News written by Jari Ketola (July, 2004)

Apple Computer today released a statement in which it accuses RealNetworks of hacking [SIC] the iPod copy protection when creating the Harmony Technology

"We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod(R), and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA and other laws. We strongly caution Real and their customers that when we update our iPod software from time to time it is highly likely that Real's Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods," Apple said in their statement.

Apparently Apple confused the terms "hacker" and "cracker". It was painfully obvious when Harmony was announced that Apple would draw out the DMCA card.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act seems to be abused time after time without actually being used to it's intended purpose. The DMCA was designed to protect copyrights, but instead it is being used by RIAA, MPAA, and now Apple to maximize their profits.

In their counter statement Real said that "Consumers, and not Apple, should be the ones choosing what music goes on their iPod." Additionally they try to capture the essence of DMCA. "The DMCA is not designed to prevent the creation of new methods of locking content and explicitly allows the creation of interoperable software."

Digital video processor manufacturer ESS Technology has been denied the right to sell its products to some of their clients. A preliminary injunction was issued by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis late Friday.

The Motion Picture Association of America accused ESS of braking the CSS license agreement, which prohibits microchip manufacturers from selling DVD chips to hardware manufacturers who have not licensed CSS technology. MPAA claims to having acquired and disassembled a non-licensed player which was equipped with an ESS chip.

ESS claims to be in full compliance of the CSS license, and every other agreement they have made.

Unlicensed players often have some or all DVD copy prevention mechanisms disabled or have key combinations that makes it easy to disable them. With the lack of Macrovision protection DVD content can be copied to a VCR or DVD recordable.

Source: Reuters.com

RealNetworks has released Harmony Technology, which, according to Real, is a "transcoding and transcrypting" software. Using Harmony consumers can transfer content from various DRM formats to formats supported by various portable players.

Harmony Technology supports all major file types and their DRM protection including MP3, AAC, WMA and RealAudio. With Harmony Real's RealPlayer Music Store supports more than 70 secure portable media devices, including all 4 generations of the iPod and iPod mini, 14 products from Creative, 14 from Rio, 7 from RCA, 9 from palmOne, 18 from iRiver, and products from Dell, Gateway, and Samsung. Generally speaking, Harmony supports any device that uses the Apple FairPlay DRM, The Microsoft Windows Media Audio DRM, or the RealNetworks Helix DRM, giving RealPlayer Music Store support for more secure devices than any other music store on the Internet.

RealNetworks has tried to form an alliance with Apple for quite a while now, but in vain. Apple has consistently refused to license its DRM technology to third parties, which eventually resulted in the creation of Harmony. With Harmony iPod users can choose where to buy their songs online -- they are no longer restricted to using iTunes. Apple may eventually find that allying with Real might have been a good move afterall.

The Register has published an interesting article on implementing the Napster service at Wright State University. Wright State is one of the six colleges that recently signed up with Napster -- mostly to avoid legal trouble with RIAA.

While every student at the university will have to pay a quarterly $189 communications fee, which will be used, among other things, to cover for the Napster expenses, only half of the students will be able to take full advantage of the service.

"Apparently, Wright State students are meant to think of each other as Comrades and take care of each others' critical music needs," Ashlee Vance writes. In addition the director of computing and telecommunications at Wright State, Paul Hernandez estimates that an extra $8 per quarter Napster fee will be added on top of the communications fee.

The deals rise several other concerns as well. Please read the entire article at The Register.

Source: The Register

Apple Computers has confirmed that it has signed deals with independent labels Beggars Group, Sanctuary Records Group and V2. The deal brings artists like Basement Jaxx, The Pixies, Prodigy, Black Sabbath, Sex Pistols and Stereophonics to European iTunes music stores.

"We're thrilled to add three of Europe's largest indie labels to our iTunes Music Store in the U.K., France and Germany," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We welcome Beggars, Sanctuary and V2 to the iTunes family and plan to add many more independent labels soon."

The lack of music from independent labels has been iTunes' biggest hurdle in Europe where many popular artists are represented by smaller labels. With three major indie labels on board, it's quite probable that iTunes will soon be able to sign smaller labels as well.

Source: ZDNet

Roxio's online music store Napster today announced that it has signed deals with six more colleges in the US. Penn State University and University of Rochester will be joined by Cornell University, George Washington University, Middlebury College in Vermont, University of Miami, University of Southern California and Wright State University (Ohio).

The Napster subscription allows students to play music online, but the tracks cannot be burned on CD for listening elsewhere.

The new deals prove that RIAA's lawsuits threats are effective. By suing thousands of individuals across the country, the Recording Industry Association of America has forced the universities to either face lawsuits or find legal means to provide music to their students.

Universities will probably soon end up signing similar deals with online movie providers, and who knows what. In the end it is always the students who end up paying for the services.

It is obvious that the legal online music stores are the way to go, but is threatening by lawsuits really the way to get people to use them?

