Business

Changes to business digitisation brings

SkyCard: Interactive Credit Card from Sky
In a synergistic embrace, BSkyB and Barclaycard have signed an agreement which will see them join forces to launch a Sky-branded credit card later this year.
The SkyCard will work just like any other credit card but offers the advantage of being fully integrated with Sky’s interactive television services.
We see this is a smart move with Sky inserting themselves between the customer and any content or goods that could be offered to them in the future
Customers can insert their SkyCard in their Sky box to manage their account securely and, soon after launch, to make purchases through the television using their remote control.
This looks like a lucrative opportunity for BSkyB to exploit the unique loyalty and interactive features of the SkyCard to its growing base of more than seven million direct-to-home customers across the UK.
Naturally, there’ll be inducements to get people using the card, with SkyCard cardholders earning SkyPoints with eligible purchases.
These points will offer exclusive savings on Sky entertainment including, for example, the cost of a monthly Sky digital subscription.
Here’s the back-slapping PR schmooze from Jon Florsheim, BSkyB’s Managing Director, Sales, Marketing and Interactive:
“SkyCard will build on the value delivered to customers, enabling them to save money through the loyalty scheme and to get more out of their Sky digital subscription..”
For BSkyB and Barclaycard, this looks to be a winning partnership and maybe one that the customers will enjoy too.
After all, the prospect of being able to buy stuff through your Sky box and earning loyalty points towards the cost of subscription services in the process may prove tempting.
And with Sky no doubt skimming a percentage off any e-commerce/t-commerce sales, there should be smiles all around.
One fly in this interactive ointment may be the trust factor: would you trust Sky as your credit card company?
BSkyB
Barclaycard
23 February, 2005
Broadcast Flag “Crossed The Line”, FCC told by US Appeals Court
A US appeals panel has challenged new federal rules which require certain video devices to incorporate technology designed to prevent copying digital television programs and distributing them over the Internet.
US Appeals Judge Harry T Edwards delivered a slap across the wrists of the Federal Communications Commission by saying that that it had “crossed the line” with its requirements for anti-piracy technology in next-generation television devices.
The anti-piracy technology, known as the broadcast flag, will be required after July 1st for televisions equipped to receive new digital signals. Many personal computers and VCR-type recording devices will also be affected.
The broadcast flag would permit entertainment companies to designate, or flag, programs to prevent viewers from copying shows or distributing them over the Internet.
Two of the three judges on the District of Columbia Circuit panel said the FCC had not received permission from Congress to undertake such a sweeping regulation, and questioned the FCC’s authority to impose regulations affecting television broadcasts after such programs are delivered into households.
“You’re out there in the whole world, regulating. Are washing machines next?” fumed Judge Harry Edwards. Judge David Sentelle was equally unimpressed: “You can’t regulate washing machines. You can’t rule the world.”
The groups challenging the FCC’s broadcast flag regulation include the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
They argue that the FCC has over-stepped its authority, that Congress should be responsible for making copyright law, and that librarians’ ability to make “fair use” of digital broadcasts will be unreasonably curtailed.
Although the judges’ comments are encouraging for opponents of the Broadcast Flag, doubts have been cast whether their opponents have the legal standing to challenge the rule in court.
Either way, we can expect to wait a few months before the court issues a ruling. In the meantime, activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation continue to offer consumers the means to get around the restrictions with their “HD PVR Cookbook,”.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Federal Communications Commission
23 February, 2005
AllOfMP3 Face Heat from Russian Copyright Cops
Russian prosecutors are considering filing criminal charges against a Web site that offers cheap music downloads, the music industry’s global trade group has said.
The computer crimes unit of the Moscow City Police has submitted the results of its investigation into Allofmp3.com to the Moscow City Prosecutor’s office on February 8, according to the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Allofmp3.com and its principals are alleged to be involved in large-scale copyright infringement by offering music for sale without authorisation from rights holders in Russia and internationally.
The prosecutor has 30 days to decide whether to proceed with a criminal prosecution.
