News written by James Delahunty (September, 2006)

LimeWire has filed a counter claim today in response to a lawsuit brought against it by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last month. The RIAA sued LimeWire for not complying with a cease and desist notification sent in September 2005 by the trade group. LimeWire's stance is that the RIAA is out to destroy P2P networks to gain complete control over digital music distribution online.

"[The RIAA’s] goal was simple: to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms so as to limit and ultimately control the distribution and pricing of digital music, all to the detriment of consumers." the complaint reads.

Most of the complaint denied or claimed no knowledge to the majority of allegations made by the RIAA. LimeWire claimed that because of the RIAA's uncooperative position, it was very difficult to negotiate. It was expected that LimeWire would make changes like those made by iMesh and in the claim, LimeWire criticises iMesh and its working relationship with the RIAA.

Apple Computer Inc. has sent cease and desist letters to a number of firms it believes to be using the word "pod" unfairly. The iPod maker has ordered them to stop using "pod" and "podcast" in the names of their services and products because it leads consumers to believe they are tied with Apple's offerings. Apple is currently seeking to obtain trademark rights for the word pod.

The company behind the services Podcastready and Mypodder has received a letter from Apple. "As you may be aware, Apple has used its IPOD mark since at least as early as October 2001. Since that time, the IPOD trademark has become famous. Moreover, the term POD has also been adopted and used extensively in the marketplace by consumers as an abbreviation to refer to Apple's IPOD player." the letter reads.

"While Apple, of course, has no general objection to proper use of the descriptive term "podcast" as part of a trademark for goods and services offered in the podcasting field, it cannot allow marks that go beyond this legitimate use and infringe on Apple's rights in POD and IPOD." Infostructure Solutions has until October 5th to respond to the legal letter.

In response to the the newly adopted, very controversial DADVSI French law, three French DRM activists have turned themselves in to Police for breaking the law. The DADVSI law has made it illegal to bypass copy protection mechanisms, to help another bypass copy protection mechanisms or to suggest that somebody bypass copy protection mechanisms. Fine of up to €30,000 and six months in prison can be handed to offenders.

The three DRM activists were accompanied by a large crowd of supporters as they went to the local police station and admitted the following "crimes".

Stéphane used the DVD Decrypter software to help transfer a legally purchased DVD to his portable DVD player. For this offense he could face a €3,750 fine fine.

Tangui read a DVD disc on open source Linux software.

Jérôme bypassed the copy protection on music purchased from iTunes and another French online provider, wrote a webpage explaining how to bypass the DRM and translated a software that gets rid of protections on digital content. For these crimes, he could face a €30,000 fine and up to six months in prison.

An article published by the NY Post has caused quite a stir in the movie business. It claimed that the retail giant Wal-Mart has threatened to retaliate against major Hollywood studios who make deals to sell movies through Apple's iTunes service. "Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if they go into business with Apple," NY Post's Tim Arango wrote.

He cited an anonymous source as saying that Wal-Mart's David Porter "threatened to hurt us in terms of buying less products." Major Hollywood movie studios depend on Wal-Mart to sell about $5 billion of DVDs during the fourth quarter. When Apple first began to offer TV shows which included Lost and Desperate Housewives, Wal-Mart sent back "cases and cases" of DVDs to Disney according to the source.

However, Wal-Mart was quick to distance itself from the NY Post article by releasing a statement to that effect. "Customers want to watch movies and they want to be able to make the choice when and how they want to view them. While we recognize there are various current and potential providers of this service, we are not dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers," a Wal-Mart spokesperson told Reuters.

BitTorrent co founder Ashwin Navin has revealed his belief that DRM is not the answer to providing legal online video download services despite the fact that BitTorrent will launch its own DRM-based download service soon. He told this belief in an interview with IDG News Service and added that the only reason DRM is so widespread currently is that the industry is immature and doesn't yet know how else to protect its profit margins.

Navin believes that DRM is bad for consumers and content providers alike because it "typically ties a user to one hardware platform". He cited Apple's iTunes service as an example. Apple's DRM FairPlay restricts the use of iTunes music to the company's iPod players.

He believes that movie and TV show providers would not like to limit users in the same way because they want their content to be used by users on as many platforms as possible.

As a solution, he recommended advertising supported video download services that would offer content either at a low cost or for free much the same as regular TV, but over the Internet. He sees that as the possible future of video downloads and said BitTorrent hopes to "drive that evolution wherever we can."

According to patent discovered by New Scientist, Warner has been brainstorming on the possibility of a hybrid disc that could store HD DVD and Blu-Ray data on one side and DVD data on the other (possibly also CD data). The only hybrid discs that have been produced so far are HD DVD / DVD discs. While the manufacturing processes of HD DVD and DVD are similar, Blu-ray requires new equipment to produce.

HD DVD discs' data layer is 0.6mm from the surface whereas it is only 0.1mm for Blu-ray. Both formats utilise a 405nm blue laser. According to the patent, which several top Warner executives as the inventors, "a dual disc may also be formed with two high-capacity data layers, one conforming to the HD DVD format and the other conforming to the BD [Blu-ray disc] format."

