Digital Rights Management (DRM) – Page 3

BitTorrent Signs Anti-Piracy Agreement With MPAA

BitTorrent Signs Anti-Piracy Agreement With MPAA P2P network, BitTorrent has signed an agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America to collaborate on stopping Internet piracy.

After a press conference, a joint release was released by BitTorrent founder and CEO Bram Cohen and MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman announcing that BitTorrent have agreed to remove all links directing users to pirated content owned by the seven MPAA member companies.

The agreement will effectively prevent bittorrent.com from locating unlicensed versions of popular movies, making it harder for freeloaders to find online illegal copies of films.

“BitTorrent is an extremely efficient publishing tool and search engine that allows creators and rights holders to make their content available on the Internet securely,” Cohen said.

BitTorrent Signs Anti-Piracy Agreement With MPAA “BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so. As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorised content from BitTorrent.com’s search engine,” he added.

Thousand of BitTorrent fans the world over will be clenching their fists and shouting “Traitor! You’re doing deals with the Devil,” while other more balanced, less angry-types will be saying “Smart move Bram, you’ve built a technology that they cannot stop and the fact they’ve done a deal with you proves that. Hey and you’re not getting your shirt sued off your back.”

In September, Cohen revealed that his company had raked in $8.75 million in venture funding to develop commercial distribution tools for media companies, and the MPAA deal looks to be part of a strategy to make the technology more attractive to Hollywood moguls – no doubt with an eye to future lucrative movie download deals.

With an estimated 45 million users, the BitTorrent technology pioneered by Cohen does its clever stuff by assembling digital files from separate bits of data downloaded from computer users all across the Internet.

The decentralised nature of technology makes it the easiest, most convenient way to fill your hard drive with dodgy movies galore, while making it harder for Hollywood to find and identify the movie swappers.

In an attempt to stop the piracy, the MPAA has been slapping lawsuits around like confetti during the last year, successfully closing down 90% of targeted sites using the BitTorrent protocol for illegal distribution of movies.

BitTorrent Signs Anti-Piracy Agreement With MPAA The MPAA claims that the film industry lost $3.5 billion to movie piracy last year, with a recent study predicting the figure to jump to $5.4 billion this year. The MPAA claim these losses are excluding revenue lost through online file-swapping, so the true figure could be even higher (although other will say the figures are already gloriously exaggerated).

With tears welling up in their eyes, the MPAA said that film copying hurts hundreds of thousands of employees dependent on the movie industry, including sound and lighting techies, carpenters, cinema staff, video store employees and quite probably the popcorn sales assistant too.

But not, we suspect, the fatcat industry bigwigs.

BitTorrent

The Teen View On SonyBMG DRM Woes

We’re really pleased to have Lawrence Dudley writing for us.

Digital-Lifestyles thinks that all too often articles about teenagers are written by people old enough to be their parents. What teenagers are thinking isn’t represented.

Lawrence will give you a point of view that you won’t find in other publications. You see Lawrence _is_ a teenager.

Sony DRM rootkit Because Criminals Make the Best Police Officers
A while ago, another teen, Jon Lech Johansen, who was most likely one of those addicted to the Internet, did something that upset a lot of people: He cracked the encryption used to protect DVDs. His actions had a huge impact and a lot of the big movie companies were upset. So much so, that they filed a lawsuit against the then-19 year old.

Imagine then, after the scandal that was SonyBMG’s DRM software which was actually a rootkit, that SonyBMG actually incorporated some open source software (OSS) code in their CDs. And not just any OSS either: It was software written by Jon himself a few years ago.

This leaves SonyBMG in a tricky position: If proven to be correct, they have broken almost every rule in the LGPL, a license used for Open Source Software. This license states that a distributor may not distribute software containing LGPL code without revealing the code’s source. SonyBMG and the suppliers of the DRM software, First4Internet, appear to have failed in doing that, and could end up being penalised for it. My views? How about sending a cool million dollars over to our friend Jon Jen Johansen? I’m sure he could use it to research some new cracks.

