News written by James Delahunty (January, 2005)

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed another 717 lawsuits against P2P users in the United States it alleges to distribute copyrighted music for free on P2P networks. These users include 68 university students that used 23 university networks to trade music online the trade group stated. The RIAA said it is stepping up enforcement of copyright violations on college campuses. Among the universities targeted in this latest round of RIAA lawsuits are Georgetown University, Harvard University Medical School, Old Dominion University, Ohio State University, the University of Kentucky, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

As usual the suits were filed mainly against the users of Kazaa, eDonkey2000 and Limewire. The total number of lawsuits from the RIAA is not over 8,400 P2P users. Defending themselves, the RIAA claimed that Internet users now have over 230 online music sellers to choose from. However, they forgot to mention that a lot of kids don't have credit cards or don't use PayPal accounts etc. and find it very hard to pay for music downloads. The RIAA and MPAA believe that if they keep up a steady lawsuit campaign they will crush P2P networks. However, this is not the case as studies have shown increases in the number of people using P2P networks for their music and movies.

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Eyes on the Prize is the documentary series that chronicles the American civil rights movement, but it can no longer be shown on TV or released on DVD. Costly archival footage that appeared in the film was licensed for only a set number of years, and those licenses have mostly expired. So now, because of this, only old VHS copies still exist in school libraries. The film's production company, Blackside, is investigating the cost to renew the rights. However, it appears that Downhill Battle is once again demonstrating the potential of P2P as they are attempting to save this series.

They are now making this series available for Download using BitTorrent and also are attempting to organise public screenings. Downhill Battle's David Moore said distributing the film amounts to protected fair-use. 16 screenings are now posted on Downhill Battles site. Blackside however don't seem too happy with Downhill Battle's effort. A lawyer for Blackside told Wired News that Downhill Battle has no legitimate fair use claim, and said Backside will pursue all legal remedies to stop illegal downloading of Eyes on the Prize.

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Shipments of mobile phone devices went up 38% in Q4 of 2004, about 200m units in total. This brings 2004's total shipments of mobile phones to 684m units which is a 32.3% increase on 2003's 517m total. SA forecast yesterday that this year will be even better, estimating that growth will slow to 8%, but that will give a nice total figure of 735m units. Nokia of course dominated Q4, shipping more than double the figure of it's closest competitor, Motorola (66.1m units to 31.8m) which gives Nokia a market share of 33.1%.

Motorola took 15.9% of the market share and Samsung took 10.6% of the market share. Samsung shipped fewer handsets in Q4 than it did the previous quarter, something even Siemens managed. Siemens ceded fourth place in the market to LG during Q4. LG retained seven per cent of the market in both Q3 and Q4, but Siemens' share fell from 7.6% to 6.8%. Sony Ericsson share slipped sequentially too, by a tenth of a percentage point to 6.3%. LG, Sony and Samsung should be happy however, as all of them showed big unit shipment increases above the industry average.

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The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) has launched its second round of lawsuits against file sharers in the United States, it alleges to be distributing copyrighted movies over P2P networks. The MPAA represents seven major Hollywood studios. The first wave of lawsuits came in November 2004 and many of those cases have not yet been settled. Along with launching this lawsuit campaign, the MPAA has also made new software available for parents to scan their computers for potentially copyright infringing material that their kids downloaded from P2P networks.

"We cannot allow people to steal our motion pictures and other products online, and we will use all the options we have available to encourage people to obey the law," Dan Glickman said. "We had to resort to lawsuits as one option to help make that happen, but at the same time, we are making a new tool, Parent File Scan, widely available to parents and other consumers,". As well as targeting P2P users themselves, the MPAA also launched its own campaign against BitTorrent trackers, eD2K sites and Direct Connect hubs, forcing many of them to shutdown. However, even with this new software, which is highly flawed and these latest suits, the past has proven this won’t have an effect on P2P that the MPAA would desire.

