News written by Jari Ketola (October, 2003)

A new copyright law based on the requirements of the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) went into effect in the United Kingdom on Friday. The implementation of EUCD is considered to be the Europe's toughest digital copyright law.

While some countries, such as Germany, have included fair use exceptions to their law to permit consumers to make copies of purchased CDs, United Kingdom has no such provisions in its law. Legal experts consider the law too broad, and poses threat to individual consumers. Even though the spokesman for UK patent office, which was responsible for drafting the law, claims, that the law is aimed at organized crime and not individual downloaders, the law regarding P2P is as ambiguous as it was before.

Six EU member countries, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy and United Kingdom, have adopted EUCD so far with nine countries still working on their new copyright law.

Source:
News.com

RIAA reported on Thursday having filed 80 new lawsuits against suspected file swappers. Earlier this month RIAA sent warning letters to users who were in danger of being sued.

In the first wave of lawsuits RIAA sent 261 subpoenas to users accused of sharing large numbers of copyrighted music online. This time RIAA sent 204 warning letters beforehand, and 124 of those lead to an out of court settlement. RIAA is pleased by both the publicity it has gained, and the fact that a majority of the new cases were settled without a trial.

There is some evidence that the controversial RIAA lawsuits against ordinary computer users are making a dent in the file-swapping world. According to Web analysis firm Nielsen/NetRatings, weekly usage of the Kazaa software in the United States plummeted from a high of 7 million people in early June to just 3.2 million people in late October.

However Download.com still reports 2.1 million weekly downloads for Kazaa software.

Source:
News.com

According to "inside sources" Yahoo is planning to stop selling its streaming video service as a standalone product. The service will be bundled in Yahoo Plus, a premium services bundle.

"Yahoo is committed to being a leader in providing broadband content," spokeswoman Joanna Stevens said. "How it's packaged, priced and presented will evolve over time."

Yahoo is also expected to add more free streaming video content to their site. One of Yahoo's major rivals, AOL, has also shifted its focus to providing video content to their subscribers.

As the number of broadband internet subscribers grows, service providers and portals are trying to find ways to satisfy their needs. Obviously broadband users wish to see high quality streaming video, but according to Forrester Research, less than 10 percent of them would be willing to pay for the service. Instead of selling individual video files, portals are providing free videos funded by advertisements as well as monthly subscription plans.

More on the topic:
News.com

The U.S. Librarian of Congress has denied most of the major requests for exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and other organizations sought exemptions to DMCA to allow consumers, for instance, to play copy protected CDs on other devices.

The sought exceptions would have allowed consumers to legally view DVDs from other regions or skip "unskippable" commercials found on some DVDs. Four exceptions were, however, allowed: for decoding lists of Web pages or directories blocked by Internet filtering software, accessing e-books for which the publisher has disabled the read-aloud function, circumventing obsolete digital rights management devices that prevent access due to malfunction, and accessing computer programs and video games distributed in an obsolete format.

EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze was disappointed by the fact that the Librarian of Congress failed to realize the impact the DMCA law has on fair use of legally purchased products.

Robert Menta published an article about digital consumer rights almost three years ago.

Australian ISP ComCen has agreed not to re-post any contents to web site under the url www.mp3s4free.net. ComCen and record labels agreed on the arrangement on Tuesday in the Federal Court in Sydney.

The site, which offered links to pirated MP3 files, was removed from the Net yesterday by the site's owner, Stephen Cooper. According to Cooper he didn't have enough financial resources to fight the case to the end. ComCen had refused to take the site offline in spite of legal threats from the music industry.

Both Cooper and ComCen were sued last week by major labels alleging that www.mp3s4free.net violated their copyrights. The site, however, contained nothing but links to files -- none of the illegal files were hosted at ComCen or posted by Cooper. Both Cooper and ComCen insisted that the site was just a directory.

The nature of linking directly to third party files has been a matter of debate for ages. Is it illegal to provide links to pirated material? Would a database of user submitted URLs be illegal, if the only intention of the database was to gather links to copyrighted music? Morally the question is clear, but the legal aspects are far more complicated.

The Napster v2.0 online music store will start offering prepaid cards at retail outlets shortly after the service has been opened. Using the cards teenagers and other consumers, who don't have access to a credit card, purchase songs from the service.

The Napster Card will cost $14.85, and with one card the user can download 15 songs. By mid-November, the card will be available on 14,000 locations, such as Best Buy and Safeway. The Napster Card allows a huge new consumer base access to on-line music shopping. The youth/teenager market has so far been neglected by other services.

Roxio, who bought Napster's assets, will launch the Napster v2.0 service next Wednesday.

