After Dawn

Secret ACTA Internet chapter leaked: Global DMCA and ‘three strikes’

The highly secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has been drafted under non-disclosure agreements and given to different nations with watermarks in case they choose to “leak” it, has had parts of its Internet chapter leaked this week, and is already facing massive criticism from mostly everyone who has read its scary bylines.

Under the new ACTA, the United States and the world should be prepared for the following:

-ISPs as watchdogs: The ISPs will be forced to “proactively” police all user-contributed materials for copyrights. At that point, many of the world’s most popular sites won’t be able to exist as they do now, such as YouTube or Photobucket or Flickr which will be impossible to regulate given that thousands upon thousands of videos and pictures are uploaded every hour.

-Three Strikes: As in the UK and France, the “three strikes” piracy laws will be in effect, forcing ISPs to cut off multiple time offenders from the Internet after two warnings. If you are accused, you do not receive counsel or a trial.

-Worldwide DMCA: “Notice-and-takedown” letters must be adopted worldwide, requiring ISPs to take down any “infringing” material. There needs to be no evidence or trial, if the material gets flagged, it must be taken down.

-DRM: Full prohibitions on breaking DRM, no more “fair use.” Archival presentation (backups) will be a thing of the past.

This is just what we know so far. I can’t imagine it could get any worse though.

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Nintendo adds full demos to WiiWare

Nintendo will add fully playable demos for video games to WiiWare in an effort to increase traffic to the stagnant Wii Shopping Channel.

CEO Satoru Iwata confirmed recently to shareholders that WiiWare and DSiWare remain small markets and that the Shopping Channel and the DSi Shop are only browsed by gamers who have looked up games they want to purchase beforehand.

Iwata says by introducing the playable demos, the company hopes to increase traffic to the channel and add to sales. The CEO readily admits that demos will not solve the problem all together, however, says GI.biz.

The demos will start in Japan next month and move globally sometime after.

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Five PSP bundles headed to Japan

Sony Japan has announced five new PSP-3000 bundles for the region this week, four of which are being marketed as “Value Packs.”

The Value Pack bundles will each include the PSP-3000 and accessories (no games) for JPY 19,800 ($220 USD) and come in different colorways; Vibrant Blue, Piano Black, Pearl White and Radiant Red.

The fifth bundle is a “Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G” bundle that includes the game and special skin. The model will retail for JPY 18,500 ($205 USD).

Each is set for release in early December.

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Official iPhone sees tiny sales in China

Last week China Unicom began selling the Apple iPhone officially in China for the first time ever, making the smartphone available to over 200 million subscribers.

Unicom is seemingly fighting for sales however, and 9to5mac is reporting that only 5000 units have been sold since launch. Bloomberg News adds that Apple expects only 460,000 iPhones to sell in the nation per year, a number less than the amount of grey market units that are sold there (for less than Unicom’s price.)

Each model of the official phone (8GB or 32GB) can be purchased with 3-year contract but the prices are very expensive. The smaller capacity model will sell for 4,999 yuan ($700+ USD) and the larger model will sell for 6,999 yuan ($1000+ USD). Each is also lacking Wi-Fi due to government regulation.

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Former MP3tunes founder appeals court decision

Former MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson was sued by EMI two years ago over the site and the company tried to go after his personal assets in an effort to bankrupt him and set an example.

Last year, a judge ruled that EMI could not go after his personal assets and throw that part of the case out.

Unfortunately for Robertson, a new ruling last month gave EMI a loophole to go after the man’s personal assets again. A key witness in the case (a former MP3tunes director) was paid off by EMI (allegedly) to change her deposition in the decision.

Today, Robertson has filed an appeal on the decision in New York, a “motion for reconsideration or alternately certification for interlocutory.”

We will keep you updated.

You can read more about EMI’s “lies” here: MichaelRobertson.com

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Barnes & Noble sued over Nook e-reader

Spring Design, which recently released its Android-based Alex e-reader, has sued Barnes & Noble over the Nook e-reader, claiming B&N “misappropriated trade secrets” and “violated a non-disclosure agreement surrounding Alex technologies.”

The company says it started filing patents for Alex in 2006 and was holding conference calls and meetings with B&N execs beginning in 2009. Alex’s feature set was discussed confidentially with those execs under a non-disclosure agreement

Says Eric Kmeic, Sprin Design VP of Sales and Marketing: “Spring Design unfortunately had to take the appropriate action to protect its intellectual property rights. We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market.”

