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Monday, April 28, 2003
Apple Introduces Music Service
Apple today announced their long-awaited music service, iTunes Music Store. The new service, built into iTunes 4 (also introduced today), lets users by songs for 99 cents each, with no restrictions on use or CD burning. Currently, only users in the United States can buy songs, though anyone can browse and preview songs and videos.
Apple also introduced new iPods, in 15GB and 30GB models, featuing a new design with a dock for synchronizing.
posted by Donald Melanson @
4:52 PM
SARS delays WIPO
The SARS outbreak has delayed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conference. Scheduled for the Chinese capital, Beijing's SARSed status drove the postponement of the global intellectual property summit.
posted by Bryan Alexander @
9:41 AM
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Filesharing Services Not Liable for Piracy, Judge Says
AP reports a U.S. federal judge has ruled that popular filesharing services Morpheus and Grokster are not liable for illegal copying of music and movies. The 34-page ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson was a blow to recording companies and movie studios who had sought to stem the illegal copying and distribution of their copyright works.
The decision, if it survives appeal, essentially absolves Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. of liability. Grokster distributes file-sharing software by that name, and StreamCast distributes Morpheus. The ruling does not apply to a third and more popular service, Kazaa from Sharman Networks Ltd.
(via The Globe and Mail)
posted by Donald Melanson @
2:18 AM
Friday, April 25, 2003
Rheingold on End of Innovation
Wired News reports on Howard Rheingold's keynote speech at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, had planned to talk about the social implications of millions of cell phones and peer-to-peer connected PCs, but switched topics at the last minute to deliver a more urgent message to the hundreds of technologists in the conference audience.
He told the assembled programmers and developers to lobby politically for their right to innovate, but also to figure out ways to move around political and legislative barriers.
"What you know that they don't is that you can build technologies that will be as astonishing in a few years as wireless and the Internet is now," he said. "Defend your freedom to innovate."
posted by Donald Melanson @
9:43 PM
MPAA fights the analog hole
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is considering proposals to apply DRM technologies back towards analog devices, in order to close the analog hole (content from older media getting digitized). One such creates five settings for files, four of which block redistribution (PowerPoint file).
I was struck by the MPAA's view, bluntly expressed by Brad, that the role for analog outputs was to support "legacy" equipment. Apparently, all future innovation will have to rely on the DRM-hobbled digital outputs. This is a major change from the status quo that has given us innovations like the VCR, where analog outputs not only supported legacy devices, but were generally available to support innovative products not yet imagined.
posted by Bryan Alexander @
5:52 PM
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Car crash bonsai!
There's something eerie, yet calming and inevitable about car crash bonsai.
(via MetaFilter)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
1:03 PM
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Moveable Type Gets Funding, Will Launch Hosted Service
The Guardian reports that Six Apart, makers of the popular weblog tool Moveable Type, have recieved a "major investment" from the Japan-based venture capital firm Neoteny, headed by high-profile blogger Joi Ito. With the funding, Six Apart plans to launch a hosted version of Moveable Type this summer, making it more directly competitive with the leading weblog service, Blogger. They have also hired Anil Dash as head of marketing and business development.
posted by Donald Melanson @
3:59 PM
Monday, April 14, 2003
DMCA: anti-circumvention upheld for filterers, against ACLU
A federal court in Boston turned aside the ACLU's challenge to the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The ACLU sued to allow Ben Edelman the ability to reverse-engineer N2H2's Web-filtering software. The judge found the law shielded the company's hermeticware, on property grounds.
Fine discussion from Lawmeme.
Edelman and the ACLU tried to force Judge Sterns into confronting the Constitutional issue, but he ducked it except for the statement that "there is no plausible constitutional [sic] interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted property from an invasive and destructive trespass . . . ."
This is the only sentence in the entire opinion which goes to the underlying merits of the ACLU's claim that the relevant part of the DMCA is unconstitutional, but what does this mean in serious legal terms? Honestly, I have no idea. It barely makes sense.
