Legal – Page 27 – Digital-Lifestyles

European Anti-spam Laws Useless

European anti-spam legislation won’t do a thing to quench the flood of junk email across the region, says a report from the University of Amsterdam.

Why? Because Europe isn’t sending the bulk of it. As the study say “The simple fact that most spam originates from outside the EU restricts the European Union’s Directive’s effectiveness considerably.”

The study was conducted over nine months by Dr Lodewijk Asscher and a team at the Institute for Information Law at the university.

Europe’s guidelines for direct marketing are contained in the EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communication. The directive was passed in July 2002 and the compliance deadline was six months ago. So of course, you’ve been seeing less spam since then. Yes, we thought the real outcome was different too.

The legislation requires that users only receive bulk emails that they have opted-in to. Nice idea but since opting-in is a key way that spammers harvest addresses in the first place, and the legislation is yet to make a single prosecution against a spammer, the model is somewhat flawed.

In fact, the directive is so duff that Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal haven’t even bothered implementing it yet and have been threatened with legal action.

In order for anti-spam legislation to work, all countries have to have compatible directives in place. Since there is a lot of money in spam for some regions, this is going to be difficult.

The study – available from 1 May

Forgent Networks Sues 31 Companies Over JPEG Patent

Forgent Networks are claiming ownership for a patent filed in 1986 by Compression Labs – a dormant company acquired by Forgent in 1997

Forgent Networks are now suing, amongst others, JVC, Matsushita, Fuji Photo, Agfa, Dell, HP, Apple, Adobe … the list goes on.

The suddenly flurry of activity could be something to do with the fact that the patent was filed 18 years ago, and Forgent have less than two years to milk some revenue out of it. However, since the defendants have now been notified, Forgent can now take their time seeking damages, and they can claim damages all the way back to when the claim was issued.

Unisys and Compuserve began to seek royalites on their LZW compression algorithm in the late 90s as that patent neared its expiry. Hence, 20th June 2003 was known as “GIF Liberation Day” when the patent finally expired.

If these suits are successful, everyone will have to charge more for software that uses the JPEG format (i.e. Almost everything) or the file type will just be abandoned for something less controversial. This will suit Microsoft, as the PNG format will be most likely benefit.

We ran an April Fool on a company who claimed to own the patent for plain text in programs – but now we’ve seen this story, we rather wish we hadn’t.

Forgent Networks

The Register comments

Stream Ripping Gains Popularity

We never did it of course, but many people remember sitting by their cassette radio as a child, waiting to tape favourite songs off the charts to a fresh C90. Stream ripping is basically a 2004 remix of that old Sunday evening tradition, and it’s providing music sharers with a “new” way to acquire content – and it’s untraceable.

Stream ripping applications allow users to capture multiple streams all day, amounting to several thousand songs. In fact, one program, StationRipper will record 300 streams simultaneously and make a separate MP3 for every song played. It will even skip broadcast tracks that you’ve already recorded.

We tried StationRipper this morning as a bit of reaseach and found it almost unbelievably easy to use. It works best with Shoutcast, but you can access any radio station stream you have a URL for.

One feature that particularly impressed us was the ability to buy whatever music was being played in a stream – simply click on the station and then the buy button: StreamRipper takes the track details to Amazon and presents you with the album featuring the track, if it’s found.

Greg Ratajik wrote StationRipper after he saw the limitations in other programs like StreamRipper32, and estimates that the program has been downloaded over 350,000 times.

Whilst not quite as user friendly as many P2P packages, and with many of the problems associated with recording traditional radio stations (lower broadcast quality, DJs prattling over the top of music), programs like StationRipper present a convenient way of time-shifting internet radio broadcasts.

Acquiring music from ripping radio streams is untraceable, unlike logging onto P2P networks and downloading tracks. The radio station will have a listener’s IP number, but since users aren’t required to log into most stations, it’s extremely difficulty to ID them. Besides, they have no way of telling if someone is listening to a stream or archiving it.

But is it legal? Stream ripping software has lots of non-infringing uses, so it looks like the programs have nothing to fear … yet. It’s really up to what the user then does with the music – if they are using it as a way to acquire music without paying, or then go onto to share streams or tracks that they have ripped, then that’s illegal.

Stream ripping applications go to further demonstrate that if labels insist on crippling music with restrictive and untrusting DRM, then inventive consumers will find ways to defeat it until they get a fairer system.

