Today in Sydney, Tony Meagher, a lawyer for Sharman denied the claims the Recording Industry made yesterday, which were that Kazaa not only allowed mass piracy, that it actually encourages it. Mr. Meagher said that there is no way that the owners of Kazaa could be held responsible for the actions of its estimated 100 million users, who share about 3 billion audio and video files. He told the court that this case has similarities to a case in 1984 where electronics giant Sony were found not liable for the actions of its customers when they used their Betamax video recorder illegally, because the technology can be used for many legit purposes. "It is plain Kazaa has lawful uses," Mr. Meagher told federal court judge Murray Wilcox.
The Recording Industry wants the court to find Kazaa liable for the actions of its users so it can actually stand a chance at stomping out P2P filesharing. In the United States in August, the ninth US circuit court of appeals in San Francisco ruled that Grokster and StreamCast could not be held liable for the actions of their users. Mr. Meagher told the court also today that owners of Kazaa did not authorize its use for piracy, but have no way of stopping it. When you install Kazaa you accept an agreement that states you cannot use the network for piracy. Recording Industry lawyer Tony Bannon then decided to make a very strange hit back at the claims of the defense.
The core of the PlayStation 3 will be new CPU technology. The project is a joint effort by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. They have been working on the project since 2001, but so far very little facts about its functionality has been released. Sony expects to use the chip inside HDTV's and computers as well.
n a joint statement the three firms gave hints about how the chip will work but fuller details will be released in February next year at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
The three firms claim that the Cell chip will be up to 10 times more powerful than existing processors.
When put inside powerful computer servers, the Cell consortium expects it to be capable of handling 16 trillion floating point operations, or calculations, every second.
The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media.
Four major movie studios Warner, Paramount, Universal and New Line Cinema have endorsed the HD-DVD format according to the discs co-creator Toshiba. The 4 studios represent a huge 45% of the major studios' DVD output in the United States. However, it will take at least a year before pre-recorded HD-DVD's will be available. Sony are also promoting their new Blu-ray format. Both technologies use blue laser technology instead of the current red laser technology. Blue light's shorter wavelength means that the 'spots' on the disc's surface used to encode digital data can be smaller. For this reason it is easier to fit higher capacities of data onto a 12cm disc.
HD-DVD offers 20GB a disc, but Sony's Blu-Ray format beats it by 5GB more, offering just around 25GB of data on a 12cm disc. However, the main difference between the two formats is that one would require more change than the other. The Blu-Ray is on the downside because it would require the need for new disc production lines. As for HD-DVD, all it would require is existing DVD pressing rigs to be retooled rather than replaced. Sony will be using Blu-Ray technology in their upcoming Playstation 3 console.
The controversial Kazaa trial has kicked off in Sydney, Australia today with major recording labels claiming it was the worlds biggest music piracy network, and that Sharman knew about this and encouraged music piracy. Lawyers for Universal, Sony BMG, EMI, Warner and dozens of other labels made this claim. These allegations follow investigations by the Australian anti-piracy organization Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), a body affiliated with the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), the Australian equivalent of the RIAA. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks.
It all started several months back when Sharman's HQ was raided by the Recording Industry. Sharman challenged the legality of the raids but it didn't make any difference. In the United States, it has been ruled that creators of P2P software cannot be held liable for the actions of their users. Sharman will be praying for a similar outcome of this trial. Not only does the recording industry want all illegal trading forcefully stopped on the network, they also seek compensation for lost revenue due to illegal filesharing on the network, which would add up to billions.
Canada is to get its own version of Apple's hugely successful iTunes music store. Apple currently has its iTunes music store available in the U.S. and most European countries, and so far is dominating the business. Apple had planned to launch a store in Canada in November 04 and has assured Canadian audiophiles that it will make the November deadline. “It's still November; we'll launch in November,” Apple's Natalie Kerris said. Canada currently has three main download services including Napster.ca, Archambault.ca and Puretracks.com. The prices in these services are generally around $1 a track, which is the same as iTunes in Europe and the United States.
Kaan Yigit, president of Toronto technology market research firm Solutions Research Group, believes that iTunes coming into the Canadian music download market will be good for all other competitors too, as it will sharply raise the profile of paid music downloading. “If you put three grocery stores on the same corner, everyone benefits,” he said. “It's going to drive a lot of excitement around the whole space.”Alistair Mitchell, co-chief executive of Puretracks says that Puretracks has many advantages over iTunes including a database of music from Independent Canadian Artists. He also claimed that Puretracks files are compressed less than those of iTunes, so they have better fidelity.
The UK Music Industry is celebrating its biggest ever year for album sales, reporting 237 million sold in the 12 months to September. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade body said albums by the likes of Keane and The Streets had helped drive a 3% rise compared with last year. Also, sales of music singles were up aswell, due to the new available of digital tracks in online music download stores. Next year, the BPI plans to add music downloads to the album and singles charts. 1.75 million tracks were sold altogether from legal music download services such as MyCokeMusic and Wippit. This puts sales of singles tracks up 9% on the previous quarter.
However, if you take away the figures for download sales, then singles sales would be down by a huge 12% so online music seems to be flexing its muscle a little more. However, sales of traditional 7" singles were up for the 11th quarter in a row, with sales topping one million in the year to September - an increase of 74.8%. If you take these record sales into account, and the happy smiles of the BPI, you can’t help but question the comments made by the BPI only a few weeks ago when they launched their first lawsuits against British P2P users they claimed were doing serious damage to music sales.
The world’s major record labels are gathering their lawyers and experts to prepare for the next steps in their battle against illegal file-sharing. The Recording Industry vs. Kazaa will kick off in court on Monday. The Recording Industry is looking for action to stop illegal file-sharing and of course compensation for past illegal downloads, which could mean billions of dollars. The suit is targeting Sharman Networks (the owners of the Kazaa software), LEF Interactive; Altnet, which delivers so-called "piggyback" technology with Kazaa; Altnet-affiliated Brilliant Digital Entertainment; Sharman CEO Nicola Hemming; Altnet CEO Kevin Bermeister; and two technology directors.