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Sony is once again going to challenge the supremacy of Apple's iTunes music store and its music player, the iPod. Sony already has a music store called Connect but it has failed to reach the popularity that iTunes and other services such as Napster have reached. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe now plans on launching a music service specifically for its Playstation Portable (PSP) console which is expected to arrive in March in both Europe and the United States. At first, the service will allow users to download new levels and updates but it will move on to music around summer.

It is also a possibility when you look at the Sony PSP specs that Video downloads could also come along too sooner or later but Sony has mentioned nothing of such service yet. The PSP is just one of several new consoles expected to launch quite soon but it seems to be the console that will stand out in the crowd, which is usual for Sony console products ever since the first Playstation came along. Nintendo is also set to launch its new DS handheld console but have admitted it will aim the console at women, probably because male users would go for the classy look of the PSP.

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Gaming Company Nintendo has said it will launch its new DS handheld console in Europe on March 11th which is a Friday. It will be prices at about €149 (£100 in the UK) and will debut alongside 15 games which will cost about £20 or £30 each. The US price was $150, the difference being largely covered by import duties and sales tax, included in the European prices but not the headline US figure. Nintendo said it is aiming this console mainly at women. It seems that male gamers would probably go for the Sony PSP.

The first game released will be Super Mario 64 DS, WarioWare Touched!, Project Rub, Mr DRILLER: Drill Spirits, Spiderman 2, Rayman DS, The Urbz, Pokemon Dash, Sprung, Asphalt Urban GT, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Zoo Keeper, Ping Pals, Robots and Polarium and the console has a demo version of Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt bundled with it. 650,000 units have been allocated for European sales, and Nintendo also plans on spending €35m promoting the product.

Source:
The Register

The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) has released software for parents that scans a computer for video and audio files that are potentially copyrighted. It then gives parents the option to remove files and programs but the MPAA has assured parents that details on the files that are found will not be passed onto the MPAA. "Our ultimate goal is to help consumers locate the resources and information they need to make appropriate decisions about using and trading illegal files," said Dan Glickman, MPAA chief. "Many parents are concerned about what their children have downloaded and where they've downloaded it from."

However, some testers of the program have already mentioned its flaws. For example, the program picks up the Windows .wav files as potentially copyright infringing files and wants to delete them. Analysts claim that movie piracy cost the Movie Industry $7bn in 2003 alone. The MPAA has promised to release similar tools in the near future to help parents combat P2P software that they say not only allows children to trade copyrighted material, but also leaves their computers open to other threats like viruses. Mr Glickman said the MPAA is embracing new legal movie sites online but said that in order for them to become successful, illegitimate services that rely on stolen material to survive will have to be stamped out first.

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The domain LokiTorrent.com is up for sale at Sedo.com. LokiTorrent is being sued by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) and has gathered over $40,000 from it's users in a legal defence fund. Needless to say this has made many of its users, especially those who donated to the site, very unhappy. At Sedo.com, this is the description of what you can bid to buy.

Complete working peer-to-peer website. Includes: 680,000 registered *active* (within 6 months) members. Complete source code of www.lokitorrent.com and forums.lokitorrent.com Completely automated opt-in mailing list (daily mailings). Benefits of this site: Fully automated web resource site. Zero maintenance required. WELL known site (#1 in it's area). Entire site came to be from word of mouth ONLY. Site is #3 on google for top10 search 'torrent' 1.8M page views (not including downloads) per day on main site alone. Steady stream of advertising inquiries. Complete administration control panel and moderator functions Fully automated donation system with donor-only features. Completely optimized for heavy loads. Extremely loyal user base. Mailing lists are completely opt-in, no forced mailings. All e-mails are confirmation link verified (no bogus addresses). Membership grows by 3,000 registrations DAILY.

Lowkee was quick to squash any rumours of the site being a scam, leaving a message on the main page to the users and donators to the site..

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German ISPs do not have to hand over the personal details of subscribers who offer downloads of music files on the web, a Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt ruled this week. This will be a small blow to any future lawsuits against P2P users who upload music. The Court overturned a lower court order to reveal personal information about an ISP customer who operated an illegal music server from his home. According to the court, an ISP only provides access to the web and do not have to monitor any data that is being sent through its network, they only have to block access when they learn of illegal content.

