Legal – Page 23 – Digital-Lifestyles

BPI to Sue UK Filesharers

The British Phonographic Industry is about to begin action against illegal filesharers in the UK. The BPI has observed that similar programmes, notably the RIAA’s own action in the US, have worked in other countries and intends to crack down on Britain’s music pirates as early as this month. The rapid rise in broadband adoption in the UK has also spurred them into action before the problem gets out of control.

The BPI will be following a 15/75 rule in which individuals they sue – they believe that 75% of all infringing files on the internet are being shared by just 15% of the file sharing population.

A BPI spokesman, told NME.com: “There are a small percentage of hardcore internet users who are uploading material regardless of its illegality. It would appear that litigation is the only way to deter them. It’s becoming pretty obvious that litigation needs to be there as a deterrent.”

We have a call in with the BPI and will bring you more information from them as soon as we have it.

The BPI

NME

Microsoft FAT Patent Claim “Bogus”

Microsoft’s patent on the File Allocation Table disk format has been rejected by the US Patent Office, on the grounds that it should never have been granted in the first place. The Patent Office has ruled that, although the patent was granted in 1996 and is not due to expire until 2013, the technology was obvious and there was prior art. Two big no-nos if you want to register a patent, basically.

The re-examination was prompted by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), a non-profit legal services organisation that aims to protect the public from miss-use of the patent system.

Although first introduced in 1982, and largely superceeded by file formats like NTFS, the decision is a blow to Microsoft. FAT is currently enjoying an extended lifespan because it is used in Flash memory cards and by Linux to read DOS and Windows drives, and Microsoft were using the patent as a revenue stream by charging a licensing fee to those who wanted to use the technology. If you buy a Lexar Flash card for your camera, US$0.25 (€0.20) of the cost is for the FAT technology.

Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s executive director said: “The Patent Office has simply confirmed what we already knew for some time now, Microsoft’s FAT patent is bogus. I hope those companies that chose to take a license from Microsoft for the patent negotiated refund clauses so that they can get their money back.”

Microsoft have 90 days to put their side of the story forward or lose the patent claim altogether.

Public Patent Foundation

Overpeer Launched in Europe

Loudeye have launched their Overpeer anti-piracy technology in Europe. The system, which uses a number of techniques to protect content, has proven popular in the US and Asia and currently protects 60,000 digital entertainment titles. This translates to millions of blocked downloads every month.

“As we enter an important stage in the legitimate distribution of digital media content, content owners around the world face challenges in managing the illegal distribution of their material across peer-to-peer networks,” said Marc Morgenstern, vice president and general manager of Loudeye’s asset protection and promotion business in a statement. “Our proprietary systems and technology are designed to interdict illegal peer-to-peer traffic, blocking illegal transmission of copyrighted material and helping content owners take control of piracy. These systems have been highly effective for our customers in the US and Asia, and we’re pleased that we are now launching the services in Europe through OD2, our European subsidiary.”

Overpeer uses content spoofing to distribute fake music, software and movie files across P2P networks – if downloaded, the file can then redirect a PC user to a legitimate source for the real content with the option of buying it.

Overpeer

Roobarb and Custard in the 21st Century

Roobarb & Custard 30-something nostalgics, rejoice: a new series of Roobarb and Custard is in production. IP owners and new series Executive Producers, A+B Productions have started work at Monster Animation Studios in Dublin. To be distributed by Celador, Roobarb and Custard Too uses hand-drawn and hand-animated cells coupled with modern production processes to produce a cartoon that is faithful to the original series.

Hardcore R&C fans will be relieved to hear that there is no dodgy computer graphics work in the new version, and that the classic look has not been messed around with. Having done a side-by-side comparison with an early animation sample, I was very impressed by the R&C Too, and was keen to find out how they managed to recreate the distinctive look of the original. Adam Sharp, co-founder of A+B Productions told us “We’re using innovative ways to bring back the classic feel the original hand drawn series had.”

I spoke to Gerard O’Rourke at Monster Animation Studios about the painstaking process that A+B and Monster went through to get the correct look and feel: “Everything is hand-drawn. It’s then traditionally scanned into a computer and digitised. It’s then animated by hand, using a graphics tablet and is then rendered using a combination of Photoshop and Painter to achieve that marker pen feel. From there it’s composited together in After Effects – and then it’s over to post production to do the sound.”

And how did they reproduce the wobbly lines? “They recreate the drawing a number of times – when it’s played back if gives you the wobbly lines. Because you have to replicate the drawing a number of times, you have to do extra and copy them and offset them,” Gerard told us.

“The old version was done in the 70s, and you’ve probably heard the stories of them getting unemployed brickies and everyone they could find to work on Roobarb and Custard – and the reason they had that look that the markers had run out was because the markers had run out! They didn’t use animators all the time, but it did create its own feel and look – and we’ve been trying to increase the production values but not lose the charm of the programme.”

What about people who may be worried that it’s just a Flash update?

