News written by Petteri Pyyny (February, 2003)

American movie rental company NetFlix announced on this week that it has now over one million subscribers.

Company had 857,000 subscribers at the end of 2002, so it has managed to gather 17 percent increase in less than two months.

NetFlix's idea is that subscribers pay a monthly fee and can rental unlimited amount of DVDs -- depending on their subscription level they can hold 1-3 DVDs at home. All rentals are delivered by mail and returned with pre-paid envelopes.

Source: Reuters / News.com

One of the biggest institution in so-called "warez scene", ISONews.com, has been busted by the FBI and in rather controversial move, the domain name now points to Department of Justice's servers.

According to DOJ, ISONews.com was charged because it sold modchips for XBox and PS2 through its site -- which is actually slightly bizarre claim, since as far as most people have pointed out, they actually just had advertisements of other companies' modchip sites running on their site.

Anyway, the site's owner, 22-year-old David Rocci, has pleaded guilty in December to charges against him under the controversial DMCA law. The discussion on the real ISONews.com site continues, but the access to the site can be achieved only by using the direct IP address of the site. The site was popular because it listed all the latest piracy releases available in the newsgroups -- although nothing could be downloaded from the site itself. You can visit their site here.

Source: News.com

Listen.com told press today that streaming media giant RealNetworks has made a strategic minority investment in Listen.com.

The move might tell something about Real's faith in its existing investment in music subscription service MusicNet that competes directly with Listen.com's Rhapsody service.

This speculation is underlined by the fact that new version of MusicNet was launched today at AOL's web properties, but Real hasn't hinted will it even bother to update its own MusicNet service to the new version.

Source: News.com

Roxio has announced that it will relaunch the legendary Napster during this year as a legit service. According to various sources, company is currently negotiating with record labels to get their content into the new upcoming legal service.

What's more interesting is that the man behind the original Napster and the whole P2P craze, Shawn Fanning, is now working for Roxio as a consultant.

Roxio bought the bankrupt Napster's main assets, including the domain name and the trademarks, after the company went finally bust in last year.

Source: EuropeMedia

In very unsuprising move, Microsoft, has finally joined officially to the DVD+RW Alliance which develops so-called "plus formats" in DVD recordable wars. Microsoft had already strong relationship with the DVD+RW format, since it developed integrated support for the format in Windows XP to use the format as a big floppy (Mt. Rainier technology).

The announcement might help DVD+RW Alliance to change the situation in the market place, where the rival format, DVD-R, is gaining momentum with cheaper disc prices and roster of big Japanese manufacturers supporting the format.

Source: News.com

There are some wild rumours circulating on the Net about an upcoming P2P application from the behemoth itself, Microsoft. According to various reports -- and it's not 1st of April yet -- the tool would integrate into MSN Messenger and would be called 3°r; (three degrees).

There are some -- we can only speculate are they real or not -- screenshots available in here as well as some, very little though, more information about the tool. Based on the screenshots, they've pretty much ripped the design of the default skin from the original Sonique MP3 player :-)

Source: NeoWin

Update: Okidok, it's official now. You can test the software -- in case you have Windows XP, XP Service Pack 1 and MSN Messenger. The software homepage is here:

http://www.threedegrees.com/

American TV network ABC and British BBC have both licensed video compression technology from On2 Technologies to use it to transmit TV-quality video footage from reporters in remote locations.

On2 Technologies became a familiar name to masses in last year when it donated its older video compression technology, VP3 to Xiph.org (same organization which oversees various Ogg projects) and open-sourced it.

Now, two major TV players have adopted On2's newer, propietary format, VP5 to use in "real life", to transmit video footage over the Internet from journalists to their home TV studios. BBC plans to use the system in Middle East for its reporters to provide newsfeeds from places where setting up a satellite link and to transmit the data over analog signals would be less practical solution.

On2 seem to have crawled into the video world from the backdoor, when MPEG-4 advocates (such as Real and Apple) are fighting against Microsoft's WMV technology on all areas of video delivery.

Source: News.com

Group of music publishers in the U.S. have sued the German media giant Bertelsmann over its investment to now-defunct Napster.

Publishers and songwriters named in the suit as plaintiffs argue that by investing over $80M to Napster, Bertelsmann gave Napster a lifeline that allowed it to continue violating authors' copyrights in massive scale.

The plaintiffs seek damages of over $17 billion. Bertelsmann declined to comment the lawsuit today.

Source: Reuters

A company called Audible Magic has launched a product to fight against illegal file-swapping in similiar manner that now-defunct Napster tried to implement in its final days.

Company develops a product that will sit in ISP's, school's or company's network and actually analyzes the P2P traffic that flows through the network, comparing the file details -- not just filenames, but the actual content of the files -- against a database that contains lists of illegal files and blocks the transfer if such file is found in the traffic flow.

