Michael Geist is doing more for consumer protection and copyright law reform in Canada than I could ever hope to achieve. Consumer-friendly copyright law reform seems next to impossible at this time. The best we can hope to achieve in the near term is the status quo. No copyright reform is better than regressive copyright reform. Thankfully, some good is coming out of the current political crisis in Canada – a legislative stalemate.

For the foreseeable future, my blogging efforts will be focused on The Daleisphere. Please join me there.

The rest of my spare time is being channeled into hobbyist iPhone application development and my wishhh.com service.

I will keep this blog up and running in its current state. I’ll respond to comments, edit posts as events merit and perhaps make a new post now and again.

Thanks for following me here. Cheers.

establish private wishhh groups for the exclusive use of your family, friends, classmates, teammates, colleagues, worship group, whatever… • invite others to participate in your groups • post wishhhes and ‘don’t wants’ for group members to see • link wishhhes to details on other websites • tag another member’s wishhhes as ‘granted’ or ‘reserved’ pending purchase – without that person’s knowledge (… shhh!!!… it’s a secret) so other members won’t grant the same wishhh • protect your children by using wishhh.com’s oversight functions • receive only the gifts you really want

I do intend to resume blogging later this year or in early 2008. Thank you for your patience. And, please do visit wishhh.com after launch.

…Dale

  Text of RIAA Letter to ISPs (February 2007)
Following the receipt of applicable subpoenas, U.S. ISPs currently provide the RIAA with personally identifying information about alleged P2P users with sufficient detail to bring legal proceedings against them.

The Recording Industry vs The People has obtained the letter linked-to above allegedly used by the RIAA in an attempt to obtain further voluntary assistance from ISPs. The RIAA is asking ISPs to retain  log files for at least 180 days and to send out letters to users offering $1,000 settlement discounts if alleged infringers settle before the RIAA has to initiate costly court proceedings. 

Dale's Comment: One wonders why U.S. ISPs would comply with such a request given that they fought (and won) at least one court case in the past where the RIAA sought to compel their assistance without subpoenas. Such voluntary assistance would certainly assist the RIAA. 

Source: Recording Industry vs The People |Ars Technica | TechDirt | Wired | P2PNet | Digital Citizen

Related Posts:

• RIAA Wants U.S. ISPs to Offer Discounted Settlements to Alleged P2P Users (February 14, 2007)
• Lawyer who Fights the RIAA Speaks Out (July 21, 2006)
• Dutch Court Rules ISPs Need Not Disclose File Swapper IDs (July 17, 2006)
• British ISP, Tiscali, Refuses BPI Request to Disconnect 17 Users (July 12, 2006)
• RIAA to Students: 'Drop out of College to Pay Settlement'
• Gonzales Calls for 'Reasonable' Data Retention (April 21, 2006)
• Warner/RIAA vs. The John Does Trial to Start May 19 (April 20, 2006)
• One Man's First Hand Account of Being Put Through Hell by the RIAA (April 14, 2006)
• How the RIAA Litigation Process Works (April 5, 2006)
• Canadian Federal Court of Appeal Reaches a Stalemate as to Whether and How Discovery of P2P Users' Identity can be compelled (May 19, 2005)
• Canadian Federal Court Rejects CRIA Motion to Disclose IP Addresses of P2P Users (March 31, 2004)

Previously, Muslix64 had discovered the "volume keys" for individual HD-DVD movies (and subsequently Blu-ray titles) which, when used with his BackupHDDVD software, allowed technically adept users to decrypt and copy individual HD titles protected by AACS. Since then, volume keys for more than 100 HD titles have circulated on the Internet.  The processing key discovered by Arnezami can, until revoked, be used to easily determine the volume key needed to decrypt and copy any HD title.  

It is unclear to me, at this moment, whether the processing key so discovered is unique to one specific player (and therefore easily revoked under the AACS system) or a key that is universally used in all players.

More importantly, if this particular processing key is revoked, hackers could simply use the same technique to discover the next processing key implemented by the AACS authority.