The liability phase of the trial will go ahead on Monday, and if the court finds the named defendants liable for the mass piracy that has taken place through the use of Kazaa, the labels will begin to claim for damages. "We don't want to shut down Kazaa, just its illegal activities," said Michael Speck, general manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, a body set up by major Australian record labels to target copyright infringers. I don't understand how Kazaa would survive if Sharman had to pay billions of dollars of damages to the Recording Industry so I personally don't believe Mr. Speck's statement.
One of the worlds most used P2P applications, Kazaa has been named as the number 1 spyware threat by Computer Associates International. To date, Kazaa has been downloaded a whopping 214 million times. CA's PestPatrol research came to this conclusion while assessing how programs slow down a machine by adding unnecessary registry entries and directories. However, CA does admit that labeling Kazaa as spyware in the first place is a bit complicated. "Kazaa does something useful," said Simon Perry, vice president of security strategy for CA. "I'm not going to say that it doesn't. But turn that around--you're allowing millions of strangers onto your machine. (Kazaa) is No. 1 because of the amount if copies it's got out there."
CA also warned about similar P2P networks including WinMX and Blubster because of software that they have bundled with them. Adware program Ezula came second in the company's top five, beating Adopt.hotbar.com and GameSpy Arcade. Perry said that some programs that have been labeled pests have been given that name because it is not yet clear to the computer world what exactly spyware is. It seems every different anti-spyware program you download has differences in what it classes as spyware. Kazaa coming somewhere in the list was not a surprise but many could argue that it didn't deserve the #1 spot. You can download clean versions of Kazaa called Kazaa Lite (Resurrection) and Diet Kazaa.
Napster has announced that its UK digital music store now offers 1 million tracks. Napster launched initially with 500,000 tracks in the UK in May 04. Apple then opened their iTunes music store in August and was offering 700,000 tracks. iTunes has reached over the million mark in the U.S. but not yet in the U.K. Apple had said its iTunes UK store would be adding tracks on a weekly basis, so it seems that the total figure should have reached over 1 million by now, but the site still says its 700,000.
This means that Napster is still pretty far ahead of iTunes which would be its biggest rival in the business. It also means Napster is well ahead of other rivals including Tesco and Sony Connect both which launched first with 500,000 tracks. It will be interesting to see how long it will take Apple to respond by expanding their iTunes music store to 1 million tracks.
As the market emerges for Digital Music Sales and more and more companies open their very own online music stores, the sales being made will take a long time to beat the sales of CDs, DVDs and other media. Informa Media Group estimates by 2010 global online music sales will exceed $6bn which is quite impressive. However, this doesn’t just include digital music downloads, that also includes CDs being sold by Internet retailer giants like Amazon. It is estimated that $3.1bn of the total amount of money will be from digital music sales. This is good news and bad news for companies like Apple who have quite successful download stores.
As the market gets more competitive, we will probably see many of the online stores disappearing due to lack of business. At the moment, most online stores sell tracks for about the same amount, usually 99c a track so there is no competition and downloaders wont be looking around for cheaper alternatives. When you take the $6bn figure, you also have to remember that $6bn is only 15.2 per cent of total spending on music worldwide. Next year sales of digital downloads will total $422.7m, more than double the $179.5m that will be spent this year, IMG reckons. It seems likely that Apple's current lead in the digital music business will fall as more companies open their stores and get competitive. Also it seems likely that Apple's iPod will receive more serious competition within the next few years.
It seems the MPAA has realized that the "new" major thing on P2P networks is to trade TV Series. This may seem a bit late to most of you as Series was always one of the most traded material on P2P. The COO of the Fox empire outlined 10 rules at a consumer forum two months ago and ended it by saying, "All the other rules are meaningless, if content is not protected from digital thievery.". High quality copies of TV Episodes are available online usually within hours of their first airing, or even before it. You can even download High Definition TV copies of episodes, which produce higher quality than most cable and satellite networks worldwide.
"People are ignoring the old notion that you watch your program at 8 o'clock when CBS or NBC decides you should be watching it," says Mike McGuire, a digital rights expert with research company Gartner Inc. "And they're using the Internet to do that." Once again, the attention has turned to BitTorrent, which is a clever invention by Bram Cohen to make it easier and faster to spread large files around a network. Despite the fact that it was created for this legitimate purpose, the MPAA would like the world to believe its an evil invention to assist in evil file-sharing, as they have already made indirect threats against Bram Cohen in statements made earlier this year.
A California Judge has slowed the MPAA's lawsuit campaign against P2P users. Apparently the movie studios have improperly bundled too many separate cases together. The MPAA launched an attack against file-sharers it accuses of infringing its Copyright by distributing Motion Pictures online through P2P networks. As in the case of the Recording Industry, the MPAA filed lawsuits against "John Doe's" where real names will come later. Judge William Alsup said the MPAA had not shown good reason to bundle together 12 separate cases.
Out of the 12, he allowed the first filed suit to go ahead which is against a customer of Pacific Bell, but put the other 11 on hold. The Electronic Frontier Foundation praised the ruling. "This decision helps to give due-process rights to the Internet users accused of infringement," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Lumping them together makes it more difficult for everyone to defend against these claims.". The RIAA also has experienced similar set backs in its campaign against P2P users.
US actor Carmine Caridi has been fined $300,000 for distributing screener copies of movies that were nominated for Oscars. Caridi, 70, handed out copies of several movies to Russel Sprague, who he thought was just a film buff. Instead Sprague, 51, made copies of the movies and distributed them over the Internet.
According to authorities Mr Caridi sent copies of about 60 movies to Mr Sprague. Caridi was sued by Warner Bros for distributing The Last Samurai and Mystic River, and was fined $150,000 per movie by the US District Court in Los Angeles. He was also sued by Columbia Pictures. That case is still pending.
The movie industry hands out screener copies to the press and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in hopes for getting an Oscar nomination. These copies, published long before any commercially available copy of the movie is available, have long been the source for pirated copies of movies.