In the U.S., thousands of people have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for uploading music on P2P networks like Kazaa and eDonkey2000. At first the RIAA forced ISP's to hand over information on a subscriber, which they would then use to file a lawsuit. This changed however in many states, and RIAA were forced to file anonymous "John Doe" lawsuits against users before they could receive any details.

Source:
The Register

Gaming Company Take-Two Interactive have announced that they have Acquired Sega's sports-game studios, Visual Concepts Entertainment, and Kush Games for about $24 million. As part of the deal, Take-Two gets the rights to Visual Concepts' 2K series of titles. Take-Two will launch products under a label, 2K Games, for consoles, PCs and handheld games. A few titles planned earlier under Take-Two's Global Star label will now be released under the new label. Lately there has been intense rivalry in the Gaming Business between competitors in a bid to get the rights to use Baseball Players in their games.

Electronic Arts have signed a deal with ESPN to develop new games using ESPN properties whereas Take-Two are making a deal with the Major League Baseball Players Association to portray Baseball Players in their video games, a deal which will be worth around $200 million. Take-Two and Sega will work jointly to bring sports titles developed by Visual Concepts to Sega's arcade business. "We will continue to aggressively pursue our strategy to gain market share with our 2K Sports titles," Take-Two President Paul Eibeler said. "These studios and their unrivaled talent represent a significant addition to Take-Two's internal development capabilities, which are now approaching 1,000 people worldwide." Read more...

In a 67-page brief filed in advance of the March 29 Supreme Court oral arguments in MGM vs. Grokster, the entertainment industry is urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to give companies developing peer-to-peer (P2P) music file swapping software a perpetual free pass to engage in mind-boggling copyright infringement. Attorneys for the movie and music studios are claiming that Grokster and StreamCast do not use P2P technology for legitimate purposes. "Although the technology can be used for lawful exchanges of digital files, that is not how Grokster and StreamCast use it," the entertainment industry's brief states. "They run businesses that abuse the technology. At least 90 percent of the material on their services is infringing, and that infringement occurs millions of times each day".

"The services are breeding grounds for copyright infringement of unprecedented magnitude -- infringement that would not occur if Grokster and StreamCast did not make it possible," the brief continues. The U.S. Solicitor General, the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), the Business Software Alliance and the Christian Coalition of America supported the music and movie industries by filing friends of the court briefs. Hollywood representatives are trying to stress that the case does not put the P2P technology against the entertainment industry. "These people are not engaging in technological innovation," Dan Glickman, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, stated.

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The next generation of gaming consoles are coming very soon and gamers all over the world are wondering what to expect from these new machines. Details are very slim with no major companies wanting to give away their secrets. Within the next eighteen months, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are expected to release new gaming consoles. Sony are offering the Playstation 3 (PS3), Microsoft are offering the XBOX 2 and Nintendo are offering a so-called Revolution console. "We know maybe what the PS3 will do, but we can only guess," said Rory Armes, studio general manager for video game giant Electronic Arts in Europe. "It's a horrendous effort in the first year," he admitted.

Mr Armes said that Microsoft has already delivered development kits to EA but they are still awaiting kits from Nintendo and Sony. He said although details are scarce, EA are getting a sense of what these new machines are capable of. "The rumours are that PlayStation 3 will have a little more under the hood [than Xbox 2]," he said. "Microsoft is obviously a software company first and foremost, while Sony has more experience in hardware. I think Sony will be able to push more into a box at cost." All the new consoles are expected to make major improvements on processing and graphical power and are also expected to expand from simple gaming consoles to little entertainment systems as well. Bill Gates hinted as this prospect at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He painted a picture of a machine that would complement a PC and offer "great video gaming but video gaming for a broader set of people, more communications, more media, more connectivity".

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Apple has announced that the iTunes music store has now sold more than 250 million legal downloads. This is an increase of 20 million on their last announcement. Apple claims that they sell 1.25m songs a day or more. When you consider the escalation in daily sales, if it keeps up, they should reach a 1 billion downloads mark sometime in 2006. Apple iTunes is by far the most popular legit music download service in the world, managing to stay far ahead of the crowd despite a massive growth in competitors and criticism attacking the iTunes store.

