News written by Jari Ketola (September, 2002)

Nokia today annouced their first WCDMA 3G mobile telephone. Although 3G networks are still under development in most countries, it is crucial for the operators to have products on the market to both gain credibility for the third generation networks as well as boost the general intrest for the new technology.

The key features of the Nokia 6650 mobile phone are:

·Video recording and playback at 128x96 resolution (subQCIF): up to 20 seconds, including sound
·Person-to-person multimedia messaging, including video & audio clips, to another MMS-capable device and/or email address
·PC Suite for storage and basic editing of video clips
·Connectivity via USB or Bluetooth including audio and infrared
·Illuminated high-contrast, active-matrix, full-graphics color display The phone also offers MIDP Java 1.0 support for downloading additional applications, a WAP 1.21 browser for using mobile Internet services, and a wallet application for mobile transactions with SWIM and WKPI support.

The screen has a 128x160 pixel resolution, and it can display 4096 colors simultaneously. Using the WCDMA network, the phone can download at 128kbps and upload at 64kbps. That is adequate for streaming live video at the 128x96 resolution.

Finnish Soprano Oyj today announced their Soprano MobileTV -service, which provies streaming TV programmes to multimedia mobile phones. The service has been developed in co-operation with Oplayon, FS Film, and Nokia.

At first the service will provide commercial film services from FS Film as well as free national TV news broadcasts. The selection is expected to grow rapidly.

Warner Music Group (WMG) and RioPort today announced that Warner Music Group will make available for sale, via RioPort's digital distribution infrastructure, more than 30,000 music singles to consumers. The downloaded music can be played on PCs, burned to CDs or transfered to secure portable devices. The prices will start from 99 cents per song, and be distributed using RioPorts service by numerous retailers, such as BestBuy.com and Musicland Group, as well as MTV.com, SonicBlue.com and HP.com.

Source:
Yahoo! Finance

The DVD+RW Alliance and the DVD Forum sat down and had a long discussion. The result: both groups still refuse to work together to find a single-format solution. But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Intel, as well as other electronics companies are getting involved in the debate, and are speaking with both the DVD+R as well as the DVD-R -party. Obviously Intel and others would like to see DVD-writers becoming popular in desktop computers as well as stand-alone devices, but that's not going to happen as long as there are two different formats, and four different types of media at the market.

Read more at:
CNET News

Instead of suing everybody and trying to scare people away from piracy, Island Records and Bon Jovi are offering added value for everyone who buys Bon Jovi's new album Bounce.

A unique registration code is included with every CD, and with that code you can register at Bon Jovi's website for the AmericanXS-service. The registered members can access exclusive content such as unreleased music, and a chance to win Bon Jovi concert tickets in select cities in the States, Canada, and Europe.

Check out the AmericanXS site, although there's not much to see unless you've bought the album. ;-)

There's an on-going campaign for a single HD-DVD format at DVDSite.org. There are currently four candidate specifications for the HD-DVD format. Obviously it would be very inconvenient for us, the consumers, if there was more than one HD-DVD standard around. Remember VHS and Betamax (and the fact that the inferior standard, VHS, came out as the winner).

The purpose of the HD-DVD: One Format Only! Campaign is to convey what we believe is a very important message, on behalf of DVD consumers everywhere, to the Hollywood movie studios, the consumer electronics manufacturers and all the members of the DVD Forum. That message is simple:

We believe that in order for any high-definition video disc format to be successful, all of the various parties involved MUST agree upon a SINGLE, unified format before making any such format available to consumers.

Check out their site at:
http://www.dvdsite.org/

RIAA, MPAA, and NMPA seek summary judgement in the case against P2P "giants" Kazaa, Grokster, and MusicCity. The three organizations charge that the massive “vicarious and contributory copyright infringement” facilitated by the Kazaa, Grokster and MusicCity services is abundantly clear and an accelerated ruling on the merits of the case is warranted. The initial lawsuit was filed last October. With the summary judgement they seek to close down the networks before even going to trial.