Last year the movie industry started paying more attention to the issue which caused a clash between the smaller studios and the MPAA. MPAA banned screener copies from all but the members of the Academy. Smaller studios sued MPAA over the decision because they felt that it greatly diminished the chances of smaller films receiving nominations.
Just in time for Christmas Napster and online DVD rental company Blockbuster are now offering a different type of Xmas card. The 'Digital Duo' gift card is sold for 20 bucks, offering a membership for both of these services. According to the source, the regular price of these would be $27,44. Blockbuster has been busy partnering recently, as they have inked deals with AOL and MSN.
Card holders get unlimited access to Napster's music library and two free track downloads from that service, as well as a month of free movie rentals from Blockbuster's DVD-by-mail offering.
...
"Blockbuster Online has the instant brand recognition and massive catalog that make it the natural partner for Napster, and we're excited to be introducing the Digital Duo card together," said Larry Linietsky, Napster's senior VP of business development. "We expect this to be an extremely popular gift item during the holidays at RadioShack."
Kazaa, which is one of the most used P2P software applications in the world has announced that its newest version, v3.0, will come bundled with Skype. Skype was developed by the same people who are responsible for Kazaa, Nikolas Zennström and Janus Friis. Skype allows its users to make free Internet VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone calls worldwide, using a P2P-like system. Sharman Networks CEO Nikki Hemming said, "The inclusion of Skype is a natural extension of the Kazaa product and of peer-to-peer. As pioneers in the P2P field, Sharman Networks believes the integration of Skype – considered the best product in the market for Internet phone calls – will deliver powerful consumer benefits.”.
Besides adding Skype, Kazaa 3.0, has also improved it’s searching, allowing users to get up to 3,000 results per search. Kazaa however, is losing support from the P2P community and is constantly under attack from file poisoners and anti-P2P organizations. Earlier this year, the eDonkey2000 network replaced Kazaa's Fasttrack network as the worlds most used P2P network.
The Universal Music Group has launched a new music label aimed at distributing music solely online through legal paid downloads. The label, UMe Digital, will sell everything from individual tracks to full albums completely over the Internet. "Last year the music industry sold fewer than 50,000,000 downloads; this year the industry will exceed 100,000,000. I think every label will have a download-only imprint at some point." said Bruce Resnikoff, the president of UMe. This comes as no surprise as major labels now see that customers prefer the convenience of music on demand that the Internet can offer.
A track sold over the Internet, can move from one side of the world to the other in a matter of seconds with today's Internet connections and digital compressions, unlike music CDs which can take weeks to distribute to stores worldwide, which leaves them open to early piracy that the recording industry is blaming for millions of dollars in lost revenue. Artists will not be forced to sell all their music online, they may sell a CD with another Universal label, and sell something different using the UMe label. With this new label, an artist who was just signed could be selling digital music downloads in a matter of a few weeks. The downloads will be available from all the usual suspects of the legal net music stores including iTunes, Napster, MSN Music, Sony Connect, Rhapsody and MusicMatch.
BT has launched an online music store in conjunction with DRM software provider, Blueprint, for both mobile customers and fixed line customers. It seems that Windows Media Audio is the prime format for the music store but Blueprint is in talks with Apple over the possibility of supporting its popular FairPlay AAC format. Artists will be able to upload their own music to the online store and configure various settings on the restrictions the DRM protection can enforce, such as how many times a song can be burned to CD or transferred to a portable digital audio device.
Vodafone has similar plans but has a different DRM provider, Coremedia. As mobile networks become bigger and faster, there is an emerging market for digital music downloads that could be done over mobile networks. Microsoft has already made steps to try to corner the market. This new site will also offer ringtones, music videos and skins, but will not have a mobile store until spring 2005.
..on the Mac. The PC market is full of successful, and less successful, DVD transcoding solutions. But on the Macintosh camp there is a somewhat less competition, even though the market is a lot smaller in total volume. So meet Roxio Popcorn, the DVD transcoder for the OS X. Based on the MacWorld article, Popcorn does the basic things of reading, compressing and writing the movie, but lacks the anti copy protection features (of course). Everything is offered in a very clean and simple layout.
Seems like a very late market entry, especially if there are no Dual Layer features, such as compressing multiple movies to a single disc. But perhaps there is still demand in the Mac market.
Popcorn can compress a 9GB dual-layer DVD-Video disc to a standard 4.7GB disc and provides users with copy summary information including the video, audio and language formats. It can also copy the entire disk or just movie, audio and language information. Popcorn supports multi-channel audio, multi-language content, NTSC and PAL video formats, and widescreen or pan and scan aspect ratios. You can even print out a label and jewel case cover for your archive DVD.
After 26 years of sales, Dixons will stop selling VCRs before Christmas. Sales of DVD Players at Dixons are currently beating sales of VCRs by 40 to 1. Dixons will focus more now on the sales of devices such as DVD recorders and devices it calls the "next generation of home entertainment systems". If you look back even just a couple of years, almost every home had a VCR, it was the ruling technology in home video entertainment but now sales of VCRs are at a crawl as DVD player sales are growing like wild fire. "We're saying goodbye today to one of the most important products in the history of consumer technology," said John Mewett, marketing director at Dixons, "The video recorder has been with us for a generation - and many of us have grown up with the joys - and occasional frustrations - of tape-based recording. We are now entering the digital age and the new DVD technology available represents a step change in picture quality and convenience."
The first VCR ever sold by Dixons was the JVC HR-3300EK, a piano key operated top-loader with a red LED digital clock/timer. After that VCRs were among the biggest sales world wide for years but now the demand has turned to higher quality digital options. The question that most would like to hear an answer to now is how long will DVD rule the market? High Definition TVs and DVD players may be the next thing to see in everybody’s home, but what comes after that?
