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Main Stories
o Court Tosses Suit Brought by ReplayTV Owners Against Studios, Networks
o Report: Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) Handheld to Sell for Around $400
o Dell, HP Back Sony's Blue-ray Higher-Capacity DVD Standard
o Report: Ringtone "Fad" Has Peaked, Though Mobile Music Market Still Hot  
o Adobe Adds Anti-Counterfeiting Security Software to Photoshop  
o U.K. Wireless Carriers to Protect Children from Pedophiles, Gambling

o Briefly Noted: Ecast - TouchTunes - patent dispute, 321 Studios - PC game copying, PlayJam - DISH Network, Gracenote - Philips Research, Acacia Research Technologies, Nokia - "The Sims Bustin' Out," Interplay - metal bands, Sammy Studios - "Darkwatch: Curse of the West," PowerChannel - Freedomland, CyberLink, Universal Classics - Apple iTunes Store

San Francisco -- A federal court has thrown out a case brought by owners of ReplayTV personal video recorders against Hollywood movie studios and TV networks, which asked for a ruling declaring that device features like skipping commercials and forwarding shows to other ReplayTV owners are legal. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper on Friday ruled that essentially there was no need for a "declaratory" ruling because Hollywood had already dropped its case against ReplayTV maker Sonicblue, so ReplayTV owners had no legitimate fear of being sued. The ruling did not legalize the controversial features however, which were deleted from newer ReplayTV devices when Sonicblue was acquired by the parent company of Japanese consumer electronics firms Denon and Marantz.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/Newmark_v_Turner/20040109_end_case_pr.php
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5139477.html 
http://www.replaytv.com
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o Report: Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) Handheld to Sell for Around $400

London -- Sony Europe president Chris Deering has hinted that pricing for the upcoming Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) -- the company's foray into the handheld game market currently dominated by Nintendo's $99 Game Boy Advance -- would be in the range of around $400, GamesIndustry.biz reported. Deering said that Sony intends to generate a profit from the device on hardware alone. "We want to make it affordable for publishers to produce a wide range of entertainment and so royalties will be lower down in the mix this time round," Deering told U.K. trade paper MCV. Sony Computer Entertainment vice president Masutsuka Saeki said the PSP is planned for release in mid-December.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=new&aid=2787
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o Dell, HP Back Sony's Blue-ray Higher-Capacity DVD Standard

Amsterdam -- PC makers Dell and HP have endorsed the new Blu-ray DVD standard, which will provide for up to four hours of high-definition video on a single disc, Reuters reported. The two companies' endorsement of the Blu-ray standard -- also backed by Hitachi, LG, Philips, Sony and Thomson -- is a blow to backers of a competing blue-laser DVD technology created by Japanese firms NEC and Toshiba. However, for its part the competing standard has won support from the DVD Forum, a group of 220 DVD player makers and media firms.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040112/tech_dvd_bluelaser_1.html
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o Report: Ringtone "Fad" Has Peaked, Though Mobile Music Market Still Hot

Basingstoke, England -- A new report predicts that the burgeoning market for cell phone ringtones has already peaked, and the "fad" will gradually decline in popularity as the overall mobile music market grows. England-based Juniper Research forecasts that ringtone revenues will decline from $1 billion in 2003 to $490 million by 2008; in contrast, the firm says direct revenues from distributing master recordings of songs over cellular networks will grow to $560 million by 2008. "The ringtone market is already showing signs of being a passing fad, and is in many social groups, already consider 'naff' and annoying," said Juniper Research senior analyst Paul Skeldon. "The use of the mobile channel to distribute master recordings of music is however one that is being eyed with considerable interest by both the mobile and music industries… there is growing interest in using mobile as a way of selling music promo material to encourage the purchase of more traditional 'hard copy' music."
http://www.juniperresearch.com
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o Adobe Adds Anti-Counterfeiting Security Software to Photoshop

Washington -- Adobe Systems, developer of the popular Photoshop graphics editing software, acknowledged that it has embedded software into its programs -- at the behest of the government and international banks -- that defeats attempts to copy currency, the Associated Press reported. Adobe said that it could not provide details on the software, which it said only slowed down its own applications by a fraction of a second. The currency anti-counterfeit software was created by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, a consortium of 27 central banks in the United States, Japan and various European nations.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040109/copying_dollars_3.html 
http://www.adobe.com
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o U.K. Wireless Carriers to Protect Children from Pedophiles, Gambling

London -- The Top 6 wireless carriers in the U.K. on Monday agreed to follow new regulations designed to protect children from pornography and gambling, new media reported. Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Virgin, Vodafone and 3 will now block children who buy the latest mobile phones from viewing pornography or gambling on their handsets. Under the new regulations, you must be 18 years old or older to get unlimited Internet access. The move comes largely in response to recent reports conducted by child-protection charities showing that pedophiles are using the Internet increasingly to meet children.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?X30C22907

