archives

o AP: Charges Against Russian Programmer Sklyarov Will Be Dropped
o Additional Raids on "Warez" Software Traders Planned
o Six Tech Firms Sue Dell Over PC Video Technology
o E-Book Retailer MightyWords Will Shut Down
o Yahoo Makes $436 Million Bid to Acquire HotJobs.com
o Canada Tightening Copyright Law for Online TV Rebroadcasters
o Report: Ringtones Worth $203 Million in Western Europe by 2003
o Briefly Noted: CD Baby - MP3.com, Xbox - Japan, FreeHand Systems,
Gracenote - mp3PRO, Windows Media "bonus pack," RCN - VOD, College radio webcasts - DMCA
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o AP: Charges Against Russian Programmer Sklyarov Will Be Dropped

San Jose, Calif. -- The Associated Press is reporting that federal charges
against Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who faced jail time and fines
for allegedly violating a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA), will be dropped. Sklyarov will not be prosecuted in return for
his testimony against the Russian software firm for which he worked,
Elcomsoft. Both Sklyarov and Elcomsoft were charged under a provision of
the DMCA that makes it a crime to distribute technology that can be used
to circumvent copy-protection security on digital media. Sklyarov was
arrested in July at a hacker's convention in Las Vegas in connection with
his development of a software program that can circumvent the security
technology on Adobe's e-book reader. The software in question is legal to
sell in Russia.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49122,00.html
http://www.elcomsoft.com
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o Additional Raids on "Warez" Software Traders Planned

San Francisco -- Following this week's bust of a massive software piracy
ring by U.S. government officials, agencies involved say that additional
raids on similar groups are in the works, CNET reported. "This is only the
first step," U.S. Customs spokesman Kevin Bell told CNET. "The
investigation is ongoing." This week's raid targeted a group known as
"Drink or Die," which included university students and employees and
executives at software companies worldwide that traded in software
programs stripped of copy-protection technology, known as "warez."
Officials said that they would continue to go after larger, organized
traders and not individuals who downloaded warez. "We are targeting these
groups that do it all the time," said Bell. "If you are at your house one
night and you want to get a free copy of some software, that's not what we
are talking about."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8145809.html?tag=tp_pr
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o Six Tech Firms Sue Dell Over PC Video Technology

Round Rock, Texas -- Six technology firms -- Sony, Mitsubishi Electric,
France Telecom, Scientific-Atlanta, Philips and Victor -- have filed suit
against computer manufacturer Dell for its alleged misuse of MPEG 2 video
technology for which the firms hold patents, Reuters reported. Dell
charged PC buyers "several hundred dollars" extra for computers that came
loaded with software that let them create and edit video in the MPEG 2
format. Dell has not yet commented on the lawsuit. The suit seeks an
injunction against further distribution of the unlicensed technology and
unspecified damages.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011211/tc/tech_sony_dell_dc_1.html
_____________________________________________

o E-Book Retailer MightyWords Will Shut Down

Santa Clara, Calif. -- MightyWords, an online retailer of e-books, will
lay off all of its 23 employees and shut down on Jan. 12, according to a
note on the company's website. The note stated that the company did not
run out of money, nor are its assets for sale. MightyWords CEO Chris
MacAskill told Wired News, "there just weren't enough sales. It's taking a
long time for the consumer to adapt [to the e-book format]." Book retailer
Barnes and Noble invested $20 million in MigtyWords and held a 50 percent
total stake in the company. Santa Clara-based MightyWords was a subsidiary
of FatBrain, an online retailer of technical books that was acquired by
Barnes and Noble in November 2000.
http://www.mightywords.com/company/support/faqs.jsp
_____________________________________________

o Yahoo Makes $436 Million Bid to Acquire HotJobs.com

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Yahoo has made an unsolicited bid of $436 million to
acquire online job hunting site HotJobs.com. HotJobs is currently in a
merger agreement with marketing and ad firm TMP Worldwide, but said it
will enter negotiations with Yahoo as well. "The combination of Yahoo and
HotJobs has the potential to create a powerful new force in recruitment,
which has been one of the fastest industries to migrate online and is
poised to grow substantially over the next several years," Yahoo CEO Terry
Semel said in a statement.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011212/wr/tech_hotjobs_dc_3.html
_____________________________________________

o Canada Tightening Copyright Law for Online TV Rebroadcasters

Ottawa, Canada -- Changes to Canadian copyright law have been introduced
that could affect companies offering online rebroadcasts of TV programs,
Newsbytes reported. The proposed amendment in question "establishes a new
regulation-making power that will allow new types of distribution systems,
including the Internet, to be used to retransmit broadcast signals if they
meet appropriate conditions set out in the regulations." Under the new
law, companies such as JumpTV and the now-defunct ICraveTV would likely
need a license to rebroadcast TV signals over the Internet in Canada.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172941.html
http://www.jumptv.com
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o Report: Ringtones Worth $203 Million in Western Europe by 2003