Continuing its campaign against music sharers online, the RIAA has filed another 761 lawsuits against P2P users it alleges to be distributing copyrighted music for free online. Of the 761 people, 25 were college students. This comes just days after the Motion Pictures Association of America filed its first round of lawsuits against P2P users it says have distributed movies freely online to other P2P users. The RIAA claims that the growth of legal music services online has had a positive impact on the swappers actions. "The lawsuits are an essential educational tool," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "They remind music fans about the law and provide incentives to university administrators to offer legal alternatives."
This is becoming an all too familiar story to us all now and the results never change. Despite these lawsuits, P2P usage will continue to go as steady as it was, or even increase as some studies have shown. The RIAA may also be scared of the potential of anonymous P2P networks that we've seen lately in ANts P2P and Mute which use file-routing and altered search results to protect the privacy of P2P users. The latest RIAA suits brought the total number of file-swappers sued by the recording industry to 6,952.
The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) is in talks with the Internet2 research consortium for two main reasons. The first of these reasons being that the MPAA hopes to setup next-generation video delivery services and the second reason being the MPAA’s hope to monitor the illegal trading of pirated movies. For those not familiar with Internet2, it is an Ultra-High Speed version of the Internet setup by universities and technology companies, aimed at facilitating research into high-bandwidth hardware and applications, and helping researchers who exchange huge amounts of data. However, as AfterDawn has reported before, illegal filesharing among students has found its way to Internet2.
In order to use Internet2 you have to be a member and it appears the MPAA is hoping to become a member or to at least open up a collaborative relationship. In the time it takes average Internet users to download an MP3 through a fast P2P network; a user on Internet2 could possible transfer an entire DVD movie. Most of the time the speed doesn't depend on the connection, but how fast the Hard Disk Drives can write the data being sent. Researchers sent data from Switzerland to Tokyo at speeds of 7.21 gigabits per second, at these speeds a full DVD-9 disc (Dual Layer Retail DVD) could be transferred in less than 10 seconds.
The geekiest thing one can ask for Xmas? Niveus A/V Storage Server offers a stunning capacity 1 Terabyte connectable to your home network. How much can you stuff into 1TB? 670,000 high quality photos, 100 hours of HDTV content, 1500h of digital home video, 3330h of lossless compressed music... But better take it easy when you are telling about this to your mom and dad, since this baby has a price tag of $2999.
The award winning Niveus “A/V” Storage Server brings 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabytes) to your always-on home network. This is the ideal solution for anyone looking to store all their digital media onto a single device that allows accessibility, reliability, and data redundancy of the home's most valuable digital assets.
At first stage, the selection available via MSN Music will be simply the selection of the former MP3.com's, but it will be later boosted by tracks directly from GarageBand.com's own selections.
According to Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai, Apple's iTunes music service is set to launch in Japan in March 2005.
However, it seems that negotiations with Japanese record labels, especially those ones representing the major global record labels in the country, have been difficult. The labels are rather unwilling to participate with Apple's upcoming Japanese service, as the paper quotes that iTunes Japan aims to have a music catalog of mere 100,000 tracks -- compared to almost a million available in most markets where iTunes is available. Apparently the music catalog's focus would be on Japanese music.
DownhillHillBattle.org announced two new project sites in the passed few days. The first site is aimed at kids and students in response to the attempts by lobbying groups for Hollywood and the software industry to force misleading and propagandistic curriculums about filesharing and online rights into public schools. KidsSmellBullshit.com also is running a competition for kids to write letters to the BSA and MPAA about their feelings over the curriculum being pushed into their school. The prize to be won is an iPod mini.
The second site is aimed at adults and was setup to put together a fair copyright and technology law curriculum. Downhill Battle feels that the current anti-piracy advertisements and curriculums being pushed at students by the RIAA, MPAA and BSA are one sided and leave out important area's such as fair use rights. The site states, "The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, and other organizations are pushing curriculums into schools that distort copyright law, neglect fair use and the First Amendment, and mislead our kids about their legal rights and responsibilities. It's time to create some accurate and informative information sources for teachers who want to address these crucial issues".
Ever rented a movie, just to find out that the disc is badly scratched and that your player is unable to play it smoothly? The scratching problem of the CD was not improved in the change of the media format, and the DVDs are about as soft and easily damaged as the CDs.
TDK has introduced a hard coating for DVDs, which promises to make scratching a thing of the past. This new material is severely needed, as the data density continues to grow, as the industry is advancing towards Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
In a test conducted by CNET News.com, a DVD treated with TDK's coating survived a determined attack with a screwdriver and a Sharpie permanent marker with no effect on playability--a remarkable feat considering how easily standard DVDs can be damaged, for example, by children.
After years of waiting on the sidelines, the Movie Picture Association of America finally followed the RIAA's path and launched its full-blown attack against the American P2P users yesterday.
The organization that represents all major Hollywood movie studios declined to comment on how many individuals it had sued, but according to the reports at least 22 people have been sued in Denver and another 18 in St. Louis. Some reports suggest that also users in New York and Philadelphia were targeted. According to News24, at least four of the users sued in St. Louis were in possession of just one pirated movie each.
When asked about the scale of the attack, MPAA's director of worldwide anti-piracy operations, John Malcolm, said "It doesn't matter if it's 10 lawsuits or 500 lawsuits. The idea here is that there is no safe harbour."
So, it seems that movie studios have noticed how well the music industry's strategy of sueing your potential customers has worked and have decided to drag a couple of more teenagers to court. MPAA hasn't given any indication if it is prepared to settle the cases out of court or if it wants to go through the whole court process in order to set an example for other P2P users sharing movies.
The US Senate may be voting on the Intellectual Property Protection Act (IPPA) this week. The bill combines aspects of several proposed copyright and piracy acts, and has raised concerns in several groups.
The bill, if passed, would make many P2P users, and digital consumer devices criminally liable for copyright infringement. While skipping "offending" content on DVDs would be permitted, devices that would skip forced advertisements on DVDs would be illegal. Especially Disney has excelled in putting 30 minutes of trailers and advertisements on their DVDs.
Additionally the IPPA would permit, or rather obligate the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits against suspected pirates. Bringing a video camera into a movie theater with the intent to tape the movie could lead to a three year imprisonment, fines or both.
