Saturday, February 21, 2004
MPAA wins injunction against 321 Studios
Film studios prevail against maker of DVD copying software - "Judge Susan Illston ruled in San Francisco that software made by the Chesterfield, Mo.-based 321 Studios, violates the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumvention of anti-piracy measures such as the Content Scramble System protecting movies on DVDs. The judge ordered the company to cease from making or distributing such software within seven days of her order. The company said it would appeal the ruling and ask for a stay during the process."
Friday, February 20, 2004
Copyright enforcement now FBI's number 3 priority
FBI Proposes Warning On All Entertainment, Software Products - "Jana Monroe, assistant director of the FBI's cyberdivision, said the unit, created 18 months ago in large part to help hunt perpetrators of digital copyright infringement, will continue to get significant funding from the bureau. Monroe said preventing and prosecuting cybercrimes is now the FBI's No. 3 priority, behind anti-terrorism efforts and counterintelligence operations." (Emphasis mine.)
EMI tells musician to 'cease and desist'
Music fans beg to buy music - "Close to 30 Web sites plan to kick off an act of 'coordinated civil disobedience' next Tuesday by putting up downloads of a controversial album despite EMI's demands that the album be destroyed."
CD price-fixers finally pay up
Refund Checks Coming on Music Price-Fixing Suit - The music CD settlement is finally resulting in checks being mailed -- for a whopping $13.86 per person.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
CDs and DVDs to carry new FBI warning
RIAA's New Seal of Disapproval - "The new antipiracy seal, which was announced at a press conference at the FBI's Los Angeles office, will look much like the warnings seen at the beginning of movies on DVDs or video tapes. Individual companies will decide where to place the seal and if they want to use it at all. The seal might be printed on a CD itself, on the packaging, or pop up on screens when a customer downloads and purchases a digital music file."
Don Henley: 'music business is in crisis'
Killing the music - "Today the music business is in crisis. Sales have decreased between 20 and 30 percent over the past three years. Record labels are suing children for using unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing systems. Only a few artists ever hear their music on the radio, yet radio networks are battling Congress over ownership restrictions. Independent music stores are closing at an unprecedented pace. And the artists seem to be at odds with just about everyone -- even the fans. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the root problem is not the artists, the fans or even new Internet technology. The problem is the music industry itself."
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
All about BitTorrent
File Sharing's New Face - "If Napster started the first generation of file-sharing, and services like Kazaa represented the second, then the system developed by Mr. Cohen, known as BitTorrent, may well be leading the third. Firm numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that the BitTorrent software has been downloaded more than 10 million times. And just as earlier forms of file-sharing seem to be waning in popularity under legal pressure from the music industry, new technologies like BitTorrent are making it easier than ever to share and distribute the huge files used for video."
RIAA countersued for racketeering
Morris mom turns tables in music industry lawsuit - "Labels are using 'scare tactics (that) amount to extortion' in efforts to extract settlements, Scimeca alleges in legal papers sent to the U.S. District Court in Newark."
AT&T denies SCO's claims, in 1985
AT&T Trips Up SCO - "AT&T said it wanted 'to assure licensees that AT&T will claim no ownership in the software that they developed -- only the portion of the software developed by AT&T.' In other words, AT&T never intended for Unix licensees to give up ownership of code they added to their versions of Unix. That was never part of the deal. And the deal AT&T cut is the one SCO has to live with -- even 19 years later."
Stupid Pepsi commercial
Film makers join revulsion at Pepsi RIAA doublespeak - "Despite Apple/Pepsi's wording, no target of the RIAA suits was charged with a crime ... However, many parents and kids watching this commercial are likely unaware of the fact. Fear is a primary means used by The Party to maintain control over expression in 1984."
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
RIAA sues 351 more
Record industry sues file-sharers - "The U.S. music industry says it has sued 531 more people for online copyright infringement, using a method known as the 'John Doe' litigation process because their names are not yet known."
Sunday, February 15, 2004
DVDCCA now claims patent protection on CSS
Movie industry group sues over DVD copying - First they tried to claim CSS was a trade secret and that got blown out of the water. Now they are trying to claim patent protection.
