News written by Ben Reid (May, 2006)

Just hours after popular BitTorrent Tracker ThePirateBay.org's servers were seized in a raid by Swedish police earlier today, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) issued a somewhat gleeful press release.

Within the document, it stated that The Pirate Bay is one of the world’s largest and most well known, "facilitators of online piracy", and that there are now, "no safe harbors," for such sites.

"The actions today taken in Sweden serve as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbors for Internet copyright thieves," said Dan Glickman, Chairman & CEO of the MPAA. "Intellectual property theft is a problem for film industries all over the world and we are glad that the local government in Sweden has helped stop The Pirate Bay from continuing to enable rampant copyright theft on the Internet."

John Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA said, "The bottom line is that the operators of the Pirate Bay and others like them are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works and files protected under the law."

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Police in Bulgaria have today charged two men with illegally distributing music and films in in one of Europes' largest Internet piracy groups, according to officials.

The administrator and systems operator of www.arenabg.com were taken into custody for putting download links to 20 million songs and hundreds of films on the site, which is one of Bulgaria's most popular pages.

It allowed users unlimited access to all content on the site for a $2.50 monthly fee. The damage to the entertainment industry from this is estimated at around $30 million by Bulgarian Authorities. "These people are among the biggest Internet pirates in Europe," explained Liliana Yosifova, spokeswoman for the Sofia Investigators' Office. "We are talking about big losses here."

Also found in the suspects' homes by police in the swoop were three satellite receivers and 200 CDs containing pirated movies, which is said by the Internet Ministry to have been a high-speed network used to download fresh music and video content from illegal pirate sites.

Source:
CNET News

Popular Russian online music download service AllofMP3.com has been judged as illegal by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), and prosecutions are reported to be underway. The Moscow-based service, whose market share at 14% comes second only to iTunes in the UK, has been accused of not paying royalties to artists.

The prices charged by AllofMp3.com are a lot cheaper than that of other online music services such as iTunes, which has made it a hit with consumers. A typical album download from the iTunes Music Store can cost as much as £9.79 in the UK (almost $18.20), or typically around £0.75 (about $1.40) from AllofMP3, which prices its downloads by file size.

The site, run by MediaServices Inc., claims that it is completely legal in Russia because the music it distributes is licensed by the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR). MediaServices states that it pays licence fees "subject to the Law of the Russian Federation," and whether or not it is legal in other countries depends on local copyright laws.

DivX Inc. has announced the release of DivX 6.5 for the Mac. The latest version of the popular video conversion and playback tool comes equipt with the first official release of DivX for Mac player, which provides Mac users with "free full-screen playback of high-quality DivX videos on a desktop or through a browser," according to a Press Release.

DivX is video Compression software which can be used as an alternative to QuickTime and other formats. It produces compressed video of a high quality that can be played back on computers, some portable devices and DivX capable standalone DVD players. This announcement marks the end of a public beta testing period of DivX 6.5 for Mac.

DivX 6.5 for the Mac allows users watch DivX videos in full-screen playback. It also includes a desktop dimmer, mouse gesture controls and Windows fade-out amongst other features. Also included with the 6.5 release is DivX Converter, which outputs video files and necessary HTML code so movies can be embedded into Web sites used with the DivX Web Player.

Nintendo has announced a guide price for its up and coming next generation console, the Wii, which will be launched globally later this year. Although Nintendo won't announce the actual price, it has stated it will will not exceed $250 in America or 25,000 yen in Japan. No estimate was announced for the European market, however it was indicated that it would be a "similar, affordable price."

Nintendo's pricing decision will be compared closely with rival Sony, whose PlayStation 3 console will ship for a considerably higher amount at around the same time, and will cost up to $599 for the fully-featured, 60gB model. Nintendo expects to ship 6 million Wii systems before the end of March 2007, as well as 17 million games.

Although the Wii doesn't boast the same level of gaming power offered by Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, its unique controller has marked it as a contender. And with the news of a <$250 price tag, Nintendo cannot be written off in the battle of the next generation consoles.

Sources:
CNET News and
GameSpot

The company behind popular Bittorrent search engine TorrentSpy has countersued the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), alleging that it hired a hacker to infiltrate its' e-mail and trade secrets.

The suit alleges that the MPAA paid a man $15,000 to steal information from Valence Media, parent company of Torrentspy, of whom the MPAA has accused of helping copyright violators. Torrentspy claims the man, known only as 'The Informant', has admitted his role in the plot and is cooperating with it. He is also alleged to have provided documents that prove the nature of his involvement with the MPAA, including a written agreement signed by the hacker and an MPAA executive.

"We have very significant proof of wrongdoing and the MPAA's involvement," stated Ira Rothken, Torrentspy's attourney. "We think it's ironic for the MPAA to claim that they are protecting the rights of the movie studios and then go out and pirate other people's property."

Just three months ago, the MPAA filed suit against Torrentspy and other directories such as IsoHunt.com and BTHub.com for allegedly making it easier for pirates to distribute copyrighted films over the internet.