[UPDATE 1:] A day later beta software called AnyDVD is circulating the net (See here and here). This software purports to use Arnezami's processing key to automatically strip out the DRM, FBI notices etc. from any HD-DVD or Blu-ray disk. 

[UPDATE 2:] SlySoft is distributing AnyDVD on the net: See here.

Sources: PC World | ComputerWorld | Engadget | ElectronicNew.net | DailyTech | The Register | ZDNet Blogs | Team Xbox | Wired Blogs | AfterDawn | *Beta News | Bit-tech.net | Gizmodo

Related posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Apple is facing pressure from some European countries, most notably Norway, whose consumer ombudsman recently ruled that Apple's DRM is illegal in Norway and that Apple must open its iTunes system up by October 1, 2007 or face legal action.

Sources: Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Music | New York Times | Times Online | EFF Deep Links| San Francisco Chronicle | MTV | Chicago Tribune (AP) | ZDNet | Guardian Unlimited | Boston Globe | Hollywood Reporter | Business Week | Red Herring | PC World | MSNBC | ABC News | Washington Post | Reuters

Yahoo Music Speaks!: I also highly recommend you listen to Michael Arrington's January 10, 2007 TalkCrunch interview with Yahoo Music GM David Goldberg and Yahoo Music VP of Product Development Ian Rogers discussing the desirability and probability of music labels abandoning the use of DRM with online music sales.

Click here to access the TalkCrunch Yahoo! Music podcast (Click on "Listen Now" at the bottom of the blog entry).

Related Posts:

• Steve Jobs Calls for the End of DRM for Online Music Sales (February 7, 2007)
• Wired Article: Signs Music Industry May be Abandoning DRM (January 8, 2007)
• EMusic Sells 100 Millionth Song without DRM (December 15, 2006)
• EMI's Blue Note & Yahoo! Music Sell a Few More Songs DRM Free (December 6, 2006)
• ifpi Board Member Quoted as Saying Major Labels About to Abandon DRM (November 27, 2006)
• First a Song, Now a DRM-Free Album – Yahoo! (September 19, 2006)
• Weird Al Yankovic's New Single: Don't Download this Song (August 23, 2006)
• Yahoo! Offers DRM-Free Jessica Simpson Song (July 20, 2006)
• Yahoo! Exec Says Labels Should Sell Music Without DRM (February 24, 2006)

I do have a few criticisms:

• 8 Gigs is not enough RAM for the music and videos I’d want to carry around. 30 Gigs of storage would be my preferred minimum.
• Cingular’s U.S. exclusivity.
• No Canadian or other International carriers announced – though Rogers is a pretty good bet for Canada given its relationship with Yahoo! and nation-wide GSM coverage.
• Walled-Garden – no third party apps will run on it – no SKYPE.
• No WiFi VoIP announced.
• EDGE only – no announced 3G support – though Steve said its planned and rumors are it already exists – until then, non-WiFi web access will be s … l … o …. w.
• 5 hr battery life for phone or video or Internet seems a bit low for me (the 16 separate hours for audio is fine).

All that said, I still want one! Come on Rogers! Do a deal with Steve!

• Click here for Wikipedia coverage.
• Click here to view Jobs’ iPhone Keynote at MacWorld 2007.

Dale's Comment: I want to be clear about something. I do not endorse piracy nor the use of BitTorrent to circulate pirated copies of HD-DVD content.

I do, however, believe the DMCA unfairly criminalizes the behavior of honest consumers wishing to exercise their "fair use" rights to make copies of and/or format shift copies of content purchased by the consumer for the consumer's own personal use.  The DMCA and the WIPO Copyright Treaty unfairly take away rights that U.S. consumers have under the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright law. It is therefore understandable why consumers would choose to use software such as BackupHDDVD to exercise the rights the U.S. Copyright regime otherwise affords them. In my opinion it is copy-protection mechanisms such as AACS put in place by the content industry to penalize the activities of honest consumers that leads to massive piracy by the same consumers through BitTorrent and other P2P networks. As I've said here for years, treat honest consumers fairly and they'll purchase your products in record numbers. Treat them like criminals and they'll rebel.

