Microsoft's Ballmer To India: Cut Piracy, Create 50,000 Jobs

By Paul McDougall

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says software piracy in India is so bad that it's holding back the country's economy. But if India can reduce piracy by just 10% it would create 50,000 new jobs, says Ballmer. Question: where will those jobs come from?

In an interview in Tuesday's edition of the Times Of India, Ballmer says piracy is having "a huge negative impact" on economic growth in India. He also cites an unnamed study indicating that 70% of all software used in the country is pirated. Reducing that number by 10% would lead to the creation of 50,000 new jobs in India, Ballmer says in the interview.


Read more on Information Week

Patent Reform Tops List of Tech Concerns

By Robert Mullins

Technology industry executives are pushing the U.S. Congress to reform the way patents are issued in order to process them more quickly while also making sure they are legitimate.

Patent reform was one of the major issues discussed at the Tech Policy Summit Monday in San Jose, California. Patent reform legislation considered, but not passed, in Congress last year is expected to be reintroduced. Among the key provisions sought is the hiring of more patent review specialists by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which one critic at the conference said has a backlog of as many as 1 million applications.


Read more on PC World

Vista Doesn't Add DRM To Unprotected Content

Out there, in the blogging world, a lot of facts can get mixed up with rumours and lies. George Ou has attempted to put an end to the whole Vista and DRM confusion. I said he "has attempted" simply because there will always be Microsoft haters who will continue to spew false information regardless of how hard the facts slap them in the face: “A lot of people have been screaming that Vista will deprive you of your rights with the inclusion of DRM technology. Bruce Schneier even referred to this DRM issue as a "security" issue for Vista even though he's merely referring to existence of DRM capability. We're hearing widespread rumors that DRM slows down game play. I even hear people blaming DRM for the lack of driver support in Vista.”


Read more on Neowin.net

Forget party schools: The RIAA lists the top piracy schools in the US

Ohio University, Purdue University, and the University of Nebraska have made it to the top of a list, but it may not be something the universities want to brag about. The RIAA recently named the top 25 music-pirating schools in the country, an act that involved sending over 14,500 copyright infringement notices (so far) during the 2006-2007 school year. This was nearly triple the number of notices sent during the 2005-2006 school year, according to the RIAA. The group says, however, that they are taking advantage of new software tools to improve the tracking of illegal file sharing, which may be part of the reason why the numbers have skyrocketed.


Read more on arstechnica.com

EMI wants more money, walks out of DRM talks

EMI, one of the world's top music labels, has walked out of licensing talks with the world's largest online music retailers. EMI faced off against the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and RealNetworks and couldn't agree on the size of an upfront payment in exchange for offering DRM-free music. According to Bloomberg news, EMI wanted substantially more money which would have been in addition to the individual song fees that it would have received from sales.

EMI hasn't publicly talked about the meeting, but the company appeared to be close to a deal just a few weeks ago. One possible complication could have been Warner Music's bid to buy EMI. Warner opposes DRM-free music sales.


Read more on TG Daily

Apple, SanDisk, Samsung sued over MP3 patent

After Microsoft was ordered to pay no less than $1.5 billion in an MP3 patent infringement case last week, the question wasn't if, but when Alcatel-Lucent would go after Apple.

The answer: not just yet. But in the meantime, Apple's lawyers, and those of Samsung Electronics and SanDisk, can work on their form in Marshall, Texas. Little-known Texas MP3 Technologies is suing three of the four makers of MP3 players with market share to speak of (Sony is missing in action) in the town that's quickly becoming known for its plaintiff-friendly juries in patent cases.


Read more on arstechnica.com

Drastic software piracy

The author of the Mac program "Display Eater" got tired of piracy, and said that he coded the program such that if it detects a pirated version of itself, it'll destroy files from your home directory. It was all a hoax to scare people into buying the real version.

This turned out to be a major mistake and a PR catastrophy. As the developer explains in this statement on his home page:
People started buying multiple keys, which I never intended, and when the protection was in place, people who did not even know they had committed piracy or what piracy was were left in the dark. Legitimate and prospective users started fearing the program, which I never imagined.

A reporter called me today, and suggested that I make it free, and or open source. I plan to do both. Once the code is cleaned up, a GPL'ed version will be released.


Read more on The Butt Ugly Weblog

Quick Patent Registration Draws Praise

By Cho Jin-seo

South Korea has established the fastest patent registration system in the world, and firms say they are benefiting from it.

According to the Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), it takes less than nine months on average for a technology patent to be filed, examined and registered. The same procedure takes 10 months in Germany, 21 months in the United States and 26 months in Japan.

Samsung Electronics, the largest firm in South Korea, said that the shortened processing time would prevent technology infringement by foreign competitors, mostly in China.