Boston, Mass. -- Sales of ringtones and graphics for cell phones in
Western Europe will generate $203 million in annual sales by 2003,
according to a report released Thursday by Boston-based Strategy
Analytics. The report found that 24 percent of users in the region had
already downloaded a ringtone or graphic icon for their cell phone's
screen. It also found that Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany have the
highest penetration of usage of such features, while France and Italy are
market followers.
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/cgi-bin/greports.cgi?rid=152001110451
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o Briefly Noted:

(Portland, Ore.) Online CD retailer CD Baby announced on Thursday that it
has reached an agreement with Vivendi Universal subsidiary MP3.com to
serve as the distributor for MP3.com artist CDs. Under the terms,
Oregon-based CD Baby will provide warehousing, fulfillment and customer
service for MP3.com artists. Visitors will be directed from artist pages
on MP3.com to CD Baby's online store, which currently sells albums from
over 11,000 artists. CD Baby has similar agreements with sites including
Garageband.com and IUMA (Internet Underground Music Archive), a division
of online music network Vitaminic.
http://www.cdbaby.com
http://www.mp3.com

(Redmond, Wash.) Microsoft has reconfirmed its plans to launch its Xbox
video game console in Japan on Feb. 22, despite media reports that the
company would further delay the Japanese launch, originally planned to
coincide with the U.S. launch of the console on Nov. 15. The company also
restated its intention to launch the Xbox in Europe on March 14, and its
plans to launch online gaming initiatives for the Xbox within six months.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011212/sfw098_1.html

(Los Altos, Calif.) FreeHand Systems on Thursday released its MusicPad
Pro, a portable digital sheet music reader capable of holding 10,000 pages
of sheet music. The $1000 tablet features a 12" screen that can be used to
turn pages by touch, or else using a wireless foot pedal or switch. Edits
and annotations can be made to a score using the touch-screen or a stylus
and saved for later use. Los Altos-based FreeHand Systems plans to
introduce a Mac compatible tablet in January.
http://www.freehandsystems.com/news/introducing_musicpad_pro.html

(Paris) Thomson multimedia, the licensing agent for MP3 format-related
patents held by Fraunhofer and Coding Technologies, announced on Thursday
a partnership with online music information provider Gracenote. Under the
agreement, developers using Gracenote's CDDB database will have access to
the recently released mp3PRO codec to encode and decode music. In an
effort to spur acceptance of the new format, non-commercial use of mp3PRO
will be royalty-free, and commercial users will only have to pay to encode
using mp3PRO. Since Fraunhofer and Coding Technologies own patents on the
MP3 and mp3PRO formats, respectively, companies must pay royalties to the
patent holders when using the compression technologies to encode or decode
songs in those formats.
http://www.gracenote.com/press/2001121300.html
http://www.codingtechnologies.com/technology/mp3pro.htm

(Redmond, Wash.) Microsoft on Thursday released what it called a "Bonus
Pack" of features for users of its Windows Media software with the Windows
XP operating system. The free download offers a converter program that
turns MP3s into Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, visualizations and skins
for the Media Player, and software for managing media collections. Also
included is a set of video tools offering professional sound effects,
music loops, clips and title images for users creating video in Windows
Media.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011213/sfth021_1.html

(Princeton, N.J.) RCN, a provider of bundled phone, cable and high-speed
Internet services over a fiber-optic network, said on Thursday that it has
launched video-on-demand services in the Philadelphia area. RCN's digital
cable TV subscribers will be able to order 24-hour rentals of new releases
for $3.95 and library titles for $1.95 using their TV's remote control.
The service will initially be available in three Philadelphia suburbs,
with roll-out into the rest of the market in upcoming months.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011213/phth019_1.html
http://www.rcn.com

(San Francisco) Online magazine Salon.com reported on Thursday on how
college radio stations that simulcast their signals on the Internet would
be affected if the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) were strictly
enforced. Non-profit college stations, which already operate on tight
budgets, may be forced to go off the air if compelled to pay additional
webcasting fees and provide accurate reporting of playlists, two terms
spelled out in the DMCA for webcasters that up to this point have not been
enforced.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/13/college_webcast/index.html
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