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Posts from — January 2007

The iPhone - Wow!

January 14, 2007 at 6:37 pm - by Dale Dietrich

This YouTube iPhone demo says it all! I want one!

I do have a few criticisms:

  • 8 Gigs is not enough RAM for the music and videos I’d want to carry around. 30 Gigs of storage would be my preferred minimum.
  • Cingular’s U.S. exclusivity.
  • No Canadian or other International carriers announced - though Rogers is a pretty good bet for Canada given its relationship with Yahoo! and nation-wide GSM coverage.
  • Walled-Garden - no third party apps will run on it - no SKYPE.
  • No WiFi VoIP announced.
  • EDGE only - no announced 3G support - though Steve said its planned and rumors are it already exists - until then, non-WiFi web access will be s … l … o …. w.
  • 5 hr battery life for phone or video or Internet seems a bit low for me (the 16 separate hours for audio is fine).

All that said, I still want one! Come on Rogers! Do a deal with Steve!

  • Click here for Wikipedia coverage.
  • Click here to view Jobs’ iPhone Keynote at MacWorld 2007.

Categories: New Tech

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BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack?

January 13, 2007 at 1:54 pm - by Dale Dietrich

It appears that the latest entry into the DRM arms-race, BackupHDDVD, along with the Volume Unique Keys in memory found by Doom9 forum member Musilix64, is able to isolate private keys within AACS protected HD-DVD disks needed to crack them. The cracked HD-DVD movies have made their way to torrent sites and are now circulating the globe. Some minor playback glitches have been reported, however.

Dale's Comment: I want to be clear about something. I do not endorse piracy nor the use of BitTorrent to circulate pirated copies of HD-DVD content.

I do, however, believe the DMCA unfairly criminalizes the behavior of honest consumers wishing to exercise their "fair use" rights to make copies of and/or format shift copies of content purchased by the consumer for the consumer's own personal use.  The DMCA and the WIPO Copyright Treaty unfairly take away rights that U.S. consumers have under the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright law. It is therefore understandable why consumers would choose to use software such as BackupHDDVD to exercise the rights the U.S. Copyright regime otherwise affords them. In my opinion it is copy-protection mechanisms such as AACS put in place by the content industry to penalize the activities of honest consumers that leads to massive piracy by the same consumers through BitTorrent and other P2P networks. As I've said here for years, treat honest consumers fairly and they'll purchase your products in record numbers. Treat them like criminals and they'll rebel.

Sources:  Engadget | ars technica | DigitalMusicWeblog

CONTINUE READING →

Categories: DRM Arms Race, DRM Circumvention, HD-DVD/Blu-ray

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FCC Chairman Declares No More Blanket CableCARD Waivers

January 12, 2007 at 6:06 pm - by Dale Dietrich

  Comcast Ruling (January 10, 2007)
  Cablevision Ruling (January 10, 2007)
The major U.S. cable companies can no longer avoid deploying cable-card enabled set-top boxes. Most recently Comcast had sought a waiver for set-tops that wouldn't rely on the external CableCARD to house signal-security technology. It argued this waiver would save consumers millions of dollars. Of course, the purpose of the CableCARD mandate is to open free competition, increase set-top innovation and increase consumer choice in set-top products and services such as those offered by TiVo, Microsoft's Media Center software and others without giving a preference to any one supplier/technology. Such a waiver would have given Comcast and its suppliers such a preference.

The cable industry has had seven years, plus two extensions, to separate out the security and and channel surfing functions of cable set-tops. Under the most recent FCC rules, major cable companies must start using CableCARD set-tops, and cease deploying integrated settops, starting July 1, 2007.

Comcast has said it will appeal the decision. 

Sources: MultiChannel News | Broadcasting & Cable | Engadget | ars technica | xchange  Reuters | FCC Press Release | NCTA Response

Discussed here: TiVoCommunity Forum 

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Categories: Digital TV

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Lycos Sues TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster Over

January 12, 2007 at 5:15 pm - by Dale Dietrich

U.S. Patent 6,775,664*
U.S. Patent 6,308,175*
One-time rival of Yahoo! and Google, Lycos claims that TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster infringe its two patents over the way they provide movie and television show recommendations to customers.

Dale's Comment:  *I am not certain of the patents listed above. These were cited by Davis Freeberg as the most likely patents involved.. I'll update if/when I get more information. I wonder why Amazon.com wasn't named here. The methods used by these companies to recommend content is pretty straight forward and, to me, obvious. 

Sources: DallasNews (Bloomberg) | Mercury News | SeekingAlpha | Davis Freeberg

Categories: Cases, Patents

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Warner Announces “Total Hi Def” A Hybrid HD-DVD/Blue-ray Disk

January 12, 2007 at 4:31 pm - by Dale Dietrich

Warner Home Video made a surprising announcement at CES. Starting in the 3rd quarter of  2007 it will exclusively release its HD titles on a hybrid, multi-layer, HD-DVD and  Blu-ray disk dubbed "Total Hi Def". HD-DVD formatted content will be on one side and Blu-ray formatted content will be on the other. Regardless of the HD player a consumer purchases, these disks would be playable.

