News written by Jari Ketola (February, 2004)

Movie and entertainment giant Walt Disney, Co. and world's largest software company Microsoft will join DVD Forum, the Tokyo-based industry group announced.

DVD Forum is a non-profit group consisting of more than two hundred member companies. The members get to decide and vote on the future of the DVD format. At the moment the group is debating on which format to choose as the medium for next-generation DVDs. Two of the strongest candidates are Sony's Blu-ray and Toshiba and NEC's HD DVD. It is believed that the new members may improve support for the HD DVD format.

"With Disney and Microsoft joining, maybe the balance of voting power will be improved in favor of Toshiba's HD-DVD format" said Takutoshi Fujiwara of Fujiwara-Rothchild Ltd. "Then it will become much easier for the HD-DVD specification to be admitted by the forum." Fujiwara-Rothchild Ltd. is a technology consultancy advising both Sony and Toshiba.

The current home video markets in the U.S. generate a revenue of over $20 billion, so it's not surprising that everyone wants to have a say in the format that will eventually replace current DVDs.

Source: Bloomberg

CDNow, a division of the record label Bertelsmann, and Net company SightSound Technologies have settled their patent dispute out of court. CDNow agreed to pay $3.3 million to SightSound for dropping the lawsuit.

SightSound, who claims to own patents to the process of selling digital downloadable music over the Internet, sees the agreement as a victory. The company is likely to approach other companies with similar demands asking them to license SightSound's technology in order to avoid a lawsuit.

CDNow has been powered by Amazon.com since December 2002. Amazon takes care of order fulfillment, inventory, content and customer service for CDNow's site.

Source: News.com

Philips Semiconductors and Taiwanese MediaTek expect to start offering dual-layer DVD+R drives in the second quarter of 2004 at earliest.

Philips will be offering a downloadable firmware upgrade to allow system makers to upgrade existing DVD+RW drives to support dual-layer recording. It has not, however, been announced which models can be upgraded by a simple firmware flash.

MediaTek produces chips to equipment manufacturers. Lite-On IT expects that mass production of drives should begin in the second quarter.

Philips and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media announced the dual-layer DVD+R technology in October, 2003.

Source: DigiTimes

The free trade agreement between the United States and Australia, which was finalized in early February, imposes many American copyright standards on Australia. The Australian copyright laws had been quite flexible before the agreement was drafted. Now many aspects of laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) will be implemented in Australia as well.

The factsheet from United States Trade Representative lists the details included in the trade agreement. The agreement, for example, "establishes strong anti-circumvention provisions to prohibit tampering with technologies (like embedded codes on discs) that are designed to prevent piracy and unauthorized distribution over the Internet" and "establishes that only authors, composers and other copyright owners have the right to make their work available on-line".

It is quite obvious that the recent raids in Australia, that were conducted by the anti piracy branch of Australian music industry, MIPI, were related to the newly crafted trade agreement. It remains to be seen how the agreement affects, for example, the status of mod chips in Australia. Last August Australian Federal Court ruled that it's legal to modify a Playstation console to play imported and pirated games.

Sharman Networks, the owner of Kazaa peer-to-peer network claims that the raid to its office last week was not legal. The search warrant, an Anton Pillar order, which granted the Music Industry Piracy Investigations, MIPI the right to conduct the search was not granted based on all the facts, Sharman says.

An Anton Pillar order is used in software piracy cases, and gives the right to conduct a raid without prior notice to the suspect. According to Sharman the judge who gave the order was not presented with all the relevant facts to the case and therefore the order should be set aside.

Sharman's complaint will be heard on February 20. Until then MIPI cannot access the seized documents, the company says.

Source: Wired

The European Parliament is set to debate a draft law that would weed out mass piracy of digital products, such as music and movies. There is a chance, however, that the proposed law might be stretched to include peer-to-peer file sharing as well.

The changes would create a situation similar to the one in USA, where ISPs and RIAA have been arguing whether or not the Digital Millennium Copyright Act grants copyright holders to obtain personal details of individual customers if they are suspected of P2P piracy.

"The balance between privacy of subscribers and the duty to cooperate with right holders seeking to protect their intellectual property that was reached in the e-commerce directive could be changed by this directive," said Tilmann Kupfer, British Telecommunication PLC's (BT's) European regulatory manager.

World Trade Organization (WTO) rules urge WTO members to impose criminal sanctions for people who counterfeit goods for commercial gain. That was exactly what the original draft of the law sought. European Motion Picture Association (EMPA), however, didn't feel that the proposal was enough.

"The Commission's proposal fell short of international requirements agreed at the World Trade Organization," said Ted Shapiro, director of the EMPA.

The representatives for both the entertainment industry, and the P2P companies Grokster and Streamcast Networks gave their statements in the landmark P2P case. The arguments were presented before a three-judge panel for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California.

The entertainment industry called for blocks and filters to be implemented in P2P software limiting the sharing of copyrighted material.

"They can be ordered by this court to do something to control the use of their software, said Russell Frackman, attorney for copyright holders represented by movie and music industry groups. "Filters and blockers can be put into place that will limit the (copyright) infringement."

The lawyers for both Grokster and Morpheus said that such filters would effectively shut them down. They also repeated their view on software manufacturers not being responsible for possible illegal uses of their products.

Morpheus attorney Fred Von Lohmann commented after the hearing, that the filters aren't exactly what the entertainment industry is after. "In reality, they want to shut us down, and this is not the job of the courts," Von Lohmaan said.

According to research group Forrester music services from Internet portals, such as MSN and Tiscali, will be able to get a head start to European music download markets before Napster and Apple announce their own services. In addition to having the possibility to advertise their services throughout existing networks of sites, ISPs will have existing methods for billing their customers directly.

Over time, however, Apple's iTunes service will be able to overtake many of the smaller portals thanks to it's strong brand name and ease of use -- especially with portable iPod-player -- Forrester predicts. Several portal services in Europe are offering content provided by On Demand Distribution, OD2.

The year 2004 has been predicted as a breakthrough year for music download services in Europe.

"In 2004, a combination of legal action by the music industry and expansion of legitimate services will cause a watershed in the download market," said Rebecca Jennings, Senior Analyst for Forrester Research.

Source: PC Pro

One of the most important P2P cases returns to court on Tuesday. The lawyers for both the entertainment industry and the P2P operators Grokster and StreamCast Networks (Morpheus) will be making their case in the Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California.

In April 2003, U.S. district court in Los Angeles ruled that Grokster and StreamCast Networks cannot be held liable for the copyright infringements that are taking place using their software. The entertainment industry disagrees. The plaintiffs, including movie studios, record labels, RIAA, and NMPA hope to convince the appeals court to reverse the earlier ruling.

Both parties will have 30 minutes in which to make their case. Obviously the subsequent ruling will have a huge impact on either the entertainment industry or software developers in general.

"The services are profiting to the tune of millions of dollars from music that is written by songwriters who are not getting a dime from the use of their music on these services," said Carey Ramos, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "We believe that the (lower court's) conclusion is fundamentally unjust."

Video-on-demand provider Movielink announced a new service on Monday that allows its customers to extend the viewing period of rented movies in 24 hour increments. Using the MultiPlay feature the viewing period can be extended for up to 30 days after the initial download.

Usually the additional viewing periods are priced lower than the initial rental price. For example "The Hulk" costs $3.99 to rent, and $0.99 to view again.

One has to wonder why the service hasn't existed since day one. Once the movie has been downloaded and viewed once, offering a second viewing opportunity at a lucrative price makes perfect sense.

Source: News.com