In the U.K. the store now also offers more than 800,000 tracks for download. In the U.S. however, Apple claim there are over 1 million tracks in the iTunes music store. Napster announced in 2004 that they were now offering 1 million tracks in their U.K. store. So once again it seems that the big major record labels are cashing in off music downloads. Now all they need is to figure out a solid way to make billions off P2P and they gain complete control again.

Source:
The Register

According to a panel of industry experts, P2P Networks are not just here to stay, but will also be exploited by media firms who will look for any possible way to make money from them. Once the current legal battle surrounding P2P comes to an end, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology. Since the closure of Napster, the entertainment industry has been fearing P2P networks and blaming them for falling global sales. The entertainment industry in the United States is currently dragging Grokster and StreamCast through courts trying to make their P2P networks illegal.

However, so far they have had no luck. In August 2004, the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Grokster and StreamCast. The court said that the case is too similar to the 1980s VCR battle. "Old media always tries to stop new media", said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks, "When they can't stop it, they try to control it. Then they figure out how to make money and they always make a lot of money." If you look back to the 1980's VCR case, you will see that when the Movie Industry realised they couldn't stop the technology, they decided to work on a way to make money from it, and they did. Slowly as firms look over the evil image P2P networks have been given and look at the potential of them, especially how quickly they can distribute content, they will start to plot ways to get their share of money from it.

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The United States Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments in an ongoing dispute over the legality of filesharing. The entertainment industry has been using every legal weapon at its disposal to attempt to squash filesharing. They argue that P2P networks are mostly used for illegal activities on a massive scale and that means that they should not only be ruled illegal but the developers and owners of such networks should be liable for the copyright infringement that took place on the network. On the P2P side, the argument is straight forward. While P2P networks do allow activity such as copyright infringement to take place, they do not promote it and P2P networks have been proven to have many legitimate uses.

That aspect of the ongoing dispute resembles the Sony Betamax ruling which ruled that Sony was not liable for any illegal activity a customer used their equipment for, and the equipment was legal because it had many legitimate uses also. The case the Supreme Court will hear began with the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filing a lawsuit against the Grokster and Morpheus Networks, which they lost in lower courts. The Supreme Court will hear the case on March 29th.

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More than 200 million songs in total were downloaded worldwide in 2004, a 900% increase on 2003's total sales the IFPI has said. The IFPI beleieve digital music is proliferating but more must be done to raise awareness about legit online music download stores and to stamp out unauthorized ones. At the end of 2003 there were about 50 music download stores operating in 30 countries but by the end of 2004, that number of stores increased to about 230. The recording companies saw their first significant revenues from the digital market, running into several hundred million dollars which is still only a small percentage of the multi-billion dollars the music industry makes annually.

IFPI cited market watcher Jupiter's estimation of the value of the digital music market in 2004: $330m. When the recording industry takes its cut from that money, it doesn't really leave much left over for the 230 download stores we are hearing about. Jupiter estimates 2005's total will be more than double 2004's, as more punters choose to buy downloads rather than CDs or pinch stuff from the likes of Kazaa and Grokster. The IFPI admit the hardest thing to do is make digital music easier to purchase than it is to steal.

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On Tuesday the Justice Department got it's first ever convictions for copyright piracy perpetrated on P2P networks. Two men who were caught in the department's "Operation Digital Gridlock" pleaded guilty to felony intellectual property crimes. William Trowbridge, 50, of Johnson City, N.Y., and Michael Chicoine, 47, of San Antonio each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony criminal copyright infringement before Judge Paul Friedman in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The men operated Direct Connect Hubs which allowed it's users to share copyrighted material with each other.

On these Hubs, users apparently had to share a minimum of 100GB to gain access. "As today's pleas demonstrate, those who steal copyrighted material will be caught, even when they use the tools of technology to commit their crimes," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "The theft of intellectual property victimizes not only its owners and their employees but also the American people, who shoulder the burden of increased costs for goods and services. The Department of Justice is committed to pursuing and bringing to justice those who commit intellectual property theft."

