NOVEMBER 2006
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TV - Quebecor Calls for TV Ads Revamp at CRTC Hearings by Paul Vieira, Financial Post November 28, 2006 GATINEAU, Que. -- One of the country’s top media executives has called for the CRTC to blow up the rules governing television advertising, advocating for a new regime in which broadcasters would be free to air as many commercials as they saw fit. Pierre Karl Péladeau, chief executive of Quebecor Media Inc., testified Tuesday, the second day of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings on the television industry. Currently, broadcasters, such as Quebecor’s TVA, are limited to 12 minutes of paid ads per hour. In his testimony, Mr. Péladeau and other senior Quebecor executives said it is time to let the market, and viewers, determine how much advertising should be aired. "In the current and foreseeable Quebec market, it is not in any way in TVA’s interest to abuse available commercial air time," Quebecor said in its brief. But John Cassaday, chief executive of Corus Entertainment Inc., disagreed with Quebecor on complete ad deregulation, and said the 12-minute-per-hour limit should be kept. "We’ve come to that view out of respect to our advertisers, who have been unequivocal," Mr. Cassaday told reporters. "Their feeling is that a major concern would be clutter and they don’t want the environment more cluttered then it is now." Meanwhile, Mr. Cassaday also told the committee it is time to liberalize rules governing product placement and drug advertising. It is not up to the CRTC to change the rules regarding drug advertising. That responsibility belongs to Health Canada. Current restrictions on consumer advertising by drugmakers have made it much less attractive as a form of marketing. Companies are not allowed to name a drug along with the symptoms it treats in the same commercial, meaning that campaigns often end up delivering a vague message to consumers. Mr. Cassaday said he realized it is out of the CRTC’s purview, but suggested the broadcast regulator could persuade lawmakers of the merit of changing the rules. The CRTC hearings are aimed at formulating new policy for the over-the-air, or conventional, broadcasters who generally transit through analog signals. The key issue that has emerged is how conventional broadcasters can thrive financially in an environment in which ad revenue growth is stagnant, households have more choice in terms of programming, and technology is changing how people catch their favourite programs.
As a result, analog broadcasters are seeking new forms of revenue — either through looser rules governing advertising or a subscription fee from cable and satellite distributors for carrying their signal. New sources of revenue are needed, they argue, to level the playing field, as conventional broadcasters rely solely on advertising while their specialty rivals pocket subscription fees and sales from commercials. Changes to the ad rules have emerged as a second, or complimentary, option to subscription fees — which cable and satellite providers are set against. Besides Quebecor, CanWest Global Communications Corp. also has pushed for greater flexibility in the advertising rules. Leonard Asper, the chief executive, has argued, for instance, that Canadian-made infomercials should be treated as Canadian content under CRTC rules, and for greater freedom on product placement. (CanWest is the owner of the National Post.)
Meanwhile, Quebecor called for the CRTC to rely on market forces in shaping future TV policy. While it backed a subscription fee for conventional players, Mr. Péladeau said those fees should not be set by the CRTC but negotiated among the analog and digital broadcasters, as well as cable and satellite distributors. But the head of TV broadcasting for Rogers Communications Inc. warned the regulator about a potential Pandora’s Box it might open by introducing a fee. "This could set a precedent that any [analog] broadcaster that found themselves in fiscal distress could find a way to ‘Chapter 11’ their business," Leslie Hope said, in reference to the shelter available under U.S. law for insolvent companies. "It will change the systems a lot more than contemplated."
MUSIC - Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards - The awards, handed out in Toronto this week are part of the three-day Canadian Aboriginal Festival that includes powwows and an arts and crafts fair. Each category of the awards was judged by a panel of five to seven individuals from across Canada who are active members of the professional Canadian music industry. Each panel also has aboriginal members.
