The Mind Trap

Labels Sue XM Over Music-Storing 'Mothership'

CNet: I was asked be interviewed about this story, but it was for radio and I live in Mexico so it wasn't going to happen. It did make me read the article though, previously I had just skimmed the title and decided it was just another mindless legal battle, but it's interesting. Basically, XM (a satellite radio station in the US) has been selling a device called the Inno which allows people to record its radio channels. The RIAA has accused XM of turning a radio service into a download service: "Because XM makes available vast catalogues of music in every genre, XM subscribers will have little need ever again to buy legitimate copies of plaintiffs' sound recordings," the lawsuit says, referring to the handheld "Inno" device."
XM replied that the Inno just allows consumers to listen to and record radio which has been legal for decades, and also points out that the device does not allow consumers to transfer recorded content and the music is not on demand...making it very little like a download service.
Except Inno doesn't just give you the chance to record straight from the channel, but to download individual songs as you hear them, which can then be added to your playlist. Songs recorded off the radio were never of very good quality and they often have things playing over the top at the beginning and end...a digital download is a different matter altogether.
I think the debate is a toss-up and will come down to legal language, but I'm inclined to go with the recording industry on this case, for once. People listen to the radio to hear new music which they then go out and buy -- if they can get the songs they like as they hear them there is little incentive to go and buy them. If it was just a "record the digital stream" function that acted like a VCR does for television I'd side with XM...
There is also the suggestion the lawsuit is a bargaining tactic since the labels are currently in talks with XM and rival Sirius to renegotiate digital royalty contracts for broadcasts. I'm not up with the details on those negotiations, but RIAA is crowing about some new legislation on the matter.

IBM Drops Patent Counterclaims in SCO Case

Data Compression News Blog: For those keeping track of the almost 4yr long IBM/SCO legal battle IBM has dropped its patent counterclaims against SCO, although it still has eight counterclaims ready to go...

Australian High Court Rules PlayStation Mod Chips Legal

GamesIndustry: This is a great day for consumers...at least, for Australian consumers. Basically, Sony sued Eddy Stevens for selling "mod chips" which get around the Playstation copy protection mechanism. The Australian High Court found that since the measures implemented by Sony didn't prevent copies being made of Playstation games, they only prevented them being played on the console, the mod chips weren't a device designed to circumvent copyright protection, which is illegal under Australian law.
Eddy Stevens had the backing of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is the only reason the legal battle made it to the high court. The ACCC argued that the mod chip should be legal because it allowed games imported from other regions to be played on the Playstation. A few years ago Australia introduced a "parallel importation" law which prevents IP owners from objecting to licensed goods imported from another country, where they may be cheaper. The ACCC argued that region encoding violated the parallel importation law, if not the letter then the spirit of the law.
I wrote about this back in 2003 for ZDNet Australia.
I'm with the ACCC on this one. Companies are always touting the benefits of globalisation and taking advantage of it whenever they can, yet they do things like region encoding which clearly works against globalisation.

Big Music's Next Target: Israel

P2PNet: Are the record labels using Israel as a test bed for new legal strategies? Nana Net-Life Magazine’s Nitzan Weidenfeld thinks so. The labels are:
"Suing the most prominent P2P sites in Israel for $110k each, even those sites who dealt with release reviews only (and held no actual links to pirated material). Furthermore, ALIS has admitted to 'monitoring the P2P networks for month, gathering information' in order to 'sue the sharers themselves'."

Three Moms Fight Record Industry Lawsuits

MP3Newswire: This is a long and in-depth post on the people who are fighting the lawsuits initiated by RIAA rather than just rolling over...one example:

Andersen contacted the recording industry, Verizon, the Settlement Support Center, US congressman David Wu and US senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, "pleading for their help and investigation," her lawyer, Lorry Lybeck, told p2pnet, going on:

"She didn't engage in any copyright infringement nor did she download or share any songs on her computer. After offering to make her computer available to the strong-arming record industry and explaining to them that she could not, and did not, engage in any prohibited conduct, the secret suit was dismissed and she was then sued in her name by another group of large record companies in federal district court in Oregon.

"The continuing victimization of Ms Anderson and the unwillingness of the record companies to conduct even the most basic investigation before turning her life upside down betrays the total lack of concern they have for any concepts of fairness, due process and the rights of the individuals who they have wrongfully targeted.

The tone of the article is very anti-record labels, and for good reason...

Authors Sue Google Over Book Plan

BBC: Authors are suing Google over its plan to digitise books, and are seeking 'class action' status...Google claims its plans benefit writers, but the authors disagree.

Update On The Baidu Thing

Forbes: "China's search engine operator Baidu.com will appeal a recent ruling from a Chinese court ordering it to pay fines for providing MP3 search technology that was deemed to violate copyrights, a company lawyer said."
Baidu was ordered to pay 68,000 yuan (about US$8,400) to Shanghai Busheng, but claims that "since Bucheng only provided Baidu with a list of copyrighted songs and not the links to the infringing websites, 'removal of links to such songs would entail 'filtering' or 'blocking' of any multimedia files containing that same file names as the names of the songs in questions.'...this would have interfered with the rights of other multimedia file owners."

Music Firms Sue Baidu Over Downloads

TelecomAsia: During many of the legal battles between recording studios and technology companies people have claimed that file-sharing programs and websites with links to music files were nothing more than search engines, and asked (in a sarcastic, rhetorical way) why the labels didn't try suing Google or another search engine. Well, now they have..."Music companies Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and their local subsidiaries are suing China's largest search engine Baidu for allegedly infringing the copyright of hundreds of songs, an AFP report said."
The labels allege that "Baidu has made it easy for users to download illegal copies of their songs via its MP3 search engine".

Comments On Kazaa

Weatherall's Law: It's good to have some extensive commentary on the Kazaa case...this blog has the issue covered fairly extensively. The main point? Both parties are going to have to work together under the oversight of the court...that's going to get catty. But if you're interested in the area (file sharing, piracy, the peculiarities of Australian law) this is a good read.

Kazaa Loses Court Case, But Will Appeal

ZDNet Australia: The music industry is claiming a win against Kazaa with the decision of Australian judge Justice Murray Wilcox. It's not an absolute win -- Wilcox threw out a number of charges and respondents -- but Kazaa has two months to makes some changes so it can remain in operation. According to ZDNet Australia, the judge ruled Kazaa had to include "non-optional keyword filter technology" in current versions of the software received by new users, in future versions of the software and exert "maximum pressure" on existing users to upgrade to a new version containing the technology, or that the Altnet search software -- called TopSearch -- is restricted to providing lists of non copyright-infringing works.
OK, the filters are a good idea, but how would they work? Will there be a central body that has digital fingerprints of copyrighted song and each file is compared against them? Record labels will claim that puts the onus on them to prevent copyright infringement -- at least, that's what publishing houses claim about Google's statement it would allow them to opt-out of having their books scanned. There are filter technologies but the general consensus is that people will find a way around them, although the more steps there are the less people who will bother. Still, maybe the record labels will finally allow their files onto p2p programs...after all, the real reason their sales are going down is because they don't offer the public what it wants.