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Written by state Senator Kevin Murray, A bill introduced to the California Legislature last Friday seeks to outlaw the selling, advertising, and distributing peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software. Mr. Murray has close ties to the entertainment industry. The legislation takes aim right at the business plans of file-sharing companies. The bill would make it a crime to sell file-sharing software without taking reasonable care to prevent copyright infringement and pornography swapping. "It’s another edge of a sword that the entertainment cartel is attempting to use to gut the P2P application," said Matthew A. Neco, general counsel and vice president for StreamCast Networks.

The entertainment industry has long being complaining that file-sharing software allows its users to break the law every single time they download a song or a movie. Others say that it makes pornography easily accessible to children. One might argue that the Internet alone makes pornography easily accessible to children. In August, a federal court in California ruled that file-sharing companies are not violating copyright law when customers use their programs to trade copyrighted music, text, or video. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case in March. The Entertainment Industry went into panic when BitTorrent was discovered about three years late by their hired "experts", who realized that BitTorrent allows users to share large files at very high speeds.

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The National Football League, has made a deal with online audio distributer Audible (who usually distribute audio books) to record the remaining playoff games for fans to be played on portable audio players like the iPod. The recordings will be made and then sold within a day through Apple Computer's iTunes music store. They are expected to cost around $10 a game or between $1 and $5 for highlights. The recordings will be availible also on other music download services but Apple may have the advantage since they have an existing relationship with Audible.

Now it's just all about sitting around and waiting to hear if they make much more money off this little trick. Personally I don't think I would ever pay $10 for the audio recording of any sports game.

Source:
Wired

Maxell has unveiled its new premium line of DVD-RPRO media, designed to withstand both abuse and contaminants. Maxell's new 4.7 GB DVD-RPRO media features the company's innovative MAXPRO Hardcoat technology(TM), producing a media surface that is 40 times more scratch resistant and 20 times more dust resistant than standard DVD media. The MAXPRO hard-coat surface makes the DVD-RPRO media virtually impervious to scratches that can render data unreadable. DVD-RPRO's anti-static quality is ideal for harsh or dusty environments, and for applications that require frequent media handling and interchange such as jukeboxes.

"Recordable DVD technology is a key data storage platform for a broad spectrum of business customers and applications including imaging, backup, archiving, data transfer and content distribution. DVD technology also provides an affordable, high-capacity storage medium for consumers looking to save priceless digital photographs and digital video footage," said Steven Pofcher, Senior Marketing Manager at Maxell. "DVD-RPRO meets the most stringent government data retention requirements. It satisfies the media reliability and data protection needs of business users as well as consumers who demand long archival life and extra protection for their irreplaceable data. This is media that may outlive us, but not outlive our data."

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Apple is pushing for 80% of Japan's portable digital music player market with the launch of its new iPod shuffle. Apple Vice President Yoshiaki Sakito said the company has received more prerelease orders for the new iPod shuffle in Japan than those placed for the iPod mini player, which became a blockbuster last year. Apple currently has about 50% of the digital music player market in Japan. Apple will realize the goal with the flash memory-based iPod shuffle digital music player to be launched in Japan tomorrow, Sakito said. Apple's latest player, the iPod shuffle stores less music than the existing iPods which use HDD's, but it's also smaller and costs less.

In Japan, it is expected to retail at around 10,000 yen (US$98), about half the price of similar products sold by other manufacturers. Apple also owns the hugely successful iTunes music store and expects to launch a store in Japan early in 2005. It would not take 12 months before the Apple group starts the service in Japan, Sakito said.

Source:
Ecommerce Times

A few days ago, BayTSP announced FirstSource, an automated system that tracks files on the eDonkey P2P network and BitTorrent trackers and identifies the first uploaders of the files. BayTSP believe that if they track back to the very first uploaders and hand the details over to the entertainment industry they can seriously damage sharing of copyrighted content over P2P networks. Both the eD2K network and BitTorrent use a system known as swarming, which means that users download and upload files in small pieces to help spread them around the network quicker.