Sony DRM rootkit The other law other are saying have been broken by SonyBMG, and this is one that could land them in BIG legal difficulties, is The Computer Misuse Act, which contains the following clauses, all of which have been broken by SonyBMG in their keenes for DRM:

3.(1) A person is guilty of an offence if
(a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and SonyBMG certainly caused an unauthorized modification of the computers on which its software was unknowingly installed on. It even installed a security risk.
(b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge. Well this obviously applies to a company like SonyBMG.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing
(a) to impair the operation of any computer; it would appear that making it impossible to make legitimate, fair-use copies of CDs an impairment
(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or to me it looks like SonyBMG followed the rule, thinking their program had to break every single clause. Preventing access to data, namely $sys$ named folders, is exactly what SonyBMG did.
(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data. Again an impairment in the operation of the computer. Again a clause which SonyBMG broke.

There is one interesting little caveat though: The software wasn’t developed by SonyBMG, but by First4Internet, and was only deployed by SonyBMG on their CDs. Whether it will be SonyBMG or First4Internet who will get into trouble over this one remains to be seen, but from my point of view, Sony as a whole has done themselves a lot of damage with this one.

Too Easy(net) For Sky?

Too Easynet Yesterday, Sky’s takeover of Easynet was finalised and it looks to many that, despite paying a premium on the share price, they’ve have quite a bargain on their hands.

Easynet is not a ‘fly-by-night’ Internet start up but a profitable business having traded for over 10 years in it own right, it has equipment located at over 250 of BT’s exchanges and has earned its technological spurs with deliveries of 22Mb using its ADSL2+ network.

The broadband addition should future proof Sky against TV being broadcast to the home by ‘Wi-Fi’, and cable or fibre, expect future generations of receivers to start evolving into the home media hub with increased storage and the sophisticated Digital Right Management (DRM) that major film studios demand. Easynet will also offer an alternative to satellite delivery to customers who are prohibited from having a dish, or live in a built up urban area, where there can be no line-of-sight.

Too Easynet Although reports that broadband is the latest media battleground have highlighted the moves by the UK telcos, the ultimate prize is the fabled home digital information gateway. The opportunities that this acquisition enables go beyond a mere triple play option (Inernet, TV & Telephone), allowing Sky to, begin by become the overriding aggregator of TV content and, in time, become the preferred digital gatekeeper for many UK homes.

The prize? Being the ability to take a small fee for each of the numerous transactions that will take place.

Sky will be competing initially with the telco’s and ultimately Microsoft. Sky’s choice of MPEG4 H264 for future HD TV delivery pits it against Microsoft and their WMV HD. The two new encoding technologies offer similar advantages and share characteristics but, by and large, broadcasters remain wary of becoming locked into a Microsoft solution and prefer, historically the flexibility of more open standards.

Eyes are peeled to see if Sky Italia and other associated ‘News’ companies look to replicate this type of broadband acquisition.

UK Gov Wants Your Views On Content Protection And More

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your word processors …

The House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee today announced a new inquiry into the challenges and opportunities for the creative industries arising from the development of new media platforms.

For the purposes of the inquiry, the term “creative industries” includes music, visual broadcasts, sound broadcasts, film, graphic art, design, advertising, fashion and games software.

The Committee is particularly interested in receiving evidence on the following issues:

The impact upon creative industries of recent and future developments in digital convergence and media technology
The effects upon the various creative industries of unauthorised reproduction and dissemination of creative content, particularly using new technology; and what steps can or should be taken – using new technology, statutory protection or other means – to protect creators
The extent to which a regulatory environment should be applied to creative content accessed using non-traditional media platforms
Where the balance should lie between the rights of creators and the expectations of consumers in the context of the BBC’s Creative Archive and other developments

Written submissions are invited from any interested organisation or individual by Thursday 19 January 2006.

UK Gov Wants Your Views On Content Protection And More Submissions should give the name and postal address of the person sending the memorandum and should state whether it has been prepared specifically for the Committee. If the memorandum is from an organisation rather than an individual, it should briefly explain the nature and membership of the organisation. The Committee may publish some of the submissions it receives.

For more guidance on the preferred format, see http://www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm

Submissions should be sent to the Clerk of the Committee at the address below.

Kenneth Fox
Clerk of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA
[email protected]

Luke Gibbs writes for Ofcomwatch.

Big Problems For Sony Continue, Now EULA

Big Problems For Sony Continue, Now EULA This weekend, there’s been lots of furious chat on blogs and Slashdot about the EULA that comes with SonyBMG’s audio CDs.

An EULA? What’s that? I hear you cry. An End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) is something that has been shipping with software packages for a very long time – the cold-hearted view of them is they impose restrictions on the purchaser while absolving its producers from any liability.