According to the music and movie groups Kazaa & others have developed a network to emulate Napster in almost every respect, and "are earning millions of dollars from the service."

Read the full press release at RIAA.org.

Los Angeles - Attorneys for StreamCast Networks, developers of the popular Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software, filed briefs in federal court on Monday seeking a ruling that distribution of the software does not violate copyright law.

Morpheus is the world's most popular file-sharing software based on the decentralized Gnutella P2P networking protocol.

In their briefs seeking summary judgment, attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison argued that distribution of the software is legal because the product is capable of substantial noninfringing uses and because StreamCast cannot control the various uses of the software.

Supporting StreamCast in the motion is nine time Grammy nominee, Janis Ian, who believes that peer-to-peer software represents important new opportunities for artists.

On October 2, 2001, twenty-eight of the world's largest entertainment companies sued Streamcast for the allegedly infringing actions of users of its product (MGM et al v. Grokster et al, Case No. 01-CV-8541 SVW).

Additional briefs will be filed in the months to come, with oral arguments set for December 2, 2002, before U.S. Federal District Court Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles.

An anonymous donor has given Duke University's law school $1 million to fund advocacy and research aimed at curtailing the recent expansion of copyright law.

The school will use the money to fund a center focused on finding "the correct balance" between intellectual property rights and material that should be in the public domain.

James Boyle, a Duke law professor and co-director of the school's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, says that the center is likely to look skeptically at recent laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and a measure that extended duration of copyrights by 20 years.

Boyle says he is not a copyright abolitionist. He agrees that some legal protection is necessary. But, he added, "the burden of proof should be on those who say we need to have property rights in this situation. Why will this work? Why is this necessary? We see the system getting out of control, out of balance. This is a way to restore the balance."

Recent debates in Congress have started from the viewpoint of the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, rather than from what's good for consumers, Boyle said.

CD Freaks reports that AudioGalaxy is back with a subscription service. However it's just the name that is back -- the AudiogGlaxy Rhapsody service itself is the same as Listen.com's Rhapsody. It is a streaming service with no option to save the files on hard disk.

Quote from AudioGalaxy.com:

Our new subscription service gives you unlimited, on-demand access to one of the largest music collections in the world. The service will normally cost $9.95 / month, which pays full royalties to artists, record labels, publishers, and songwriters. But right now you can use Rhapsody for FREE until 9/15/2002. There's no obligation and no credit card required during our free access period. Try it now ...

·Over 17,000 albums by over 7,000 top artists
·No Limits: hear what you want, when you want it
·Musicians and songwriters get paid when you listen
·Listen in CD quality sound instantly - No waiting for downloads
·Play entire albums, create custom playlists
·Professionally programmed radio (with skip!)
·No viruses or adware
·One low monthly price


Source: cdfreks.com

Consumer and privacy groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumer Alert, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and National Consumers League filed a brief in Washington federal court late this Friday arguing that the request made by RIAA to release customer information from Verizon Communications should be denied. RIAA has requested Verizon to hand out information of an individual sharing copyright infringing files using Verizon's Internet access service. This is the first time RIAA has gone after an individual instead of a larger organization. Verizon, however, has denied the request.

RIAA is basing its request on a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that violates Americans' right to be anonymous online. "Purported copyright owners should not have the right to violate protected, anonymous speech with what amounts to a single snap of the fingers," the brief said.

DMCA permits the copyright owner to send a subpoena ordering the service provider to turn over information about the subscriber. Both Verizon and the groups signing the brief agree that RIAA has the right to find out the identity of the copyright infringer. In this case, however, the infringing individual has shared the infringing files from his own computer using a peer-to-peer application. Verizon has merely acted as a bridge between the user and the Internet. The DMCA subpoena is intended for situations where the infringing material is stored on the ISP's servers.