EFF argues placing files in 'Shared Folder' isn't sharing
Can the act of file sharing take place "passively," without the users' direct involvement; and if so, can they no longer be held liable for copyright infringement? That's the question a US district court is preparing to consider.
Next week, an Arizona district court will hear arguments in the ongoing case of the Howell family of Scottsdale, who last August was found to be illegally distributing 2,329 MP3s in violation of copyright. At that time, the judge in the case ruled that the fact that those MP3s appeared in Mr. Howell's shared music folder for his Kazaa program was proof enough that he had intention to share them, and that no evidence needed to be uncovered of actual subsequent file transfers.
FCC opens the Comcast throttling debate to public comment
Demonstrating it's taking seriously charges that Comcast's "network management" practices for slowing down P2P traffic constitute discrimination, the government agency has asked the public to weigh in.
Comcast no longer denies that it implements certain network management techniques to help regulate its traffic, and it now clearly warns its customers -- albeit in a tucked-away location -- that it has the right to slow down certain classes of traffic. The company has argued that such management is not only within its rights, but that it works within the parameters for "reasonable network management" set forth in the Federal Communications' principles.
Cloud platform built on Amazon adds Adobe Flex support
The developers of a Web services application environment that leverages the leased computing services of Amazon have reworked their Web functionality to incorporate Adobe's Web language for Flash applications.
In another challenge to the conventional application services model, a nearly five-year-old startup called Coghead, led by former Red Hat executive Paul McNamara, has updated its unique Web application development suite to incorporate Adobe's Flex Web development language.
Canadian appeals court dismisses tariffs on MP3 players
A move by that country's Copyright Board to exact a toll from the sale of personal digital audio devices was soundly defeated last week. But now, the cost of CD-Rs there could rise even further.
A three-judge panel of the Canadian Court of Appeal in Ottawa has unanimously dismissed a decision that would have enabled the country's primary collector of royalties for sound recordings to apply a tariff to the sale of MP3 players there, including Apple's iPod.
EC to investigate new charges against Microsoft
Surprising perhaps no one, the European Commission stated this morning in Brussels it will proceed with a fresh round of investigations against Microsoft, on some very familiar sounding allegations.
A complaint raised by the makers of the Opera Web browser that Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to Windows makes it harder for others to compete, is one of two almost nostalgic complaints which the European Commission agreed today that it will formally investigate.
CES Trend #1: If the format war is over, what has Blu-ray really won?
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: We really didn't have enough stories on the format war this week, only a few dozen. And I figured that perhaps to make it an even thirty (or was it forty?) we should close the gap with one more.
The huge trend we saw this week was the move away from the format war. Well prior to Warner Bros.' announcement, it appeared the major CE manufacturers were working to build the functionality some of them had once planned for their high-definition disc players, into their HDTV displays and set-top boxes instead. A great many of them -- with a few prominent exceptions, such as Sony -- were about ready to write off their losses and move on.
AMD delays more CPU rollouts, this time quad-core Phenoms
A further indication of trouble for AMD in its effort to catch up with Intel in the quad-core field, as the company has delayed rollouts of its higher-speed enthusiast level quad-core CPUs for at least one quarter.
In a statement to BetaNews this afternoon that makes it sound as though its customers actually asked for this, AMD confirmed it is delaying shipments of more of its latest Barcelona architecture CPUs: specifically its consumer-grade quad-core Phenom processors.
Microsoft president to retire, former Macromedia CEO to take his place
In a sign that Microsoft will indeed be marching to a new and different drum after Bill Gates exits the scene, its Business Division President will step down, and the former head of the company that created Flash will take his spot.
He was not President of Microsoft for all that long, but Jeff Raikes has easily been as much a part of the character of his company as Steve Ballmer. Having joined the company 27 years ago to forge what today could be considered its most successful and powerful product line after Windows, Microsoft Office, Raikes helped bring the "suits" into Microsoft.
Intel subpoenaed for documents in new antitrust probe
The case against Intel's right to pay its channel clients for exclusivity has been a matter for a civil court. But if the New York Attorney General finds what he's looking for, the company could find the case against it both upgraded and multithreaded.
The spotlight will no doubt be turned on full for what is likely to become the next huge platform for technology litigation: Newly elected Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose surname is already monumental in his home state of New York, has issued subpoenas for documents in a criminal investigation against Intel's conduct.
NewsGator drops all charges, releases RSS clients for free
The maker of some of the most popular RSS and Atom tools for both Windows and Mac stunned everyone yesterday by declaring all of its consumer-grade software to be available free-of-charge.
The entire suite of RSS reader client products produced by NewsGator has been made free of charge, in a stunning though perhaps brilliant move by the company to draw attention to its enterprise-class RSS servers, which constitute the bulk of the company's revenue.
Universal: We're staying with HD DVD
5:00 pm ET January 10, 2008 -- Universal Studios has officially dispelled the rumors from Variety that it will drop HD DVD and switch to Blu-ray.
"Contrary to unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources, Universal's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and also co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group.
Analysis: Will streaming HD movies bypass Blu-ray?
It may not be exactly possible for high-definition discs to pick up where their lofty goals of 2005 left off. Transmission technology has evolved very rapidly during that time, partly due to the format war's very existence.
In the midst of the spat between different groups of intellectual property holders over extremely esoteric matters, the effect of which was to effectively stall the advancement of high-definition disc technology, telecommunications companies, CATV providers, and a few bold startup companies planned to pick up the pieces of both formats. Their plan is to bypass Blu-ray 2.0's connection to the Internet, and provide "all-on-demand" service for a huge library of movies and recorded shows, apparently for subscription rates.
XStreamHD's ambitious plan for 1080p all-on-demand service
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: Easily among the most curious developments at CES this week was the Tuesday press demonstration of a device called XStreamHD. Conducting the demo was none other than actor Michael Douglas, who apparently succeeded in putting the polish on a presentation for a technology that's so ambitious that any other face or voice might leave attendees very skeptical.
Here's how the company touted its advancement on Monday morning:
Analysis on the format war: So is that it?
One of Las Vegas' most epic battles may be drawing to a close, but the spectators in the high-definition format war are already moving on to the next big technology. Are the spoils for Blu-ray enough to sustain the industry going forward?
What was almost declared a stalemate that could leave the high-definition disc market's prospects unfulfilled, may end up a squeaker of a victory for Blu-ray after all, assuming no further bizarre shift of allegiances takes place between now and next Christmas. If Blu-ray has actually won, then what has it won? Can we all go pick up our Blu-ray Disc players and start buying any recently produced movie we possibly want, regardless of its studio? Or has the public's appetite for the thing waned, perhaps moved onto some other technology with less of a chance of getting bogged down in a years-long dispute?
FCC will probe charges of Comcast customer discrimination
Charges that Comcast intentionally throttled the traffic of BitTorrent users for anti-competitive reasons, has apparently prompted the Commission to formally investigate the nation's largest CATV provider, its chairman said at CES yesterday.
The US Federal Communications Commission acknowledged on Wednesday that it has agreed to requests from citizens' rights and consumers' groups to investigate whether Comcast may be interfering with the rights of its subscribers by throttling their transfer speeds when they're suspected of trading files.
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