archives

o U.S. Govt. Not Backing Down in Case Against Russian Programmer
o Patent Ruling Could Yield Share of Subscription Services' Profits
o Four Shareholder Class Action Suits Filed Against IBeam's Underwriters
o ContentGuard Gets Patent for Digital Rights Management Technology
o Digital Media Storage Provider Streamload Raises Second Round Funds
o Briefly Noted: "American Pie 2" - Hotline, Fandango, Pioneer -
recordable DVDs, MSN, PacketSwitch.com, DSL decline, Web colors
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> Job Postings: Listings Editor, Director of Sales, Sr. Director of Q/A

> Events/Services: "SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival - Pacific Northwest
Tour," "New England Tech Wire - Free Email News Service"

Full Job/Event/Services descriptions listed below "Briefly Noted" section
or at http://www.digitalmediawire.com/postings.html

To Post a Job: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html
To Post an Event/Service: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html
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o U.S. Govt. Not Backing Down in Case Against Russian Programmer

San Francisco -- Representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF), a digital civil liberties organization, met with the U.S.
Attorney's office in San Francisco on Friday to discuss the Justice
Department's arrest of a Russian programmer who allegedly violated the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The two sides engaged in a
dialogue that included "probing questions" about the DMCA posed by the
U.S. Attorney's office, but the EFF said that no indication was given that
the government plans to drop its prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov. Adobe
Systems originally petitioned the Justice Department to investigate
Sklyarov because of software he wrote that can circumvent the security
technology on its e-book reader product. The company later dropped its
complaint against Sklyarov and joined the EFF in asking for his release.
Sklyarov -- who remains in jail in Las Vegas -- could face a maximum fine
of $500,000 and up to five years in jail. The EFF is organizing protests
against Sklyarov's incarceration on Monday in a number of U.S. cities.
http://www.eff.org
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o Patent Ruling Could Yield Share of Subscription Services' Profits

San Francisco -- A recent court ruling on a patent held by digital music
firm Intouch Group could mean that companies like AOL Time Warner,
Microsoft, RealNetworks and Amazon.com will have to pay a fee for each
song a consumer downloads from the Internet, CNET reported on Friday.
Berkeley, Calif.-based Intouch holds patents on "downloading" portions of
songs both from a kiosk and over the Internet, as well as on
subscription-based streaming audio services. If the company's patents hold
up during further litigation, Intouch could receive between a half-cent
and 1.6 cents for each song downloaded from subscription services like
MusicNet and Pressplay. A full trial is scheduled in April to determine if
Intouch's patents should be respected and if a licensing fee be paid.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6696839.html?tag=mn_hd
http://www.intouchgroup.com
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o Four Shareholder Class Action Suits Filed Against IBeam's Underwriters

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Four separate law firms have commenced class action
suits on behalf of shareholders against investment banks that underwrote
streaming services firm IBeam's initial public offering in May 2000. The
suits all charge Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns and FleetBoston Robertson
Stephens with taking undisclosed and excessive commissions on
IBeam-related stock transactions, and artificially inflating the value of
the company's stock to the detriment of its shareholders. Neither IBeam
nor any of its officers are named as defendants in the actions. Many
Internet companies and their investment banks are facing similar
IPO-related class actions from unhappy shareholders, including
Tickets.com, Liquid Audio, MP3.com, InterTrust and DoubleClick.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010726/dath064.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/010726/02029900.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010725/2773.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010726/phth054.html
http://www.ibeam.com
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o ContentGuard Gets Patent for Digital Rights Management Technology

Bethesda, Md. -- ContentGuard, a provider of digital rights management
technology that protects media files from unauthorized uses, announced on
Friday that it has been granted a patent for its "digital ticket"
technology. The ticket is essentially a code embedded in a computer or on
a plastic card that validates whether or not someone has certain rights to
access specific digital content, such as the right to play, copy or
forward an MP3 file. The technology was created in part based on research
done at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center. Maryland-based
ContentGuard said it plans to make the patent available for licensing to
interested parties.
http://www.contentguard.com/press_072701.htm
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o Digital Media Storage Provider Streamload Raises Second Round Funds

San Diego -- Streamload, a provider of online digital media storage to
consumers, said that it has raised $225,000 in its second round of funding
from individual investors. San Diego-based Streamload offers limited access
for free to users who wish to store their digital movies, music, pictures
and games online; its paid service starts at $4.95 per month for 500 MB and rises to $49.95 for 20,000 MB monthly. The funds will be used to improve the company's network infrastructure.
http://www.streamload.com
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o Briefly Noted:

(Los Angeles) Two weeks before its scheduled theatrical release, copies of
Universal's "American Pie 2" are being traded on file-sharing services
including Hotline, Reuters reported Friday. The film, like most other
video content being traded on such services, is encoded using a codec
called DiVX, which shrinks the movie file to a size that is easier to
transmit over the Internet.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6699284.html?tag=cdshrt