To have an agreement shipping with an _audio CD_ in itself is pretty strange. The EULA may well be related to the software that is shipped on the protected CDs, not the music – but this is now unimportant as the generally held view is that it is for the music.

It certainly has got the goal of a few – but it’s the terms of this 3,000 word EULA that has most up in arms. Some of the highlights/lowlights of it are

If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids “export” outside the country where you reside.
If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.
You can’t keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a “personal home computer system owned by you.”

The full list is detailed on the EFF site.

All of this builds up on the now huge story of SonyBMG’s choice of software on some of their US released audio CDs. Called XCP, originally designed to ‘assert’ SonyBMG’s rights over their music CD’s, it installs itself on any computer where the audio CD is played. The user of the disk isn’t asked if this is OK, or even told that the software is installing itself. The software then hides itself using something called “rootkit.”

The really big problem for SonyBMG is that virus writers are now using this rootkit exploit to deliverer their viruses.

Big Problems For Sony Continue, Now EULA Many have reacted to RootKit by saying that they feel it is ‘safer’ for them to download their music from unlicensed file sharing services, as they aren’t exposing themselves to unauthorised pieces of software installing on their machines.

SonyBMG have said they will stop selling music CD’s using XCP, but the damage to the Sony name has been done.

It’s all going wrong
A while back Sony, the parent company, had a revelation – that they needed to look outside their Sony Silo and start of embrace open formats. We saw MP3 being supported on their music players, where they’d always insisted on using their propriety content protections scheme ATRAC3. I even saw DivX supported on their DVD players, where DivX had previous been thought of as the content pirates tool.

Sony had (I stress had) started to claw back against Apple and the other companies that they’d been losing out to. As of now, it looks like they’ve slipped even further behind. For goodness sakes, they’ve even got groups of people suggesting Boycott Sony and 3488 have, so far, signed an anti-Sony petition.

Sadly for Sony, it doesn’t end there
In digging through SonyBMG’s code, Finn Matti Nikki has located references to LAME, an open source, MP3 encoder library, within the code used by SonyBMG’s version of the XCP software.

As Matti says, “I’d say this indicates that the executable has been compiled against static LAME library, which happens to be LGPL. I don’t have any further evidence about this, other than lots of data from libmp3lame being included and easy to find.” Let us translate – the LGPL (Lesser General Public License) provides certain freedoms and restrictions in the use of the software covered by it.

These include needing to make the source code to the open-source libraries available and the source code and executable code of their programs.

Without abiding by these rules, they are breaking the licensing terms of the content. Carrying out the exact act they the music companies are loudly decrying in their customer.

Where now for Sony?
Big Problems For Sony Continue, Now EULA SonyBMG have managed to completely undo the small, patient steps that Sony, the hardware business, has been taking to gathering favour with the equipment buying public.

The idea of Sony owning content and hardware businesses always appears to be a great idea – they’d win all around. The reality is turning out to be very different.

There is a tension between the content business, who want to restrict movement of content, and the hardware business that wants to set the purchaser free. Whether a comfortable balance between these can ever be struck is unclear.

What is clear is that it appears that this CD story is nearly out of control for Sony. Someone at the most senior level at Sony needs to grab hold of this and do something radical. Our suggestion for a surefire, credibiliy-straightening maneuver? Reject DRM.

LGLP
SonyBMG on XCP
Wikipedia on LAME
LAME
Slashdot – Sony’s EULA Worse Than Its Rootkit?

Digital Music Conspiracies : Teenage Tech Roundup

Motorola ROKR iTunes Phone Oooh, Conspiracies Abound
We’ve recently covered the Motorola ROKR iTunes music phone, and then again more recently, followed reports of its shortcomings. Now, The Apple Blog has a conspiracy theory on the device: It was deliberately sabotaged.

Apple makes a lot of money out of its iPod sales, with reports of profit margin of as much as 50% on the iPod Nano according to AppleInsider and its one of the company’s principal sources of income. Think about what would happen if people started buying phones as iPod replacements. That’s right, Apple would lose out.

I can well imagine Apple mastermind and CEO Steve Jobs would have seen this from far off, and had thought long and hard about whether or not to allow Motorola to produce an iTunes-compatible mobile phone. I’m sure that Motorola pays Apple some amount of money for the iTunes compatibility, and I’m also sure that Steve Jobs wanted the cash.