"Pirated copies of movies and software typically appear online within hours of release," said Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP. "Identifying and taking action against the first uploaders can greatly slow the distribution of illegally-obtained intellectual property and might make users think twice before doing it." However, if you had asked the average AfterDawn regular who uses P2P applications, they would have told you months (if not years) ago that going after the first sources of files was the only way to slow down sharing. They would also tell you that BitTorrent is not a P2P network as half the worlds media have mistaken it as.

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The idea of using Piracy to help the victims of the Tsunami in Asia might sound a bit strange to you, especially since today's entertainment industry likes to remind us about links between piracy and terrorism, organised crime and of course the tragic falling of sales, but believe it or not, an Internet piracy group has attempted it. A DVD Screener copy of The Aviator appeared online last night from a group who called themselves simply, "Tsunami-Appeal". The group left a message in the nfo file which would be packed with this movie download.

Ok we bring you this nice movie in superb quality but if you download
and watch it you must dontate some money to the Unfortunate victims
of the Tragedy in Asia. So many people died and more are homeless
so give generously and help some one less fortunate than yourself
Trust me you will feel better.

The movie is currently being traded online through XDCC distribution, P2P networks and of course, it has shown up on the biggest BitTorrent sites. There was some speculation online as to whether the release was the real movie and whether it was DVD Screener quality or not. However, from reading over forums and sites, it does appear to be real. It is an XviD movie, split into 2 parts and is around 1.4GB apparently. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio who has pledged a "sizeable" contribution to UNICEF targeted for aid to devastated areas of Thailand, where his 2000 film "The Beach," was filmed.

Just as in the ShareReactor case, the closure of ShareConnector has been met by false rumors spread by individuals who just want the attention or just want to cause panic to the users of the site. Lord_Anubis, a staff member of ShareConnector has made an interesting post on Simon Moon's RespectP2P site. This is what he said:

Hello,

As most of you might know me from almost all sites I am on, I am a staff member of ShareConnector, am mod on some places and admin on others.

Since SC went down there have been rumors all over the net, rumors starting from arrests of people to rumors about the database being hacked and all IPs being traced and all members of SC's forum being in danger now.

I had contact with the admins and hosts of SC since the day it was taken down and know some things that I think need to be said to stop this b.u.l.l.s.h.i.t. I read here in the other thread.

First off all, let me cut down to the rumors:
- yes, some people got arrested, however each and every one of them has been released the next day.
- yes, the servers have been taken down, but lawyers are working on the case, it just takes time.
- no, the database has not been hacked or made public.
- no, not even to Interpol, Scotland Yard or the MPAA.
- no, the site host has not been arrested, nor has he talked or given out any kind of information about the users.
- no, the money from the donations has not "vanished", nor has it been used for anything else than the servers, and that was the intention in the first place. The hardware is there, it just needs clearance to get set up. Read more...

So you think High Definition Video is as crystal clear as can be with perfect pristine quality audio? Well when compared to our current Digital Video (in the form of DVD and Digital TV mostly) that does tend to be true. Now this is not exactly "new" news, but I think if anyone hasn’t seen this, they really should. Ever hear of UHDV? Ultra High Definition Video has been around quite a while but not many people have heard of it, so what exactly is different about it?

Well first of all its resolution is a massive 7,680 by 4,320 pixels. The video runs at 60fps. The audio is 22.2ch audio, 9 above ear level, 10 at ear level, 3 below ear level and 2 low frequency effects. So who would be crazy enough to try and test this out? NHK researchers in Japan of course! They conducted a test using an array of 16 HDTV recorders to capture the 18-minute-long test footage with a camera built with 4 2.5 inch (64 mm) CCDs. So what did the lucky people who witnessed this test get out of it? They got motion sickness, in area's where the camera would move fast.

