Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

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

Fraunhofer Institute Develops “Fair Use” DRM System ***Update***

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, creators of the phenominally successful MP3 music format, has developed a content protection extension to MP3 – and it could end the controversy over file sharing.

The Light Weight Digital Rights Management (LWDRM) system is based on a principle which has been used in video and audio media for some time – and in fact is already built into Microsoft’s Window Media platform.

Users pay for an audio file and can use it as they wish, but if they want to transfer it to another device or give it away to someone else, they must download a certificate from a certification body. Because the file is signed with your identity, if several thousand copies of an MP3 you once bought are found on the internet, then they know whose door to knock on.

We really think that Fraunhofer are missing a trick here. Rather than just flagging who once owned the file, why not make it so that an unauthorised recipient must download and pay for a license before they can play the media? This is already implemented in various ways in Windows Media, and we’re a but baffled why the technique isn’t employed here.

The system was originally developed for MPEG4, but has adapted it for use with MP3. Fraunhofer say that LWDRM will allow users fair use of the media they have bought whilst protecting the artists’ and record labels’ investments.

To support adoption of the new system, Fraunhofer aim to launch their own online shop, which will be free to small labels.

Fraunhofer on LWDRM

Fraunhofer on the MP3 standard – recommended reading!

New Zealand Government Makes Transferring Music Files “Fair Use”

Long since regarded as progressive, New Zealand’s copyright laws are about to have a small revision: format shifting (transferring content from one media to another, or to another device) is to be defined as fair use. Record companies are howling that this will make everyone pirates – and is a good indicator, that secretly, they don’t want you moving media at all – they want consumers to buy a version for each device they want to play it on.

It’s already legal to sell or give away a piece of media you have a license for – so you could sell that music track you bought off iTunes without any trouble.

Under current legislation, all copying, even for personal listening is illegal – but the Economic Development Ministry want to make it legal to make a copy for personal use. The change will possibly be implemented in the middle of the year.

The recording industry claims that 10 million CDs are pirated every year in the country – quite a bold estimate given that the entire country only has 3.7 million inhabitants. We think they might be a little on the high side.

Slashdot debates

New Zealand Copyright Law

CeBIT: Sony’s European Music Launch

Sony have announced at CeBIT that they’re launching a new music service in Europe in June. The initial countries on the list will be UK, Germany and France. The service will comprise of some 300,000 tracks form Sony’s catalogue, and they will be available for the usual €0.99 per track.

Now for the bad news. The tracks won’t be MP3s, they won’t be AAC and they won’t be Windows Media Format. They’ll be ATRAC3 (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding 3) – and customers will have to use Sony’s Sonic Stage 2.0 software.

We’ve used Sonic Stage in the past, and it’s a bit of a pig: getting tracks onto devices is relatively simple, but getting them off again can be a nightmare – we hope that some changes will be made to the platform to make the whole process considerably less painful.

This is also a bold move for Sony – by providing Sonic Stage as the engine and selling ATRAC3 music, the service will only work with Sony devices, considerably narrowing their market reach at the expense of copy protection. With Napster and iTunes launching in Europe later this year, it won’t take long to see if this was a good decision or not. We’ll keep you posted.

US Service “Coming Soon”

EU Passes the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive

The European Parliament has passed the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive, an anti-piracy law covering media and other copyrighted goods across the entire EU.

The new law has had an early amendment to restrict civil lawsuits to commercial counterfeiters and pirates such as those selling copied football shirts, CDs and videos. In it’s original form publishers could pursue individuals through the courts for downloading music and other media in good faith, rather like the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) still argue that the amendment is not enough and that individuals could still be prosecuted as under the new law. Companies are allowed to raid homes, freeze bank accounts and seize property though proposals for custodial sentences were dropped. In the US, organisations such as the RIAA used the DMCA to prosecute file sharers, and resulted in a number of unfortunate legal cases against children.

Interestingly, the new law was guided through the courts by Janelly Fourtou. By sheer coincidence, her husband is Jean-Rene Fourtou, chief executive of Vivendi Universal.

The EFF on the new law

Hewlett-Packard making strides in DRM

HP has licensed content protection technology from Intel and has developed a new copy protection technique with Philips.

Hewlett Packard has licensed a copy protection system from Intel that prevents video from recorded as it travels between devices, such as between a video card and TV.

HP is also working with Philips to develop a technology that will allow users to make legal and protected recordings from digital broadcast sources, such as from cable, in accordance with the new FCC broadcast flag rules.

Reuters

TiVo Consumes StrangeBerry

TiVo has announced that it has acquired a company called StrangeBerry. The stock-for-stock deal actually took place on 12 January but the details have only just emerged due to a recent SEC-filing by TiVo. No real details have been released by TiVo as to why they have bought it, but in the filing TiVo describe it as

a small Palo Alto based technology company specializing in using home network and broadband technologies to create new entertainment experiences on television

Very little is known about StrangeBerry and the products they have been working on since its inception in April 2002. What is know is there are only a handful (five) of signed deals with companies like Coke & Fox to place promotional videos on TiVo’s and given TiVo has over one million paid up users, handling this would require a highly scalable solution. StrangeBerry could bring these skills.

Time will tell – but it sounds interesting.

TiVO SEC filing

TiVo announcment about StrangeBerry

First Reviews of Nintendo IQue Player Arrive

Back in September this year, Nintendo announced they would be creating a home games console that would sell exclusively in Chinese market. Initially to be sold in Shanghai, Guanzhou and Chengdu, this will be the first games console to be sold in China.

As details emerged of the IQue Player (rough translation, God’s Playing Machine), we realised that its form would be a handheld games controller that plugged directly in to the TV, doing away with the box under the TV. Based on N64, which at its original launch in 1996 was one of the most powerful consoles available, Nintendo clearly plan to leverage its large amount of licensed game content to run on it – very clever when you consider it is currently just sitting earning nothing. It also has hardware-emulation of Nintendo’s pre-N64 console, the Super Nintendo, enabling it to play the enormous library of games that were available for it. The games will be converted to Chinese language and, to minimise piracy often perceived as a problem in China, games will be loaded on to the 64Mb Flash-based memory cartridges at local retailers and will be, at least to Western standards, very cheap.

Time and thinking has moved on a long way from the N64 and the IQue Player benefits from a number of innovative features. It will be launched with one full game and four other demonstration versions of titles will be preloaded on to the cartridge, that will last for between one and ten hours of playing before removing themselves. As touched on above, the new software will be distributes electronically to shops located around China and will be loaded on to Flash memory cartridges at the shops. The operating system, dubbed UOS, is automatically updatable when new games are bought and installed, this may well be to ensure they stay ahead of hackers attempts to copy games.

The IQue Player has now been released in China priced at 598 Yuan (~$72, ~€59, ~£41) slightly above the originally expected 498 Yuan. The games sell for a very competitive, at least to Western eyes, 48 Yuan (~$6, ~€5, ~£3.50).

Two site have now published the first European reviews of the IQue Player, one in English and another slightly more technical one in German.

The video games and content worlds will be watching the progress of this platform in China, not just to get a grasp of the level of enthusiasm for gaming in China, but also for the success of the anti-piracy measures and to see if they are prepared to pay for reasonably priced content.