Sources:  Engadget | ars technica | DigitalMusicWeblog

Related Posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

The cable industry has had seven years, plus two extensions, to separate out the security and and channel surfing functions of cable set-tops. Under the most recent FCC rules, major cable companies must start using CableCARD set-tops, and cease deploying integrated settops, starting July 1, 2007.

Comcast has said it will appeal the decision. 

Sources: MultiChannel News | Broadcasting & Cable | Engadget | ars technica | xchange  Reuters | FCC Press Release | NCTA Response

Discussed here: TiVoCommunity Forum 

Related Posts:

• FCC Chairman Declares No More Blanket CableCARD Waivers (January 12, 2007)
• TiVo Continues to Fight the Good CableCARD/Integration Ban Fight (October 19, 2006)
• CableCARD Primer (February 6, 2006)
• Microsoft and Cablelabs Agree on CableCARD Integration into Windows Media Center (November 16, 2006)
• FCC Releases 12th Annual Report on the Status of Competition in the Video Programming Market (March 3, 2006) 

U.S. Patent 6,775,664*
U.S. Patent 6,308,175*
One-time rival of Yahoo! and Google, Lycos claims that TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster infringe its two patents over the way they provide movie and television show recommendations to customers.

Dale's Comment:  *I am not certain of the patents listed above. These were cited by Davis Freeberg as the most likely patents involved.. I'll update if/when I get more information. I wonder why Amazon.com wasn't named here. The methods used by these companies to recommend content is pretty straight forward and, to me, obvious. 

Sources: DallasNews (Bloomberg) | Mercury News | SeekingAlpha | Davis Freeberg

In an effort to put the format wars behind (and increase sales), Warner has committed to licensing the Total Hi Def technology to any other TV/movie studio for free. Not surprisingly, fellow Time Warner properties, New Line Studios and HBO, have said they will also use the Total Hi Def format. Major retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, and Amazon.com have announced they will support this format and make Total Hi Def DVDs available through these retail channels.  No word yet from Walmart.

Dale's Comment: This is an interesting development in the high-def wars (which I personally believe HD-DVD is winning). Consumers don't want to be left in a loosing Betamax-like camp. Universal exclusively supports the HD-DVD standard. Fox, Disney and Sony, of course, exclusively support Blu-ray. Other studios support both. If Warner is licensing this this technology for free, it is possible that these studios, with the exception of Sony, could eventually support this hybrid disk approach. That said, the per-unit manufacturing costs will be higher than producing disks with one format or the other because the process requires the purchase of dual manufacturing equipment to support both formats. 

With an alternative approach to solving the same problem, LG also used CES 2007 to announce an expensive ($1,200ish U.S.) hybrid player that could play disks of either format. Under the LG hybrid-drive formulation, something both Sony (Blue-ray) and Toshiba (HD-DVD) strenuously oppose (and until now had precluded through licensing restrictions), we would be headed down a similar road as the CDR+/CDR- and DVDR+ and DVDR- standards where no format won and eventually all players could support all formats.  But its difficult to envision consumers, that are unwilling to pay $200 for an Xbox 360 HD-DVD sidecar or $600 for a PS3 with its internal Blu-ray player, wanting to spend $1,200 on a hybrid player. It would be cheaper to purchase an Xbox 360, its sidecar DVD player and a PS3 than to purchase the LG hybrid player at this price.

Previously the HD-DVD camp had announced its HD-DVD/DVD hybrid disk technology as a key advantage over Blu-ray. Purchasers of those disks could play the movie on either current gen DVD players OR HD-DVD players. I had also seen this as a format Blockbuster and Netflix would glom onto because one disk could serve its rental needs for customers of both existing DVD and HD-DVD formats. One SKU per movie cuts the needed display/warehousing space in half.

Importantly, the porn industry announced at CES 2007 that it will standardize on HD-DVD. Don't laugh at this! The porn industry has been a huge factor in the advancement of interactive media technologies over the last decade and could play an important part in determining what HD format wins. It embraced VHS over Betamax in the early years. We all know the outcome there.

