aggressively to new market segments. The Nero 6 Platinum package promises to offers just about anything one needs for audio and video storing. Nero Recode is their latest addition. It is a DVD to DVD-R video backup program, which is supposed to challenge products like DVDXCopy and CloneDVD. Ahead Software has played it safe, since they acquired some expertise by hiring the developer of DVD Shrink for the project. Besides DVD transcoding, the Recode can also squeeze movies into MPEG-4 Nero Digital format, which is very similar to Divx. This review is based on a beta version 1.9.9.14 and we will mostly concentrate in the DVD transcoding features.
Read the preview!
RareWares is known for releasing audio compression related binaries. Now their have started collecting older and even more rare pieces of audio software, and they call their new site ReallyRareWares. There youll find stuff like old LAME versions, old MP3 codecs, VQF encoders, Philips Multi-channel MP2 encoder. Go and see how the audio compression has evolved in time and they are also looking for more software contributions for their museum.
Click to visit: ReallyRareWares
Our friends at DVD Writers have put Plextor's multi-format DVD-writer 708A to the test.
Plextor have put out a fine product Plextor with their 708A DVD writer. Plextor has long been known as the company that produces quality optical drives and they haven't failed with the 708A - this drive is leagues ahead of the competition.
The 708A's 8 speed dvd writing in around 8mins is a far cry from the days of Pioneer A03 (which was our first reviewed DVD writer) and would write a DVD in around 1 hour. At 8 speed the 708A gave the fastest DVD writing times of any DVD writer we have tested. Since 8 speed DVD+R isn't an official standard the Plextor 708A can write to a few good quality 4 speed +R at 8 speed (saving you a few quid in the process).
... this is the best DVD writer - buy it!
To read the full review of this amazing drive visit DVDWriters.co.uk
Federal Judge Michael Mukasey on Friday ruled that the MPAA can not stop their members from sending out screener copies of movies. MPAA immediately stated that it will appeal the injunction.
"We know, without dispute, that in the past screeners have been sources for pirated goods both domestically and overseas," MPAA president and CEO Jack Valenti said in a statement on Friday.
But the fact remained that small budget movies would have suffered from the ban the most. Critics simply don't have the time to go and see the number of movies they're seeing now in theatres. Smaller movies have received award nominations and press coverage mostly thanks to screener copies sent to critics.
"I believe people who received screeners will be much more careful [now]. Before people looked at them as Christmas gifts, and there was nothing to tell them they weren't...They came up all nice and wrapped," said producer Jeff Levy-Hinte.
L.A.Critics Association president Jean Oppenheimer was pleased about the ruling. She couldn't tell, however, if the organization would regroup and re-establish its awards. The association called off their awards in October in protest of the ban.
Avery Lee has released a new version of the popular non-linear video editing software VirtualDub. The most important changes are fixes some instability issues with VideoCDs and Windows 9x operating systems.
Here's the list of changes:
After hearing testimonies from both sides Judge Michael Mukasey said he would rule on Friday on whether to grant a temporary restraining order stopping the screener ban imposed by MPAA on its members.
The Judge heard testimonies from MPAA Chairman Jack Valenti, producers Ted Hope and Jeff Levy-Hinte, and Warner Independent Pictures chief Mark Gill. Mr. Levy-Hinte, who testified in favor of lifting the ban, was optimistic about the hearing. "We are very confident in our side, but it's very difficult to evaluate the judge's opinion just from his demeanor. I think he realizes the importance of this case and wants to put together a well thought-out opinion."
MPAA imposed the ban to slow down movie piracy, but independent studios feel that the ban hurts their visibility in the media and makes it a lot more difficult for smaller films to receive an award.
Source:
Los Angeles Daily news
Ahead Software announced the long list of changes in their recent update. Download the update from our official Nero Burning ROM mirror.
Changes from Nero 6.0.0.23 to 6.0.0.28b
Features Added
Added support for new features The default book type for DVD-Video is set to DVD-ROM now to get a higher compatibility with playback devices Added support for Windows XP for AMD64 in 32-bit emulation mode
Nero Express:
Usage of the CD database in Nero Express is simplified The "Select files and folder window" will now be placed automatically in a position so that the content of the compilation is more visible Removed the "New project" entry in the "What do you want to do now?" menu after recording if Nero Express was started from Nero StartSmart The back button of the compilation page is now hidden if Nero Express was started from Nero StartSmart
Nero Wave Editor:
Added shortcuts and tool tips for all buttons in the toolbar
Nero BackItUp:
Added an option to allow rewritable discs to be erased without confirmation Added an option to disable the ejection of the disc after recording
Now when everybody are already jumping to the online music bandwagon, HP has decided to do join the crowd. The PC giant is planning to launch its own online music service in January.
