Archive for June 2004
Alliance Demonstrates P2P Commercial Potential
"Veteran rocker Steve Winwood has partnered with ‘Access Hollywood‘ in an experimental marketing alliance intended to demonstrate the commercial potential of file-sharing networks such as Kazaa, according to people involved in the project.
"The deal is one of the first to use sponsored downloads to support commercial music on the same peer-to-peer networks that the music industry has blamed for an explosion in piracy and weak CD sales in recent years.
"The major record labels are so afraid of file sharing that they’re missing the opportunity,’ said Bruce Forest, a principal in Jun Group, which brokered the unusual marketing alliance and helped place the free tracks on Web networks."
Reuters. Promo Uses P2P Networks To Sell Songs. News.com. June 29, 2004.
Paperless Hospitals
"Medical care would be improved and millions of dollars would be saved if hospitals were fully wired, said Rep. Patrick Kennedy and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who jointly announced a program to bring American medicine into the Internet age.
"On Monday, the political partisans put their party differences aside to tout electronic prescriptions, online patient records and an integrated, paperless health-care system.
"Gingrich said 98,000 people die annually in hospitals due to medical errors. He suggested information technology could save billions of dollars now wasted on procedures, such as unnecessary tests and redundant record keeping."
Brook Donald. Gingrich, Kennedy Pushing "Wired" Hospitals. eWeek. June 23, 2004.
Proposed Law Targets P2P Networks
"New legislation introduced late Tuesday by a group of powerful U.S. senators would let artists and entertainment companies sue creators of products, such as peer-to-peer software and copying programs, that ‘induce’ copyright violations.
"Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, clearly targeting Peer-to-Peer vendors, claims his bill focuses on companies that profit by encouraging children and teenagers to infringe copyrights.
"Hatch stated ‘It is illegal and immoral to induce or encourage children to commit crimes and tragically, some corporations now seem to think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal. Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of free music.’
"On the other hand, P-to-P United, calls the bill ‘horrible public policy.’ The measure could stifle the development of future technologies that could be used for copyright infringement but have substantial legitimate uses."
Grant Gross. Copying Programs Could Be Outlawed. PC World. June 23, 2004.
Fair Use Support Building
"A group of technology vendors, consumer rights groups, and ISPs are banding together to support 18-month-old U.S. House legislation that would let consumers make personal copies of copyrighted digital products, including movies and music.
"The Personal Technology Freedom Coalition has kicked an effort to push the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act through Congress. The legislation was introduced in January 2003 by Rick Boucher. It would allow consumers to break copy controls to do such things as make personal copies of compact discs or movies. Supporters say the bill is necessary to protect consumers’ so-called fair-use rights to make personal copies, which the (DMCA) curtails."
Grant Gross. Looser Digital Copyright Laws Urged.PC World. June 22, 2004.
See Also Declan McCullagh. Tech Heavies Support Challenge to Copyright Law. News.com. June 21, 2004.
Copyright Bill Targets Technology
"A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate would, if passed, dramatically reshape copyright law by prohibiting file-trading networks and some consumer electronics devices on the grounds that they could be used for unlawful purposes.
"The proposal, called the Induce Act, says ‘whoever intentionally induces any violation’ of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. In the draft bill seen by CNET News.com, inducement is defined as "aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures" and can be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms.
"The bill represents the latest legislative attempt by influential copyright holders to address what they view as the growing threat of peer-to-peer networks rife with pirated music, movies and software."
Declan McCullagh. Antipiracy Bill Targets Technology. News.com. June 17, 2004.
Stupid Licensing Tricks
"The old licensing argument is that you ‘signed’ a shrink-wrap agreement when you opened the package. This in itself is stupid. What if I can’t read? What if I’m 12? If I want to protest the signing of a software licensing agreement because the terms are onerous, I am told that I simply cannot purchase, er, I mean license, the product. But since Microsoft is a monopoly, what choice do I have? How am I not trapped in a form of indentured servitude? Does anyone find this as annoying as I do? I’m having weird dreams about it."
John Dvorak. License Dirt, While You’re At It. PC Magazine. June 14, 2004.
The High Cost of Copyright Permissions
"When some 20,000 first-year American medical students reported to their schools last summer, they received a free 20-minute multimedia collage of music, text and short video clips from television doctor dramas, past and present, burned onto a CD-ROM.
"’The patients you meet in the coming years may have doubts about you because of the doctors they see on prime-time television,’ the introduction reads. ‘The aim of this presentation is to explore why that is, and suggest what you can do about it.’
"But the CD was perhaps more of an education for its developer, Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
"’It’s crazy,’ Professor Turow said of the labyrinth of permissions, waivers and fees he navigated to get the roughly three minutes of video clips included on the CD, which was paid for by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The process took months, Professor Turow said, and cost about $17,000 in fees and royalties paid to the various studios and guilds for the use of clips. The film used ranged from, for example, a 1961 episode of ‘Ben Casey’ to a more-recent scene from ‘ER.’"
Tom Zeller, Jr. Permissions on Digital Media Drive Scholars to Lawbooks. The New York Times. June 14, 2004.
Knowledge Held Hostage Web site.
(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)
COPYCENSE 