How would you introduce a phone that mirrored the iPod’s functionality without canabalizing iPod sales? That’s right, limit its functionality. Maybe this explains the 100-song limit on the Motorola iTunes phone. And before you say “but it’s not got enough memory for more”, it has: It’s possible to put enough memory in it to store around 500 tracks at least, but the software won’t allow any more.

It is possible that Apple want to actually make people think of MP3-playing mobiles as a pile of rubbish, meaning that they will instead buy iPods. Of course, there is no hard evidence that supports this theory, but there are a lot of things that point in this direction.

Whether or not this move on Apple’s part (Apple designed the software) would be wise one or not remains to be seen, and whether the 100-song restriction will still be in place in the upcoming RAZR V3i iTunes phone is also something only time and/or NDA breaches will tell.

The relevance that this idea has to me as a teenager is that as someone who always loses stuff, I would love to just carry one piece of kit around. I want one device that plays music, receives my email, makes phone calls and surfs the web. Apple theoretically attempting to block this digital utopia is something that annoys me.

More conspiracy…
I thought I’d stick with the conspiracy theme. While this rumour is not true, it does highlight what is theoretically possible in an Internet where corporations are increasingly battling their customers. I refer, of course, to media piracy.

The rumour contains the following:

Apple and Microsoft have teamed up in an unusual and, until now, secret partnership. The two firms have developed unique anti-file sharing DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies they say represent cast-iron guarantees of copyright protection. The technologies “ Apple’s Fair Play earbuds and Microsoft’s PowerHit“ are slated for beta release in time for the Christmas rush, say sources.
From December 1, all iTunes downloads will carry a new kind of Fair Play DRM, a direct negative feedback ‘watermark’ recognized by Fair Play earbuds and, ultimately, by other audio devices from manufacturers who sign up for the code, which was created under a joint SunnComm and Macrovision venture.
When an iPod (or other) user wearing the new audio devices plays an iTunes track not sanctioned by Organized Music (EMI Group, Vivendi Uiversal, Warner Music), Fair Play feedback ‘instructs’ the buds to emit a piercing, high-pitched scream in stereo at 250 decibels.

Sounds pretty nasty doesn’t it! My view is that as long as you never had any intention of going out and buying the music track, having a copy doesn’t deprive anyone of anything. It’s like saying that taking a picture of a painting in a gallery is the equivalent of taking it off the wall and running out with it.

The conclusion? While not true, this could very easily become a reality. Maybe not with Apple and Microsoft working together, because that would just be absurd, but extremely restrictive DRM that punishes the user for misbehaving isn’t such a huge step away, and it seems like the current DRM schemes are training consumers to accept more restrictive varieties.

The reason I am against this, is that as much as technology has changed things for the better, my generation has come to take it for granted. If something is invented when you are under the age of 10, you generally do. The problem with this, is that the next generation will come to take DRM for granted, and we will be the “fogeys” saying “In my day, we were allowed to share music we bought with our friends”>

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust DRM

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust's DRM Intertrust must have though that all of the xmases came at once on the day Vodafone confirmed their licensing deal. It’s not every day that the World’s largest mobile operator signs a deal like that with you.

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) specified DRM (Digital Rights Management)contains what they refer to as, the essential patents – the minimum required to run the very basics of the content/rights protection.

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust's DRM The Vodafone deal goes well beyond these basics and licenses all of the technologies and patent that Intertrust have available.

When we asked which of the Intertrust pieces of technology they were planning to use, Vodafone became unusually very shy, explaining that they didn’t have definitive plans as to which parts would and wouldn’t be used.

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust's DRM Both Vodafone and Intertrust declined to reveal the value of the transaction, but given the need for separate deals with the handset companies, it may be here that Intertrust make most of their money. This will not be optional if the handset manufacturers want to be on the Vodafone service and offer content.

The length of the deal has been loosely described as ‘Long-term licensing’, but Vodafone didn’t reveal how long this was by the time we went to press.

Intertrust
Vodafone

BitTorrent File Sharer Arrested

BitTorrent File Sharer Arrested A Hong Kong doleboy has been slapped down by The Man after he was found guilty of distributing three Hollywood films using BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer file sharing technology.

A report in the Taiwanese English-language newspaper The China Post named unemployed Chan Nai-Ming in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.

The 38 year old used BitTorrent to distribute “Miss Congeniality”, “Daredevil” and “Red Planet” and heard the knock on the door from customs officers in January 2005.