Source:
CNN.com

321 Studios, the company known for its DVD X Copy product family has submitted its response to legal actions taken against it in the United Kingdom. It is 321's intention to fight the lawsuit filed by Warner Home Video all the way.

The company is facing similar lawsuits from several major film studios in the United States. The studios argue that 321 Studios' products are tools for pirates to make copies of copy protected movies. 321 Studios, on the other hand, insists that consumers have the right to make backups of products they have purchased legally. Furthermore DVD X Copy tools cannot be used for pirating large volumes of movies practically. Each copy is digitally watermarked, and backups of backups are not allowed.

"We believe we have a solid argument, and that our customers have the right to make back-ups of legally purchased DVDs for their own personal use," said 321 Studios CEO Rob Semaan. "We will fight it all the way, and are certainly not prepared to take it lying down or shut up shop and go away."

For more information visit:
DVD X Copy support forums
DVD X Copy home page
Protect Fair Use

Motorola and RealNetworks have partnered to create a mobile phone based on Linux-operating system, that will incorporate a software for streaming Real video and audio.

Both Motorola and RealNetworks have been quite active on supporting and utilizing Linux in their ventures. Real's Helix is an open-source technology for streaming media, developed by both RealNetworks, and independent developers. Motorola has already released a Linux-based smart phone, the A760, and sold its stake in Symbian earlier this year. The company is heavily committed on both open-source Linux-based products as well as Microsoft Windows Mobile (Smartphone) technology.

Motorola believes that an open-source platform leads to rapid application development, and hence quick deployment of new services. RealNetworks software will be delivered to people through Motorola's HelloMoto-service.

Source:
News.com

Apple Computer announced on Monday that the Windows version of its iTunes software has already been downloaded one million times since its launch last Thursday. The release of the Windows version more than doubled the sales at iTunes -- since Thursday more than one million songs have been sold. Recently the weekly rate has been around half a million sold songs.

The software has been well received by Mac users, who enjoy the familiar user interface. There has been some problems, though, especially with Windows 2000 Professional, as we reported earlier.

Source:
News.com

Apple Computer has launched the Windows version of its popular iTunes music store. iTunes music jukebox software allows Windows users to access the service that has been available to Mac users since April, 2003.

The software is free, and offers the same catalogue at the same prices as the Macintosh version. It also has the same look and feel as the Mac version, and it supports both AAC with DRM, and MP3. Microsoft's Windos Media Audio format is not supported.

"This is not some baby version of iTunes or the music store," said Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. "This is the whole thing."

Making a "cripped" version of iTunes would have made little sense, since competing with services like Napster 2 requires the best of efforts from Apple.

With iTunes for Windows Apple has had to let go of some of their main principles. So far Apple has been proud of their Macintosh only -software. But the Windows market was just too big a possibility to waste to cockiness.

Source:
News.com

A study by Sandvine Incorporated shows that while FastTrack -based KaZaA is almost de facto P2P application in the United States, things are quite different in Europe. The diversity of P2P applications in Europe is larger, and eDonkey has quite a significant "market share" in many countries.

While KaZaA generates 76 percent of all the P2P traffic in the United States and Canada, for instance in Germany the percentage is only 44. The top P2P application in Germany is eDonkey, which generates 52% of file sharing traffic.

The study also discovered what many P2P users have known for quite a while now -- Gnutella is practically extinct.

Source:
PR Newswire

Penn State University has received funding from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for developing legal file sharing technology.

The $1.1 million grant will enable the University to partner with the Internet2 consortium in the development of a technology called LionShare, an innovative tool that will facilitate legitimate file-sharing among institutions around the world through the use of authenticated Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks.

"It’s vital for higher education today to make a concerted effort to develop technologies that encourage responsible file sharing," said J. Gary Augustson, vice provost for information technology. "We believe that LionShare will lead the way in this effort by providing a model for the positive ways P2P technology can be used for legitimate educational purposes."

The unique structure of Peer-to-Peer, which allows a high level of bandwidth and computing power to be shared equally among a community of network users or "peers," will make it possible for participants to extract specific resources from fellow peer computers, while simultaneously ensuring that these interactions are secure. LionShare also will provide a means for users to access well-known, large-scale repositories that contain digital video, images and other data throughout the U.S., Europe and other locations.

SunnComm Technologies, Inc. has stepped down from the lawsuit it was planning against a student for revealing how their copy protection can be circumvented.

Alex Halderman released his findings regarding MediaMax CD3 copy protection, and revealed, that it can be simply diverted by disabling Windows' autorun -feature, or just by pushing the shift-key when inserting the CD.