Unlike the market-leading iTunes online music store, Allofmp3.com offers music in the popular MP3 format without troubling itself with pesky digital rights management, leaving users free to copying and share files to their heart’s content.
Songs are offered on the Web site for a mere 5 cents each, compared with 99 cents from most services in the United States, and the site offers music from groups like the Beatles who are famous for refusing to allow their songs to be sold online.
However, the site claims on its Web site that it’s doing nothing illegal because they pay a fee to a copyright group that represents songwriters, the Russian Organisation for Multimedia and Digital Systems.
The Russian music market is ranked 12th in the world and was worth US$326.2 million in 2003.
In most countries, payments must also be made to artists and record labels, but Allofmp3 says it is exempt because of what it describes as a “loophole” in Russian law.
Igor Pozhitkov, Regional Director, IFPI Moscow says: “We have consistently said that Allofmp3.com is not licensed to distribute our members’ repertoire in Russia or anywhere else. We are pleased that the police are bringing this important case to the attention of the prosecutor. We very much hope and expect that the prosecutor will proceed with this case, which involves the sale and digital distribution of copyrighted music without the consent or authorisation of the rights holders.”
Allofmp3.com has apparently declined to comment.
This latest copyright wrangle is symptomatic of the global tangle of music rights, which are licensed differently in every country.
Such confusion – and the continuing availability of free MP3 files from file sharing networks continues to hinder the global roll-out of legitimate online music stores like iTunes and Napster.
Allofmp3.com
22 February, 2005
HomeChoice Floats Advert Targeting on IP VOD
Video Networks Ltd (VNL) has announced a range of enhancements to the TV functionality of its HomeChoice service, claimed to improve the overall customer experience.
The enhancements include ‘On-demand intros’ which lets advertisers place brand stings, messages, cross promotions or advertisements automatically before any on-demand programme.
These on-demand intros are designed to look like the trailers and cross promotions that are shown before the start of a movie in a cinema.
HomeChoice will soon be showing targeted trailers at the beginning of purchased films together with parental advice where appropriate. The trailers will be for films of similar genres or suitability for the audience.
Targeted advertising or sponsorship may also be included, with viewers being able to link from these on-demand intros into other video-on-demand content related to the brand being advertised.
The benefit for consumers is that because the programme itself is on-demand, they wouldn’t miss any viewing time by responding to these adverts.
Also announced is the ability to press a button on the HomeChoice remote control and receive an email containing details of programmes, products or services promoted on screen.
HomeChoice are yet to implement the feature, but have suggested that the technology could be used to include a URL taking you to a specific part of a company’s Web site, a PDF brochure for a car advertisement or a printable coupon allowing money off a specific product that has been promoted.
Dean Hawkins, Chief Operating Officer, Video Networks Ltd said: “Video Networks has already announced plans to launch The Ad Chart following an extremely successful pilot with Lowe Partners and these latest developments reinforce our commitment to creating alternative advertising opportunities on our platform. We will continue to build on these enhancements to build a comprehensive advertising strategy during 2005.”
Video Networks have also introduced the ability to broadcast short, channel specific, targeted messages that can start the moment the viewer tunes in – these could include messages promoting upgrade promos on channels.
Our first reaction when we read today’s announcement was not a good one: do hapless consumers really want even more adverts/promos/jingly-jangly PR assaults thrust at them every time they go near their video box?
Happily, we rang them up and learnt that viewers can skip the ads. Phew.
Video Networks Ltd
21 February, 2005
Burglar Caught on WebCam Jailed
A 19-year-burglar is now enjoying an eleven month stretch at Her Majesty’s Pleasure after he was photographed burgling a house by the owner’s Webcam.
Software engineer Duncan Grisby, 30, set up the movement-activated surveillance system following a previous burglary three years before.
The Webcam was set to start filming once it registered motion, with images of the hapless burglar being safely transferred from the computer to a remote server.