Problems with this type of products are obvious: so-called "false positives" that mean that totally legal file has the same characteristics as the illegal file and can't therefor be transferred at all. Other problem is that if such mechanism will find its way to ISPs, it is 100% certain that P2P developers will start encrypting the files transferred in the P2P networks, making the product useless immediately.

Source: News.com

Swedish wireless network manufacturer Ericsson, announced today that it will include RealNetworks' Helix Universal Server into its own Ericsson Content Delivery Solution package.

The bundle will allow mobile phone operators, such as Vodafone, to deliver "third generation content" to mobile phone users, including streaming audio and video over near-broadband networks that will emerge in near future around the world (provided that operators get the cash to build the networks :-). The platform will support Real's own formats such as RealAudio and RealVideo as well as industry-standard formats such as MPEG-4 and 3GPP (wireless implementation of the MPEG-4 format).

Real has a strong position in mobile world -- by far the world's largest mobile manufacturer, Finnish Nokia, already bundles its high-end phones with Real's RealPlayer software and also uses Helix platform components in its network solutions aimed for mobile phone operators. Ericsson is currently the biggest network equipment provider for mobile phone operators (Ericsson spun off its mobile phone manufacturing a while ago to a separate company owned jointly with Japan's Sony).

Hollywood has stepped up its efforts to fight against the ever-growing DVD piracy in Asia by offering rewards for informers within the area through its international arm, MPA (not to confuse with American equivalent MPAA).

According to the Asia-Pacific area's representative, organization has set aside $150,000 for informers who can provide information leading to a closure of DVD piracy rings or illegal DVD factories in the area.

The problem is seriously worrying in some of the countries in Asia -- it is estimated that 90% of Indonesia's DVDs are pirated copies and 80% in Philippines. MPA estimates that because of piracy, Hollywood loses over $600M annually in Asia.

Source: Reuters via Yahoo!

The group of companies who have developed one of the competing future blue-laser DVD replacement technologies, called as Blu-Ray Disc Founders, have announced that they will begin licensing the technology to other companies on 17th of February.

Licenses for the format and logo cost between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on the use. The copy-protection licensing costs between $4,000 and $12,000 annually. One Blu-Ray disc will hold approximately 27 gigabytes of data per side, compared to the recordable DVD disc that can hold "only" 4.36GB of data (or dual-layer pressed DVD-9 which can hold appx. 8.5GB of data per side).

Companies behind the Blu-Ray include Pioneer, Matsushita (owns brands such as Panasonic), Sony, Philips and Samsung. But unfortunately their efforts weren't appreciated by the DVD formats' governing body, the DVD Forum, which chose to use a competing technology in its official "Next Generation DVD" discs, developed by NEC and Toshiba.

Source: News.com

Listen.com has launched a promotion that allows users of its subscription service, Rhapsody, to download and burn audio tracks to CDR legally for $0.49 each, half the normal Listen.com cost.

Only nag with the service is really the fact that users need to be subscribers to the service itself which costs $9.99 a month and allows streaming audio via their service.

Listen.com has the licensing contracts from all five major record labels and was the first company to launch a music subscription service back in December, 2001. The offer is available until 31st of March, 2003.

Source: InternetNews.com

321Studios, the developer of the DVDXCopy DVD copying software, has announced a reward for busting and convicting a pirate that uses their products for making illegal movie copies.

321Studios has stated several times that their product is meant for personal backups and allows making perfect backups of any DVD-Video disc available, but has restrictions in place for further copying the discs made with DVDXCopy.

321Studios has been sued by several major movie studios who claim that 321Studios' product violates the American DMCA law. 321Studios has gathered evidence to argue that their product is meant only for personal use -- they recently had a campaign of collecting movie titles not in production anymore to validate their claims that DVDs need to be backed up as there are cases when user simply can't buy a replacement disc when the original is broken.

"While we believe consumers should have the right to make perfect, personal-use backup copies of DVDs they already own, we are against the illegal use of our products," said Mike Wozniak, chief information officer of 321 Studios, in a statement.

More information: Read more...

TDK and Pioneer announced that they will develop faster burning capabilities into their DVD recorders range that use DVD-R and DVD-RW formats.

Companies' threat is really not the "plus camp" which only shares an insignificant portion of the world's stand-alone DVD recorder markets, but the DVD-RAM format, most widely used by Panasonic. DVD-RAM controls the stand-alone recorders' market, specially in Japan -- Japan itself is the world's largest market for DVD recorders, beating hands down Europe and U.S.

TDK and Pioneer have plans to announce 4x or 5x stand-alone DVD recorders within this year to fight against the DVD-RAM in Japanese markets and DVD+RW camp in emerging European and American markets.

More info: The Inquirer

Arista Records has announced that it will launch several DVD-Video singles (don't confuse these with DVD-Audio discs) in near future. Artists, whose music will be available in DVD-Video format, include Avril Lavigne and Pink.