According to SunnComm CEO Peter Jacobs suing Halderman would do little good at this point -- the harm has already been done, and SunnComm doesn't want to scare computer scientists from studying copy-protection technologies in the future.

Source:
Daily Princetonian

Online music service EMusic will no longer be offering unlimited download service to its subscribers. The 70,000 EMusic customers will have to settle for a maximum of 40 downloads per month for $9.99. Subscriptions for 65 and 300 downloads will be available at $14.99 and $50 respectively. Even at those prices EMusic is much cheaper than its alternatives -- at cheapest a single track costs only 17 cents to download, and even at the most expensive 40 tracks for $9.99 -scheme the cost-per-track is only 25 cents.

The move came soon after EMusic was acquired by Dimensional Associates, a digital music venture capital company. DA stated that the new terms are the result of the "intense financial, legal and technological pressure" the music industry is suffering from at the moment.

The service will continue to provide songs in DRM-free MP3 format, which enables the subscribers to use the downloaded music as they see fit. EMusic's service contains 250,000 songs from 900 independent labels around the world. The company will be adding new labels and features to the service over the coming months.

Source:
The Register

Samsung has announced a 20GB hard-drive digital audio player, YP-910GS, which is designed to operate with the upcoming Napster 2.0 service.

The player comes pre-loaded with songs from artists such as Liz Phair, Iggy Pop, and The Faint, in addition to which the buyer is entitled to downloading 20 free songs from the service.

In addition to playing music downloaded from Napster, the device includes a built-in FM-tuner, using which songs can be recorded on the device from the radio. Songs can also be transfered from a CD player without the use of a PC. And to complete the package, the 910GS includes a FM transmitter, using which music can be wirelessly transmitted to an FM radio or AV receiver for playback.

The Napster 2.0 service will be released by the end of the year, and it will include more than 500,000 songs.

Source:
News.com

University of Florida has implemented a monitoring system, that blocks users from the Internet if they are running a P2P sofware.

The monitoring sofware called "Integrated Computer Application for Recognizing User Services", or Icarus for short, also scans for security holes and backdoors in the computers, and automatically gives instructions on how to apply appropriate patches or disable offending programs.

Users sharing files will receive an automatic warning via email and pop-up window, and will be blocked from network for thirty minutes. The second violation cuts access for five days. Third-time offenders are subject to the school's judicial process, and will lose their network access indefinitely.

Universities across the US are looking for ways to prevent their students from engaging in illegal affairs, and possibilities for providing the students with legal ways of obtaining music. Florida's approach definitely addresses the first issue, but at the same time it automatically labels all P2P use illegal.

Source:
Zeropaid.com

US Senator Norm Coleman has questioned the current legislation that makes it possible for RIAA to request for fines between $750 and $150,000 per song needs a dose of sanity.

According to senator Coleman the law forces people to settle with the plaintiff out of fear, and without challenge.

"The range of penalties was put in when downloading wasn't even thought of. I can tell you that $150,000 per song is not reasonable, and that's technically what you can put in front of somebody," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters. "That forces people to settle when they may want to fight, but they're thinking, 'Goodness, gracious, what am I going to face?' "

Instead of DMCA subpoenas being processed by clerks, Coleman would like to see the law changed so that some judicial review would be included. So far RIAA has filed lawsuits against a 12-year-old girl (settled out of court for $2,000) and a 65-year-old grandmother (RIAA dropped charges), so there's definitely room for critizism.

Source:
The Register
Pioneer Press

MPEG LA, a group representing companies that hold MPEG-4 audio and video patent rights, has asked DRM patent holders to submit their technologies for review. Suitable DRM methods will be gathered into a licensing pool by MPEG LA for all developers to license at one go.

By providing all essential technologies in one place, MPEG LA hopes to make it easier for software and hardware developers, who want to produce copy protected MPEG material, to gather the required licenses for DRM technologies. Until now developers have had to search for appropriate DRM patents themselves, which is extremely time consuming. One of the few alternatives has been Microsoft's products, but content providers are not too keen on giving Microsoft more control than it already has.

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is developing a DRM standard of its own, but MPEG LA wants to act more quickly. A "semi-official" DRM standard crafted by MPEG LA might well serve as a guideline for the official MPEG standard as well.

Sanyo Mavic Media has developed an optical disc labeled MildDisc. The disc is based on polylactic acid taken from corn.

It takes about 85 kernels of corn to make a CD. When discarded, the disc will be dissolved by bacteria to carbon dioxide, water, and inorganic substances in two to eight months.

The European Union has adopted directives, which require that all electronics devices sold within the union must be lead-free by June 2006.

Source:
Prosessori (Finnish)