In an effort to put the format wars behind (and increase sales), Warner has committed to licensing the Total Hi Def technology to any other TV/movie studio for free. Not surprisingly, fellow Time Warner properties, New Line Studios and HBO, have said they will also use the Total Hi Def format. Major retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, and Amazon.com have announced they will support this format and make Total Hi Def DVDs available through these retail channels.  No word yet from Walmart.

Dale's Comment: This is an interesting development in the high-def wars (which I personally believe HD-DVD is winning). Consumers don't want to be left in a loosing Betamax-like camp. Universal exclusively supports the HD-DVD standard. Fox, Disney and Sony, of course, exclusively support Blu-ray. Other studios support both. If Warner is licensing this this technology for free, it is possible that these studios, with the exception of Sony, could eventually support this hybrid disk approach. That said, the per-unit manufacturing costs will be higher than producing disks with one format or the other because the process requires the purchase of dual manufacturing equipment to support both formats. 

CONTINUE READING →

Categories: HD-DVD/Blu-ray, New Tech

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Steve Gibson’s Intertwined History of Copyright and Media-related Technologies

January 12, 2007 at 2:14 pm - by Dale Dietrich

  Podcast Episode 73 Transcript
Episode 73 of Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast with Leo LaPorte has a terrific primer on the intertwined history of advancements in technology making it easier for consumers to copy content, fair use, the lobbying efforts by the content industry that resulted in U.S. copyright law amendments up to and including the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, the DMCA implementing the treaty, and the detrimental effects these new laws have on consumer fair use rights.

  Click here to listen to Episode 73 of the Security Now podcast. (This will download an 8.0 MB MP3 file that your default media player should load and play). For a higher quality version of this podcast click here (32 MB).

Categories: BigMedia v NewTech, Copy Restrictions, Copyright, DMCA-like Laws, DRM Analysis, DRM Restricting Use, Fair Use/Dealing

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Wired Article: Signs Music Industry May be Abandoning DRM

January 8, 2007 at 3:53 pm - by Dale Dietrich

This Wired article, discusses the following list of reasons why the major music labels may abandon DRM in favour or water-marked MP3 Distribution:

  1. The label's don't have a choice;
  2. Apple might be forced into interoperability;
  3. Thomson has endorsed selling watermarked MP3s;
  4. Amazon is rumored to start selling MP3s by April;
  5. Sony: "DRMs are going to become less important";
  6. People love AllofMP3.com; and
  7. MP3 has future options.

Dale's Comment: There have been countless articles on this topic over the last few weeks. This Wired article is as good as any other. It presents a nice summary of the reasons why the major labels may abandon  DRM in favor of MP3 music distribution. This article falls into the category of "I'll believe it when I see it", but I do see it as an inevitability. I just don't see it happening as quickly as the recent optimistic bloggers do. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Source: Wired News

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Categories: Big Media Makes Progress, DRM-Free Services, FYI, New Business Models

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French Court Rules Sony’s Portable Music Player & Download Service Breach Linked Sales Laws

January 8, 2007 at 3:17 pm - by Dale Dietrich

A French court ruled that Sony's tying sales of music to a single type of portable music player, breached French law forbidding such "linked sales".  The Court also ruled that Sony mislead its customers by not making it clear on its portable music player packaging that it could only play music downloaded from Sony's own Connect music store. 

Importantly, the court did not go so far as to forbid the use of DRM, however.  

Sony was ordered to: (i) pay a fine of 10,000 euros ($13,000); (ii) henceforth state on its music-player packaging that the product only play songs downloaded from Sony's own Connect music store; and (iii) publish the information on its French website homepage.

Sources: The Australian | AgroVox | Euro2Day | Daily India | Washington Times | MSNBC

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Categories: Antitrust, DRM Restricting Use, Decisions

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Apple iTunes DRM-Antitrust Case to Continue (Tucker v. Apple)

January 8, 2007 at 2:53 pm - by Dale Dietrich

From the Thomas Slattery case back in January of 2005 till now there have been several lawsuits brought against Apple alleging Apple's use of proprietary DRM schemes limiting music purchased from iTunes to playing back only on portable devices manufactured by Apple as anti-competitive.

A U.S. District court recently denied Apple's motion to dismiss the Tucker v. Apple case (filed in July 2006) similarly alleging, among other things, that:

Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice and restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets.

In denying Apple's request, U.S. District Court James concluded,  

"the existence of valid business reasons in antitrust cases is generally a question of fact not appropriate for resolution at the motion to dismiss stage.

Melanie Tucker is seeking class status, wants Apple to be enjoined from tieing music bought on iTunes to iPods as the only possible portable playback device for such music plus unspecified damages for all persons that purchased music from iTunes since April of 2004. 

Sources: Engadget | WebProNews | Ecommerce Times | GameShout | Home Media Magazine | Active Home | Computer World | Macworld | ITNews | P2PNet | ZDNet Blogs  Yahoo! News (AP)

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Categories: Antitrust, Cases, DRM Restricting Use

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