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Main Stories
o CD Copy-Protection Firm SunnComm Says Won't Sue Researcher
o Canada's Record Industry Licenses Tracks to Napster, MusicNet
o Bertelsmann CEO Can "Imagine" Partnership with Sony
o Brooklyn Resident Gets Six Months for Selling Pirate CDs Online
o Survey: 78% of U.S. Teens Think File-Sharing Should Be Legal
o Chipmaker Cirrus Logic Sues Rival Wolfson for Patent Infringement
o Interactive TV Content Developer YooMedia Raises $4 Million

o Briefly Noted: Entertainment Software Association - eBay charity auction, Disney - Freeview, Delphi - 1.2 million XM receivers, InterActual Technologies - InterVideo, Activision - 2003 Gravity Games, Eidos - "Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home," Yoo-Hoo - online album sponsorship, Vivendi Universal Games

Phoenix, Ariz. -- Less than twenty-four hours after announcing its intention to sue a Princeton grad student who published a report showing that its CD copy-protection technology could be defeated by depressing a PC's "Shift" key, SunnComm Technologies said Friday that it no longer intends to sue Alex Halderman. In a statement, the company now says that, "legal action would not repair the damage done and could potentially cause a 'chilling effect' on the type of research that faculty, staff, and students of institutions of higher learning elect to pursue in the future." Last Friday, Halderman published a report revealing that SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 technology, which was recently used to protect a mass market consumer album release from major label BMG, could be defeated by either depressing the "Shift" key or altering existing Windows files. Yesterday, SunnComm announced it would sue Halderman for damaging the company's reputation, and would turn over evidence to authorities for a possible criminal case against Halderman under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "Had Mr. Halderman evaluated the product as a copy management solution that was purposely designed to deliver a licensed and legal structure for limited copying and sharing, he would have most likely yielded a different result," said SunnComm president Bill Whitmore. "Instead of being rated as 'flawed' his final conclusion may have found that it performed as it was intended to perform."
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031010/105383_1.html
http://www.eff.org/news/breaking/archives/2003_10.php#000585
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5089448.html 
http://www.sunncomm.com
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o Canada's Record Industry Licenses Tracks to Napster, MusicNet, PureTracks

Toronto -- The Canadian recording industry has announced the signing of licensing agreements with a number of online music services, which will soon result in the launch of services including Napster and MusicNet in Canada. The agreement was signed by the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA) and the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). The first to benefit from the agreement will be Canada-based PureTracks, which intends to launch its paid download service on Oct. 14. Canadian versions of both Napster and MusicNet are expected to launch shortly, all offering songs starting at $0.99. "This agreement sets up a solid, practical system to enable these new online services to obtain the rights they need to do business in Canada," said CMRRA president David Basskin. "Music publishers and songwriters are vitally important members of the music industry, and this agreement ensures that their rights will be respected -- and that they'll be paid for the use of their songs."
http://www.cria.ca/news/onlineserver_09oct03.htm 
http://www.puretracks.com
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o Bertelsmann CEO Can "Imagine" Partnership with Sony

Frankfurt -- According to news reports, Bertelsmann CEO Gunter Thielen said this week that he "can imagine'' a partnership between the German company's music subsidiary and Sony Corp. as a possible means of offsetting slumping music sales. Speaking at a book fair in Frankfurt on Thursday, Thielen said that he could "very well imagine Sony as a partner," adding that Bertelsmann "is also in talks with Time Warner and EMI." In the face of plummeting music sales worldwide, which fell by $32 billion last year, the music industry "will have to consolidate," Thielen said.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z10D64A26
http://www.bertelsmann.com
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o Brooklyn Resident Gets Six Months for Selling Pirate CDs Online

Washington -- A New York man has been sentenced to six months in prison and fined more than $3,000 for selling unauthorized compilation CDs from his website. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton convicted 42-year-old Brooklyn resident Alvin A. Davis of felony copyright infringement, for offering over 100 CDs containing tracks from various artists for sale on his EmpireRecords.com site. As part of his sentence, Judge Walton also prohibited Davis from using the Internet for one year. "Mr. Davis sought to profit off the hard work of others. Today's sentence sends a strong message to anyone involved in piracy that there is a significant price to pay for this kind of illegal behavior," said U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard, Jr.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/dc/press/03292.html
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o Survey: 78% of U.S. Teens Think File-Sharing Should Be Legal