Nai-Ming pleaded not guilty to copyright infringement but was convicted after a four day trial. He will be sentenced on 7 November, 2005, although some Websites are reporting that he’s already been fined $641 (~£360, ~E529).

The Hong Kong government is claiming the action as its first successful action against peer-to-peer file sharing, with Hong Kong Commerce Secretary John Tsang confident that it would deter other potential file-sharers.

Since the arrest, the Hong Kong customs department said that illegal file-sharing had plummeted by 80%.

BitTorrent File Sharer Arrested The OpenSource BitTorrent software has become one of the most popular means of downloading large files, with the technology allowing users to download fragments of a large file from multiple users, rather than in one hefty lump.

Initially, the program needed centralised tracker files to manage this process, but BitTorrent’s creator, Bram Cohen announced that they were no longer needed in the last year.

As it’s grown in popularity, BitTorrent has garnered the unwelcome attentions of spyware and adware pushers along with the corporate might of recording companies and movie studios.

Thousands of peer-to-peer downloaders using software like Napster and SoulSeek have already been sued for copyright infringement over the past few years, with the US Supreme Court ruling last year that peer-to-peer makers could be sued if they encourage users to copy material.

We expect the corporate-profits-defending big boot of The Man to be seeing a lot of door-kicking action in the upcoming months.

BitTorrent
MPAA to pursue film file-sharers

FUD Encouraged By Macrovision Report

Destiny Media Technologies Updates Promo Only MPE Macrovision, a company who sell content protection (DRM) system, have today released a report they commissioned into content copying.

The findings? That ‘Casual Piracy’ is “a Growing Challenge in the Entertainment Industry” and that “mass market penetration of digital recording devices and broadband/file-sharing networks are prompting many entertainment brands to enrich their content protection strategies and influence bottom line performance.”

Let us translate. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is coming and the public had better start getting used to it.

FUD Encouraged By Macrovision Report This is on the basis of what to us appears, from a quick once over of this report, a pretty unscientific approach, as the following paragraph from page 10 illustrates.

“In order to estimate exactly what effective content protection represents, respondents were also asked to estimate how many units/titles were copied (burnt) for each 100 sold and how many were illegally downloaded for every 100 sold.”

How can someone write “estimate exactly” without seeing the paradox? They just have well asked them “How paranoid are you about content copying?”

Their conclusion directly under this nonsense? “None of the figures make for comfortable reading.” WHAT?!?!? Just because these figures are presented in a table in a report with graphs next to them, doesn’t elevate them from what they are – guesses. At this point we stopped reading this report – we had some drying paint that needed watching.

FUD Encouraged By Macrovision Report I hope that each time a ‘report’ or so called research like this is published, that it is gone through with a fine tooth comb pointing out its weaknesses. This kind of nonsense needs to be countered.

FUD rules
I have, for years, been questioning the content industry – How are you going to sell DRM to the public when what you’ll be selling them some less good/useful than they had before? The answer has always been a resounding silence.

When I asked a very senior person at Fox (his name escapes me) why DRM would be required when the vast majority of their customers are fair, reasonable and trustworthy, his response stunned me – “We take the opposite view, we treat everyone as dishonest.”

To me, that summed up both the arrogance and distain of the company, and possibly that of the current ‘entertainment’ industry. Any company that has such a low opinion of their customers, will eventually come to a sticky end – and it’s quite right that they do.

Through the sheer panic of suddenly waking up to the changes that technology has been bringing to media for decades (hell, I had digitised audio tracks on my Mac Plus, soon after it was released in 1984), the ‘entertainment;’ business has been listening to technology companies, who by strange co-incidence have something to sell – content protection systems.

That combined with the universal truth that fear is contagious, leads to a point where we are now. The current media companies being near terrified that _all_ of the customers are waiting to steal from them, so they must be restricted – and DRM-selling companies are more than happy to help them in their fear.

Their perceived need to restrict their customers is costing them _huge_ amounts of money and it will continue to … and to what gain?

They stop their customers from using their purchases how they feel fit – well, at least until the latest hack removes the protection – and in the process, further alienate their customers, building resentment.

Why don’t they spend all of this effort, time and money creating new content – engaging their audience further?

I wonder if the ‘entertainment’ companies have spared a thought as to what would happen if their businesses did fail? Do they not see that generally the technology companies are going to win anyway even without them?