The discs will include two music videos, a photo gallery and an electronic press kit. One DVD-Video single will cost $7.98. Goodies for the generation that has been brought up by the MTV and DVDs :-)

Source: Launch

IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry, the global umbrella group representing national recording industry associations, such as RIAA) announced today a new technology called GRid (Global Release identifier) that allows record labels and artists to track more accurately their online digital music sales.

Each participating online reseller -- whether they sell music downloads or streaming audio -- will implement a GRid tag into all of its digital music that contain then an information of the artist, publisher, songwriter, etc. This information will then help record labels and individual artists to track how well their music sales perform in digital world.

"If this is done properly, the artists and authors of music will be paid adequately for the sale of their works online," said Paul Jessop, chief technology officer of the IFPI.

Basically the idea is to harmonize the sales tracking systems used in various online stores that sell digital music. At first, the system would be run on voluntary-basis, where resellers will pay for the technology -- but the licensing fees are only $245 a year with no limits on how many songs can be tagged with the technology.

Two IRC networks (IRC == Internet Relay Chat, a protocol which was developed before the WWW was born) have announced restrictions on file trading in their networks. One of the biggest IRC networks, DALnet, announced on last week that they wont allow IRC channels that are meant only for file trading purposes and will kick such channels out of the network.

Apparently the MPAA has contacted several network admins in various IRC networks and asked them to take more proactive approach in fight against piracy. One minor IRC network called IRC-Chat.net has announced that it will close down channels if it receives official DMCA complaints from the copyright owners, such as the MPAA and RIAA.

Source: IRCNews.com

Clear Channel Concerts, biggest American live concert promoter, has plans to launch a new service that would offer instant live CDs of concerts to fans who attended the concert.

CCC would bring multiple CD recorders in and would produce CDs of the concert fans just attended and fans could then buy the CDs when they leave the venue, just like they buy concert T-shirts, photos, etc nowadays.

Source: Boston Globe

A relatively small company called Acacia has launched an attack against companies who operate either audio or video streaming services, claiming that it owns various patents that cover basic streaming technology.

Company, best known of its patents in American censorship chip found inside TVs, the V-Chip, launched its patent claims in last year, first targetting various adult sites. Virtually all adult sites have refused to license Acacia's claimed patents, but some have accepted the licensing fees. Biggest victory (at least of those known publicly) so far for Acacia has been Radio Free Virgin, part of the enormous Virgin Group, owned by British Richard Branson.

According to Radio Free Virgin, it examined the patent claims carefully and thought that they were tight enough to sign the licensing contract. Company also says that it considers that paying a 0.75% of its revenue as licensing fees for Acacia is a cheaper alternative in long run than a costly legal process. And this might be the case for various smaller companies -- do you risk paying millions in legal costs or do you pay between 0.75 and 2 per cent of your revenue in licensing fees.

MPEG LA, the organization that offers a "one-stop shop" for various MPEG licenses, including the MPEG-2 licenses used in the DVD-Video discs, has finally released a last remaining piece of MPEG-4 standard, the MPEG-4 systems license.

In January, RealNetworks was forced to release its open source media delivery platform, Helix DNA Server, without a MPEG-4 support because the MPEG-4 systems license wasn't available at that time.

MPEG-4 systems license makes it possible for software developers to develop fully-equipped MPEG-4 delivery platforms, including the use of MP4 media wrapper. MPEG-4 systems license includes patents from various companies, such as France Telecom and Apple.

Source: InternetNews.com

The biggest site that has distributed Finnish language subtitles for movies, FinSubs, has been shut down. The Finnish copyright organization, Kopiosto, contacted the site's owners and asked them to shut down the site, because it violates its members' copyrights.

Site has been extremely popular in Finland, where dubbing is something that's never heard of (except in kids' cartoon movies). Most interesting part of the whole story is the fact that very big portion of the subtitles found from the site were actually made by the site members -- i.e. the subtitles weren't ripped from the DVD-Video discs, but actually translated from the movie itself. But apparently even activity this violates copyrights -- the movie studios own the rights to the script and don't allow unauthorized translations at all.

More information: FinSubs

European Commission presented a draft of a legislation that would, in addition to the existing EUCD legislation, harmonize the European Union copyright legislation across the member states. The new proposal has already infuriated the record labels.

EC suggests tough legislation against use and download of pirated material for intentional business use or benefitting financially from copyright infringements. But the proposal would also make it perfectly legal for home users to download pirated music, videos and other intellectual property from P2P networks -- exactly how the legislation already states in various EU member countries, including Finland (the home of AfterDawn.com).

Recording industry had hoped that the proposed legislation would have made it illegal also for home users to download illegal material from the Net. In any case, sharing of the copyrighted material, even for home users, via P2P networks, web, etc would remain illegal.

More information: ITWorld.com

Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) was granted a victory in a legal battle against Japanese P2P network called FileRogue and its owner Japan MMO.

Court decided that Japan MMO and its principal Michio Matsuda were responsible for copyright infringements and must pay damages to RIAJ's member companies (19 major Japanese record labels) and to JASRAC (Japanese authors' society).

Source: Mi2N.com