“We don’t want people to think that it’s a Flash project, because Flash can tend to be very flat and internet-based, but it is a great animating tool. But it really is only a tool like Word and Excel. It’s how you use it afterwards – take the different functions out of it and then use them with your own techniques and methods. We’ve taken all our software to its limits and used all the libraries and tools that we could get.”

Gerard seems very pleased with amount of care that A+B have been putting in to the new series: “Richard Bryers is narrating the series again, he’s doing all the voices. Grange Caveley, creator and writer has written all the new scripts.”

“It’s very much Roobarb and Custard 1974.”

Monster Animation

If you just can’t wait for the new version of Roobarb and Custard, here’s a selection of can-buy products from Amazon
DVD: Roobarb And Custard – The Complete Roobarb And Custard [1974]
VHS: Roobarb And Custard

Warner Bros license films to Netflix VOD partnership

Netflix are doing a trial run of their movie-download service, and Warner Bros. have joined in the fun by agreed to license some of its films to Netflix for that very purpose, reports CNet. This move adds strength to the rumour that Netflix and TiVo are poised to team up for a movie download service.

What this means for the ordinary punter is a video-on-demand service (VOD), which would allow consumers to rent and download films from Netflix. This is where TiVo comes in. The downloaded film would then be accessible on TiVo’s personal video recorders for viewing on a regular television set.

While this may be a new venture for Netflix, it is not a new one for Warner Bros, who along with four other studios is currently a partner in Internet movie-download service Movielink. It has also licensed films to competing Web service CinemaNow.

Apparently the agreement does not yet constitute a deal between Netflix and Warner Bros. and anyway, the video-on-demand service from Netflix is still only in the rurmour/planning phases. Furthermore, TiVo has not actually announced a video-on-demand service.

For the moment though, everything is unconfirmed, but quite often there is no smoke fire. Enough clues have been given out to make the average reader pretty confident that something is going to happen soon.

Netflix, for example has already said that it plans to launch an Internet download service next year, while TiVo has announced features that would support the download service, although it has not specified a time frame. But then on the other hand, representatives from both Netflix and TiVo have said in the past that they didn’t expect an Internet service to form part of their revenue earning strategies.

Netflix

McCain’s US Bill seeks $1Bn for Digital TV

The world over there is a general move towards replacing analogue television with digital. US Senate Commerce Committee chairman, John McCain has now raised the stakes.. His proposed bill calls for analogue switch off by 2009 but offers financial aid. Current law requires broadcasters either to give up their current airwaves by 2007, or when 85 percent of the nation can receive the new digital signals – whichever comes later. Many US TV stations already broadcast both digital and analogue signals, but few Americans own digital television sets, which are currently a lot more expensive than their more traditional counterparts.

McCain proposes a bill that that would require broadcasters to switch off analogue signals by 2009 and would subsidise the cost of consumers upgrading their equipment to digital. Currently there are about 70 million analogue sets in the US. Even though the Federal Communications Commission has mandated that by July 2007 all new television sets with screens 13 inches or larger must be able to receive digital signals, the fear is that digital TV will not be universal by then. This is because, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, Americans replace their sets only every eight to 10 years – messing up the math for the lawmakers.

McCain argues that it will take $1 billion to make the shift and this magic sum will be garnered through a rather circuitous route. When the government) gets their hands on the airwaves that broadcasters are now using, they will probably auction it for commercial wireless services, and this could potentially earn billions of dollars, and Senator McCain’s $1 billion would come from the auction proceeds.

Some of this $1 billion could also be used as a benevolent fund to enable people who do not have a digital television set to install a pay television service that would either offer them the new signals or a converted signal they could see. This will allow millions of consumers to continue watching television once broadcasters begin airing only in digital. Understandably though, those same broadcasters are concerned about their signals being switched back into analogue after they have spent millions of dollars upgrading their facilities to offer digital.

McCain’s draft legislation gives priority to those households that rely solely on over-the-air television, and in particular lower-income homes. The legislation is scheduled to be considered by the committee on Wednesday, but it is hard to anticipate any meaningful progress since Congress is trying to adjourn by early October and the U.S. House of Representatives has not acted as yet.

If the Bill is passed analogue -only television sets made after September 2005 will be obliged to include a warning label stating that without additional equipment, it would not work after 2008.

So far the UK government has rejected any call for it to contribute to the public’s cost of making the change to digital TV. McCain’s bill will give further weight to those who feel they should.

CinemaNow Signs separate Content and Distribution deals

CinemaNow, an Internet video-on-demand service, has announced a couple of deals recently. They have brought Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) in to their portfolio of content that they can distribute. As part of the agreement, CinemaNow will offer Sony’s new release films the same day they become available in their traditional pay-per-view window along with previously released movies from Sony’s vast film library. All movies are offered on a 24 hour rental basis and priced at $3.99 for first-run films and $2.99 for library titles. Sony is the latest addition to the current roster of 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax, Sony and Warner Bros.