The Webcam captured every movement of Benjamin Park, 19, including a handy close-up when he stared straight in the Webcam before going on to steal the computer and other equipment worth £3,719 ($7,000, Euro 5,300).
When 30-year-old Mr Grisby returned from holiday this month, the pictures were handed over to police, who instantly recognised Park, a very naughty boy already on bail for an attempted burglary in Ely.
Police tracked down Park, who was already boasting 33 previous convictions for theft, to a block of flats in Cambridge, where he was arrested as he tried to leg it from the long arm of the law.
Travers Chalk, the chairman of the Cambridge bench, sentenced Park to 11 months in prison after he admitted the offences. “You have a record which is awful, dreadful,” the magistrate told him.
Understandably, Mr Grisby wasn’t too chuffed with what he felt was a lenient sentence for a serial burglar, saying, “It is a rather pathetic sentence to hand someone like that, a career burglar.”
Although photographs of the burglar in action have been published by the police, one piece of footage that hasn’t been available was the look on Park’s face when Det Sgt Al Page, who leads the Cambridge burglary squad, showed him the Webcam shots.
Burglar snared by computer Webcam (more pics)
18 February, 2005
Italian DJ Gets Huge Fine For Copied MP3s
A “well known” Italian DJ could be hit with a record-breaking fine of up to 1.4 million euros ($1.8 million, £968,000) for using thousands of pirate music files in a nightclub near Rome, police said on Wednesday.
Police in the town of Rieti, near Rome, said they raided a popular nightclub earlier this week as part of a king-size crackdown on piracy and seized 500 illegally copied music videos and more than 2,000 MP3 music files.
The get-tough operation, targeting radio stations and clubs around the region, was led by the Fiscal Police (Guardia Di Financa, that deal with financial crime), who also seized a large quantity of “audiovisual material” and software.
There are a lot of inaccurate reports floating around about this and we wanted to get the full story, so called up the FIMI in Italy. They told us that the copyright law in Italy dates back to 1941 but was most recently updated a year ago. Under the law the DJ was fined 100 Euro ($130, £69) per copied track, this figure was then doubled to 500,000 Euro. Only if the fine is not paid within 60 days, will it increase to 1.4m.
The reason for the doubling was unclear. Under Italian law, the precise details of the case are not made public until the case comes to court.
The DJ is free to appeal against the fine. Once the fine has been finalised, the money can be paid off monthly.
“For the MP3 files, which were kept on the DJ’s personal computer, the DJ has received a fine of 1.4 million euros,” Rieti finance police said in a statement (the fine is subject to administrative recourse). The DJ may also be subject to further criminal sanctions.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said the fine was the biggest ever slapped on an individual for unlawful music copying and the use of copyrighted music in the MP3 format.
“We are pleased with the fine imposed by the Rieti Fiscal police,” said Director of the Italian Recording Industry Association (FIMI) Enzo Mazza.
He continued, “This deejay was touring clubs and making money out of the music he played – while those who had invested time, talent, hard work and money into creating the music in the first place did not get a cent. We hope this precedent will serve as a deterrent for those who are thinking of doing the same.”
Seeing as venues already pay money to the collection societies for public dance licenses we find the size of this fine a little baffling.
It could certainly be argued that DJs can act as ambassadors for new music (and therefore the music companies) with some high-profile DJs having a considerable influence on the record buying public.
After all, why else would record companies ply DJs with endless vinyl/promos and other inducements in the hope of getting their tunes played?
Perhaps now that times are more lean for the record companies, they’re cutting back on the freebies.
It appears the line between theft and promotion can sometimes be a blurred one, and we’re not convinced that punishing DJs with such enormous fines is the way the record industry should be protecting their sales…
17 February, 2005
PacketVideo Ships on 17m Mobile Phones in 2004
In their 2005 “State of the Company” address just made public, PacketVideo bigged up their successes in 2004 and mulled about the future of mobile multimedia.
Clearly, 2004 was a time of happiness and joy for PacketVideo, with the company announcing that 17 million phones embedded with PacketVideo media software were shipped by top handset OEMs worldwide in 2004.
