Free Republic

Court threatens download search The ruling could have implications for other internet companies An Australian court has upheld a ruling against a website operator that provided a search engine through which users could illegally access MP3 files.The Federal Court in Canberra backed a previous copyright ruling involving Australian web firm mp3s4free.net. By providing links to websites which enabled illegal downloads, mp3s4free had effectively authorized copyright infringement, the court said. The ruling could have implications for search engine websites such as Google. Legal action If Google's search engine links to material which infringes on copyright and this material was accessed...

Microsoft convened a small group of bloggers today at their Redmond headquarters to discuss the upcoming Mix Conference in Las Vegas. Highlights of the day included: The receipt of a Zune as a gift (the third I’ve received from Microsoft - I now have all three colors) Seeing the look on Gates’ face when he walked into the room and every single one of us had a Mac open on the desk in front of us - Niall Kennedy had also set up a makeshift wifi network using an Airport An hour-long anything goes Q&A session with Gates One of...

The wraps came off high-definition DVD players at this year's annual Consumer Electronics Show, offering the final component to replicate the movie theater experience at home. And while a fierce DVD format war likely will delay the mass adoption of such devices, digital video is here to stay - the Consumer Electronics Association trade group estimates 25 million U.S. homes will have a high-def TV set by year's end. But big, expensive flat-panel sets aside, this year's gadget show offered plenty of smaller screens for video... Yahoo Inc., DirecTV, Starz Entertainment Group and Sony were also among the companies getting...

Microsoft has answered claims that its Zune player may violate the international Creative Commons license, which states that copy protection cannot be applied to files where it does not already exist. If true, this would make Microsoft liable for any changes that might be made to relevant songs during wireless transfers between Zune players, since the handheld gadget imposes DRM on some of the music sent from one Zune to another, according to Electronista. "We don't actually 'wrap all songs up in DRM:' Zune to Zune Sharing doesn't change the DRM on a song, and it doesn't impose DRM restrictions...

It was only a matter of time. YouTube and MySpace are being accused of copyright infringement by one of the biggest entertainment companies in North America, Universal Music. CEO Doug Morris pointed out how YouTube and MySpace users illegally post music videos and other content from Universal artists. “We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,” Morris told investors Wednesday. According to Associated Press, Universal’s talks with YouTube have faltered and a copyright infringement suit will be filed against the San Mateo-based company if no agreement is reached. Discussions with MySpace, owned...

A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official has joined the debate surrounding Apple’s proprietary digital music technology by criticizing European antitrust activities, but groups attacking Apple are defending their actions. Speaking in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Thomas Barnett, assistant attorney general at the DOJ’s antitrust division, warned that forcing companies to reveal their intellectual property stifles innovation. He used Apple as an example, in a nod to growing discontent in Europe regarding the way that music purchased from iTunes is tied to the iPod. Architects of complaints against Apple in Europe say he’s got it wrong. “We’re not attacking intellectual...

LOS ANGELES - Universal Music, home to artists such as U2, The Killers and Audioslave, will make its catalog of recordings and music videos available for free on an ad-supported Web site launching later this year, the site's operator said Tuesday. The two-year deal calls for New York-based SpiralFrog.com to split advertising revenue with the recording company, said Lance Ford, chief marketing and sales officer for SpiralFrog. Users can download an unlimited number of songs or music videos if they register at the site. The tracks cannot be burned to a CD, but users will be able to transfer music...

If the broad rewrite of US telecommunications laws (the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006) that we have been reporting on for the past several days makes it to the Senate floor, it will include the broadcast flag. Despite objections voiced by Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has left both the audio and video broadcast flags unmolested. If the bill makes it to the full Senate, it will therefore contain the broadcast flags. However, individual senators would still be able to offer amendments to the legislation that would remove the...

You may have bought and paid for Windows XP. But Microsoft decides whether or not you can use it. If your XP software is up-to-date and online, it negotiates its validity with Microsoft servers every day. Nothing personal. Just part of Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) system protecting Redmond's property... checking to see if your Windows software (and heaven only knows what else) is perfectly valid. Evoking memories of RealNetworks efforts to protect themselves from their loyal customers, innocent Microsoft officials explained to the discoverer, Lauren Weinstein, that this constant DRM enforcer is obviously not a constant DRM enforcer. Instead,...

>b?If Apple doesn't make its songs playable on all music devices by June 21, it faces fines that would then be followed by court action. LONDON — Apple Computer Inc. and its iTunes shop in Norway have until June 21 to change the terms of conditions for the download of files, having been found to have broken local consumer protection law in a number of ways. If Apple does not make its songs playable on all music devices by June 21, it faces fines which would then be followed by court action. And Apple is facing similar moves in other...