This is made possible by the use of semireflective coatings to allow the two layers to coexist on a single side. The Blu-ray data layer would work like a two-way mirror in that it would reflect enough light for Blu-ray playback, but would also let enough light through for HD DVD playback. The greater depth of HD DVD's data layer makes this possible.

MetaMachine Inc, the company that owns the eDonkey2000 software is to pay $30 million to settle a copyright infringement case brought against it by 6 record companies. The eDonkey2000 network accounted for almost a third of all Internet traffic last year. The advertising revenue and software sales were over $2 million a year. Recently Kazaa owner Sharman Networks also agreed to pay $100 million and provide a "legit" service.

The eDonkey2000 website has been taken down and a message has been left that says...

Apple Computer Inc. has done what has been long expected; it has taken iTunes into the movie business. The company has introduced full length, feature film downloads through its iTunes service that already has the majority of the music download market and sells hit U.S. TV shows. Along with that there have been some improvements made to the company's iPods and the introduction of a new set-top box temporarily named "I-TV".

The wireless "I-TV" enables users to transfer their video and music from their iPod or computer to their TVs. It is expected to cost around $299. For now Apple will sell movies from Walt Disney, Touchstone, Pixar and Miramax. 75 films will be initially available, including Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean. Movies will be added weekly.

According to the company, most films will cost $9.99 while new releases will start at $12.99 (when pre-ordered and during first week of availability) and will cost $14.99 after the first week. They will eventually drop in price. Apple has also opted to increase quality of movie and TV show downloads by increasing the resolution to 640 X 480 from 320 X 240. Movies will be available from the iTunes store on the same day as DVD release.

A man has been handed a seven year prison sentence for selling pirated copies of popular software titles at huge discounts on his website, iBackups.net. Nathan Peterson, 27, of Los Angeles sold products from major software companies like Microsoft and Adobe. The site began selling the illegitimate goods back in 2003 and wasn't shut down by the FBI until February 2005.

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III handed down the sentence and also ordered Peterson to pay back $5.4 million and to forfeit the proceeds from the scam, which include houses, cars and a boat. Peterson had pleaded guilty to two counts of copyright infringement in December last year.

Justice Department and industry officials called the case one of the largest involving Internet software piracy ever prosecuted. Ellis also handed down a 6 year sentence last month to a Florida man for selling pirates software through his BuysUSA.com website.

Source:
Wired

Bertelsmann, one of the world's preeminent media companies, and Universal Music Group, the world's leading music company have today announced a settlement in the dispute over Napster funding. Back in 2003, UMG sued the German record label for allegedly aiding copyright infringement on a huge scale by funding Napster.

As part of the settlement, UMG will receive $60 million, which includes reimbursement of legal fees and expenses and covers the resolution of the legal claims of Universal's recorded music and music publishing businesses, as well as those of BMG Music Publishing. Bertelsmann admits no liability in making this settlement.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Universal Music Group on the Napster dispute. We believe the resolution is a fair one to both parties," said Thomas Rabe, Chief Financial Officer of Bertelsmann AG and Head of Bertelsmann Music Group. Bertelsmann had invested around $100 million in Napster.

Source:
Press Release

SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products has taunted market leader Apple with the price of its latest MP3 player. The flash-based Sansa c200 series MP3 player comes in two capacities; 1GB and 2GB. The 1GB model has a suggested retail price of $79.99 and the 2GB model has a suggested retail price of $99.99. Compare those to the iPod Nano prices of $149 (1GB) and $199 (2GB).

The player has everything you would come to expect; support for the WMA, MP3 and the protected WMA DRM formats (supports subscription services through Microsoft's PlaysForSure), photo displaying abilities with its bright LCD screen, 15 hours playback from the user replaceable lithium-ion battery, a voice recorder and an FM tuner/recorder with presets for 20 channels.

Additionally, if you fill the player with music, you can also use a SanDisk microSD™ card, which currently is available in capacities of from 256 megabytes (MB) to 2GB for extra storage. The player is 1.3" x 3.1" x .6" and weighs about 1.51 ounces with battery. The SanDisk c200 is expected to be available from retailers in the U.S. and Europe in October, with other regions following later.

Once again, through the excellent (and voluntary) work of PSP coders (Dark_Alex & Mathieulh), another PSP firmware downgrader has been released. This time, the v2.71 firmware can be downgraded to the homebrew-friendly v1.50. It utilises a recently exploited vulnerability in the tiff library to launch the "downdater".

Some weeks back, a downdater was released for both the 2.50 and 2.60 firmware versions. This new downgrader for 2.71 is basically a port of that downdater but a copy of (unpatched) Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is not needed like before (that particular hole was closed after 2.60). Like the 2.50/2.60 downdater, you should NOT try this if your PSP has a TA-082 motherboard.

To downgrade, not only will you need your 2.71 PSP, you will also need to find somebody with 1.50. This is simply because you need them to run homebrew that will dump their flash and some files form the actual 1.50 eboot update file. You wont find these files on PSP sites as it is illegal to distribute them. The files will be dumped to the Memory Stick (DOWNDATER folder appears in root).