PacketVideo also helped launch five 2.5G and 3G multimedia services, including the recent Verizon V CAST video-on-demand (VOD) service in the US, and the OrangeWorld service on Orange Signature phones in 2004 and early 2005.
PacketVideo is the numero uno supplier of embedded multimedia communications software for mobile phones with more than 60 ‘design wins’ and 17 million handsets shipped in 2004.
The company’s software enables mobile phones to take digital pictures, record home movies, play back digital music and videos, and make two-way videophone calls.
PacketVideo specialises in building and ‘commercializing’ (we think that’s American for “selling”) multimedia capabilities such as VOD, music on demand (MOD) and two-way video communication and messaging.
“These much-anticipated multimedia services, made possible by the growing availability of 3G networks, are finally a reality for millions of people around the globe,” trumpeted Dr Jim Brailean, CEO of PacketVideo. He continued, “PacketVideo’s software is at the heart of delivering these new and innovative services that let customers download, play, and share streaming audio, video and live broadcasts on their mobile phones.”
Looking to the future, PacketVideo expects continued growth and technology innovation, and anticipates an increase in both lovely lolly and market share.
“We believe 2005 will be the year of multimedia services such as VOD, MOD (Movies On Demand) and two-way video telephony. We will see the multimedia technologies permeate all levels of handsets, allowing more and more consumers to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities,” enthused Brailean.
PacketVideo
16 February, 2005
RAJAR announces results of Audiometer Validation Test
Arbitron Portable People Meter and Eurisko Media Monitor selected for further field testing RAJAR(Radio Joint Audience Research) has announced the results of its pioneering Audiometer Validation Test which took place in November 2004.
Of the three audiometers which took part in the test, two have been selected for further fieldwork tests: the Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) and the Eurisko Media Monitor.
The Audiometer Validation Test, designed in conjunction with the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), was set up to determine how well the audiometers could identify up to 33 different radio services (both music and speech-based) under as wide a variety of real life situations as possible.
The three audiometers, the Arbitron PPM, the Eurisko Media Monitor and the GfK/Telecontrol MediaWatch, were all subjected to the same listening conditions over the course of a weekend in November 2004.
To make the test as thorough as possible, hundreds of unique listening environments were generated, with RAJAR specifying several criteria which the audiometers should fulfil – these included the ability to identify all formats equally, whether music or speech, against a variety of extraneous background noises, when played at differing volume levels and regardless of whether the wearers were stationary or in motion.
RAJAR wasn’t anticipating 100% accuracy from any or all of the audiometers on test, but they hoped to be able to identify listening correctly across FM, AM and DAB in a variety of day-to-day conditions.
Sally de la Bedoyere, managing director, RAJAR, commented on their results:
“RAJAR has selected the Arbitron PPM and the Eurisko Media Monitor meters following analysis of the Test results, which showed that, despite using different techniques, both audiometers identified very similar numbers of listening sessions. Their level of correct identification was in line with that anticipated when designing the test.”
She added that their decision was based “solely on the needs of the UK market, where monitoring AM, FM and digital broadcasting is highly complex.” and described the tests as “Another momentous hurdle has been crossed in our journey to achieving the objectives of the Roadmap by 2007.”
As radio continues to fragment, the ability to measure small audiences becomes ever more vital to the survival of stations, with advertisers needing solid proof that they’re not investing their precious advertising budget into tumbleweed stations.
This has added significant pressure on RAJAR to produce reliable measuring systems, with the threat of lawsuits always hanging in the air (see: RAJAR defeat TWG Audience Court Case
Digital-Lifestyles was present during the testing last year and we can vouch that it was very comprehensive – and quite possibly the largest world-wide trial to date.
14 February, 2005
Industry Giants Stick it to Viagra Spammers
In a litigious pincer movement, Pfizer, makers of the anti-impotence drug Viagra, have filed lawsuits against two online pharmacies selling the drug, while Microsoft has sued the same two pharmacies and the firms that promoted the Websites via email.
