Archive for the ‘Web & Online’ Category
E$PN Goes Premium
“American office workers can watch every play of the midday World Cup soccer games on their desktop computers — but only if they subscribe to the right Internet providers.
“In a strategy inspired by cable television, the Walt Disney Company’s ESPN sports network offers online broadcasts of the World Cup and other sporting events as premium Internet programming. Internet providers who want to offer the service, called ESPN360, must pay special fees for the right to carry it, in the same way that cable TV systems pay Disney to carry ESPN’s TV shows. So far, a handful of Internet providers, including Verizon Communications Inc., Adelphia Communications Corp., and Charter Communications Inc., have signed up for ESPN360, making it available to about 8 million US households.
“It’s a policy that could help Disney and other companies find new revenue streams for their entertainment offerings.”
Hiawatha Bray. ESPN Selling Premium Content to Net Providers. Boston.com. June 15, 2006.
Not Everyone Can Edit at Wikipedia
“Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit.” Unless you want to edit the entries on Albert Einstein, human rights in China or Christina Aguilera.
“Wikipedia’s come-one, come-all invitation to write and edit articles, and the surprisingly successful results, have captured the public imagination. But it is not the experiment in freewheeling collective creativity it might seem to be, because maintaining so much openness inevitably involves some tradeoffs.
“At its core, Wikipedia is not just a reference work but also an online community that has built itself a bureaucracy of sorts — one that, in response to well-publicized problems with some entries, has recently grown more elaborate. It has a clear power structure that gives volunteer administrators the authority to exercise editorial control, delete unsuitable articles and protect those that are vulnerable to vandalism. Those measures can put some entries outside of the ‘anyone can edit’ realm.”
Katie Hafner. Growing Wikipedia Revises Its ‘Anyone Can Edit’ Policy. The New York Times. June 17, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Senate Proposes Labeling Explicit Web Content
“Operators of commercial Web sites with sexually explicit content would have to post warning labels on each offending page or face imprisonment under a new proposal in the U.S. Senate.
“Caving to earlier demands from the U.S. Department of Justice, the 24-page proposed law focuses on a medley of new penalties related to child pornography and other sexual content on the Internet. For instance, Internet service providers that fail to report to authorities any sightings of child pornography on their networks would have to cough up fines that are triple those written into current law: $150,000 for the first violation and $300,000 thereafter.
“Called the Stop Adults’ Facilitation of the Exploitation of Youth Act, or Internet SAFETY Act, the bill actually beefs up the Justice Department’s suggested penalties for negligent Web labelers.”
Anne Broache. Web Labeling Mandate Surfaces In Senate. News.com. June 14, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
New Video Services Rip From YouTube
“Two services run by two people in Australia are giving people new ways to access and use video content from sites like YouTube and Google Video, and copyright holders may well find themselves up in arms about it.
“Known as Peekvid and Keepvid, the sister services are designed, respectively, to aggregate and index copyrighted YouTube content, and allow users to rip content from YouTube, Google Video and other services to their hard drives.
“Thus, though YouTube prohibits anyone except legitimate rights holders — such as NBC Universal, EMI Records and many others — from uploading copyrighted content to its site, such content does get posted illegally, and these sister services make it possible to easily view, and download, a wide variety of such content. A recent survey turned up clips including World Cup highlights, Beatles and 2Pac Shakur music videos, episodes of “Seinfeld,” an episode of “Lost” and dozens of other TV shows and music videos.”
Daniel Terdiman. Service Lets People Rip Videos From YouTube, Other Sites. News.com. June 14, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Did People Intentionally Leak Jolie-Pitt Baby Photos?
“After winning the very expensive rights to the first photographs of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the editors at People magazine formed a publicity plan.
“Instead, days before their official publication, the pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt cuddling their days-old infant first appeared on Gawker, PerezHilton.com and about two dozen other gossip blogs and Web sites. Some photos were taken from a bootleg copy of Hello! magazine, which had obtained the rights in Britain to the photos for a reported $3.5 million. Others that appeared later were from copies of People that the magazine says may have been stolen before official distribution. Within an hour of the first postings, lawyers for the magazine began unleashing cease-and-desist letters to the offending Web sites.
“But did the Internet publication of the pictures really undermine People’s publicity plan?”
Julie Bosman. In Web Era, Big Money Can’t Buy an Exclusive. The New York Times. June 12, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Senate Wrestles With Net Neutrality
“Taking cues from earlier proposals in the House of Representatives, key senators on Wednesday said they too are pondering legislation that would police violations of so-called Net neutrality under antitrust law.
“The idea that network operators must grant equal treatment to all Internet content and applications that use their pipes is ‘very, very high on the agenda,’ Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter said at a hearing here. Internet innovators are understandably ‘concerned their access could be cut off, degraded or become an expensive barrier to entry.’
“Specter said he was working with Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Commerce Committee, on a ‘coordinated plan’ to address the issue.”
Anne Broache. Senate Ponders Policing of Net Neutrality Offenses. News.com. June 14, 2006.
The Web 2.0 Effect on Business
“Unless you’re a diehard techie, though, good luck figuring out what Web 2.0 means. Web 2.0 technologies bear strange names like wikis, blogs, RSS, AJAX, and mashups. And the startups hawking them — Renkoo, Gahbunga, Ning, Squidoo — sound like Star Wars characters George Lucas left on the cutting-room floor.
“But behind the peculiarities, Web 2.0 portends a real sea change on the Internet. Web 2.0 sites are not online places to visit so much as services to get something done — usually with other people. From the photo-sharing site Flickr and the group-edited online reference source Wikipedia to the teen hangout MySpace, they all virtually demand active participation and social interaction.
“Though these Web 2.0 services have succeeded in luring millions of consumers to their shores, they haven’t had much to offer the vast world of business. Until now. Slowly but surely they’re scaling corporate walls.”
Robert Hof. Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning. BusinessWeek Online. June 5, 2006.
Related Stories & Documents:
- Martin LaMonica. Microsoft: Online Services For Businesses, Too. News.com. June 11, 2006.
- Tim O’Reilly. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. O’Reilly. Sept. 30, 2005.
Updates:
- Stefanie Olsen. Social Networks–Future Portal or Fad? News.com. June 14, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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