There is no word on what damages Spring is hoping for or expecting. B&N denied comment.

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Best Buy and Sonic sign CinemaNow deal

Best Buy and Sonic Solutions, the owner of the popular Roxio CinemaNow movie service have signed a deal today that will see the giant retailer begin selling Sonic’s services.

Says the WSJ: “Sonic said in a federal filing it had issued warrants to purchase 668,711 of its common shares for $100,000. The warrants vest over a two-year period and then Best Buy will be able to buy the shares at $4.98.”

Best Buy will begin selling device with CinemaNow in-store, including DVD drives and computers.



“Our relationship with Sonic Solutions allows Best Buy to quickly establish a strong position in the digital delivery of video entertainment,” adds Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn.

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Chrome, Firefox steal more market share from IE

According to new figures from Net Applications, both Firefox and Google Chrome continue to wrestle away market share from long time leader Internet Explorer, with Chrome seeing the strongest growth.

Chrome saw over 10 percent growth to reach 3.58 percent market share, while Firefox continued its ascent moving to 24.07 percent. Apple’s Safari still remains in third at 4.42 percent share, mainly due to increased Mac sales.

Net Applications says given Chrome’s growth and recent beta release of Chrome 4, the browser will likely surpass Safari, and the 5 percent mark, by February of next year.

Also interestingly was the numbers behind Internet Explorer, which although still the clear market leader at 64.64 percent, is a far cry from the 93 percent share it owned in 2003. Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft’s most recent update to the browser, had 18.1 percent share, moving it to within days of surpassing Internet Explorer 7 at 18.2. The eight-year-old and extremely inefficient Internet Explorer 6 remained the leader for the pack, at 23.2 percent.

IE6 remains the leader despite Microsoft’s plea for users to stop using the browser, if they have the choice. Many corporate users are not so lucky.

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Illegal downloaders stlil buying more music than most

The results of a new study conducted by Demos, a London-based public policy think tank, once again affirm that the people who download the most music spend more than average buying music legally.

Demos talked to 1,008 UK residents between the ages of 16 and 50. Each respondent was asked about their use of both legal and illegal means to obtain music. Their conclusions match those of other studies conducted in the past.

Of those who said they download from P2P or other unauthorized sources, the number who buy “a lot more” music is almost exactly the same as those who buy “a lot less,” at 10% and 11% respectively. Nearly half of illegal downloaders (47%) said it doesn’t affect how much music they buy.

That should be the most important fact for record labels, because compared to the population as a whole those unauthorized downloaders buy a lot.

Although the percentage who also buy CDs was almost identical among illegal downloaders and the entire group surveyed, the average amount of money spent was considerably higher – £77 for unauthorized downloaders compared to £51 for all respondents.

In other words most people aren’t downloading illegally because they don’t want to pay. They do it because they love music.

Study results also indicate that most people would stop downloading illegally if there were a possibility of getting kicked off the internet for a month. For labels this must seem like a great argument for implementing Lord Mandelson’s controversial three strikes plan, but is it really?

The problem with that reasoning is it doesn’t address what should be the main focus of any business; how to make more money. That is, after all, what businesses are supposed to be doing.

Disconnecting file sharers from the internet doesn’t just cut them off from illegal downloads. It also blocks them from reaching the legal download sites labels increasingly rely on for revenue.

If you make it harder for your customers to spend money on your product common sense says some of them will give that money to the competition. And make no mistake there’s more competition for entertainment now than ever before.

If it were your business, how much money would you spend to get laws which send your customers away?

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Rare Universal movies get DVD release thanks to on demand manufacturing

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE) are taking advantage of manufacturing on demand (MOD) technology to offer a selection of movies on DVD which hadn’t previously been available. Some have never been released in any home video format.

Movies in the TCM Vault Collection Presented by Universal can be purchased in sets or individually.

An inititial offering, the Universal Cult Horror Collection, is priced at $44.99, with individual titles in the five movie set selling for $19.99 each. Also planned for the fourth quarter of 2009 is a set of three early Cary Grant films.

TCM host Robert Osborne, who appears on each DVD to provide an introduction, said “It’s wonderful that today’s movie fans will be able to enjoy these rare movies. TCM and Universal have put great effort into restoring them digitally and providing historical context, bonus material and behind-the-scenes information, something DVD collectors, like me, are sure to appreciate. I’m very pleased to be part of this great project with TCM and Universal.”

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