The entertainment industry, RIAA and MPAA both feel that the proposal has many aspects that are essential for the survival of the industry.
The groups that oppose the act fear that it might be pushed through in a lame-duck session this week. They are calling for the Senate to postpone the consideration of the bill until there's enough time for proper hearings and debate.
World's second largest record label, Universal Music Group(part of Vivendi), has agreed to license its entire music catalog to a small start-up that aims to provide online music purchasing mechanisms to the P2P world. The first service about to use the technology is expected to launch in January.
The company that runs the technology is called Snocap and the first P2P service set to use the technology is called Mashboxx. To make things bit more interesting, the man behind the Snocap is quite familiar one -- Shawn Fanning, the guy who built the first-ever P2P application, Napster that launched the whole P2P hysteria and has caused many sleepless night to record label executives over the last five years.
And, just to define the Universal's apparent change of hearts bit further, the man behind the Mashboxx -- Snocap's first client -- is the former president of Grokster, Wayne Rosso. So, basically two of the best-known P2P advocates making business together with the world's second largest record label..
The Snocap's service basically provides users a way to distribute legal material over P2P networks and also allows them to purchase tracks from Universal's catalog of 150,000 tracks. But, in my opinion, by shooting itself to a leg, Universal has insisted not to allow Snocap's service to be used in any P2P application that allows distribution of illegal music files. Without such decision, Snocap's service could be bolted on Kazaa, etc apps and when user is about to start downloading a track from the P2P network, the service would offer him/her a way to purchase the track legally instead of downloading it from the P2P. But as Universal doesn't want to see that kind of hybrid to appear in the marketplace, it seems that Mashboxx is simply going to compete against iTunes and other online music retailers. However, as the details are bit blurry so far, everything said related to the upcoming service is simply speculative.
The DVD Forum, the group behind the technology for DVD and HD-DVD has gone ahead and approved a proposal by HD-DVD spearhead Toshiba to produce a triple layered 51Gb HD-DVD disc. This move is a blatant show of power towards the current capacity of Blu-ray being only capable of 50Gb. Even format wars don't appear to be safe from the likes of the "mine's bigger than yours" defense.
Toshiba had announced the three-layer disc to its partners back in January, but it was only just formally submitted to the DVD Forum in April and just now approved for production.
With current HD-DVD standards, you have your 15Gb and 30Gb varieties with the single-layer and dual-layer structures currently available. Adding a third layer would essentially only amount to 45Gb, 5Gb shy of Blu-ray, so Toshiba pressed its workers to get an extra 2Gb per layer out of their new proposed structure. This is how they achieved the 51Gb storage space capability.
Toshiba says that only a Limited number of early adopters should be affected by this as the market isn't wholly saturated with HD-DVD players. There are no talks as to when these discs will actually become available or when we can expect the players to make an appearance.
I have to admit, that I've been a big fan of Plextor, ever since I bought my SCSI CD-ROM drive UltraPlex 32x back in the 90's. In the early days of CD recording, this company aimed to deliver nothing but the best quality, and there was no doubt that their technology was quite superior. Later, many high profile CD-R manufacturers, such as Yamaha, were brought down on their knees by companies like Lite-ON, which were able to deliver good quality with lower cost.
The shift from CD-R to DVD-R was quite rapid, and introduced new players on the market, such as Pioneer. Some companies weren't ready for the change, and had trouble adjusting. Plextor's start on the DVD market was a bit slow, and I was a little worried how they would handle the new competition. Now it seems that Plex is going strong, and is once again ready to show an example in the optical recorder industry.
Plextor® Corp., a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, today announced the new PX-716SA series DVD±R/RW drive. Featuring a native Serial ATA (SATA) interface and high-speed 16X DVD+R and 16X DVD-R recording, the internal drive combines fast performance, 150 MB/sec bandwidth, and recording features that ensure reliable, high-quality results across a broad spectrum of media.
The first vending machines that will allow people to download music to their mobile phones or MP3 players will be unveiled later this week. Inspired Broadcast Networks will be adding machines to two London railway stations next month. It is expected to cost about £1 per track and initially is expected to offer 2 million songs, adding about 300 more daily. These machines are expected to appear everywhere from the streets to pubs all over the UK soon. Inspired Broadcast Networks already has 12,000 entertainment terminals in pubs and betting shops linked to a global jukebox of 2.1 million songs.
"All you need is a mobile phone or an MP3 player and a coin in your pocket. You select the track you want and, depending on what type of device you have, it will either download using a wireless connection, or you can plug it in directly," said the company’s CEO, Norman Crowley. Negotiations are still ongoing with record labels for the rights to sell the music. An agreement also has not been reached with Apple over possible support for the iPod music player yet.
Grokster, one of the best-known P2P services (at least one of the best-known by the RIAA & co), has taken yet another step in its path to make its P2P service to please the record labels by teaming up with a start-up called Mercora to provide an artist-specific webcasting service via its P2P client.
The new service, dubbed as Grokster Radio, provides almost an on-demand music service, but not quite -- the reasoning being most likely that by providing an artist-specific "radio stations" rather than outright on-demand streaming service, the joint operation can be covered under the current Net's webcasting royalty rules rather than negotiating a separate, one-off license with the record labels.
According to Mercora, it has been paying its webcasting license fees to the copyright owners' royalty collecting agency, SoundExchange, for the last six months. But despite paying its royalty fees, it seems that labels aren't exactly happy with the Mercora's business model, as SoundExchange has announced that it is investigating Mercora's business model closely to see whether it can use the webcasting royalty mechanism at all.
The deal doesn't obviously change the fact that Grokster still operates a full-blown P2P service and has beaten the RIAA in district and appeals court -- and seems to be headed to Supreme Court. But it shows how eager the P2P companies are to play "fair" -- many P2P operators have tried to license material from labels in the past, without much success.
News has surfaced today about the possible product differentiate strategy of Microsoft Xbox. According to the source, the next generation console will be offered in three different versions. The 'Xbox Next' is a low cost solution with no built in hard drive. Xbox Next HD unsurprisingly is the same plus a HD.