My sense is that while one format or the other may win, or one of these hybrid approaches might solve the problem, in the longer run, none of this matters too much. I believe, as does Microsoft, that the world is headed for a paradigm shift where HD downloads, such as those done through the XBox 360 right now, will become more important than any physical disk-based HD distribution approach.

Sources: Engadget | Engadget CES Coverage | LinuxInsider | Pocket-lint | Newsday | PC World | Fox News | CNet | PC Magazine (Reuters) | ZDNet | PC World | MovieWeb | Economist | Playfuls

Discussed at the 32:03 Minute Mark of this Engadget Podcast 98 (after iPhone segment).

  Click here to listen to Episode 73 of the Security Now podcast. (This will download an 8.0 MB MP3 file that your default media player should load and play). For a higher quality version of this podcast click here (32 MB).

1. The label's don't have a choice;
2. Apple might be forced into interoperability;
3. Thomson has endorsed selling watermarked MP3s;
4. Amazon is rumored to start selling MP3s by April;
5. Sony: "DRMs are going to become less important";
6. People love AllofMP3.com; and
7. MP3 has future options.

Dale's Comment: There have been countless articles on this topic over the last few weeks. This Wired article is as good as any other. It presents a nice summary of the reasons why the major labels may abandon  DRM in favor of MP3 music distribution. This article falls into the category of "I'll believe it when I see it", but I do see it as an inevitability. I just don't see it happening as quickly as the recent optimistic bloggers do. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Source: Wired News

Related Posts:

• Steve Jobs Calls for the End of DRM for Online Music Sales (February 7, 2003)
• Wired Article: Signs Music Industry May be Abandoning DRM (January 8, 2007)
• EMusic Sells 100 Millionth Song without DRM (December 15, 2006)
• EMI's Blue Note & Yahoo! Music Sell a Few More Songs DRM Free (December 6, 2006)
• ifpi Board Member Quoted as Saying Major Labels About to Abandon DRM (November 27, 2006)
• First a Song, Now a DRM-Free Album – Yahoo! (September 19, 2006)
• Weird Al Yankovic's New Single: Don't Download this Song (August 23, 2006)
• Yahoo! Offers DRM-Free Jessica Simpson Song (July 20, 2006)
• Yahoo! Exec Says Labels Should Sell Music Without DRM (February 24, 2006)

Importantly, the court did not go so far as to forbid the use of DRM, however.  

Sony was ordered to: (i) pay a fine of 10,000 euros ($13,000); (ii) henceforth state on its music-player packaging that the product only play songs downloaded from Sony's own Connect music store; and (iii) publish the information on its French website homepage.

Sources: The Australian | AgroVox | Euro2Day | Daily India | Washington Times | MSNBC

Related Posts:

• French Court Rules Sony's Portable Music Player & Download Service Breach Linked Sales Laws (January 8, 2007)
• Apple iTunes DRM-Antitrust Case to Continue (Tucker v. Apple) (January 8, 2007)
• Apple Sued Over iTunes DRM Lock-in (January 6, 2005)

A U.S. District court recently denied Apple's motion to dismiss the Tucker v. Apple case (filed in July 2006) similarly alleging, among other things, that:

Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice and restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets.

In denying Apple's request, U.S. District Court James concluded,  

"the existence of valid business reasons in antitrust cases is generally a question of fact not appropriate for resolution at the motion to dismiss stage.

Melanie Tucker is seeking class status, wants Apple to be enjoined from tieing music bought on iTunes to iPods as the only possible portable playback device for such music plus unspecified damages for all persons that purchased music from iTunes since April of 2004. 

Sources: Engadget | WebProNews | Ecommerce Times | GameShout | Home Media Magazine | Active Home | Computer World | Macworld | ITNews | P2PNet | ZDNet Blogs  Yahoo! News (AP)

Related Posts:

• French Court Rules Sony's Portable Music Player & Download Service Breach Linked Sales Laws (January 8, 2007)
• Apple iTunes DRM-Antitrust Case to Continue (Tucker v. Apple) (January 8, 2007)
• Apple Sued Over iTunes DRM Lock-in (January 6, 2005)

This new method seems to rely on a compromised HD-DVD player whereby muslix64 was first able to access the unique decryption keys for particular HD-DVDs. Then using those keys and his java-based BackupHDDVD program, muslix64 was able to implement the AACS decryption protocol as outlined at aacsla.com (the official AACS website) and play it back using standard HD-DVD play-back software (in this case PowerDVD 6.5 HD-DVD). 