Read more on The Korea Times

BitTorrent to offer movies legally, using Microsoft's DRM

By Jack Schofield

BitTorrent will launch a download service offering movies, music, TV programmes and games tomorrow (Monday), according to the New York Times.

The programming comes from studios, including Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Brothers, that previously announced their intention to work with BitTorrent. There is also a new partner: the 83-year-old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which will take part by making 100 films available on the site from its 4,000-movie library.

The story says:

The BitTorrent store will work slightly differently than rival digital media offerings like the iTunes Store of Apple and the Xbox Live service of Microsoft. BitTorrent will commingle free downloads of users' own video uploads with sales of professional fare. And while it will sell digital copies of shows like "24" and "Bones" for $1.99 an episode, it will only rent movies. Once the films are on the PC, they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them.


Read more on Guardian Unlimited

Piracy and Public Perception

The editors of the Wheeling News-Register are rather disgusted by college students who download music illegally, a fact they make very clear in an unsigned editorial:

To their credit, some universities are cutting off campus Internet access to culprits. Good. They should do all they can to help enforce the law — which happens to involve copyrights, much the same as those college professors have on the textbooks they write.


Read more on The Chronicle

Steve Jobs' iTunes dance

By Cory Doctorow

Now the Apple CEO says he would gladly sell songs without digital restrictions, if the record companies let him. That's hardly a brave defiance, and besides, I don't believe him.

In early February, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an extraordinary memo about the music industry, iTunes and DRM (digital rights management), the technology used to lock iTunes Store music to Apple's iPod and iTunes Player. In the memo, Jobs said that "DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy," and offered to embrace a DRM-free music-sales environment "in a heartbeat," if only the big four music companies would let him.


Rean more on Salon.com

Patent troll claims creation of MP3 player, sues everyone

It's not like Apple, SanDisk, and Samsung haven't waded through their fair share of lawsuits in the past, and this most certainly isn't the first (nor the last, sadly) patent troll story you'll ever hear of, but a presumably off-kilter (and incredibly desperate) individual has filed a suit claiming that he masterminded the MP3 player.

The current company, dubbed Texas MP3 Technologies, filed a currently ungranted patent application the very day before the suits were filed, but tried a little trickery by linking back to two previous patents - one held by SigmaTel and the other by MPMan - in order to force the giants to pay their dues.


Rean more on Engadget

Want a Better Product? Try Piracy

When Napster was public enemy number one, the music industry made the point that downloaded music was often of inferior quality than the original CD - which was often true. Strange, then, that some TV studios are providing legal downloads via iTunes that fall short.

The story begins with Jeff (I'm sure he has a last name, but I don't know what it is) over on the-ish.com, who noted that when he buys an episode of Lost on iTunes, it has a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is cropped from the 16:9 widescreen image that HDTV viewers see.

Read more on PC World's Digital World

Google's Schmidt roots for DRM

Proponents of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control have received one of their most significant endorsements yet.

"We are definitely committed to (offering copyright protection technologies)," Reuters has Google ceo Eric Schmidt saying. "It is one of the company's highest priorities.

"We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago," Schmidt told Reuters when asked what Google was doing to make so-called anti-piracy technologies widely available to video owners. "It is going to roll out very soon ... It is not far away."


Read more on p2pnet.net

Microsoft told to pay Alcatel $1.5bn in MP3 patent spat

Microsoft is reviewing its legal options after a US court ordered it to pay Alcatel $1.5bn for infringing the French telecoms' company's MP3 technology in Windows.

Alcatel, which announced a partnership with Microsoft on IPTV in February 2005, inherited the San Diego court action through its $11.5bn merger with Lucent.

The original action pitted Lucent against Gateway and Dell over 15 patent claims, but saw Microsoft step in as it might be obliged to re-imburse the PC makers for damages they'd have to pay. The action has spawned related suits, with Alcatel last November prosecuting Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas over video and voice technology used to decode video signals in Microsoft's Xbox 360.


Read more on TheRegister.co.uk

Google sees video anti-piracy tools as priority

Google Inc., racing to head off a media industry backlash over its video Web site YouTube, will soon offer anti-piracy technologies to help all copyright holders thwart unauthorised video sharing, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

YouTube, which Google acquired late last year, plans to introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users.

But, to date, the tools are only being offered as part of broader licensing talks, media industry insiders complain.

Read more on Reuters.co.uk

Canadian music service delivers DRM-Free MP3 downloads

Puretracks, the music download service whose majority owner is Bell Canada, today announced it would begin offering selected music downloads in DRM-free MP3 format.

The company said it would offer approximately 50,000 songs, of its more then one million song catalogue, unencumbered of digital rights management (DRM) technology.

Digital rights management is a generic term for the encryption schemes used by movie studios and artists to thwart music and movie piracy.