(via BNA.com)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
3:48 PM
Friday, April 11, 2003
Xbox Mod Chip Seller Gets Hit Hard by the DMCA
David Rocci, who sold Xbox mod chips through his website, has received five months in prison and a $28,500 fine for conspiracy to violate copyright laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Reuters reports.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that has opposed the DMCA as being overly restrictive on free speech and the fair-use rights of consumers, said Rocci was one of the first people to be sent to prison for violating the DMCA.
He was charged with importing and selling about 450 Enigmah "mod" chips, after-market processors designed to be attached to the Xbox's motherboard and circumvent its security measures.
Rocci had faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $500,000.
posted by Donald Melanson @
6:49 PM
Apple to Buy Universal Music?
Well, this is unexpected. The L.A. Times reports (free registration required) that Apple is apparently in talks to buy Universal Music for around $6 billion.
posted by Donald Melanson @
11:49 AM
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
new Yahoo
Yahoo has released a new design for their search engine. Much cleaner, tighter. Similarities to a certain other well-known search engine?
posted by Bryan Alexander @
12:26 AM
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Update on Matrix sequels
A new article explores the experimental f/x and release strategy of the upcoming Matrix movies, Reloaded and Revolutions.
posted by Bryan Alexander @
11:42 PM
Deus Ex Writer on "Dangerous Technology"
Sheldon Pacottim, a writer for the genre-bending (and Mindjack favorite) game Deus Ex, has written an article for Salon on the perils of technology gone out of control. In echoes many of the themes of Bill Joy's famous Wired article, but is interesting nonetheless. via slashdot
posted by Donald Melanson @
5:12 PM
Monday, April 07, 2003
Pakistan launches porn site blocking
Pakistan announced the blocking of 1800 web sites for pornographic content, by installing filters in the country's main ISP.
Under pressure from powerful religious parties, Owais Leghari, the information technology minister, last month ordered the Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd. to filter porn sites. Filtering began 10 days ago, said Ather Javed Sufi, a company spokesman.
He said 1,800 sites had been blocked by Sunday. The company regulates private Internet service providers who use its lines.
(via BNA.com)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
3:04 PM
Friday, April 04, 2003
Pennsylvania: ISPs should block Websites, and we won't know which ones
Pennsylvania's attorney general, Mike Fisher, refused to release information about Websites that state asked ISPs to block. According the the Associated Press, "[AG] Fisher's office said disclosing the list of blocked Web sites would itself be disseminating such pornography, which is illegal." As some have noted, this makes oversight problematic.
(via BNA.com)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
11:46 AM
DRM milestone: Macrovision has released 100 million burn-protected CDs
Marcovision announced a milestone in digital rights management (DRM): passing the 100 million number of CDs released with their anti-copying technology, CDS.
These disks haven't been sold formally in the US so far, being unleashed in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia.
The US has not yet been targeted, because reports indicate that American consumers are far less tolerant of the system.
The record companies, on the other hand, love the idea and most major labels are using the technology.
The announcement looks timed to respond to a major stock assessor's critique. JP Morgan stated that SunComm's watermark-like DRM looks more likely to be widely adopted, and accordingly devalued Marcovision's stock.
(via DRM Watch)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
10:54 AM
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
blogs at war
The Guardian has a couple of articles on blogs as alternatives to mainstream, broadcast, mass media. One recent article discusses people hitting blogs (and the rest of the Web) for Muslim perspectives, as well as to address "a widely shared view that the media may be deliberately withholding negative information." Another argues that blogs offer non-pro-war alternatives, and might spark a global conversation.
A sampling of warblogs: Agonist, Back to Iraq, the BBC teamblog, Command Post, Instapundit, Live from Kuwait, Raed, John Robb, Lt. Smash, Stand Down, Tacitus, Warblogging.com, Warblogs.cc. Kevin Sites has suspended his.
posted by Bryan Alexander @
12:32 PM
US attorney: eBay violated the Patriot Act
A federal attorney from the Eastern District of Missouri has charged PayPal (recently part of eBay) with violating the Patriot Act (passed 2001). PayPal claims it didn't violate the law, was acting in good faith, and could suffer business losses as a result of the charge. The group could face both criminal and civil penalties.
Such charges are part of a larger federal move against illegal on-line gambling.
They're also a strange use of Patriot.
(via BNA News)
posted by Bryan Alexander @
10:51 AM
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