Legal – Page 31 – Digital-Lifestyles

Microsoft to Charge for FAT Filing

Microsoft have announced that they will be introducing a licensing fee for the use of their patented portions of the File Allocation Table (FAT).

The FAT contains the list the filenames, their size and location of files that are held on computer media – essentially the index of the files are stored and is used to retrieve them. The structure was originally developed under Microsoft’s original Disk Operating System (DOS) and then under in Windows, later to be replaced by NT Filing System (NTFS). It has become the dominant standard and as such enables the simple interchange of files between different digital devices, such as transferring digital photos held on a camera using a removable Smart Media or via USB lead to a PC.

Microsoft propose two licensing models; one for removable media, covering the preformatting of the media and media preloaded with content, which could, for example be USB drive keyrings, memory cartridges, etc; the other for manufacturers of certain consumer electronics (CE) devices, which they define as follows

“portable digital still cameras; portable digital video cameras; portable digital still/video cameras; portable digital audio players; portable digital video players; portable digital audio/video players; multifunction printers; electronic photo frames; electronic musical instruments; and standard televisions”.

Charges are planned at US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per manufacturer.

They are effectively saying, if your consumers want to easily exchange information with computers that run Windows, you need to pay us some money to enable that. This could be because they now acknowledge that not every consumer electronics devices will run Windows and want to ensure that they gain some income from them.

It will be interesting to see how the CE companies respond. Will they grit their teeth and pay Microsoft, or will they collectively decide to use an open source filing system. It is a potentially risky move by Microsoft, and could have the affect of pushing people away from their platform.

Microsoft terms

Nokia N-Gage Games Possibly Cracked

The world of introducing convergent devices is a tricky one. Following on the heals of their combined music player/mobile phone, Nokia launched their mobile phone/music player/games machine, the N-Gage, in October and its has been a shaky start. Before its launch, lots of people were less than positive, and following it, the reviews have not been great.

Despite Nokia claiming to have shipped 400,000 units to retailers, the number of customer sales is thought to be low. This has lead to some discounting, to the point where it was available for 1 pence in the UK, if you took a particular service contract out with it.

Nokia will be following the business model for other games platforms, sell the box for a minimum margin (or try to minimise your losses), then make your money in the medium to long term on licensing games for the platform. The same theory as razors and razor blades. Clearly this model only works if you sell the games as well.

Nokia will not like the latest news. A Swedish hacking group claim that they have got around the protection system that ensures that N-Gage games only play on the N-Gage. They have showed photos of the some N-Gage games running on a Siemens SX1, it’s not clear if these are mock-ups or real.

If true, the impact is far reaching. Games written for the N-Gage will run on any phone running the Symbian operating system and according to Symbian, over 2.68 million handsets were shipped with their OS in the first half of 2003.

The damage does not stop with them only losing sales of the N-Gage hardware, but that once the games have been extracted from the N-Gage and are stored digitally unprotected, people will be able to download them – not have to buy them for between $35-$40 each.

SX1 playing N-Gage games – Screen shots

Hulk Up-loader Receives Six Months Sentence and Fines

Vivendi Universal Entertainment took legal action against 24 year old Kerry Gonzalez after they found he had uploaded an unfinished version of The Hulk on the Internet several weeks prior to its theatrical release.

Gonzalez pleaded guilt in the summer and was sentenced at the end of last week to six months home confinement, three years probation, fined him $2,000 and ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution to Universal. He had faced up to three years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for felony copyright infringement.

Gonzalez had obtained a “work print” of the movie that had been sent to a New York advertising agency. The print was missing some special effects, graphics, and a soundtrack.

The FBI traced the Internet copy back to Gonzalez through an encoded “security tag” on the print, which was widely thought to be a watermark burnt into the video image. This could have traced the copy to an individual but neither the advertising agency or the employee who has made this possible by passing him the video tape were named or action taken against them. The reasons for this are not clear but it adds weight to the recent AT&T labs research that much of the unauthorised video available on the Internet is sourced from within the industry.