Muslix64 says the tool works on his XBOX 360 external HD DVD player, but that the software would not be limited to just one specific player.

It is unlikely that this will become the HD-DVD/Blue-ray equivalent of DeCSS, however, because it does not provide a universal method of decrypting HD-DVD/Blu-ray disks. Nonetheless, even if this is only usable by the most dedicated of hackers, once a decrypted HD-DVD/Blu-ray title is out on the wild and wooly Internet, it would be freely copied by the P2P community.  As the recording industry knows too well, it only takes one decrypted copy for the file to spread around the Internet like wildfire.

Whatever its future, DVD Jon is smiling somewhere.

Sources: ars technica | New York Times | Doom9 Forum (original announcement) | Gizmodo | DailyTech | idm.net | ZDNet Blogs | bit-tech.net | Engadget | Hexus | Inquirer | EDN | PC World

Related Posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

The relative success of video downloads on Microsoft's Xbox Live and disappointment of Amazon.com's Unbox point to two factors that differentiate Xbox from Amazon and its many other competitors — consumers who download a movie want a simple way to watch it on their TV, and those with high-def TVs want high-def content.

A primary reason for its success lies also in the fact that DRM is not a relevant consideration for most users when the content is delivered directly to the display unit of choice. iVOD services to PCs have largely failed because most people do not want to watch TV and movies on their computers. And the DRM used by most of those services preclude users from copying the movie onto a DVD for playback where they want to watch them – in the living room. 

FYI: Joystiq has a pretty good preview of the system here including a YouTube demo. Note that the demo was done early-on. As I understand it the slow-downloads and other glitches experienced in the early days have been resolved.

Sources: Variety | Joystiq | XBox 360 Fanboy

P2PNet: Winners and Losers of 2006

This list is culled from this P2PNet article – which I recommend. Links below are to my coverage of some of these winners/losers stories: 

Winners:

1. YouTube
2. Apple
3. MySpace
4. BitTorrent and Azureus
5. Pirate Bay
6. Brittany Chan
7. Creative
8. DJ Danger Mouse
9. SanDisk
10. eMusic
11. TiVo

Losers:

1. Streamcast
2. Echostar Communications
3. Sharman Networks (Kazaa)
4. AllofMP3.com
5. Captain Copyright
6. OLGA- Online Guitar Tabulature Archive
7. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD
8. Amazon Unbox
9. Sony BMG
10. DRM – Digital Rights Management

Under the settlement, SONY BMG must provide refunds up to $175 to all consumers who experienced harm to their computers when they sought to remove the DRM software.  Refund claims may be submitted to SONY BMG through this claims page.

Some reports indicated that Sony is in final settlement discussions with the FTC on this matter as well. 

Sources: PCWorld | CSO (IDG) | DRM Watch | techworld | Computer World| ZDNet | CNet | InfoWorld | Massachusetts Attorney General Press Release | Sony's Settlement Page

 Related Posts:

• Sony Settles Rootkit Lawsuit with 40+ U.S. States for $5.75M (and Climbing) (December 27, 2006)
• Sony Rootkit Settlement Faces Opposition in Canada (September 19, 2006)
• Sony Rootkit DRM Settlement Passes Final Legal Hurdle (May 23, 2006)
• Sony Settles Class Action Law Suits over Rootkit DRM (December 29, 2005)
• Texas Saddles Another Claim on Sony (December 23, 2005)
• My Morning Jacket Burns New CDs for Fans Replacing Sony's CDs with Rootkits (December 15, 2005)
• Texas Sues Sony BMG for 'spyware' on CDs (November 21, 2005)
• Sony folds Tent, Recalls CDs (November 16, 2005)
• Fallout from Sony CD Flap Getting Worse (November 15, 2005)
• Sony Bows to Pressure and Abandons DRM Rootkit Technology (November 11, 2005)
• Sony Faces Class Action Law Suit over Rootkit DRM (November 10, 2005)
• Sony Caught using Rootkit DRM (November 3, 2005)