Source: ZDNet

Apple is getting ready to launch the next generation iPods next week. The next edition of Newsweek will feature an article on the new device. A preview of the article is available at Newsweek website.

The new iPod has an iPod mini feel to it -- the control buttons under the screen are gone, and the features are moved to the ClickWheel. The menus have also been changed to make navigation and playlist creation easier. Despite being thinner than its predecessor, the new iPod should run for 12 hours when fully charged.

The 15GB model will be dropped altogether, and the prices of the larger capacity models will be cut by $100. That puts the price of the 20GB model at $299 and 40GB model at $399.

Engadget has a larger version of the Newsweek cover with a picture of the new Pod. You might also want to check out a picture available at Spymac.

Source: Newsweek

Despite numerous attempts by Bertelsmann AG to dismiss the lawsuits filed against it for funding Napster, it will have to, at least, go for a summary judgment. That is because U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel denied Bertelsmann's request to dismiss the case.

Bertelsmann signed a deal with Napster in 2000 and later invested over $80M in the service, which kept the P2P company running up until 2002, when it finally filed for Chapter 11. In early 2003 Bertelsmann was sued by several record labels seeking $17 billion in damages.

The German media giant insists that the funding was intended to keep Napster alive in order to turn it into a legal music service. Judge Patel, however, said that the case has to be answered in court.

"Plaintiffs' allegations that defendants exercised full operational control over Napster during periods in which Napster remained a conduit for infringing activity may be wholly unfounded... Regardless, such questions must be left for resolution upon motions for summary judgment or at trial," Patel wrote.

A group of technology and entertainment industry giants have teamed up to create a new, flexible content protection system for the future high-definition DVDs. The technology, dubbed Advanced Access Content System (AACS) would grant the users limited rights to copying the content to, for example, a portable player or a desktop PC.

The group includes companies like IBM, Intel, Warner Bros., Disney, Microsoft, Sony and Matsushita. All the companies have developed content protection systems of their own, sometimes working together with other companies. But the AACS alliance is the first time the companies come together for a single, universal solution.

For now there is no AACS technology or even specifications to license, but the AACS Licensing Authority says it would have the technology available for licensing by the end of the year.

It is obvious that the transfers can only be made between DRM capable, non-blacklisted devices. Content providers will, of course, also be able to dictate how strict the limitations on a disc are -- you might, for instance, be able to copy a movie to a portable player, but not on your desktop PC.

Source: ZDNet

According to The Times Apple Computer and independent record labels may might strike a deal as early as today, which would put artists such as White Stripes and Basement Jaxx available via the iTunes music store.

Last month the Association of Independent Music, which represents almost a thousand British indie labels, recommended its members not to sign a deal offered by Apple, because it would have locked them into a long term contract at fixed prices. Apple is now expected to offer a contract that is more in the lines of their contracts with the bigger record companies.

The independent labels represent over a quarter of the total album sales in Europe, so getting them onboard is quite essential for iTunes.

Source: The Times online

It took just over nine days for Apple's iTunes music store to clock 5 million new downloads and reach 100 million downloads since Apple announced the Countdown to 100 Million Songs -contest in early July.

The 100 millionth song downloaded was Somersault (Dangermouse remix) by Zero 7, and it was downloaded by Kevin Britten from Hayes, KS. As a reward he will receive a 17-inch Apple PowerBook, 40GB iPod and 10,000 iTunes songs.

Apple also gave away 50 20GB iPods for every 100,000th song downloaded between 95 million and 100 million.

You can find a list of some of the other winners at Apple iTunes site.

Source: Apple

According to a survey by On-line Testing Exchange (OTX) and MPAA about 24 percent of Internet users have downloaded at least one movie from the net. The survey interviewed 3,600 people in eight countries.

Out of the people surveyed the Koreans seemed to be the most active movie downloaders -- 58 percent of them have reportedly downloaded movies. Most of the people (56 percent) who are currently downloading movies intend to continue downloading in the future, and 17 percent of those who aren't downloading at the moment say that they might start downloading in the future.

As the high-speed broadband Internet connections become more and more common, and the compression technology evolves, the number of downloaders is expected to grow rapidly in the future.

Source: Electricnews.net

European mobile phone operators and video-on-demand service providers have requested the European Union Competition Commissioner Mario Monti to help them gain access to premium content, such as latest movies, music and sports video clips.

In the conference held on Thursday the company representatives told that content providers have little interest in doing business with new media companies. For instance LuxSat, an video-on-demand rental service, has a tough time licensing content to its service.

Mobile service providers are on different tracks. They wish to license the latest sports content, but have also had difficulties getting the content they want.

Mr. Monti acknowledged the problems, saying that video on demand services are "hindered, however, by strong tendencies by established TV operators to protect their position to the detriment of new technologies and new players." He also stated that attractive content is a must-have feature for mobile services to prosper.

Law professor Damien Geradin of the Institute for European Legal studies in Liege, Belgium feels that the only way to solve the problems in licensing premium content is by legal means. "I believe competition law will be the main tool to solve this problem," he said. Read more...