Read more on Digital Home

Microsoft files patent suit against Alcatel-Lucent

Microsoft filed suit against Alcatel-Lucent over technology that allows a user to cobble together a number of features on both data and telephony networks to create a unified communications system.

The patent infringement suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, focuses on four different patents that were awarded to Microsoft between 2001 and 2004. Microsoft is seeking damages and an injunction against the Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent.


Read more on Electronic News

Ballmer: Piracy to Blame For Slow Vista Sales

Microsoft plans to step up antipiracy measures to bolster Vista sales

Microsoft didn't seem to have any problems with forecasted sales projections for Windows Vista when analysts were abuzz at the end of 2006. In late November, IDC projected that over 90 million copies of Windows Vista would ship in 2007 -- far outpacing the 67 million copies of Windows XP shipped during its first year on the market.

Now after slow initial sales of Windows Vista, Microsoft is saying that the analysts were "overly aggressive" with their sales projections. According to PC Advisor, Vista sales are off 60% compared to the 2001 launch of Windows XP. Revenue is also down by 23% so far with Vista's launch.


Read more on DailyTech.com

Supreme Court battle looms between AT&T and Microsoft over patent infringement

It rests on just two words in an obscure federal law, but billions of dollars may hang in the balance.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Microsoft vs. AT&T, a complex transnational patent infringement case that the software industry says, if upheld, could threaten its business and drive thousands of jobs overseas.

At issue is whether copies of the Microsoft Windows operating system sold abroad infringe on a U.S. patent owned by AT&T, but the decision will affect every American software company doing business outside the United States.


Read more on MercuryNews.com

Universal Music Begins Offering DRM-Free Video Clips

As music sales continue to fall, the major labels are being forced to get creative in reaching customers, including embracing a channel the industry has long attacked: file-sharing online.

Starting this week, Suretone Records, a division of the Universal Music Group, will begin distributing online video clips of some artists, such as Weezer and Drop Dead Gorgeous, the New York Times reports.


Read more on www.marketingvox.com

MySpace to block unauthorized videos

MySpace will use software to monitor videos posted to the site in a bid to block unauthorised use of copyrighted content. The social networking giant will use technology to analyse videos' audio tracks to identify infringing posts.

The move is intended to placate the big copyright-holding music and entertainment industries, which are taking legal action against social networking and video sharing sites over the copyright infringing activity of their users.


Read more on The Register

SCO Vs. Blogger

For three and a half years, a blogger named Pamela Jones has led a relentless online crusade against software maker SCO Group, posting thousands of articles bashing the company for suing IBM over the Linux operating system.

Now the Lindon, Utah, software company is fighting back by seeking to take a deposition from Jones. Just one problem: They can't find her.

SCO tried last week to serve a subpoena to Jones at a house in Darien, Conn., where they believe she's been living, but the attempt was unsuccessful, according to a person close to the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more on Forbes

Music execs criticise DRM systems

Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks, finds a survey.

The Jupiter Research study looked at attitudes to Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems in Europe music firms.

Many of those responding said current DRM systems were "not fit for purpose" and got in the way of what consumers wanted to do.

Despite this few respondents said DRM would disappear in the near future.


Read more on BBC News

'Why I don't believe Steve Jobs'

We may see the end of protected music downloads, but it won't be Apple's doing, argues columnist Bill Thompson.

For a company with a tiny share of the computer market and an increasingly perilous first mover advantage selling portable music players Apple punches well above its weight in coverage of its every move.

In January CEO Steve Jobs single-handedly distracted the attention of the world's technology press from the hundreds of announcements taking place at the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by pulling out an iPhone on stage in San Francisco.

The recent settlement of the long-running dispute with Apple Corps over the use of the Apple name garnered thousands of column inches and millions of page views online as aging editors took yet another opportunity to hope that the 40-year old Beatles music they grew up with could top the charts once again.

And much of the attention focused on the possibility that Beatles songs would be available on Apple's iTunes Music Store rather than any of the other download services available, giving Apple even more coverage.

This was followed by widespread coverage of the UK versions of the Mac versus PC ads, with David Mitchell and Robert Webb sacrificing any comic credibility their characters may have had on the altar of commercialism.


Read more on BBC News

Will Apple pick music's digital locks?

Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, has set out his stall on the future of the music industry


In an open letter on the Apple website, Mr Jobs argues that the copy protection software used to protect digital music downloads from piracy has not worked.

In the letter he outlines a world where the record industry abandons so called Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems.

"In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players.

"This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." he wrote.

Read more on BBC News

What is DRM?

Steve Jobs, the head of Apple and a leader in the digital media download industry, said he would give up DRM "in a heartbeat" if record labels and film studios allowed it.

What is DRM?
How does DRM work?
Who is using DRM and why?
What are the problems with DRM?

Read Q&A on BBC News