But the third variation is something a little different. Xbox Next PC aims to bring somewhat full PC functionality into living rooms. This means stuff like CD recorder, full keyboards & mouse, ability play most PC games and so on. This is quite fascinating as the Xbox 2 is running on IBM CPU:s, not on Intel x86 or compatible clones.
The presentation, understood to have been given to analysts and market researchers in the UK earlier this year, plots a timeline for the introduction of the systems. Xbox Next and Xbox Next HD are planned for Autumn 2005, whereas the Xbox Next PC is pencilled in for Autumn 2006.
The French Competition Court handed a victory to Apple is an important lawsuit filed against it by its competitor, VirginMega(a joint venture between the British Virgin and French Lagardere). VirginMega had sued Apple over its decision not to license its FairPlayDRM technology to third party companies.
Basically, by providing a licensing mechanism, other online music stores could also sell DRM-locked files that could be played in Apple's iPod portable players. DRM is a piece of technology that limits the media file's use to certain devices (or to certain timeline, etc) -- like in Apple's case, the songs purchased from iTunes are locked with the FairPlay DRM technology that is only playable by iTunes software on Windows or Mac or with iPod. As iPod is by far the most popular portable audio player on the market right now, it is understandable that other online music retailers would like to get their offering to be compatible with the player.
However, the court's decision was also a victory for one of the Apple's rivals -- Real. Under the European Union competition legislation, the dominant market player can't block others from accessing to a technology that is "indispensable". Now, what does that has to do with RealNetworks? Well, court found that a software released by Real, called Harmony, users of Real's online music store can transfer their Real-DRM-locked files into FairPlay-locked files and thus play them with iPods. But Apple doesn't exactly like the idea of Harmony, and has accused Real of cracking their DRM system in order to develop the product. But, now, under the court decision, Apple can't block tools like Harmony, because the moment they do so, their practice violates the ruling and court might force them to officially licence the FairPlay to other companies.
AOL's contiuing cost-cutting, declining membership figures and changes in its corporate attitude over the years seem to have finally put a permanent stop to one of the world's most popular software programs, WinAMP. After the recent shakups, the resigning of Justin Frankel and the general lack of support from AOL, it seems now that the story of Nullsoft is finally over.
The software company, bought by AOL back in 1999 for $100M, now has just three employees to continue the development of Nullsoft's products that include WinAMP, ShoutCast and NSIS. The last major version of WinAMP was released back in December when WinAMP v5.0 was released.
The TEMPO research results for the 2nd quarter of 2004 indicate that commercial music downloading is still on a steady rise. The figures show impressive progress, as according to the source more than a third of Americans of age 12 or older had paid music downloading fee. This indicates a very strong market penetration - after all the market itself was only recently discovered by major companies.
“In the past year, we’ve witnessed the high-profile launches of many new online music services and download stores. Combined with the RIAA’s ongoing campaign to curb file-sharing, this has prompted many increasingly digitally-dependent consumers to experiment with the legitimate online methods of music acquisition currently available,” said Matt Kleinschmit, Vice President for Ipsos-Insight, and author of the TEMPO research.
Thus far, adult downloaders aged 25 to 54 are most likely to have paid to download digital music (40 per cent among 25 to 34 year olds; 46 per cent among 35 to 54 year olds). Interestingly, downloaders aged 12 to 17 were the least likely of all American downloader age groups to say they have paid for digital music (16 per cent), perhaps reflecting the lack of non-credit card based payment methods available on current fee-based services.
Microsoft estimates that the first day sales of Halo 2 will reach $100 million. The game went on sale around the world on Tuesday.
1.5 million units of the game were sold before the launch, which already adds up to $78 million. The "regular version" of the game costs $49.99, while a Limited Edition, with custom case and making-of DVD is available for $54.99.
Some analysts expect Halo 2 to sell over 10 million units -- half of those already in November. Halo, which currently holds the all time best seller title for Xbox, has sold 5 million units to date.
Feel like discussing Halo 2 or other gaming? Why not visit Blasteroids.com!
StreamCast, which owns the Morpheus P2P Network has formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject requests made by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to revisit lower court decisions that confirm the legality of P2P networks. In August 2004 the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal's said that a verdict casing in stone the legitimacy of P2P software be allowed to stand. In April 2003 a District Court ruling stated that since P2P networks had many legitimate uses, the software's developers can't be held to account if their code is misused.
"It is our belief that there is no need for the Supreme Court to review the matter," said Matthew Neco, StreamCast's general counsel. "The ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the trial court's ruling was based on a perfect understanding of the precedent of the Sony-Betamax case." In 1984 an attempt was made by the Movie Industry to sue Sony for offering a device that was capable of recording from TV stations. The court rejected this since the device could easily be put to legit uses.
Yet another highly anticipated product has leaked onto the Internet before its official release date. U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is set to be released on November 26th but is already being distributed online, mainly through XDCC distribution and P2P networks. The group responsible for the release, RNS, has also been blamed by Interscope Records for theft of Eminem's new album Encore last week.
In the last few weeks, many new products including Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Eminem - Encore found their way to the net before they found their way to stores. The Eminem album, along with albums from Destiny’s Child and Snoop Dogg had their official release date brought forward as the labels feared they would lose millions in revenue due to the leaks.
U2 had feared the album would show up on the net months ago when a rough copy of the album was reported to have been stolen from the studio. A copy of the album in high quality MP3 format showed up online in the past few days.
Even though this barely touches the topics of this site, it is well worth mentioning that the Mozilla Firefox browser has finally reached the 1.0 milestone. This is an extremely significant software release, as Firefox has been considered as the ultimate alternative to replace the insecure Microsoft Internet Explorer. And best of all, the Firefox is open-source and totally free. so if you are not already familiar with it, I strongly encourage and recommend that you download it and give it a whirl. I have used it since the early beta versions, and never looked back.