(Hollywood, Calif.) Fandango, a provider of online and telephone movie
ticket sales, said on Friday that its service now covers an additional 160
screens in Miami and other areas in South Florida. Hollywood-based
Fandango has partnerships with seven major movie theater exhibitors that
account for 45 percent of the marketplace, and recently began offering the
ability for users to print movie tickets on their own computers.
http://www.fandango.com

(Long Beach, Calif.) Consumer electronics manufacturer Pioneer said it
will lower the price of its recordable and re-recordable DVD discs in
reaction to growing demand for the products. The price for DVD-R discs
will drop to $9.95 while DVD-RWs will now cost $19.95. Both types hold a
total of 4.7 GB of data and let consumers burn movies onto them.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.072501/212060139

(Redmond, Wash.) Microsoft said this week that subscribers to its MSN
Internet access service have risen 30 percent since April to 6.5 million.
The figure takes into account subscribers to its WebTV service, which the
company recently folded into MSN. The company said it added 500,000 new
subscribers to the service during the past months. By comparison, AOL
currently has 30 million subscribers.
http://www.microsoft.com

(San Francisco) The San Jose Mercury News featured a story Friday on the
SEC's ongoing investigation of digital video firm PacketSwitch.com.
Company founder Steven A. Ristau allegedly bilked investors out of $3.7
million -- including $200,000 from various parishioners from a local
church -- to fund an Internet video technology the SEC says was a hoax.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/frenzy072701.htm
http://www.packetswitch.com

(San Francisco) Streamingmedia.com is currently featuring an article on
the declining state of DSL as a growing number of providers go bankrupt
and force customers to look elsewhere for broadband 'Net access. Most
analysts agree that the widespread deployment of broadband is crucial to
the development of the streaming media industry.
http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=7682

(San Francisco) TheStandard.com featured an article Friday on the efforts
of three companies to bring better color representation to monitors that
display images from the Web. Sometimes shoppers are disappointed when the
item they purchased online is not the same color that they saw on their
computer's screen, a problem originating from individual users' perception
of color and the quality of their monitors.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28291,00.html

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Job Postings:
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To Post Jobs: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html

> America Online, Listings Editor - New York City

Get a start in shopping journalism with Digital City, America Online's
local city guide. We're looking for full-time freelance editorial
assistants to help curate our shopping listings and program our shopping
pages. You should be a web-savvy college graduate with good writing
skills. Journalism background and/or Photoshop experience is a plus.
Send resumes in the body of an email to: doctorvas@aol.com
http://www.home.digitalcity.com
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> H2O Networks, Director of Sales - New York City

Must have the ability to sell products & services ranging from a twenty
thousand dollar fixed price solution sale to a several hundred thousand
dollar integrated services sale. Background in Web Development,
Advertising, Affinity Marketing, Agency experience or other related fields
is a necessity. Ideal candidate will have a network of contacts that can
be leveraged to effect immediate sales. Steady commission possible.
Send resumes to: jon@h2onetworks.net
http://www.h2onetworks.net
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> Aether Systems, Sr. Director of Quality Assurance - McLean, VA

Provide leadership and mentoring in component based, mobile and wireless
enterprise-wide software development environment. Proven track record to
lead several QA teams in various geographic locations. Member of core
development team responsible for Object Oriented, iterative, use-case
driven rapid software development. Manage 60+ and integrate QA initiatives
throughout the development organization.
Send resumes to rcronin@aethersystems.com
http://www.aethersystems.com

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Events/Services Postings:
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To Post Events/Services: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html

> 9th Annual SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival - Pacific Northwest Tour: Aug. 3-13

SHORT MOVIES! Dreamspan presents the 9TH Annual Short Attention Span Film & Video Festival. Shortspan is a non-stop two hour program of ALL NEW
two-minute-or-shorter films, including Michael Moore's "Testify," Canadian
David Weir's collaboration with Douglas Coupland, "Night Shift"-- and 57
more shorts! The tour kicks off in the Pacific Northwest and will travel
to 30 North American cities! Pac NW tour dates are:

VANCOUVER, B.C.: The Blinding Light Cinema - August 3rd and 4th - 8:30PM
SEATTLE, WA: 911 Media Arts Center - August 9th and 10th - 8PM
PORTLAND, OR: Northwest Film Center - August 12th and 13th - 7:30PM
http://www.dreamspan.com/shortspan
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> New England Tech Wire - Free Email News Service

New England Tech Wire is a free daily email service that summarizes the
most important technology, venture capital, and Internet stories from
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and
Vermont. Every business day, readers rely on us for a quick, objective
briefing of the region's top technology and venture capital stories.
Sign up for free at http://www.newenglandtechwire.com
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