News written by Jari Ketola (March, 2003)

Los Angeles Police has arrested two teenagers for using a digital camcorder to videotape Star Trek: Nemesis in a movie theatre. The men were arrested as they exited the Paramount Los Angeles theatre.

Both men are charged under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and both the camcorder, and the tape with the movie were confiscated.

Illegal camcorder copies or "Cams" are often spread on the Internet even before the movie premiers. That's why the local Film & Video Security office is more than eager to assist in prosecuting the offenders. Film & Video Security Office is a part of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Source:
Zeropaid.com

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly isn't enough for MPAA. ISPs have told MPAA that they can't always determine the activities of their customers. That's why MPAA is currently lobbying for a "super-DMCA", which would ban users from hiding their activities from the ISP (and MPAA).

Sounds fair enough? Think again. The proposed bill would outlaw for example firewalls, routers, and even email encryption. MPAAs wording on the proposed bill is so vague, that the results of a super-DMCA law being passed would be disastrous. Super-DMCA efforts seem to bee afoot atleast in Texas, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alaska, Tennessee, and Colorado.

Read more on the topic at Reason.com

Cirrus Logic Inc. announced that it has licensed the DivX video codec from DivX Networks for its high end and single-board DVD processor families. The deal means that DVD-players equiped with Cirrus Logic's chips and a price tag below $149 might hit the market by late 2003. Cirrus is hoping to be able to deliver streaming MPEG-4 video content over the internet to standalone players by early 2004.

There are already several MPEG-4 capable players available, and the format is gaining in popularity on the standalone player market. The variety of formats causes alot of problems though, and a 100% support is yet to be seen on any device. There are still numerous different MPEG-4 formats around -- DivX v3.11, DivX 4, DivX 5, XviD, and several others, such as the newcomer Nero Digital.

Source:
EE Times

321Studios has just released a new version of their DVD backup software DVD X Copy. Registered customers can download the update. Notice that the new version requires a reactivation.

If you don't have DVD X Copy yet, you can purchase it at DVDXCopy.com. For more information and feedback, please visit the DVD X Copy support forum.

Changes to version 1.5:

• New Gearworks drivers - additional DVD drives are supported. DVDXC
  
• Internal Nero burn engine is disabled. All internal burns will be done with Gearworks engine.
  
• External Nero burn support is still available.
  
• DVDXCopy will no longer complain if the user attempts to back up an Archived DVD, DVDXCopy will simply ignore it and continue to look for an original DVD.
  
• FULL and WIDE screen display for title set selection. Previously all title sets had shown [FULL] all the time, in the disk1 and disk2 list displays.
  
• The "Copy Now" and "Burn Now" buttons now call attention to themselves.
  
• Changes to the license activation system. Sorry folks, everyone will have to re-activate their copy of DVDXCopy.
  
• The tutorial tab has been removed. The tutorial now resides behind a "help" button.
  
• Improved support for episodic disks
  
• Multi-lingual tutorial

The DVD rental revenues overtook VHS rental revenues on the week ending 16 March 2003 in the United States. That's the first time in the history of the DVD-format. In numbers of units rented, VHS still beats DVD with its 54 percent share of the market.

According to Bo Andersen, President of Video Software Dealers Association, consumers have learned to appreciate the quality, convenience, and value-added features of DVDs.

The DVD-Video format was released only six years ago. It has been a huge success since the very beginning.

Source:
Europemedia

There has been alot of debate on numerous aspects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ever since it was passed. Now the Library of Congress' Copyright Office will hold a series of public hearings to decide if changes should be made to the DMCA. Namely the section that prohibits bypassing copy-protection schemes.

The anticircumvention restrictions of the DMCA can prohibit users from accessing work they have purchased. E.g. reverse engineering the DVD CSS encryption is illegal, so DVDs can only be viewed under the platforms accepted by the DVD Consortium. Bypassing DVD region coding, backing up copy protected DVDs or CDs, or even skipping advertisements on DVDs is forbidden by the law.

According to the announcement from Copyright Office anyone who has something to say about DMCA can submit a request to be heard by April 1st. The hearings will be held in Washington D.C. on Apr. 11, Apr. 15, Apr. 30, and May 2. There will also be hearings in California, but the dates have not been set yet.

The Copyright Office is looking forward to hearing not only legal arguments, but also testimonies from people who can shed a light on more practical aspects of the problems caused by DMCA.