The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced the worldwide availability of the Mozilla Firefox 1.0 web browser. Development of Firefox has been driven by a desire for a more robust, user-friendly and trustworthy web experience. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 arrives on the heels of last month's highly successful Preview Release that over eight million people downloaded, contributing significantly to the final phase of its open source development.
Today's announcement marks the worldwide launch of Mozilla Firefox-with immediate availability for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux-as a free download from mozilla.org and by CD from the Mozilla Store. Firefox is now available in over a dozen languages, with many more on the way.
Japanese consumer electronics company Pioneer has, according to Nikkei Business Daily, managed to develop an optical disc that holds 500GB of data each side, making it 20 times bigger than the basic single-layer versions of "next generation" optical discs that are based on blue laser (including Blu-Ray and HD-DVD).
The new technology is apparently based on ultraviolet laser, which has shorter wavelength than the blue laser does, thus making it possible to store data much more efficiently on the disc.
Europe's largest supermarket chain, British Tesco launched its own online digital music store today in the UK. Aiming at slightly more "demanding" userbase with higher-than-rivals audio quality (at least in terms of bitrate), the retailer tries to lure iTunes users to switch to its own service. Considering Tesco's massive marketing muscle and the fact that it seems that it can turn anything profitable, it seems likely that Tesco might manage to grab certain significant portion of UK's digital music sales.
But as Tesco has decided to use Microsoft's WMA format, it can't really benefit from the iPod fever that is going on all over the world right now -- iPods wont play WMA files, just like WMA-capable players wont play tracks from iTunes.
Tesco's pricing is similar to most of the competing services in the UK -- each track will cost £0.79 and albums cost £7.99. The service itself is provided to Tesco by Cable & Wireless. Tracks can be burned on to a CD three times and transferred to three different players.
A new optical media format is now available, as first commercial implementations of DualDisc have been shipped out. The Dualdisc refers to a two sided disc, with DVD content on the other side and CD audio on the other one, so don't mix this with Dual Layer.
What Is A DualDisc?
DualDisc has both a CD player side and a DVD side, allowing artists to create in exciting new ways using audio, video and computer content - all on a single two-sided disc.
What Is On A DualDisc?
One side is the full-length CD audio album. The other side offers DVD content. This may include enhanced album audio, 5.1 surround sound, music videos, artist interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, documentary films, photo galleries, lyrics, computer-ready digital song files, and Web links. It all depends on the artist.
Naturally this format is used to deliver added value to music records. The first commercial releases include new Nine Inch Nails and Blondie albums, which include 5.1 surround sound and video material on the DVD side.
Major and independent record labels today announced the first-ever retail availability of the much anticipated DualDisc -- a two-sided disc made up of a CD player side and a DVD player side. A broad range of titles have begun to hit retail shelves in the first wave of products that will continue throughout the holiday season and into next year with releases from EMI Music, Silverline Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group.
The DVB Steering Board has approved the addition of two new codecs to be used for broadcast Transport Stream. The codecs accepted are the H.264/AVC video codec (MPEG-4 Part 10) and the High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) audio codec.
The new document mandates support of Main Profile for H.264/AVC SDTV receivers, with an option for the use of High Profile. The support of High Profile is mandated for H.264/AVC HDTV receivers.
Peter MacAvock, DVB’s Executive Director said: "This document is one of the most important DVB documents, and a key to ensuring the interoperability of DVB equipment and transmissions. It is the basis of all MPEG-2 DVB decoders in the market. The addition of H.264/AVC and HE-AAC paves the way for using these exciting codecs in mainstream DVB applications like HDTV."
Microsoft responded quickly to Apple's recent European expansion for its iTunes service by launching its own online music service MSN Music in eight European countries.
MSN Music is now available also to users in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria and Spain. That puts MSN Music ahead of iTunes in four countries -- Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- as none of these countries are currently supported by iTunes (which is partly due the fact that none of them use euro as their currency). Tracks from MSN Music will cost between 0.99 euros and 1.29 euros each, whereas iTunes' tracks cost 0.99 euros each.
MSN Music's expansion to Europe was executed similarly to the service's existing presence in the UK -- via several partners. Swedish CDON.com is the Microsoft's MSN Music partner and retail channel in Nordic countries, while British OD2 will handle the operations in other four new countries. The service is available either via MSN's local portals or by using Microsoft's latest Windows Media Player 10.
An article at The Register guided me to the online diary of Robert Fripp, a King Crimson band member. In the article and the diary were most interesting comments about online music trading, and un-authorized selling of King Crimson music on corporate web sites!
The license for the KC/RF catalogue expired on December 31st. 2004 with a six months sell-off period. This imposed the requirement that no further pressing of catalogue titles might take place, although existing stock may continue to be sold until 30th. June. No digital rights, for downloading, were ever granted to Virgin. When the reversion of the license was originally agreed in 1993 (under the Endless Grief out-of-court settlement) the technology was not available. And specifically, disagreement over the digital rights' issue ended DGM's re-licensing negotiations with Virgin/EMI last year.
Nevertheless, i-Tunes Europe began to add Crimson titles on June 27th. 2004 continuing into July; also on OD2. It took several weeks for us to have these downloads removed.
Article at The Register reminds you of the poor deal that the artists (or Apple!) are getting with the iTunes. Majority of the revenue still goes to record companies, even though the distribution has be de-materialized. The whole deal with the King Crimson music on the other hand shows how much they really care about copyrights.
According to SiliconValley.com, the Movie Industry is preparing to file copyright infringement lawsuits against file sharers it accuses of distributing movies online over P2P networks with the first of the lawsuits coming as early as tomorrow. The movie studios plan an ongoing litigation campaign as an attempt to deter people from sharing movies online. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major film studios, declined to make any comments on Wednesday but the organization have said its chief executive would be making a major announcement regarding illegal file sharing of motion pictures on P2P networks early Thursday.