StationRipper

Shoutcast

Police Seize 200 Computers in Anti-Piracy Raid

Law enforcement agencies in 11 countries have seized 200 computers in raids on piracy networks around the world. No arrests have been made yet, but charges are expected to be brought.

The 120 synchronised raids were targeted at illegal operations in 27 US states and also in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the UK. The raided groups are suspected of distributing games and films as “warez”. The US Customs Department estimated (and we suspect this is a real finger in the air guess) that the 100 participants identified were responsible for 95% of all pirated material online. We think that is highly unlikely.

The raids, part of Operation Fastlink, were described by US Attorney General John Ashcroft as “the most far-reaching and aggressive enforcement action ever” against online piracy. Amongst the equipment seized were 30 file servers. Looks like someone won’t be downloading that copy of Half Life 2 they were hoping to.

John Malcolm, chief of antipiracy operations for the Motion Picture Association told the Associated Press: “Today is a good day for creative artists. Without copyright protection and enforcement, piracy will dramatically and deleteriously impact the future of the American film industry.”

ZDNet on the story

Napster Hits Problems as European iTunes Launch Confirmed

Napster has run into licensing problems as it prepares its UK launch – with only four months to go. It would appear that the fragmented nature of Europe’s music labels, licensing bodies and royalty collection services are causing headaches for the new music services.

Negotiations are apparently heading back on track in the UK, but are only in preliminary stages in Europe.

Former Napster investors Bertelsmann AG will be in court in San Francisco next week where music labels are accusing the media giant of keeping the download service operational because of its investment in 2000.

Bertelsmann invested US$90 million (€76 million) in Napster in 2000, hoping to turn the service into the legal music site it is now. Now Universal Music and the EMI Group are claiming the $90 million investment cost them approximately $17 billion (€14.3 billion) in lost revenue because of illegal downloads.

Not a bad return on an investment, really.

Reuters

Napster – still Coming Soon

RIAA Drops “Clean Slate”

The Recording Industry of America has dropped their Clean Slate programme, it emerged after a California man challenged the initiative in court.

“As public awareness about the illegality of unauthorized copying and distribution of music files over peer-to-peer computing has dramatically increased since the inception of the program, the RIAA has concluded that the programme is no longer necessary or appropriate, and has voluntarily withdrawn it,” stated the RIAA attorney.

Clean Slate was an initiative which encouraged people who had uploaded and shared music files to sign up and acknowledge in writing that they had broken the law. Individuals then promised that they had removed all illegal music files from their computers, and in exchange the RIAA pledged not to sue them when it started taking legal action against file swappers.

Only 1,108 people have signed up for the programme since in was launched in September 2003, most of them in the first few weeks.

Eric Parke challenged the Clean Slate programme in court, and accused the RIAA of fraudulent business practices. Clean Slate was criticised from its début as offering limited protection: it never promised any sort of guarantee if a body other than the RIAA, say for example a record label, decided to prosecute someone on its handy list of offenders.

When Parke took the RIAA to court over the programme, they requested that the case be dismissed, as Clean Slate had been quietly dropped. Nice of them to tell everyone.

The terms of Clean Slate

Pay More For Music, or Pay More For the Player?

There is some disagreement in Europe at the moment on how artists will be paid for all that music you’ve downloaded to your iPod. There are two competing models: DRM-based and taxation.

Levies in EU countries bring in a lot of money – and only Britain, Ireland and Luxembourg don’t have the system. The International Herald Tribune estimates that Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands alone will see revenues from their private copying taxation rise from €309.39 million (US$) to an impressive €1.465 billion (US$) by 2006. You can understand why they’re so keen on it now.

There seems to be a clear ideological split in effect here – if you’re a software provider or a store owner, you prefer Digital Rights Management. If you’re a European collection agency, then taxation is the only way to go.

National royalties collection agencies in 12 European states are proposing a tax on digital music players – the Society of Music Creators in France has levied €20 (US$24) on every iPod sold in the country, as it is classed as a “copying device”… and Apple has refused to play it, preferring to go to court.

Apple prefer the other model of artist renumeration – DRM.

Enter the European Commission – who will be adopting a policy paper next week with the intention of bringing EU collection agencies into the 21st century. A mere 3.5 years late.

The policy paper suggests a pan-European licensing system for protected content and examines ways in which DRM may finally replace blanket taxes in the EU states. Apple and lobby groups representing some 10,000 companies across Europe are keen on the policy recommendations as it will allow them to get on with their business models whilst paying artists, yet avoid negotiating with 15 different collection agencies.

