CricketMX.com

RIAA wants 'Lindor' gag order

p2pnet.net News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal Sony BMG, the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel, are so sure they have you and the mainstream media locked up tight, they believe they can do whatever they want and get away with it.

The Big Four own the RIAA and they recently made a move to demand that RIAA lawyers be allowed to take depositions secretly, the idea being to keep transcripts, and data they contain, totally under wraps.

This would “protect plaintiff's confidential information,â€

Kazaa vs Morpheus

Michael Speck

p2pnet.net News:- Michael Speck, once the Big Four record label cartel's hit-man in Australia, is now leading an onslaught against StreamCast Networks, owner of the Morpheus p2p application, on behalf of Sharman Networks associate Altnet, purveyor of lame duck DRM.

Speck organized Organized Music's MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) attack on Kazaa owner Sharman before it achieved its goal of many years, stepping over to the corporate side of the online fence, paying a reported $115 million for the privilege.

He's now the front man for Altnet which says it's "commenced patent infringement proceedings against StreamCast Networks, Inc and its chief executive, Michael Weiss".

Altnet and other plaintiffs not named in the piece, "allege that StreamCast and its CEO, Michael Weiss, intentionally infringe Altnet's 'TrueNames' patents as part of its music and movie file distribution business," says Altnet, listing Sharman Networks as the source at the bottom of the statement.

StreamCast, which won't comment on the Altnet lawsuit, is demanding US$4 billion in actual damages, US$12 billion in treble damages, along with various and sundry other damages and fines, in its own case against Sharman, which has been enlarged to include Sharman stalwarts Nikki Hemming,

Kevin Bermeister and Mark Dyne, as well as Kazaa creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, now part of the eBay operation, are also in the suit, of which Ars Technica said:

"The amended court filing details a labyrinthine story of alleged greed, backstabbing, and conspiracy that culminated in Morpheus being mysteriously booted from the FastTrack network in 2002, a move that StreamCast says cost it millions of customers. The shutdown was allegedly done by the original founders of Kazaa (who later founded Skype) with the goal of selling FastTrack technology exclusively to Sharman Networks. In the end, though, like most such cases, it's about money."

Morpheus is also demanding a world-wide injunction on the sale and marketing of eBay's Skype VoIP products, as well as suing it under the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act.
source:p2pnet

Altnet Sues Morpheus

Washington sues movie download service for spyware

The state of Washington has sued the owners of the Movieland.com, alleging that the company used spyware to strong-arm users into signing up for its paid movie download service.

Consumers who dowloaded Movieland.com's free three-day trial software would eventually be hit with frequent pop-up ads informing them that they were legally obliged to purchase the product, said Paula Selis, an assistant attorney general with the state. The tactics forced some consumers to give in and pay between $19.95 and $100 for the service, she said.

Read the story here : networkworld
Also see : Movieland.com spyware charge

Nordic regulators to discuss iTunes

OSLO, Norway - Nordic consumer regulators will meet in Iceland this month to discuss possible legal action against iPod-maker Apple Computer Inc. if the company does not ease restrictions that prevent songs bought at its online store from being played on rival music players.

The meeting, to take place in Reykjavik on Aug. 24-25, will discuss whether the countries will seek to file a lawsuit against the company, and "whether we will address the Apple case individually or jointly," Bjoern Erik Thon, the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman, said Tuesday.

In June, consumer agencies in Norway, Denmark and Sweden claimed that Apple was violating contract and copyright laws in their countries by making its iPod the only portable music player compatible with songs purchased from the company's iTunes Music Store.

In a reply, Apple staunchly defended its restrictions and indicated it was not willing to change its business model by opening iTunes purchases to rival devices that cannot play music protected by its digital rights management technology.

Thon said the meeting would discuss "possible legal steps," toward the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, but a final decision on a lawsuit would not be made until Nordic regulators talked with Apple representatives in September.

Apple Norway's country manager, Arne Odden, declined to comment on the Reykjavik meeting.

A French law that allows regulators to force Apple to make its iPod player and iTunes online store compatible with rival offerings went into effect earlier this month.

But the law was expected to have little immediate effect. A new government regulatory authority assigned to monitor the law is not expected to be in place until this fall. Much will depend on the law's interpretation by the French courts, as well as the stance taken by recording companies.
source:news.yahoo

Scandinavians to meet Apple over iTunes

Downloading in Canada: the fallacy
p2pnet.net News View:- While I've written about it in the past, the fact the media and others are still publishing the fiction promoted by the major labels suggests it's worth reminding people of the legality of unauthorized p2p sharing of music in Canada.

Many believe unauthorized p2p of music it is perfectly legal in Canada.

In fact, the industry is promoting this fiction in the hopes of using it in their lobbying efforts to get the Canadian government to implement the 1996 WIPO anti-Internet treaties.

The more people believe this falsehood, the stronger CRIA's case will be in front of parliament.

While there are multiple legal theories to explain what p2p is as it relates to copyright law, none suggest unauthorized sharing of music is legal in Canada. The private copying regime protects Canadians for private copying (while compensating copyright holders the way they are for radio and cable television), but the law explicitly indicates that the copy is not private if it is shared with other people.