The MPEG-4 High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) proposal has been elevated to the final ballot stage, which will, hopefully, soon lead to a standard. The new encoding profile enhances the current AAC LC (Low Complexity) standard with the Spectral Bandwidth Replication (SBR). The group calls SBR "one of the most remarkable advancements in audio compression in many years". Thanks to coding options, decoders not equiped with SBR decoding functionalities can still play the AAC streams.

One of the upcoming software solutions on Windows-platform is the Nero Digital -codec, which was announced at CeBit last week.

Source:
JVT press release

Absolutely nothing.

This is war:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/thisiswar/

It's not too late to act.

"I became a fucking animal. I started fucking putting fucking heads on poles. Leaving fucking notes for the motherfuckers. Digging up fucking graves. I didn't give a fuck anymore. Y'know, I wanted—. They wanted a fucking hero, so I gave it to them. They wanted fucking body count, so I gave them body count."

—unnamed Vietnam Veteran, quoted in Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, 1994). Reprinted in An Intimate History of Killing.

Leading PC, consumer electronics and digital imaging companies announced their support today for MPV(TM) (MusicPhotoVideo), a new open standard format to enhance the way consumers store and enjoy collections of personal music, photo and video content on storage media, such as data CDs and DVDs. Some companies will release the first MPV creation applications and players in the second half of 2003.

Companies announcing support for the MPV standard include Eastman Kodak Company, HP (NYSE:HPQ), LG Electronics Inc., Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, and Sony Corporation.

Also announcing implementation of the MPV format in future products are companies developing leading software and firmware applications for creating multimedia discs. These applications include ACD Systems ACDSee, Ahead Software's Nero, ArcSoft PhotoBase, HP Memories Disc Creator, Planetweb Digital Photo and Audio Managers, Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator, Sonic Solutions MyDVD and RecordNow Max.

The MPV control file provides a table of contents of the storage media such as CDs and DVDs which a MPV-enabled device can quickly recognize and use to navigate and access the multimedia content. Additions and edits to playlists and multimedia content can be made easily without rewriting the entire disc.

U.S. District Judge John Bates will be hearing the appeal from Internet service provider Verizon as well as the counter arguments from the Recording Industry Association of America on April 1st.

Earlier this year Bates ruled, that Verizon must disclose the identity of a Kazaa user under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Verizon sees that the DMCA subpoena procedure severely violates the users' privacy and demands that RIAA goes through the normal legal procedure to get the identity.

Source:
News.com

Sony announced that it is to begin sales of the world's first Blu-ray based DVD-recorder next month. The recorder, BDZ-S77, which enables the consumers to record two hours of high-definition 1080i video at 24MBps on a blu-ray recordable disc, retails at around 450,000 yen ($3,800).

The product is aimed at consumers, who wish to record high-definition digital satellite broadcasts at the best possible quality. The release date in Japan is April 10th. So far no date has been given for an international release. It is unlikely that this particular product will ever hit shelves outside of Japan.

The drive is capable of reading Blu-Ray, DVD Video, DVD-R/RW, CD, and CD-R/RW discs. It can record on Blu-Ray discs at bitrates ranging from 4 to 24Mbps, which translates to 2 to 12 hours of recording capacity. There's only support for Blu-Ray recordables -- DVD-R/RWs cannot be written.

Check out the technical specifications at AV-Land.

Source:
News.com

The on-line music scene keeps getting more and more complex every day. Just recently RealNetworks, the founding member of the MusicNet, invested in competing Listen.com's Rhapsody -service. Now Sony is rumoured to have provided funding to MusicNet, which competes with their own service, Pressplay.

So Real has a share of MusicNet and Rhapsody, and Sony has an influence in Pressplay and MusicNet, of which AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, and EMI Group also own a share of. In November last year Sony licensed content to MusicNet.

The reasons behind these actions are quite clear. Since the on-line downloadable music business is still relatively small, the labels are trying to scrape up profits from wherever they can. The only way to make sure you won't fall behind of your competitors is to be part of every service around.

Source:
News.com

As suspected, the Jon Johansen DeCSS -case will go to appeals court. Earlier this year Norwegian court found the 19-year-old teenager not quilty to the charges he was facing.

MPAA filed the complaint against Johansen at the Norway's Economic Crime Unit.

"This case is about important principles, and we are very pleased that it will be tried again," said Rune Floisbonn, acting chief of the Economic Crime Unit's data department.

Johansen's lawyers, however, believe that the ruling will not change at the appeals court. The facts of the case remain the same -- Johansen copied only the DVD movies he had purchased.

"We have a victory behind us and we are confident with regard to the final outcome," Johansen's lawyer, Halvor Manshaus, said.

The new trial is expected to start after the summer.

Source:
News.com