So when it comes to Digital Video I guess we have some good times to look forward to eh? :-)

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The U.S. CD sales rose by 2.3% in 2004 which is the first rise it has seen in years. This boost of CD sales comes even as legal music download stores are gaining popularity. CD's still count for 98% of all album sales according to Research Company Nielsen Soundscan. 666 million albums were sold in 2004. 140 million digital tracks were downloaded also. R&B star Usher was the biggest-selling artist with his album Confessions selling eight million copies alone. Other top sellers of the year were Norah Jones, Eminem and country stars Kenny Chesney and Gretchen Wilson. The U.S. recording industry has been hammering on Internet piracy which it blames for the loss in sales over the last few years.

It seems that more users are being persuaded to use the legal options such as iTunes and Napster, even though they have all sorts of DRM protections that limit the freedom you have in the music's use. Downloads of whole albums has been calculated at 5.5 million copies, with rock band Hoobastank one of the most popular choices. Nielsen Soundscan said the fastest growing music genres were Latin and country.

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Phone Giant BellSouth has announced it has begun trials on Microsoft's Internet Television (IPTV) software to determine whether or not it could be used in their upcoming Video service. The company said initially it will be testing the software in set-top boxes in the lab, and then target some homes for field trials. The company is attempting to find ways to transmit video programming through Internet broadband lines. This adds another influential telecom firm as a potential client for Microsoft. In November SBC Communications agreed to pay Microsoft $400 million to use its IPTV edition for its Internet TV service due this year. IPTV will provide a channel guide, digital video recording and other features in SBC's video set-top boxes.

SBC on Wednesday introduced its upcoming IP video service as "U-verse," which will be sold with high-definition video, high-speed Internet access and voice calling. Microsoft is trying to strike deals with cable and phone companies to ensure its software plays a significant role in the next generation of television set-top boxes. The local phone giants in particular are looking at Microsoft to help break cable's dominance in the living room by providing more features that mix the Internet with TV programming.

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At the International Consumer Electronics Show, A Motorola executive previewed an upcoming mobile phone that can play music from Apple's iTunes store. It syncs with computers and the iTunes music store just like an iPod does and even has used the iPod interface for navigating through digital tracks. "The phone is the first of many Motorola devices that will support iTunes this year", said Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's personal devices business. The rumors now circulating say that an iTunes-compatible Motorola phone would be launched this month, possibly at the Macworld conference and expo that opens next week in San Francisco.

Apple already revealed last year that the phone is expected to come along in the first half of 2005. In July last year Motorola made a licensing deal with Apple to use its iTunes music store in its mobile phones. Garriques cited the Apple partnership as an example of Motorola's push into what he called "seamless mobility 2.0." While mobile devices already are allowing consumers to communicate multiple ways and to take digital media with them, the next-generation products will bridge gaps between networks and devices so consumers can access their digital content anywhere and without interruptions.

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DirecTV on Thursday debuted its first digital video recorder with technology from another News Corp. division, raising questions about the strength of its relationship with digital video recording pioneer TiVo. "We'll support our existing TiVo customers," a spokesman for DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite TV operator said. "But our core initiatives and new customer acquisition will focus on our new DVR." EchoStar Communications, who are DirecTV's biggest competitors, have launched their own digital recorder that includes space for 100 hours of digital video-on-demand capabilities.

The combination of DirecTV's satellite service with products from subsidiary NDS, underscores News Corp.'s ambitions to spread its technology across its portfolio of companies globally. NDS also develops technology for BSkyB. DirecTV stepped down from TiVo's board last June creating speculation that the company would drop TiVo completely. TiVo Chief Executive Mike Ramsay told Reuters in Las Vegas that the company will continue to offer TiVo recorders to DirecTV customers and is currently developing new products for the service.

Currently seen by some to lag in the market for high-definition broadcasts, EchoStar plans to expand its HD lineup when it moves to the MPEG4 video standard, instead of the current MPEG2 standard, which doesn’t offer as good data compression. "The big mass push in HD for us will be this fall as we introduce MPEG4," said Charlie Ergen, chief executive of EchoStar.