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(San Francisco) Ecast, a manufacturer of Internet-connected jukeboxes in bars and restaurants, responded to a recent press release from rival TouchTunes trumpeting a patent infringement summary judgment against Ecast by saying the ruling is "meaningless." "The judge found that Ecast infringed against TouchTunes on a meaningless aspect of the case involving a practice in which Ecast does not engage. As a result, we do not believe there will be damages of any consequence. This is just one insignificant aspect of a lawsuit which will be decided by a jury in trial," said Ecast attorney Gerald Dodson, of Morrison & Foerster LLP. Ecast also said it has its own pending patent infringement claims against TouchTunes.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040108/nyth207_1.html 
http://www.touchtunes.com 
http://www.ecastinc.com

(St. Louis) 321 Studios, distributor of the controversial DVD X Copy software that lets users make copies of DVDs and has spawned lawsuits from the entertainment industry, announced the release of a new program that lets users make back-up copies of PC games. Likely to rile the game publishing industry, Games X Copy defeats the copy-protection technology contained on many PC games so that users may back up the games to their hard drive or burn them onto CD. St. Louis-based 321 was sued last week by copy-protection technology provider Macrovision, which joins the Hollywood movie studios in their legal efforts to halt distribution of 321's products.
http://www.321studios.com/PRESS/01.08.2004_2.htm

(San Francisco) OpenTV, a provider of interactive TV software and services, announced on Monday that its PlayJam interactive games channel has launched on satellite TV operator EchoStar's DISH Network. The PlayJam channel, which offers the first level of each game for free and full access for $4.99 per month, will be available to 7 million DISH Network subscribers. San Francisco-based OpenTV said 20 million households worldwide now receive PlayJam on eight cable and satellite networks.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040112/125456_1.html
http://www.opentv.com/playjamusa

(Berkeley, Calif.) Gracenote, provider of an Internet-based CD recognition service, announced that it has partnered with Philips Research to launch Gracenote Mobile, a mobile music recognition and content delivery service. The service combines Philips' waveform recognition technology, which can identify a song based on a 3-second except, with Gracenote's database of over 4 million songs. Users can point their mobile phones to a speaker playing a song they desire more information about, and then receive album covers, artist and song names and links to purchase the song as a download or ringtone sent to their phones. Gracenote also said that it partnered with French firm Musiwave to offer Gracenote Mobile in European markets.
http://www.gracenote.com/corporate/press/article.html/date=2004010900
http://www.research.philips.com 
http://www.musiwave.com

(Newport Beach, Calif.) Acacia Research Technologies, a company purporting to hold patents covering basic streaming media technology, said on Monday that Cyberheat, Inc., owner of the Topbucks family of over 100 websites, has become the 114th licensee of its Digital Media Transmission technology. Newport Beach, Calif.-based Acacia has sought licenses from hotel in-room entertainment, e-learning and online music, movie and adult entertainment providers for its technology; it is currently suing hotel VOD provider On Command for infringement and also believes that firms including Microsoft and RealNetworks are infringing on its technology.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040112/125149_1.html 
http://www.acaciaresearch.com

(Helsinki) Cell phone maker Nokia announced on Monday that game developer Electronic Arts is currently creating a version of its "The Sims Bustin' Out" title for Nokia's N-Gage hybrid cell phone/handheld video game. The game is scheduled for release in the first half of 2004.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040112/125383_1.html
http://thesims.ea.com/us/about/bustinout 
http://www.n-gage.com

(Irvine, Calif.) Video game developer Interplay said on Monday that it has signed metal bands including Slipknot, Meshuggah, Society 1 and Celldweller to contribute songs to its upcoming title, "Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel." The game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox will be released on Jan. 13.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040109/def016_1.html
http://www.interplay.com/falloutbos

(Carlsbad, Calif.) Japanese video game developer Sammy Studios said on Monday that it will release "Darkwatch: Curse of the West" for PlayStation 2 and the Xbox in the fourth quarter of 2004. The first internally-developed title from Sammy will feature both single player and online multiplayer modes.
http://www.sammystudios.com

(New York) PowerChannel Holdings, a consumer electronics marketing company, said on Monday that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire London-based Freedomland, Europe's largest provider of television-based Internet access services. Financial terms were not disclosed. During 2003, Freedomland deployed over 50,000 Internet access set-tops in Holland, Uzbekistan, South Africa and Germany, and hopes to expand to Poland, Romania and India.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040112/flm010_1.html
http://www.freedomland.co.uk 
http://www.powerchannel.com

(Taipei) Taiwan-based consumer electronics firm CyberLink said it has released a software DVD player that supports the Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) hardware security standard. Users will be able to view DVD movies on their PC, as well as make a single copy -- a limit enforced through built-in mechanisms on the storage media that CyberLink says prevents further disc copying.
http://www.gocyberlink.com

(New York) Record label Universal Classics announced that it will make over a thousand titles from the Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips catalogs available for purchase and download via Apple's iTunes Music Store. Universal said it will also begin distributing new classical music releases through iTunes on a regular basis.
http://www.universalclassics.com 
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store

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