The first wave of suits would probably involve about 200 P2P users. The Movie Industry has attempted to deter filesharing using anti-piracy advertisements and other methods but P2P use seems to be only growing worldwide. They may be particularly after CAM and Telesync copies of movies, which are movies recorded in theatres that can come up on the net even before the official theatre dates. Along with the Recording Industry, the Movie Industry has attempted to shut down organizations responsible for developing P2P networks with no success. The respect the movie industry had among file sharers will probably fade away as soon as 1 lawsuit is filed, as it did with the recording industry as millions of people swear never to buy music CD's again.
A group of hackers have appeared online once again, selling source code to some of the worlds most used and expensive software. According to messages posted in online discussion groups, the group is offering the code for Cisco Systems' PIX firewall software for $24,000. While this seems like a very high price, a lot of intelligence agencies and Government agencies may be interested to purchase it just to find out exactly what it does. The group advertised its return by sending messages to online security discussion groups.
The group first surfaced in July claiming it was selling "corporate Intel(ligence)" to its customers. The club offered the Enterasys Dragon IDS 6.1 source code for $16,000 and the code for file sharing software from Napster, now part of Roxio, for $10,000. However the operation was shut down citing a "redesign" of its "business model." Now that the group is back they raised the price on the Enterasys and Napster code, to $19,200 and $12,000 respectively.
Rapper Eminem's new album, Encore, which is set to be released on November 16th has appeared online today, 13 days early. The album is currently being traded and distributed in many ways online, including XDCC bots on IRC, on P2P networks and many BitTorrent sites. This is the third major item from the entertainment industry to appear online in about a month, after two major games, Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas both leaked before their official release date. It seems that Internet release groups are becoming more and more of a nuisance to the entertainment industry, demonstrating their skills in beating several copy protections and acquiring works long before they are due to be released.
It's not a major thing to see albums appear online in MP3 format, but this one in particular is interesting after rumors were circulating online that there were "plans" for this album that would prevent mass piracy of it. The group responsible for the release has left some comments packed with it...
Guess Who's Ripped, Ripped Again? It's
RNS And We Bring A Friend!
He is familiar to us and all of you as
well. We bring you the new Eminem album
to ring in the end of 2004 and the
start of 2005! Consider this your early
Christmas present from RNS.
As well as the main CD, the group has also released a bonus CD containing three more tracks. It will be interesting to see some later comments on this release from Recording Industry. Some have made claims that the major success of the third Eminem album, The Eminem Show was due to many of the tracks appearing on P2P networks. Downloaders who got these early tracks claim it made them go out and buy the album when it was released.
Two men, Dino Simm and Sidney Austin have been jailed for four years for selling pirated movies in the UK. The ring was smashed by police following an 18 month investigation. They sold over 400,000 copies of movies including Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, accumulating around £3 million in just two years. Their actions have cost the movie industry millions in lost revenue. The pirate DVD's were being shipped to the UK from crime gangs in Malaysia. Apparently, these discs were disguised as blank CD's to be smuggled into the UK and were known to damage the laser in DVD players after a few plays. The DVD's were sold for about £10 and usually at the time of selling; the movies were still in cinema or not even in cinemas yet, like Spiderman 2.
When police raided the house the pirates used as their headquarters they found a room piled floor to ceiling with 26,000 DVD's. The pair used their illegal profits for first class travel, casinos and fast cars. When people were buying DVD's from these people, they didn't know that their money was actually funding crime gangs in Kuala Lumpur. They were Britain’s biggest pirate DVD suppliers. This activity is becoming more popular in every country now. In Ireland, people actually go door to door selling pirate DVD's. Usually the sellers are under 18 being sent around by adults with DVD's. After I got my hand on a couple of the DVD's, I found that they came from the Internet, were very badly re-encoded and burned on Princo DVDR's which are very cheap because they lack quality.
Sony BMG is in talks with P2P Company Grokster about the prospect of a legit P2P service. The new P2P services would be "label friendly" and would also feature some form of DRM protection to protect label owned music. The service has been given the name Mashboxxx but it may not be called that because some clever person has already grabbed it, on October 29th. It seems the network will block some files from being shared but will allow others to be shared freely. Some programmed DRM rules could put restrictions on some things like CD burning, how many devices you could copy a protected file to and even how many times a file can be played. It seems likely that these extra features would require some form of payment.
So to any readers it may seem like a good enough idea by Sony BMG and Grokster as a way to form a legit P2P service and a new way of purchasing music. However, if you look at it from other ways, you have to become skeptical. What if this is only attempts by Song BMG to even further blacken the name of other major P2P networks like eDonkey? Consider what could happen if Sony BMG creates this P2P network then tell a court that they have proven DRM on P2P services works; would the other major networks be ordered to implement their own protections, or even be shut down? In my opinion, this new "P2P service" is another attempt to keep mainstream music dominant in today’s music industry.
Today in Sydney, Tony Meagher, a lawyer for Sharman denied the claims the Recording Industry made yesterday, which were that Kazaa not only allowed mass piracy, that it actually encourages it. Mr. Meagher said that there is no way that the owners of Kazaa could be held responsible for the actions of its estimated 100 million users, who share about 3 billion audio and video files. He told the court that this case has similarities to a case in 1984 where electronics giant Sony were found not liable for the actions of its customers when they used their Betamax video recorder illegally, because the technology can be used for many legit purposes. "It is plain Kazaa has lawful uses," Mr. Meagher told federal court judge Murray Wilcox.
The core of the PlayStation 3 will be new CPU technology. The project is a joint effort by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. They have been working on the project since 2001, but so far very little facts about its functionality has been released. Sony expects to use the chip inside HDTV's and computers as well.
Four major movie studios Warner, Paramount, Universal and New Line Cinema have endorsed the HD-DVD format according to the discs co-creator Toshiba. The 4 studios represent a huge 45% of the major studios' DVD output in the United States. However, it will take at least a year before pre-recorded HD-DVD's will be available. Sony are also promoting their new Blu-ray format. Both technologies use blue laser technology instead of the current red laser technology. Blue light's shorter wavelength means that the 'spots' on the disc's surface used to encode digital data can be smaller. For this reason it is easier to fit higher capacities of data onto a 12cm disc.
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