They have also signed their first European distribution deal with Tiscali, giving users in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy streaming and downloading access to CinemaNow’s content.

CinemaNow

UK Apple iTunes Too Expensive says Consumers’ Association

Ever since Apple iTunes Music Store and Napster 2.0 launched in the UK, we at Digital Lifestyles have been thinking that the UK pricing has been unreasonably high, being out of step both with the US and Europe. The UK Consumers’ Association (CA) has today mounted a campaign to increase the public understanding of the problem.

The CA has written to the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) explaining the situation and highlighting that the current position is possibly in breach of European law. Under Euro law all consumers in all member states should enjoy the same benefits that the single market brings – it’s like if citizens in Seattle had to pay more for their iTunes music than the rest of America. Clearly with a differential between iTunes UK (79p, 1.15 Eu) and Germany & France (0.99 Eu, 67.7p UK) there is not a level playing field. Those UK citizens who understand that they can use either the French or German sites to order directly on find they are charged the UK price if they are not able to supply as an address in either of these countries.

Although the CA campaign is focused on iTunes, perhaps because of the mainstream press attention it has attracted, Apple are not the only service where UK consumers are overcharged. The differential on Napster UK is even greater when comparing their UK pricing at 99p (1.44 Eu) against Apple European iTunes at 99c Eu (67.7p UK). This becomes even more distorted when US prices are used as a comparison 99c US = (55.4p). Clearly albums bought on the any of the services multiply the differential by a factor of 10, as most of the albums cost ten times a much as single tracks.

When we queried the UK Napster price back on 1 June 2004, Adam Howorth, Communications director at Napter UK told us: “it’s simply down to the higher wholesale price we get from the record companies in the UK. If they would reduce their prices, so would we.”

Overcharging UK citizens had always been the way business has been done, but most had imagined that this discrepancy would evaporate with digital goods. The old arguments that were always given; it’s a small market; goods are hard to distribute; it’s more expensive to support, all fall away with digital distribution. It is to Apple’s great shame that they have continued the overcharging, while clearly understanding all of the advantages that digital distribution brings.

We will be watching with interest the reaction of the British public to this. It may give an indication to their reaction when they start to realise that the DRM-protected goods that they are beginning to buy do not work on all of their various devices.

Consumers’ Association

Judiciary Committee Votes Custodial Sentences for File Swappers and Spyware

The US House Judiciary Committee has voted for criminal penalties for individuals that install spyware on PCs and for movie pirates.

A new copyright bill, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act is calling for sentences of up to three years in jail for individuals who illegally share US$1,000 (€819) worth of copyrighted material over the internet. That, plus the promise of being sued by the RIAA should be enough to deter most people from ripping off music.

When the House Judiciary Committee approved the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, Congressman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said in a statement on his website: “Piracy of intellectual property over the Internet, especially on peer-to-peer networks, has reached alarming levels… This legislation increases cooperation among federal agencies and intellectual property owners, and assists federal law enforcement authorities in their efforts to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes.”

Additionally, people who install spyware on victims’ PCs for the purpose of stealing identities and personal details will also face prison sentences. The Internet Spyware Prevention Act, sponsored by Bob Goodlatte and Lamar Smith is to go towards the full Congress and suggests jails sentences of between two and five years depending on the severity of the case.

Since the CAN-Spam act was entirely toothless, time will see just how effective these two pieces of legislation will be if they finally become law.

Lamar Smith

Altnet Sue RIAA

Altnet are suing the a group of companies, consisting of Overpeer, MediaDefender and the RIAA, over patent infringement. Altnet, a peer-to-peer company and joint venture between Brilliant Digital Entertainment and Joltid, claim that the companies have infringed a patent Altnet hold whilst undertaking their copyright campaign with peer to peer networks to root out illegally distributed music and files.

The patent itself refers to a technique that can read the digital fingerprint of a file held on a network, thus identifying a music track, video or other infringing file. Altnet approached the companies with the technology in 2003 with the view to entering licensing agreements, but had no success. Since then, the three accused companies have used fingerprinting in their campaign to rid P2P networks of infringed IP, without Altnet’s permission. Subsequently, the company sent a number of cease and desist letters to discourage further infringement.

Joltid was founded by Kazaa’s creators after Sharman Networks picked up the popular P2P client. Altnet’s P2P technologies are used by Atari and Intervideo, amongst others, to distribute and sell content.

Overpeer has denied infringing any of Altnet’s IP, but the RIAA is yet to make a statement. Overpeer and MediaDefender claim that their techniques involve swamping P2P networks with desirable, though entirely fake, files to put downloaders off trying to acquire infringing content.

Altnet Chief Executive Officer Kevin Bermeister said in a statement: “We’ve exhausted every means of trying to work with these defendants and those they represent to patiently encourage and positively develop the P2P distribution channel. We cannot stand by and allow them to erode our business opportunity by the wholesale infringement of our rights.”

Altnet