Warez.com: Piracy, the clear choice for 2006 

Dale's Comment: Each of these articles make the same essential point. Piracy of video content is pervasive because it provides consumers with a product they want – a vast selection of high quality content, meeting the tastes of both the masses and the long tail – with the ability to use/view the content on any device and with any software/service of their choosing. Something the TV and movie-industries fail to provide to the very consumers eager to purchase it from them – if only it was conveniently available at fair prices and under fair use terms.

This oft-quoted remark by Disney co-chair Ann Sweeney made at a conference in October, shows at least that the industry is finally starting to grapple with the issue: 

"We understand now that piracy is a business model. It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates compete the same way we do – through quality, price and availability. We we don?t like the model but we realise it?s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward."

Following a similar suit by the BPI in July, AllofMP3.com's Moscow-based parent Mediaservices, Inc. has been sued by the RIAA for massive copyright infringement in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to the New York Post:

The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each instance of copyright infringement. That equates to an astounding $1.65 trillion for the five-month period in question.

Wow! I suspect they'll have a little trouble collecting this damage award if successful!

Interestingly, along with the damages award, the suit seeks court ordered control of AllofMP3.com's domains. Given the global nature of the Internet, it will be interesting to see if a court would grant such a prayer for relief. Mountainview California-based  Verisign operates the domain name registry for the .com domain space.

AllofMP3.com has long claimed that they are in full compliance with Russian law and pay licensing fees on all music sales to Russia's equivalent of the RIAA, the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS). The RIAA's response is that ROMS has no authority to issue licenses to AllofMP3 and that AllofMP3.com would require licenses from record companies to legally sell downloadable music – which it does not have.

Dale's Comment: Aside from the astronomical damages request, what intrigues me is the global implications of an order to transfer the domain. There has been much controversy at the United Nations over who should control the Internet and the Internet domain space. The U.S. has fiercely guarded its ultimate ability to control it. If such an order was made by a U.S. court at the behest of the U.S. music industry, and if Verisign complies, this might spark protests from nations around the globe.

Note: I have not yet found the claim online. When I do, I'll post it here. Most of the stories online are all repeats of the original AP story so there are not many details available at this point.

Sources: ars technica | techdirt | Associated Press| Out-Law.com | ABC News | PC Pro | Pocket-Link | New York Post | BBC | Playfuls | Red Herring | MP3.com

Related Posts:

• RIAA Sues AllofMP3 – Seeks Domain Transfer and $1.65 Trillion in Damages! (December 21, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Lives On Despite U.S./Russian WTO Agreement (December 10, 2006)
• Russia Agrees to Shut Down AllofMP3.com at U.S. Request (November 29, 2006)
• Danish Court Blocks AllofMP3.com (October 25, 2006)
• Visa and Mastercard Stop Servicing AllofMP3.com (October 18, 2006)
• Russia Implements Internet Piracy Law in Gambit to Join WTO (September 1, 2006)
• BPI to Sue AllofMP3.com (July 5, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Responds to Recent Scrutiny (June 6, 2006)
• Russia-based AllofMP3 Launches DRM-free allTunes (March 29, 2006)
• RIAA's Next Big Target: Russia (December 27, 2005)

A free two month trial is available here. No word yet on final pricing. Of course it cannot manage any DRM'd AAC files purchased from iTunes.  If it could, my work here would be done! Well, at least until Apple and/or the RIAA sued them!

I haven't tried it yet, but one possible downside to this approach to managing your iPod is that it likely won't support podcasts. For some reason that only the God's know, Windows Media Player does not include podcast support. Since I discovered podcasts in October of 2005, I use my iPod primarily for podcast listening while on the road. Without podcast functionality, I'm not ready to head back to WMP!

Sources: DOPISP Website | Smart Cannucks | lifehacker | Uneasy Silence

The interview covers the history of the company, the current status and trends (YouTube, convergence) and where this promising, yet controversial, company and its technology are headed.