StreamCast Networks, the makers of the Morpheus peer-to-peer software, alleges in a lawsuit against internet auction giant eBay is profiting from peer-to-peer technology that rightfully belongs to it.

StreamCast claim in a lawsuit filed to the U.S. Central District Court in Los Angeles on Monday that Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the pair that developed the technology behind the companies Kazaa and Skype, of breaking an agreement to give StreamCast the first right to purchase their FastTrack p2p protocol. FastTrack was formerly the network which Morpheus' file-sharing application operated on and is also the technology foundation of Skype's voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service.

Up until this lawsuit, the companies had always shared a close working relationship, revealed Michael Weiss, StreamCast's chief executive. Weiss added that StreamCast played major role in the development of FastTrack and that the company had paid to guarantee the right to acquire FastTrack. But then, according to the lawsuit, Zennstrom made plans in secret to ignore the deal and sold the technology to a shell company.

UK buyers may only be offered the 60gb, fully-featured version of the up and coming PlayStation 3 console, according to a Sony official.

The head of Sony Computer Entertainment's UK operation, Ray Maguire, seemed to confirm speculation that the less featured 20GB PS3 will not be released in the UK officially in an interview with UK games industry weekly MCV. "The lower-end 20Gb version of PlayStation 3 has no wi-fi, no HDMI and none of the other slots in it, so it’s really a question of where we would position it. It’s more likely that we will only launch the 60Gb version," he stated.

Last week, Maguire was quoted as saying the 60GB PS3 will be priced at around £425 when it arrives in the UK on 17 November. His latest comments, however, imply a lot of uncertainty regarding the final price. "We have time to watch the yen and be flexible, but that 60GB version looks like £425 in the UK at the moment," Macguire told MCV. "High trade margins in the UK are likely to see it come in with that kind of street price, though it's ultimately up to retailers."

Source:
The Register

Microsoft Corp. has revealed it has no immediate plans to lower the price of its Xbox 360 console. This comes after rumors that Microsoft would drop the price on the 360 by at least $100 to challenge prices of Sony's PlayStation 3 console, which launches in November.

Microsoft Europe representative Chris Lewis told Club Skill "We have no plans to make any price adjustment. The last couple of days have reinforced the fact that we have a great value proposition, giving consumers choice, thanks to the core system. We’re not forcing the consumer down a route with HD playback. We certainly don’t think it’s necessary to make any changes to the current price point."

He also went on to dismiss any rumours of an up and coming handheld Xbox console. "We’ve got quite a lot going on," he said. "It’s a hugely significant time for us and for gaming in general. We don’t have any plans to do anything in the handheld space."

Source:
Club Skill

Earlier this week, we reported that Creative Technology were suing Apple Computer Inc. over patent infringment of the Zen players' user interface.

Apple has responded to Creative patent infringement allegations claiming much the same thing by alleging the MP3 player maker has violated its own intellectual property. It has filed a formal complaint against its rival in the Wisconsin District Court. Apple holds nearly an 8-to-1 margin in sales of its player over its smaller rival.

While Creative remained quiet about its own suit, it said it was shocked Apple's response. "Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions," Creative spokesman Phil O'Shaughnessy told the International Herald Tribune. "At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit."

Source:
BetaNews

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed a lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio over its' new device, the Pioneer Inno, which allows users to save songs heard on the radio service to the device.

The RIAA's lawsuit, filed in a federal court in New York yesterday, alleges the satellite radio provider is committing "massive wholesale infringement" of copyrights. The suit claims that users who have the device and subscibe to the $12.95-a-month service would no longer need to purchase digital music.

The music industry is demanding $150,000 (£79,537) for every song recorded by customers who bought the player since it was first released earlier this month. Although thousands of Innos have been sold, this does not appear to have deterred XM. It has vowed "it would fight the suit", and also points out that the Pioneer Inno is no different from a person recording from terrestrial radio, which has happened for years. Furthermore, it cannot transfer content, nor is it an on-demand service, unlike iTunes.

The RIAA, however, disagree. In a statement made to the Los Angeles Times, Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA's chief executive, said "XM wants to offer listeners what is essentially a free version of iTunes without paying the music companies for the right to sell their songs". He contines to say, "It's a great deal for XM because it drives subscriptions. But it's fundamentally unfair to songwriters and labels and threatens to puncture the integrity of the digital music marketplace right as it is growing."

Apple Corp. today unveiled the newly designed MacBook which features the Intel Core Duo processor along with a 13-inch display, and is billed as a replacement to both the iBook and the 12-inch PowerBook.

The new MacBook, which is on sale now, starts at USD$1,099. There are three in total in the Macbook series, and the lineup includes: a 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz MacBook in a newly designed, sleek white casing and a 2.0 GHz MacBook in a new black enclosure.

"Apple began the transition to Intel Core Duo-based notebooks in February with the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and now just 90 days later we have completed the transition with the release of the all new MacBook," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. "The complete MacBook lineup leads the industry with Apple's trademark innovative design and advanced mobile features -- from top to bottom it is the best notebook line that we have ever offered."

Source:
TechNewsWorld