Is DRM just a consumer rights issue effecting your record collection? A UK board is treating it as such. But it's much more important than that. Before Gutenberg, copyists, using pen and ink, duplicated written political dialogue laboriously. Only the wealthy and the church could afford to employ copyists, and during this period the paucity of communications limited the exercise of democracy to small groups. The advent of Gutenberg's press made the mass distribution of written political dialogue possible. People vote based on what they hear and read, and the improvement in communications brought by the press made egalitarian mass...

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) in the UK has just released its report [PDF] on its study of DRM. The purpose of the study was to figure out to what degree protection is needed for both copyright holders and consumers. I think you'll be surprised at their conclusions. So will Sony and imitators. One recommendation is this: A recommendation that OFCOM publish guidance to make it clear that companies distributing Technical Protection Measures systems in the UK would, if they have features such as those in Sony-BMG’s MediaMax and XCP systems, run a significant risk of being prosecuted...

MPs in digital downloads warning Portable music players are proving enormously popular Consumers should be told exactly what they can and cannot do with songs and films they buy online, says an influential group of MPs in the UK.The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group looked at how copy protection systems restrict the way digital movies and music can be enjoyed. Labels on digital content should spell out how easy it is to move from gadget to gadget, said the report. It also called for an inquiry into the pricing schemes of online music stores. Price point A public inquiry...

Stallman-headed group's increasing politicization leaves a sour taste When Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in 1985, it was organized around a radical idea: Software should be free, not just as in free of charge, but free as in the concept of liberty. During the next 20 years that idea turned out to be not just radical, but surprisingly practical. Beginning with Stallman's Emacs text editor, to the various Gnu utilities, the Linux kernel, and beyond, free software has proved to be an enduring success. Much of the credit for that can be given to Stallman himself. Through...

"Rarely in parliamentary life have those elected by the nation - deputies and senators - been subjected to so many letters, e-mails, menaces and pressures," Michel Charasse, a senator since 1981, said during the debate, to resounding applause from his colleagues. "I would ask the Senate staff to rigorously clean the corridors of the lobbyists from all sides who jump on us as soon as we leave the hall." Some legislators criticized the presence of representatives from two music retailers, Fnac and Virgin, who entered the National Assembly during debate on a law that would affect them. The store representatives,...

The US government is backing Apple's stance on a draft French law that may force the company either to open up its FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology in iTunes or pull out of the country. US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez backed angry protests by Apple, saying that companies need to protect their intellectual property: "But any time something like this happens, any time that we believe that intellectual property rights are being violated, we need to speak up and in this case, the company is taking the initiative," Gutierrez said on CNBC. "I would compliment that company because we...

Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, has fleshed out his unhappiness with GPLv3 in three recent posts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). Torvalds previously stated that the kernel will remain under the licensing terms of GPLv2. Yesterday, Tovalds offered his opinion as to where the battle over DRM should take place: I would suggest that anybody who wants to fight DRM practices seriously look at the equivalent angle. If you create interesting content, you can forbid that _content_ to ever be encrypted or limited. In other words, I personally think that the anti-DRM clause is much...

Big media players are accustomed to watching the ratings for the most popular music, video and book content. But perhaps they should pay more attention to how consumers feel about three letters at the bottom of most charts--DRM, which stands for digital rights management.Broadly defined, DRM encompasses multiple technologies that control the use of software, music, movies or any other piece of digital content. These technologies typically prevent consumers from moving content around to multiple devices and limit how the content can be used. special reportSony's rootkit fiasco Storm over label's antipiracy software raises questions about who owns the desktop....

If the controversial Analog Hole bill makes it into law, US technologists will have to obey a law whose most important details are a trade-secret. The entertainment industry, always a bastion of media savvy, has proposed its "A-Hole" bill as a legal means of limiting the conversion of analog music and video to digital files. Under the bill, every maker of a device that can convert analog signals to digital ones (like iPods, camcorders, and PCs) would be required by law to be built with a detector for a proprietary watermarking technology called VEIL (the use of free/open source in...

How the iPod Will Change the Face of Computer Security Date: Dec 1, 2005 By Bruce Potter. Apple probably didn't intend it, but the iPod will likely prove to be an important stepping stone into solving a problem that has faced computer scientists for more than 30 years. Bruce Potter explains. The iPod has caused a bit of a revolution in the music industry. By making the iPod incredibly user-friendly and providing affordable content, Apple has put more than 28 million iPods in the hands of consumers all over the world (with 10 million more expected to be sold before...