Rochester, N.Y. -- Not surprisingly, a recent survey of 13-18 year-olds found that two-thirds of U.S. teens oppose fining individuals who offer copyrighted music online for other people to download, and three-quarters said they think sharing songs with others should be legal. The poll, conducted by New York-based Harris Interactive, found that only 13% of teens believe that people who offer copyrighted music on their computers for others to download should be fined, and that only 34% of teens had ever paid for a music download. "The results of this Harris Interactive survey show that American teenagers, who account for a significant amount of the revenue generated by the music industry, do not agree with the current legal actions that are being enforced against music file sharers," said Harris Interactive senior research associate Marc Scheer.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com  _____________________________________________

o Chipmaker Cirrus Logic Sues Rival Wolfson for Patent Infringement

Edinburgh -- Texas-based chipmaker Cirrus Logic announced on Friday that it has filed a patent infringement suit against Edinburgh-based Wolfson Microelectronics in U.S. District Court in California. The complaint alleges that several Wolfson products that incorporate digital-to-analog converters infringe U.S. patents held by Cirrus. The complaint seeks damages and requests a permanent injunction against Wolfson from making, selling or importing into the U.S. any infringing products. "Cirrus Logic has made substantial R&D investments to build a rich portfolio of intellectual property, and we will continue to solidify our competitive position through vigorous pursuit of companies we believe are infringing upon our patents," said Cirrus CEO David D. French CEO. Wolfson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/031009/183/eappp.html
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o Interactive TV Content Developer YooMedia Raises $4 Million

London -- YooMedia, a developer of interactive TV and wireless entertainment content, announced on Friday that it has raised $4 million through the placement of 9.6 million new shares with institutional investors. The proceeds will give London-based YooMedia additional working capital to invest in emerging opportunities, including e-government and Trigger TV. YooMedia's largest shareholders are now Foresight Technology VCT, Artemis Investment Management and INVESCO Asset Management.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E59325B26 
http://www.yoomedia.com 

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(Washington) The Entertainment Software Association, a U.S. trade group made up of the leading video game developers and publishers, on Friday launched its fourth annual "A Nite to Unite for Kids" video game item online charity auction. Proceeds from the auction will go to the ESA Foundation, which supports positive programs and opportunities for America's youth. Items up for bid include animation cells from popular games, E3 Expo day and party passes, and a Tony Hawk autographed skateboard.
http://www.theesa.com/10_7_2003.html
http://makeashorterlink.com/?U19851C26 (link to eBay auction)

(London) The Walt Disney Company announced on Friday that it will launch a U.K. TV entertainment channel on the Freeview platform this winter. Freeview is a popular free-to-air digital terrestrial platform that has about 2 million viewers. The channel, which will not carry the Disney brand, will compete with the BBC, ITV and BSkyB.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031010/80/earbq.html

(Troy, Mich.) Car audio device manufacturer Delphi announced on Friday that it has produced and shipped more than 1.2 million factory-installed and retail satellite radios, through its partnership with XM Satellite Radio. Of these, Delphi said 475,000 were retail units and 770,000 were factory- installed satellite radio units.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031010/def002_1.html 
http://www.delphi.com

(San Jose, Calif.) InterActual Technologies, a developer of enhanced DVD content creation technology, said on Friday that DVD creation software maker InterVideo has licensed its technology. The agreement will allow InterVideo users to create DVDs that include InterActual-enabled features like games, multimedia playback tracks, printables, photo galleries and enhanced commentaries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031010/105151_1.html 
http://www.intervideo.com 
http://www.interactual.com

(Santa Monica, Calif.) Game developer Activision announced on Friday its sponsorship of the 2003 Gravity Games, a five-day action sports event that will be broadcast by NBC. NBC will use the game engine contained in Activision's upcoming "Tony Hawk's Underground" skateboarding title to illustrate the street and vert athlete performances during the competition.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031010/laf021_1.html 
http://www.activision.com 
http://www.gravitygames.com

(San Francisco) U.K.-based game developer Eidos Interactive said on Friday that it has shipped its "Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home" for PlayStation 2 to North American retailers. The company said it will begin shipping an Xbox version of the title on Monday.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031009/sfth121_1.html 
http://www.eidos.com

(Los Angeles) The Los Angeles Times on Friday reported on chocolate drink maker Yoo-Hoo's sponsorship of a five-song EP by Kevin Martin (formerly of Candlebox) and the HiWatts. The sponsorship is enabling the band to promote itself by releasing songs from the EP onto file-sharing networks, without regard for any potential sales losses. "It's the beginning of something that could totally change the music business," Mitchell Reichgut of Jun Group Inc., which is distributing the free songs, told The Times. "We're giving away the music. Please, take it! And the more people that take it, the better it is for the artist, the better it is for Yoo-Hoo. And the more Yoo-Hoo benefits, the more Kevin and the HiWatts will be rewarded."
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-band10oct10.story 
http://jungroup.com

(San Francisco) Wired News on Friday reported on the current woes troubling Vivendi Universal Games, the video game unit of the Franco-American media conglomerate. A recent leak of the source code to the highly-anticipated "Half-Life 2" massively multiplayer PC title has caused at least one executive with the company to tell reporters that the game's release will be postponed unit April 30 -- missing the crucial holiday shopping season. The games unit was not a part of Vivendi's merger with NBC, and although Vivendi Universal Games is currently up for sale, suitors have reportedly balked at the parent company's asking price of $2 billion.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60772,00.html
http://www.vugames.com

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