Canadian law differs from US laws in this case in two important ways: our private copying regime and our advanced privacy laws. The first says the unauthorized keeping of private copies of recorded music isn't an infringement, regardless of the source, as long as it isn't further shared or distributed. Our privacy laws requires that a court order be issued before the names of customers attached to Internet addresses be disclosed. Our privacy law ended up requiring that the major labels provide evidence before they were able to get names, exposing their lack of evidence before they could terrorize potential defendants into paying protection money to settle out of court.
Read the whole article on p2pnet.

Digitizing video signals might violate the DMCA

8/16/2006 10:46:23 AM, by Nate Anderson

Could it become illegal to digitize analog signals? The District Court for the Southern District of New York has come perilously close to saying yes.

It started with a lawsuit. In June of 2005, Macrovision sued Sima Products under section 1210 of the DMCA, claiming that Sima's video processors provided an easy way to circumvent Macrovision's analog copy protection (ACP). Macrovision's best-known form of copy protection inserts noise into the vertical blanking interval found in analog video signals, like those from DVD players and VCRs. This noise is not displayed on a television set, but it does throw off the automatic gain control used by most VCRs, making recording difficult. Sima's products simply convert the analog signal to digital, which eliminates the noise in the blanking interval, then processes the signal and converts it back to analog. Presto—no more copy protection.
Read the article @ arstechnica.com.

Another DMCA Misuse: Macrovision v. Sima

Telus Voices Opinion on Copyright Reform
August 17, 2006
Drew Wilson

As long as there has been intellectual property, Copyright has always been following close behind. When 'this internet thing' came around, it changed the face of the intellectual landscape forever. Of course, this change wasn't without controversy and differing opinions. The Copyright debate, at least in Canada, has taken another interesting turn recently. Telus, one of Canada's largest ISPs (Internet Service Providers) has released a letter (PDF, hosted by Michael Geist) on the topic of the copyright debate in Canada.

In the letter, addressed to Bev Oda (Canada's Minister of Heritage), Telus states, "TELUS' three top priorities for the forthcoming amendments are: establishment of a modernized and flexible "fair use" approach to copyright exceptions; confirmation that ISPs are not liable for copyright infringements by their customers; and codification of the current voluntary "Notice and Notice" regime, with reasonable ISP compensation."
Read the article @ slyck.com.

30 Days of DRM

Many people are still in summer mode, but the Canadian copyright rumour mill suggests that there is a lot happening behind the scenes with a copyright bill quite possibly a top priority once the fall session begins in 31 days. While there was much to criticize about Bill C-60 (the last attempt at copyright reform), given the continuing pressure from the copyright lobby and the U.S. government, I fear that the Conservatives' bill may be far more extreme in its approach.

Read the article @ Michaelgeist.ca.
Also see: p2pnet.

Thirty Days of DRM: 2
In his 2nd day article he talks about Region Coding.
wiki

Day 03: Oversight of DRM Misuse (Markets)
From Michael Geist

Today's installment focuses on the need for an amendment to the Competition Act should Canada introduce anti-circumvention legislation. The Act should be amended to ensure that the Competition Bureau is not restricted in its ability to bring actions against abusive behaviour stemming from the application of an anti-circumvention provision.

Key online music sales hearings

p2pnet.net News View:- A Reuters article by Larry LeBlanc discusses upcoming Copyright Board hearings to begin on September 6 to discuss the rates for online music distribution.

For those who think the "music industry" is all one happy family, they should note the animosity between the collective societies who collect royalties for music publishers (The songwriter/etc side of the industry) and the major labels (the recording industry side).

While these hearings will discuss rates to be imposed on all companies who distribute music online, missing from any of the discussion are publishers and labels whose artists use royalty-free licenses for specific online distribution.
Read the article @ p2pnet.
reuters

'Shut down guitar sites'

p2pnet.net News:- Lauren Keiser, the man who wanted sites carrying the words to songs shut down with "jail time" thrown in, is now attacking web pages with guitar tablatures.

The president of the Music Publishers’ Association, Keiser says the sites reduce the earnings of songwriters.

“In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,' 'Highway to Hell' and thousands of others,â€

RIAA urged, 'Stop the lawsuits!'

p2pnet.net News:- The major music companies should drop their “litigation-driven antipiracy effortsâ€

New RIAA p2p blunder

p2pnet.net News:- Paul H. Wilke, a 52-year-old Illinois man the Big Four Organized Music cartel is trying to nail for alleged copyright infringement, says he's never used p2p file sharing programs, let alone illicitly distributed songs or made them available for distribution online.

Nor, he says, are any of the songs cited by the Big Four's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) as being on his computer 'illegally,' in any way 'illegal'. Rather, he says, they were ripped from CDs he'd bought and paid for.

But these aren't the only mistakes made by the RIAA. The so-called 'trade' organization's lawyers, Holme Roberts & Owen, also managed to get Wilke's name wrong.

Read the article @ p2pnet.