News written by James Delahunty (December, 2006)

The founders of the Internet phone service, Skype, are working on a broadband TV service. The Financial Times reported that the service is expected to roll out next year and is already being tested by about 6,000 people. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have invested money from the sale of Skype to eBay into the service, dubbed The Venice Project.

According to Friis, the peer to peer technology at the heart of the service would make it possible to offer the service to tens of millions of people while also protecting the content. "The overall picture is that this is happening. Video is moving online, and people have to find strategies for that," Friis said in an interview.

According to the Financial Times, the service properly displayed high-quality, full screen video on a computer monitor.

Source:
Reuters

The author of the popular Japanese P2P software Winny has been convicted and fined by a Kyoto district court. Isamu Kaneko, a researcher at Tokyo University, was arrested all the way back in May 2004. The Winny software has been used to distribute copyrighted material and had over half a million users earlier this year. This week, a court found Kaneko guilty of enabling copyright infringement, and fined him ¥1.5m.

"The ruling will stop the development of information technology in Japan. Programmers will no longer be willing to develop new technologies," the League for Software Engineers director told the Daily Yomiuri newspaper. The verdict has been appealed and the case will now move to a higher court.

In the United States, the supreme court ruled in the Grokster case that developers/operators of software/services who induce copyright infringement may be found liable for the acts of infringement. However, U.S. courts have yet to prosecute software developers that the supreme court ruling would apply to.

Source:
Reg Developer

The popular Swedish BitTorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay, has blocked subscribers to ISP Perspektiv from using the site in response to the ISP blocking its subscribers' access to AllOfMP3.com. The intentions you would guess, is to encourage subscribers to switch to a different ISP. "After careful consideration we have, for the first time ever, decided to block an ISP because of their management," said a statement from Piratebay.

AllofMP3.com offers digital music downloads for a fraction of the price that other stores such as iTunes charge. The company has been called illegal by the US and European record industry but it claims it complies with Russian copyright law. The Pirate Bay believes that Perspektiv is fulfilling the interests of media companies over those of its subscribers.

"As one of the larges websites in Sweden we will not sit silently and watch some of our basic rights be restricted," said the Piratebay statement. "If we want a working and good society even on the internet we must stand up for one another and show courage when it is needed."

Six men has been handed jail sentences for piracy offenses in the United Kingdom. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) claims that an internet piracy ring that specialized in the production and sale of counterfeit DVDs has been broken up. The "Pir8" web forums apparently facilitated the selling of pirate material to over 13,000 users.

FACT prosecuted the case which followed a three year investigation and prosecution by FACT into the group. Assistance in the investigation was given by the BPI (the record industry trade body) Anti-Piracy Unit. Here is the list of the men aged 21 to 37 with their Pir8 nicknames and sentences.

Lee Richard Bennett ('Mack'), from South Normington, Derbyshire, and the owner of the PIR8 site was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Barry Jarvis ('Leafy'), from Johnstown, Wrexham, the website administrator, was sentenced to one year's imprisonment.

Kevin Bowles ('Taz'), from Doncaster, but living in Darlington at the time of the offences received a one year jail sentence.

Robert Chester ('Killalot'), from Eastbourne, Sussex, also a received one year jail sentence.

Jason Morgan ('Monkfish'),from Lanchester, Co. Durham and Christopher Pomroy ('Trinity'), from Stretford, Greater Manchester were sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Read more...

Even though it already has some of the toughest laws in Europe that address video game violence, Germany could soon get even tougher and even completely ban some game titles. A group of German politicians have drawn up legislation that apparently could see developers and retailers penalized with prison sentences of up to 12 months. The bill, which was presented by the states of Bavaria and Lower Saxony will be debated next year.

It refers specifically to games that feature "cruel violence". This comes after a school shooting in the last month in the town of Emsdetten, where an 18 year old injured 11 people before shooting himself. The local media emphasized the point that he was an avid player of Counter Strike. A survey taken after the shooting found that 72% of respondents attributed such crimes to video game violence and 59% were in favor of a ban.

"We have among the most drastic censorship rules for games. Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters." Deutsche E-Sport Bund boss Frank Sliwka said. After a seperate shooting in 2003, Germany introduced rules that restricted depictions of violence against human-like characters. For example, some German versions of games feature green blood to appear less gorey.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed thousands of lawsuits against file sharers in the United States claiming that the individuals infringed copyright by sharing music on P2P networks. The trade group has long stated that uploaders on P2P networks are acting as "distributors" but it wasn't until October that this claim was confirmed by a federal judge.

Judge Ann Aiken found that users of P2P software who make illegal files available for download (add to shared folders) are doing the equivalent of distributing the files which justifies a basis for a copyright infringement claim. This revelation came in the case, Elektra v. Perez. This case started like most others with information from MediaSentry resulting in a lawsuit against Dave Perez for illegally sharing music.