COPYRIGHT - U.S. copyright office issues six new rights, including cell phone reuse by A.Jesdanun (AP) - Cell phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets in order to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules. Other copyright exemptions approved by the Library of Congress will let film professors copy snippets from DVDs for educational compilations and let blind people use special software to read copy-protected electronic books. All told, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington approved six exemptions, the most his Copyright Office has ever granted. For the first time, the office exempted groups of users. Previously, Billington took an all-or-nothing approach, making exemptions difficult to justify."I am very encouraged by the fact that the Copyright Office is willing to recognize exemptions for archivists, cell phone recyclers and computer security experts," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Frankly I'm surprised and pleased they were granted." But von Lohmann said he was disappointed the Copyright Office rejected a number of exemptions that could have benefited consumers, including one that would have let owners of DVDs legally copy movies for use on Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and other portable players.The new rules will take effect Monday and expire in three years. In granting the exemption for cell phone users, the Copyright Office determined that consumers aren't able to enjoy full legal use of their handsets because of software locks that wireless providers have been placing to control access to phones' underlying programs. Providers of prepaid phone services, in particular, have been trying to stop entrepreneurs from buying subsidized handsets to resell at a profit. But even customers of regular plans generally can't bring their phones to another carrier, even after their contracts run out. Billington noted that at least one company has filed lawsuits claiming that breaking the software locks violates copyright law, which makes it illegal for people to circumvent copy-protection technologies without an exemption from the Copyright Office. He said the locks appeared in place not to protect the developer of the cell phone software but for third-party interests. Officials with the industry group CTIA-The Wireless Association did not return phone calls for comment Wednesday. The exemption granted to film professors authorizes the breaking of the CSS copy-protection technology found in most DVDs. Programs to do so circulate widely on the Internet, though it has been illegal to use or distribute them. The professors said they need the ability to create compilations of DVD snippets to teach their classes - for example, taking portions of old and new cartoons to study how animation has evolved. Such compilations are generally permitted under "fair use" provisions of copyright law, but breaking the locks to make the compilations has been illegal. Hollywood studios have argued that educators could turn to videotapes and other versions without the copy protections, but the professors argued that DVDs are of higher quality and may preserve the original colors or dimensions that videotapes lack. "The record did not reveal any alternative means to meet the pedagogical needs of the professors," Billington wrote. Billington also authorized the breaking of locks on electronic books so that blind people can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides. He granted two exemptions dealing with computer obsolescence. For computer software and video games that require machines no longer available, copy-protection controls may be circumvented for archival purposes. Locks on computer programs also may be broken if they require dongles - small computer attachments - that are damaged and can't be replaced. The final exemption lets researchers test CD copy-protection technologies for security flaws or vulnerabilities. Researchers had cited Sony BMG Music Entertainment's use of copy-protection systems that installed themselves on personal computers to limit copying. In doing so, critics say, Sony BMG exposed the computers to hacking, and the company has acknowledged problems with one of the technologies used on some 5.7 million CDs.
TV - International Emmy Awards organized by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is the largest organization of global broadcasters, with members from nearly 70 countries and over 400 companies. Sixty percent of the Board of Directors come from countries based outside of the U.S, and represents the world's largest production, distribution and broadcast companies.
MUSIC & INTERNET - Napster vs Itunes (AP) 16nov06 -- It’s now a week or two since the new, revitalised and thoroughly legal Napster relaunched their service as a digital music store, and the fun has already begun. That’s because Apple, hot on the heels of their iTunes service moving onto PC, have said that they are well ahead of Napster, with five times more songs being downloaded via iTunes. Apple have also been quick to quote independent analysis that gives them an 80% market share of the legally bought downloads market, although Napster are understandably upbeat about selling over 200,000 in their first seven days’ trading. The firm claim to be well ahead of expectations.
BOOKS - Le Salon du livre de Montréal ouvre tout grand ses portes à la lecture et accueille dans le grand hall d’exposition de la Place Bonaventure des milliers de visiteurs prêts à vivre une aventure exaltante qui redonne de la chaleur au corps et à l’esprit. Du 16 au 20 novembre prochain, auteurs, illustrateurs et éditeurs déballeront pour vous sur des kilomètres et des kilomètres tout un monde de mots et d’images à découvrir! Le Salon du livre de Montréal est membre de l’Association québécoise des Salons du livre et de l’Association de professionnels en exposition du Québec.
BOOKS - Court rejects appeal on Brown's "Da Vinci Code" - Nov 13, 2006 (Reuters) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear an appeal by author Lewis Perdue who said that parts of Dan Brown's bestseller, "The Da Vinci Code," was copied from one of his novels. Without comment, the justices declined to review a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York that the two books are not substantially similar and that Brown's suspense novel does not infringe on the other book's copyright. The appeals court upheld a similar ruling by a federal judge. "The Da Vinci Code" has more than 40 million hardcover copies in print worldwide and remains on best-seller lists three years after its publication. The book, which has a complex plot that partially hinges on Leonardo Da Vinci's art, has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church because the story is based on the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had children. Perdue's novel, "Daughter of God," was published in 2000. He sought $150 million in damages. Brown and his publisher, Random House, urged the Supreme Court to reject Perdue's appeal and said the books had radically different plots, characters and settings. Perdue's novel "is a 'shoot-em-up' thriller involving Nazis and Russian mafia, where husband and wife protagonists battle an ultranationalist Russian leader and a megalomaniacal cardinal seeking to depose the pope," lawyers for Brown and Random House said.