After the pre-released version was uploaded, reviews started appearing on sites like Ain’t It Cool News slating the film for, among other things, its shoddy CG effects. Studio executives claimed that this could have depressed ticket sales, but the early criticism didn’t have too negative an impact; The Hulk grossed a $62 million in its opening weekend, a record for a June opener. It has earned $130 million so far, after costing $150 million to make.

Vivendi Universal Entertainment, commissioned several studies to determine what Gonzalez’s actions cost the studio. While assigning a dollar amount is an inexact science, the studio settled on about $66 million in a victim-impact statement to the federal court. The court moved to make Gonzalez pay $5,000, but it is not clear if Vivendi will take further action against him.

This kind of high profile court case will certainly make people think twice before uploading unauthorised video content to the Internet, or passing preview material to those who might.

New lawsuits against DVD backup/copying software companies

Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox have filed in a New York court against Tritton Technologies, QOJ, World Reach and Proto Ventures. They are asking the court to halt sales of their software, and are seeking unspecified monetary damages. The software is sold both in US retail stores or online.

Tritton distribute CopyWare, a DVD backup/copying application created by UK software company Redxpress that we’ve covered previously.

The Motion Picture Association of America is currently in legal actions against 321 Studio and their DVD X Copy software both in the US and the UK. In a interview with Digital-Lifestyles.info, Rob Semaan, CEO of 321 Studios told us that they intend to vigorously defend both cases which he felt were attacking the consumers Fair Rights usage. The film industry views the software as tools for piracy.

MPAA pursue Film88

Film88, the Internet-based VOD company that offered hollywood blockbuster films at $1 a view that briefly and unsuccessfully re-opened in Iran about a month and a half ago is having the legal wroth of the MPAA set against it.

Seeing no enforceable end to the number of times they re-launch, the MPAA are taking action against both the US based holding company and personally against the Malaysian owner.

I suspect we won’t see such a blatant attempt to offer unauthorised movies like this again too soon.

RIAA squeeze audio Webcastsers

There was some significant news at the end of last week that will affect/restrict the breadth of music you can listen in the future.

The dispute that’s been rumbling on since 1998 between the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and audio Webcasters, widely know as Internet radio station. The RIAA wanted all Internet radio station to pay a fee to playing music, which most felt was reasonable. The major dispute has been about the level of the fee that is paid. On 20 June, 2002 the US Library of Congress set fee rates for playing music tracks over the Internet. The levels summarised on their site leads one of the many station that has been affected, somaFM, calculate that their DAILY fees would be $500 or $180,000 a year. somFM also say “Don’t listen to the RIAA press release that says most small webcasters will only pay the minimum $500 a year. Any station with more than an average of 5 concurrent listeners will be paying more than that minimum.”

Many of these stations are run by enthusiasts, many of whom made no money and others who spent money from their own pocket. Using their specialist musical knowledge and lead by their enthusiasm, they put collections of tracks together that exposed their wide audiences to music they were excited to hear.

While collect high royalties from Internet radio stations, allegedly more than 100% of their current collective revenues, the RIAA is using the argument that “Internet radio airplay hurts CD sales”.

This is opposite case for both me and many other listeners. By having my choices widened and I have bought more –one of the problems may be that these purchases have been from non-major labels and they don’t like it. The major labels must be frustrated by the fact the people are not interested in their ‘product’ and through lobby pressure they have forced a situation where the small originators find it financially impossible to survive. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to fill the void this leaves.

There are two killing blows, the fees mentioned here apply to non-subscription services, subscription services have to be negotiated separately and the second is the fees are back date-able to 1998 making the successful, long term stations the hardest hit. With the shock of Internet radio stations being turned off now and not waiting until 1 September, 2002 when the actual rates become effective, they hope to force the listeners to take action by contacting their representative urging them to act.

Sadly the most recent ruling and apparent conclusion don’t do anyone any favours long term. A broad and vital source of exposure to different types of music has been halted.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Internet radio, it’s just that the choice we will be given will be significantly limited – diametrically opposed to the philosophy of the Internet.