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The next generation DVD formats that are battling to replace the current DVD technology, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are rallying their support. At the Consumer Electronics Show both formats made announcements of new partners. Both formats can store much higher capacity than the current DVD technology, although Blu-Ray can hold about 20GB more than HD DVD which can hold a capacity of about 30GB. The Blu Ray disc association introduced major game companies Vivendi Universal and Electronics Arts and tech companies including Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments as the newest group members. Executive from the gaming publishers noted that the high storage capacity of Blu-ray Disc was important for them as they look to high-definition game development.

"Gaming is a multibillion dollar business that is largely being ignored by HD DVD," said Richard Doherty, director of professional AV for Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory. Blu-ray Disc supporters plan to include interactive features and gaming capabilities to discs that hold high definition movies. Blu Ray recorders and discs are expected to appear in 2006. Companies in support of this format include Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. On the HD-DVD side, there's Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. HD-DVD entertainment partners stood up to support the HD DVD format Thursday and announced movie and TV series titles that would be available on HD DVD discs by the end of the year. Paramount Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, HBO and New Line Cinema said that about 100 titles, including the Harry Potter movies, the Batman, Superman, E.R., West Wing and Sopranos franchises, would be available on HD DVD discs.

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Apple has launched an Irish version of their iTunes music store. In 2004, Apple opened iTunes stores in most European countries but seemed to be having difficulty opening a store in Ireland. Now that they have, the store will have featured slots for Irish artists like U2, Damien Rice, The Thrills, The Pogues and The Corrs. The store has opened with 700,000 tracks and 8,000 audio books. Apple have also kept their 99c price policy per track and €9.99 per album. The store also has the same features as other Apple music stores around the world including iMix, music videos, movie trailers, celebrity playlists and gift certificates.

iTunes is by far the most successful music download store in the world right now. The store has sold more than 200 million tracks worldwide and is getting growing support from other corporations, including Motorola who plan to make many devices compatible with the music purchased from iTunes. But such success has also been met with bad luck, as recently Apple has been slammed with a lawsuit by a man who claims they are forcing their iTunes customers to purchase an iPod in order to listen to their music on a portable device.

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At the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates spoke about some of Microsoft's upcoming efforts to continue to make it "easier to unite digital experiences". Firstly he touted the deal with TiVo in its new TiVoToGo effort which will allow owners of recent-vintage TiVo boxes to transfer programs to a Windows XP PC, from which the programs can in turn be shuttled to Microsoft-powered portable devices, such as Portable Media Center video gadgets and Smartphone mobile phones. Assisted by talk show host Conan O'Brien, Gates continued. "If you look at today's living room, you have five remote controls and you still can't get your music where you want it," Gates said.

Unfortunately for Microsoft the presentation was struck by several technical difficulties including a Windows XP Media Center slide show that couldn't be launched and an Xbox game demonstration that abruptly ended with a blue-screen memory error. "Right now, nine people are being fired," O'Brien joked. "Who's in charge of Microsoft?". TiVo has been challenged lately by new services that record television programming and Microsoft has seen very slow acceptance of its television-recording capabilities built into Windows XP Media Center. Gates hailed the ability to easily move TiVo content to portable gadgets as emblematic of Microsoft's push to let consumers experience their digital media anywhere they want it. "We're really seeing the portable video message move into the mainstream," he said.

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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) cannot force Charter Communications Inc. to supply them the identity details of subscribers it alleges to have distributed copyrighted music through P2P networks, a U.S. appeals court ruled. A federal judge issued the subpoenas in 2003 but the appeals court said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) doesn't allow the RIAA to subpoena Charter for user information because the files at issue aren't stored in the company's computers. The RIAA is currently on a campaign against illegal filesharing, suing thousands of music sharers in the United States.

"Because the parties do not dispute that Charter's function was limited to acting as a conduit for the allegedly copyright protected material, we agree that the 1998 act doesn't authorize the subpoenas", U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Bye wrote in the majority's opinion released today. However, as always, the RIAA had nothing but tough words to utter after this defeat. "For the past year, we have successfully utilized the 'John Doe' litigation process to sue thousands of illegal file sharers," the RIAA said in a statement. "Our enforcement efforts won't miss a beat."

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