COPYCENSE

"Less than three weeks after Napster Inc. began touting its all-you-can-rent music subscription service, the company finds itself refuting Internet claims that its copy-protection measures are flawed.

"The company posted a message this week, saying the service’s digital music tracks are no more susceptible to unauthorized copying than any other licensed music service.

"The statement comes after word surfaced on the Internet about how subscribers of Napster To Go, which lets users play an unlimited number of tracks on their computer or on certain portable devices for about $15 a month, could make permanent copies of the songs."

Associated Press. Napster Refutes Flawed Protection Claims. SeattlePI.com. Feb. 16, 2005.

See also:
Sue Zeidler. Users Bypass Copy Protection on Napster To Go. WashingtonPost.com. Feb. 16, 2005.

John Borland. Napster Hack Leads to Free Downloads. News.com. Feb. 15, 2005.

(Editor�s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archives.)

"Questel-Orbit recently announced the release of FamPat, the family-based version of its international patent database PlusPat. An interesting feature of FamPat is that it gives searchers a choice of how broad a patent family they may display. Subject-searchable elements include:

"First, some background. Like PlusPat, FamPat has probably the broadest country and time coverage of any subject-searchable patent database. It covers 75 patenting authorities, and some countries go back to the early 20th century (or even earlier: Germany goes back to 1877). The very early records only have numeric information. However, this includes ECLA classes in some cases, so they can be retrieved in subject searches."

• title and abstract text and (for some French patents) indexing terms
• ECLA (European Patent Office) classifications, as applied by the EPO, including the ICO (in computer only) classes that cover non-inventive and other aspects of the patent
• U.S. patent classes as applied by the USPTO
• International Patent Classes as applied by most countries’ patent offices

Nancy Lambert. Announcing FamPat, A New International Patent Database from Questel-Orbit. Information Today. Feb. 14, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"With a covetous eye on the success of portable music players, mobile phone makers are going after would-be iPod buyers by building high-quality players into their handsets.

"Sony Ericsson announced Monday it would soon market music-player mobiles under its parent’s Walkman brand, drawing on the music catalogue of a sister company, Sony BMG, the world’s No. 2 record company.

"And Nokia Corp., the world’s leading phone maker, announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. to allow mobile subscribers to load music from a PC onto their phones – much the way that a digital music player works."

Laurence Frost. Mobile Phone Industry Eyes Music Downloads. WashingtonPost.com. Feb. 14, 2005.

See also:
Chris Marlowe. Ring-a-Ding Ding for Mobile Music. Reuters. Feb. 15, 2005.

Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson to Offer Exciting Mobile Music Solution in Collaboration with Sony Group Companies. (Press Release.) Feb. 14, 2005.

Nokia. Microsoft and Nokia Collaborate to Help Ensure Consumers Can Enjoy Digital Music Anywhere. (Press Release.) Feb. 14, 2005.

(Editor�s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archives.)

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Digital technologies are often said (1) to enable a qualitatively new engagement with already existing cultural materials (for example through sampling and adaptation); and, (2) to offer a new disintermediated distribution channel to the creator. A review of secondary data on music artists’ earnings and eight in-depth interviews conducted in 2003-04 in Britain and Germany indicate that both ambitions have remained largely unfulfilled. The article discusses to what extent the structure of copyright law is to blame, and sets out a research agenda."

Martin Kretschmer. Artists’ Earnings and Copyright: A Review of German and British Music Industry Data in the Context of Digital Technologies. First Monday. Jan. 2005.

See also:
Mary Madden. Artists, Musicians and the Internet. (.pdf). Pew Internet & American Life Project. Dec. 5, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Classic-rock fan George Petersen doesn’t need another copy of Pink Floyd’s "Dark Side of the Moon" or Cream’s "Disraeli Gears." He has spent the past four decades buying and re-buying his favorite music in a succession of new formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassette, compact disc, Super Audio CD, DVD-Audio.

Enough is enough. The basement is full.

"With tonight’s 47th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles drawing attention to the ever-shifting world of the recording arts, Petersen and many other music-biz insiders agree that, in the next decade or so, the CD will very likely be surpassed as the album format of choice.

"’The new format is no format,’ predicted Petersen, a 24-year industry veteran who also owns a record label, a recording studio and a music-publishing company. ‘What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround disc, you make that.’"

Sean Daly. 10 Million iPods, Previewing the CD’s End. WashingtonPost.com. Feb. 13, 2005.

See also:
Dinesh C. Sharma. Study: Fee-based Music Gains on Swapping. News.com. Feb. 10, 2005.

(Editor’s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archives.)

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.