Dale's Comment: I had to smile when I read Greenhall's answers. Having lived in Silicon Valley for a few years, and having left it, his "Silicon Valley-speak" reminds me of the good old bubble days.  Take this snipped for example:

So the fact that DivX technology is associated with that path is a really interesting physical manifestation, but the reality of the value proposition is that the market, the community itself is a value proposition, so what you’ll find is, if you map our progress on a go forward basis …

Silicon-valley-speak notwithstanding, its an interesting interview of an interesting man in control of an important technology. Good work Davis!

Sources: Davis Freeberg

Dales Comment:  While I applaud eMusic, it too has a business model that I don't like. While individual songs can be purchased, their business model requires the user to pay a minimal subscription fee every month. Song purchases are deducted from the monthly fee. If you spend more than the fee, then you have to pay extra.  My perfect world of music sales is to buy DRM-free songs with no minimum monthly commitment. I would be able to buy as many or as few as I want. Frankly, I'd like eMusic service to mimic that of AllofMP3.com's. Charge a fair per song price, allow me to purchase whatever I want in whatever format I want. That is a service I'd use!

Sources: Washington Post | MacWorld | Sydney Morning Herald | TopTechNews| Tech Dirt | MP3.com | CNet Blogs | PC-Pro | Pocket-Lint

Related Posts:

• Steve Jobs Calls for the End of DRM for Online Music Sales (February 7, 2007)
• Wired Article: Signs Music Industry May be Abandoning DRM (January 8, 2007)
• EMusic Sells 100 Millionth Song without DRM (December 15, 2006)
• EMI's Blue Note & Yahoo! Music Sell a Few More Songs DRM Free (December 6, 2006)
• ifpi Board Member Quoted as Saying Major Labels About to Abandon DRM (November 27, 2006)
• First a Song, Now a DRM-Free Album – Yahoo! (September 19, 2006)
• Weird Al Yankovic's New Single: Don't Download this Song (August 23, 2006)
• Yahoo! Offers DRM-Free Jessica Simpson Song (July 20, 2006)
• Yahoo! Exec Says Labels Should Sell Music Without DRM (February 24, 2006)

Dale's Comment: Listening to this was my first introduction to Professor Moglen's ideas. I don't exactly know what to make of this speech. With the flair of an elequoent Baptist preacher he advocates on behalf of the free software movement. The speech has many interesting and compelling points.

But, my goodness, this substance of his speech seems to be, Open Source – all good, Closed Source – all bad, all the time. To my mind there is a place for both. Contrary to the underlying sentiment of this talk, I believe capitalism and software-for-profit is critical to global development and advancement. Open Source software is also, obviously, very beneficial to the world. Both have their place and importance.

Perhaps I haven't had enough exposure to Professor Mogeln yet. But while interesting, I found his talk, effectively dissing closed source software and its creators, eerily discomforting.

In response to this decision Recording Industry v. The People aptly says:

This is the first instance of which we are aware in which a judge has explicitly held that the RIAA's allegation of "making files available for distribution" is sufficient in and of itself to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act. The decision contains no discussion of the Copyright Act, applicable case law, legal scholarship, or anything else that might give a clue as to how the judge came to agree with the RIAA. We will investigate further to see if the issue was briefed and, if so, how.

Dale's Comment: Wow! Whether or not making files available for distribution is sufficient to constitute copyright infringement (without proof that the file was actually copied by anyone) is the subject of wide-ranging debate. For this judge to make such a sweeping conclusion without supporting it in any way is surprising.  Fortunately for Barker the RIAA dismissed this case. Shrewdly for the RIAA, such dismissal may negate Barker's appeal on the merits while yielding a precedent they can point to in future cases. I suspect that whether this decision is appealable or not, the 'decision' will be hotly contested in future cases.

Sources: Recording Industry v. The People | Afterdawn | *ars technica 

Related Posts:

• Oregon District Judge – 'Making Available' – Sufficient Grounds For Copyright Infringement (December 12, 2006)
• Elektra v. Barker: The Most Important RIAA Case in the Country? (April 18, 2006)