We much prefer a sensible implementation of DRM – artists are renumerated directly, it’s fairer on the consumer and promotes more innovation. Taxing “copying devices” demonstrates a lack of understanding of the entire field, is inaccurate and does not reward artists fairly. Also, making all consumers pay a piracy tax is in entirely unfair.

Whatever happens, it’s up to us to make sure we don’t end up paying the labels TWICE.

The International Herald Tribune

Two Arrested Under Anti-Piracy Camcorder Law

California’s camcorder law, which came into effect on 1st January 2004, has netted its first brace of criminals.

One Mr Ruben Centero Moreno was caught taping “The Alamo” by a projectionist wearing night vision goggles (there – now you know who buys them), whilst Min Jae Joun was collared in a slightly more straight forward way: the record light on his camcorder attracted attention whilst attempting to pirate “The Passion of the Christ”.

We can only imagine that the later offender will be forgiven.

However, Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA told the Hollywood Reporter: that it would “send a clear signal such crimes will not be tolerated. In both cases, the LAPD’s fine work would not have occurred without the swift actions of the employees of Pacific Theatres.” Indeed, the MPAA has set up a telephone hotline so that cinema staff can report violations of the law.

We applaud the new law, but feel it will have a limited impact on preventing film piracy. Although it tackles the source technique of piracy, it will continue to be rife for one very tricky reason: Whilst it’s true that most pirated DVDs bought in pubs and street markets are from source material captured in a cinema using a camcorder, most of the capture work is not done in LA where this new law is in force. No, most of the capture work is done in the Far East, where there is no such law, and often the camera work is done with the knowledge of, and a kickback too, the cinema owner, who obviously isn’t going to turn his buddies in to the local law enforcement group.

Digital Lifestyles has noticed that police in the UK are taking a more informed and tougher stance on pirates selling illegal DVDs on the streets, and this will be more effective in removing the market, though not catching the criminals at the source.

The Hollywood Reporter

The Alamo – 6.1 stars, and that’s on IMDB, so subtract at least 5

The Passion of the Christ – 7.4

Microsoft Still Kissing, Still Making Up

Microsoft have settled an long-running dispute with InterTrust over patents relating to content protection – namely, setting permissions on content for buying, copying and downloading digital content. InterTrust sued MS in 2001 after talks to license their technology failed.

MS have agreed to pay $440 million (€369 million) to put this one to rest.

An anonymous source at the BBC said to Digital Lifestyles: “Interesting … particularly where a MS spokesperson says that ‘patent issues were the responsibility of MS not their customers’ …that one will come back to haunt them.”

It appears that Microsoft are tying up loose ends so they can concentrate on new business – also, Digital Lifestyles see an interesting synergy with the Linux/SCO case.

We believe Microsoft will contrast their recent intellectual property settlements against the currently unresolved SCO source code dispute. Demonstrating that Windows is litigation-free compared to the potentially dangerous disputes surrounding Linux and potential additional licensing fees might entice businesses away from the open source operating system towards a (law-wise at least) “safer” Windows.

You heard it here first.

InterTrust on the settlement

Google’s GMail May Be Blocked

Google’s plans to incorporate targeted advertising in emails sent to its GMail subscribers have hit another setback – Liz Figeuroa, a Democratic Senator in California is drawing up legislation declaring that the adverts are intrusive and the service is an invasion of privacy.

This puts a rather large dent in Google’s business model for the site: the storage for all those one gig accounts, even compressed, won’t be cheap and targeted advertising was really their only revenue stream for the service.

Figeuroa wrote a strongly worded letter to Google urging them to forget the whole thing: “I cannot urge you strongly enough to abandon this misbegotten idea. I believe you are embarking on a disaster of enormous proportions, for yourself and for all of your customers.”

European privacy groups are already sniffing around GMail potential privacy infringements, specifically Google’s lack of a promise that anything deleted on GMail is deleted forever.

We’re a little baffled that this concern is levelled only at an email service – there are plenty of other areas where people are giving their privacy away. People don’t have to sign up for the free email service, and there are plenty of others around, admittedly with less storage. Many people already choose to give away personal information, purchasing habits and other private data in exchange for something “free”, and there seems to be no shortage of willing punters: look at those store loyalty cards in your wallet for example. If you have a Nectar, Boots, Game or other reward card, you’re already presenting marketing companies with a rich, moment-by-moment picture of what you buy, when and what with.

Kron4 report the story

BBC News on GMail