It’s the first time Pfizer and Microsoft have teamed up for such an action in a move that should prove mutually beneficial: Pfizer’s civil suit may curb the illegal sale of generic drugs while Microsoft’s legal action is aimed at reducing spam.
“We want to take back our inboxes,” said Aaron Kornblum, Microsoft’s Internet safety enforcement lawyer. “Spam can lead to fraud, it can lead to identity theft and, in this case with Pfizer, it can lead to possible physical harm.”
Pfizer has taken action against CanadianPharmacy (cndpharmacy.com) and E-Pharmacy Direct (myepharmacydirect.com) for allegedly selling unapproved drugs – claimed to be Viagra – to U.S. citizens.
Despite their name, the exact whereabouts of the people behind CanadianPharmacy is unclear.
Kornblum said orders for cndpharmacy.com were received by a computer server in New York that relayed the information to a call centre in Montreal. The drugs were made in India and then mailed back to rumpy-pumpy seeking customers using a US freight forwarding company.
Pfizer took action after receiving complaints from shareholders who wrongly assumed that the company was responsible for the daily deluge of Viagra-related spam cascading into their inbox.
Levine said that Pfizer was also concerned about the safety of advertised products being sold online, although he conceded that he was yet to receive any reports from disappointed customers (or their partners).
In the notoriously nefarious world of Web identities, it’s open to question whether this action will succeed or not.
Dodgy Internet trading companies can move physical and virtual locations faster than Casanova on steroids, but many suspect that this legal move is more about firing a warning shot over the bow of Web based spammers.
With Viagra-based bulk emailing currently accounting for more than 14 per cent of all spam (Commtouch Spam Lab, 2004) we live in hope that this action may reduce the amount of emails bearing the title “VIAGRA”, “v1AGRA” AND “V*GRA” etc arriving in our in boxes.
But we’re not holding our breath.
Microsoft, Pfizer to tackle fake Viagra sales (Reuters)
Microsoft and Pfizer fight fake Viagra spammers (Guardian)
11 February, 2005
MPAA Wins Court Case Against BitTorrent Site, LokiTorrent
Despite surviving last year’s pre-Christmas BitTorrent blitz, the LokiTorrent site was finally closed down by a Dallas court yesterday.
The Website’s operator, Edward Webber, put up a valiant fight, with its front page featuring a counter, detailing the amount of donations it had received towards its budget of $30,000 per month in legal fees.
The site’s homepage has now been replaced by a slightly distasteful back-slapping MPAA (The Motion Picture Association of America) notice boasting the caption, “You can click, but you can’t hide”.
It’s not unusual for file sharing sites to be closed down, but what’s really alarming file swappers, is that LokiTorrent has agreed to turn over the server’s user logs – and with over 750,000 registered users distributing more than 35,000 movies, songs and other items, this could leave thousands of users open to prosecution.
BitTorrent has become hugely popular in recent years because it can deliver large files faster than other file-sharing technologies. BitTorrent software has no built-in method for finding files, and users rely on tracker Websites such as LokiTorrent that act as directories.
These tracker sites compile links to digital goodies that are being shared online as “torrents,” the format used by the BitTorrent software. The links connect users to the Internet addresses of the people supplying copies of the file.
Although it’s notoriously difficult to trace users of swapping sites, the advent of broadband makes it considerably easier to track down heavy users, with a specific IP number often being associated with a particular connection for many months.
This latest prosecution is only part of MPAA’s aggressive anti-piracy strategy, with the company dishing out lawsuits like confetti. A second wave of lawsuits against BitTorrent tracker sites in the US has been announced, along with more lawsuits against individual file sharers.
They’ve also filed more notices asking Internet providers to shut down eDonkey servers on their networks and lawsuits against four Websites that sold file-sharing programs.
No matter how many lawyers get fat pursing piracy cases, it’s clear that they’re unlikely to put an end to the practice, with super-clever techie kids creating new technologies as soon as one becomes unworkable.
11 February, 2005