HP's service will most likely utilize some existing service, just like Dell's service uses MusicMatch's existing online music service. HP also plans to launch a string of consumer electronic products, including a portable digital music player and various LCD flat panel TVs in 2004.
Source: Reuters
Recording Industry Association of America told to press that it has sued yet another 41 P2P users over alleged copyright infringements.
RIAA started its latest manhunt against P2P network users in September and since sued almost 400 American P2P users.
"This is an ongoing strategy, and the way to let people know that there is a risk of consequences is to continue the program," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "You don't set up a speed trap for one day and stop enforcement thereafter. It has to be consistent."
RIAA also stated that it has reached out-of-court settlements with 220 accused P2P users. This figure includes people who have settled with RIAA, whether they've have been sued or just threatened with RIAA's DMCA letters.
Source: News.com
Japanese P2P network, Winny, was based on super-secure Freenet network and was supposed to hide all marks of its users' IP addresses, making it impossible to crack down. But now it seems that this network has failed its promise as well. According to CNetAsia, two Japanese users of Winny have been arrested and home of the Winny's developer has been searched by Japanese police.
Creator of Freenet, British Ian Clarke, has stated that he doubts whether Winny used all the Freenet's identity-cloaking and cryptographic features, as these features should make the network truly anonymous.
Two arrested men, aged 41 and 19, are being sued by several companies for making available through P2P network various copyrighted items, including Hollywood movies and Nintendo's games.
Source: CNETAsia
Guys at HydrogenAudio have released first screenshots and details of new Nero Recode2. Nero Recode2 is a software that combines compressed domain MPEG-2 transcoder (i.e. quick MPEG-2 bitrate reducer, such as DVD Shrink, DVD X Copy XPRESS and DVD2One) together with a MPEG-4 encoder that uses Ahead's own MPEG-4 codec called Nero Digital that aims to compete against likes of DivX and XviD.
Based on the screenshots and the information available, Recode2 implements DVD backup features with well-polished user interface and very, very fast MPEG-4 encoding speed. Software also supports 5.1 audio, MP4 wrapper format, MP4-wrapped subtitles, etc.
More informtion and screenshots are available from here.
Ninemsn, a joint venture between Microsoft and Australian media company Publishing and Broadcasting will launch an online music store in Australia, the company announced on Tuesday.
The store will offer songs from the five major record labels -- BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. In addition to the big labels, music from independent labels will also be made available. The store will be powered by European On Demand Distribution (OD2), which powers major music stores in Europe (eg. MSN and Tiscali).
The music store is scheduled to open early next year.
Source:
News.com
Jon Johansen aka DVD Jon has pleaded not guilty again to the charges made against him. In the trial that began today Johansen is accused of violating the copyright protection on DVDs and thus promoting movie piracy.
Eight days have been allocated for the trial, and it will be overseen by three professional judges and four laymen, two of which have technical expertise relevant to the case.
Aftenposten writes:
According to newspaper VG's web site, the technical nature of the case led to judge Wenche Skjaeggestad asking the prosecutor to explain the meaning of the central term 'algorithm' (a computational procedure applied to solve a problem), a request eventually satisfied by one of the expert assessors.
AfterDawn.com congratulates Hannu ('krimu', one of our admins) and his wife, Katja, who got their second child today!
One of the most famous legal cases is about to go to a retrial tomorrow. The case, filed by American movie industry lobby group MPAA, against Norwegian Jon Johansen, is about a tool called DeCSS that Jon helped to develop almost five years ago when he was 15. The tool allows decrypting the copy protection mechanism found on DVD-Video discs, called CSS.
Norwegian court decided in January, 2003 that Johansen is not guilty of "breaking into computer system" as the MPAA and Norwegian police accused. The trial is now going to Norway's appeals court and it is very likely that there wont be any new arguments from neither side, but simply extending the previous trial's arguments with new witnesses, etc.
Source: Aftenposten
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