Perez denied the accusation of sharing files illegally and said even if he was responsible for the "perez@kazaa" account, simply having the files in a shared directory does not justify a claim of infringement. In this case, and some others, the defendant claimed that distribution does not occur until somebody actually downloads a shared file and that the RIAA should have to prove that distribution ever took place.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has put itself on the war path with a huge part of the music industry by seeking that a panel of copyright judges lower the rate its members pay music publishers and songwriters in royalties. The trade group that has filed thousands of lawsuits against file sharers in the United States portrays itself as a protector of artists' livelihood.

The RIAA claims the the current rate is "out of touch with reality" and believes it is time for the government to step in. The rate hasn't been adjusted by government since 1981, leaving the music publishers, songwriters and the labels to strike their own deals. As part of reasoning behind the action, the trade group claims that the music industry has undergone fundamental changes.

"While record companies and music publishers were able to agree on royalty rates during that 25-year period, the assumptions on which those decisions were based have changed beyond recognition," the RIAA said. The group said that during the period of time when piracy was "devastating" the record industry, revenue for music publishers rose with the emergence and success of innovative services such as mobile phone ringtone services.

Fox, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. and NBC Universal are reportedly in talks about creating a video service that would in some ways, rival YouTube's dominating position. The Wall Street Journal cites information from individuals close to the situation that suggests the four might launch a service that would offer content from their television networks. The networks seek to cut into the fast-growing market for video-based advertising online.

YouTube, which was acquired by Google in November for $1.65 billion boasts over 100 million daily views. It has become a resource for digital video enthusiasts to upload and share their homemade content with the world. Of course, as can be expected, the most popular content on the service is often pirated content from TV.

CBS and NBC have struck deals with YouTube while other companies have threatened legal action. Experts warn that services like YouTube will inevitably face numerous copyright infringement lawsuits if users continue to disregard the rules and copyright laws while uploading content.

Source:
Reuters

The official European launch of Nintendo's Wii console took place at the HMV store in Oxford Street, London. In the UK, within 12 hours of the launch, 50,000 units (or more than one unit per second) were sold. "The demand has just been unprecedented," Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton said. "We are delighted with the amazing response to Wii and that people of all ages and gaming experience are embracing the way that we are turning the industry on its head."

The console retails for an estimated €250 (approx. $332) and £179 (approx. $351) in the UK. In the United States, Nintendo sold 600,000 units in its first week and in Japan, 400,000 consoles changed owners the first day. "We're well on track to ship four million consoles by the end of the year, and by the end of our financial year in March we'll be on track for six million." Yarnton commented.

HMV's head of games, Tim Ellis, said demand for the console far exceeds the supply. He said the store had 1200 phone calls the previous day about the Wii with 75% of callers inquiring about purchasing a Wii console despite having failed to pre-order earlier. "So we could have taken another thousand orders today. It's just bedlam, really," he said.

Bram Cohen of BitTorrent Inc. has announced that the company has acquired the increasingly popular µTorrent client. The announcement was made on µTorrent's official site by Bram and Ludvig (Ludde) Strigeus, the writer of µTorrent.

Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and µTorrent AB have decided to join forces. BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent's exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together µTorrent's efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent's expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.

What does this mean for the µTorrent community? Not much, at least not at first. The intention is to maintain the website as it is, and keep the forums and community active. Moving forward behind the scenes, we will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the codebase in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones, and other non-PC platforms.

The existent µTorrent and BitTorrent communities are immensely valuable to us, which is why we are announcing this here first to make sure you're all the first to know about the news. The plan is to continue to foster the health and growth of the community that has been critical to the success of µTorrent. Thank you in advance for your support. Read more...

The launch of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console in the U.S. had a well-publicized dark side with the media reporting armed robbery and gun shot wounds among other horrible incidents. It's easy for people to get very angry about this senseless violence and to crave justice on those who commit these acts. One such attack was on a student who waited at Wal-Mart for three days to buy two consoles. He was beaten and robbed by four men.

One man was arrested on Friday in connection with the robbery and Police intended to arrest Peyton Strickland of Wilmington, North Carolina. While serving a search warrant at the 18 year old's apartment, Police shot and killed the man along with his German shepherd. A roommate claims that he was shot while going to answer a knock at the door and that he was unarmed.

The sheriff's deputies had been called in to help the University police serve the warrants because of safety concerns. "No one's above the law. If there's any criminal conduct that can be established, I'm not going to hesitate to treat them as any other defendant," County District Attorney Ben David said.

It is sad and regrettable to have to read about these things towering over the launch of the PS3, Wii and the Xbox 360 last year.