PDF of complete report.
BTW, don’t try copying text out of the report, it’s protected unsurprisingly.

iTunes 6 Tested: Your Next TV Supplier?

Russ takes us those who haven’t got a US credit card through iTunes 6 with the downloading of video and contemplates its impact.

I’m sure by now everyone has heard that the new version of Apple’s iTunes (version 6) permits the U.S. user to download music videos and television shows (the U.K. user gets the music videos, but not the television shows). Apple’s announcement, released yesterday, says:

iTunes 6, the next generation of the world’s most popular music jukebox and online music store, lets fans purchase and download over 2,000 music videos and six short films from Academy Award-winning Pixar Animation Studios for just $1.99 each. Customers can also now purchase and download their favorite television shows from iTunes the day after they air on TV, watch them on their Mac or PC and Auto-Sync them onto the new iPod for viewing anywhere.

So, I tried it today. Here’s a snapshot of my experience and my hastily-drawn conclusions for media and communications policy.

My experience: iTunes 6 Tested: Your TV Supplier? * I downloaded and installed iTunes6. Takes 5-10 minutes. No big deal. iTunes6 has the same basic interface and purchasing/sampling system as previous versions of iTunes.

* I do not own the new video-ipod. Some of the press coverage makes it sound like the video-ipod is required to enjoy the video downloads. It’s not – you can play them on your PC or laptop.

* The product selection is not bad, for the second day of availability. There were episodes from 5 Disney TV shows available (including Lost and Desperate Housewives) and what looks like hundreds if not more music videos. There were also 6 Pixar films available. I think they are short films. By the way, the ‘Apple Music Store’ is now a misnomer.

* I purchased two items for about $4.00 – a music video (All These Things That I’ve Done, by The Killers) and an episode of Disney’s Desperate Housewives (first episode of season 2). I don’t mind paying $1.99 for a music video (something that I will likely play frequently), but it’s a steep price for a television episode that I might never watch again. I suppose it depends on the product selection and whether sports and news ever make their way on to this service.

iPod With Video; New iMac; FrontRow; iTunes 6: Apple Summary * File sizes: Killers video: 20.1 mb; Desperate Housewives episode: 208.6 mb. Both were MPEG-4 video files.

* Both downloads completed in about 2 minutes each. I’m on a high-speed connection, and obviously times will vary depending on what’s under your PC’s hood.

* Both video products were of good—but not great—quality and played in what looks like a Quicktime video window. You can manipulate the screen size, so smaller screen = better quality.

* Unlike the BBC’s interactive media player (IMP), I ‘own’ these videos and may keep them on my PC just like music files for as long as I want. The IMP really seems to serve a different purpose and seems more like a DVR than the Apple product. We’ll see.

Hastily-drawn policy conclusions:* The EC should put off serious consideration of any proposed revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive for at least one year. The EC should see where the market heads before acting. Really, folks, it’s absurd for an intelligent regulator to be developing ex ante rules that may be seriously missing whatever developments occur in the marketplace. Viviane Reding might want to rethink her linear / non-linear distinction if the marketplace offers nothing much by way of linear services, or offers something that is not easily pigeonholed into a category being created at this time. Ms. Reding’s actions may actually have the Oedipus-effect of encouraging IPTV players to avoid linear products. Madness.

* I attended an IPTV conference earlier this year and the focus was completely on telcos offering IPTV service (in a triple play with internet and telephony) that resembles a cable or satellite offering. Well, Apple’s not a telco and iTunes6 does not resemble a traditional multichannel video offering. Same for Major League Baseball, the other important IPTV offering available at this time. Again, we’ll see what happens.

* Broadband, broadband,broadband. The number one priority for policy-makers should be to get faster, cheaper broadband to more areas of the country. With these types of services and free PC-to-PC VoIP, is there any policy goal more important than broadband if you really have the interests of consumers at heart?

iTunes 6 Tested: Your TV Supplier? * I’m sure there are some underlying copyright / “rip-off Britain” issues at play here. I’m just not smart enough to figure them out. But there is a problem when the popular television shows are not available on iTunes-UK and the same music video is 1.89 GBP or about $3.30 – that’s $1.30 extra for each music video that UK customers must pay.

* Public service broadcasters (PSB) in Europe beware. The ‘quality and universality’ arguments you’ve made over the years to avoid true competition are about to be seriously put to the test.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the Desperate Housewives video had no adverts in it. There appeared to be quick gaps where adverts would normally be placed.