INTERNET - Cybersquatting is the act of registering a popular Internet address--usually a company or famous person's name--with the intent of selling it to its rightful owner. Comparing cybersquatting to online extortion, a U.S. Senator has introduced to Congress the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. This bill, if enacted, would make cybersquatting illegal. Violators would be charged a fine of up to $300,000. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has also outlined anti-cybersquatting tactics, which have been endorsed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - ironically enough, someone recently registered www.wipo.com in order to sell it back to WIPO for several thousand dollars). Even though legislation has not been enacted, almost all cybersquatting court-case decisions are against cybersquatters. According to the U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price, an act which some deem to be extortion. The term is derived from "squatting", which is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Cybersquatting is however, a bit different in that the domain names that are being "squatted" are being paid for through the registration process by the Cybersquatters. Cybersquatters usually ask for prices far greater than that at which they purchased it. Some cybersquatters put up derogatory remarks about the person or company the domain is meant to represent in an effort to encourage the subject to buy the domain from them. As with many controversial issues some argue that this practice is consistent with a capitalistic and free market ethos. Cybersquatters sometimes register variants of popular trademarked names, a practice known as "typosquatting." Cybersquatting is one of the most loosely used terms related to domain name intellectual property law and is often incorrectly used to refer to the sale or purchase of generic domain names such as shoes.com; where a covetous party has designs on unseating the entity that was first to register. source: webopedia
TRADEMARK & SPORTS - England football star Wayne Rooney has won a legal battle for the ownership of a website in the player's name -- BBC News 2006 - England football star Wayne Rooney has won a legal battle against a Welsh TV actor for the ownership of a website in the player's name. Everton fan Huw Marshall, from Wrexham, registered WayneRooney.com in April 2002, when the striker was just 16. The case had been taken to the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. A ruling was made that the domain name must be handed to the Manchester United striker and his management company. A World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) panel said the present owner's claim he had registered the domain in order to create a fan site was "a difficult story to swallow". It added that the current owner acted in "bad faith" when he registered the domain, and that it should be handed over to Rooney within 10 days unless the decision is challenged in a civil court. The WIPO panel was set up in 1999 to allow those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight costly legal battles or pay large sums to so-called cybersquatters. Mr Marshall, an actor who appears in S4C's Welsh-language drama Tipyn o Stad, registered the domain six months before Rooney's profile soared after scoring a last minute goal for Everton against Arsenal. The strike made him the Premiership's youngest goal-scorer at the time. Mr Marshall, a lifelong Everton fan, said he had registered the name after seeing Rooney play in April 2002, with the view to setting up an Everton-based website. But the actor said he never got round to building the site and then Rooney had left Everton for Manchester United. 'Huge legal documents' "His agent actually contacted me back in 2002 before they registered Wayne Rooney as a trademark asking to purchase the website. "I said if they wanted it they were more than welcome to have it, but then that fizzled out and they never got back to me," he said. Mr Marshall said he had fought the action because of the way Rooney's agents had handled the issue. "They hadn't contacted me for four years and then the next thing I know I'm getting huge legal documents from Geneva saying I'm denying poor young Wayne a living," he said. "Unfortunately he gets the domain name back and I'm faced with a legal bill of over £6,000."
MUSIC - Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame announces 2007 inductees (CP) 10nov2006 -- Folk singer Joni Mitchell and old-time country legend Wilf Carter are among those to be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF).The names of four songwriters, 25 songs and two Legacy Award recipients were announced at a press conference at Toronto’s King Edward hotel hosted by singer/songwriter Kim Stockwood. Singers Marc-Andre Fortin, Sophie Milman, Joel Plaskett, Marie-Eve Janvier, and The Trews performed the songs of some the inductees. Also being inducted are Quebec singer-songwriter Jean-Pierre Ferland and Broadway and movie composer Raymond Egan. Prolific songwriters Henry Burr and producer Sam Gesser will receive the Legacy Award.Among the songs to be honoured are "How About You" by Ralph Freed and Burton Lane and "You Were On My Mind" by Sylvia Fricker (formerly Tyson)."It's wonderful because that's what my ego is wrapped up in... my songs, not myself as a performer. I think I'm a better songwriter than I am a performer," Fricker told canada.com.She said being recognized by the CSHF is important. "It introduces a whole new generation of people to the material, which is wonderful."Also honoured at the 2007 gala will be "Spinning Wheel" by David Clayton Thomas, a song that has been recorded by more than 400 artists in 20 different languages since he wrote it in Toronto in 1967."As a songwriter it's an especially great honour," said Thomas. "There are so many great songwriters in Canada so to be in that kind of company is an honour in itself."Thomas said continues to be stunned by the popularity of the song. "In concert I've been singing it for 35 years. It's become a necessity now and I still enjoy doing it. When someone comes to my concert they want to hear 'Spinning Wheel.' You see the audience light up when you go into the first notes of it. It's a joy."A number of francophone songwriters will be recognized for their work, including Muriel Millard for "Dans nos vieilles maisons and Georges Langford for "Le Frigidaire." The fourth annual gala ceremony will take place Jan. 28 in Toronto. Tickets are now on sale through the CSHF Web site and organizers promise an all-star roster of talent. The show will be broadcast on CBC Radio on Jan. 29 and will air on CBC Television on March 5. Last year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame gala honoured songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Gilles Vigneault and attracted performers like Willie Nelson, k.d. lang and Jann Arden.To date, the Hall of Fame has inducted 17 songwriters, 59 songs and eight industry legends.
MUSIC - Country Music Association Awards (CMA) were recently held in Nashville, Tennessee. Recognized worldwide as "Country Music's Biggest Night," the CMA Awards represent the pinnacle of achievement for Country Music artists, musicians, producers, publishers, songwriters, video directors and industry executives who work in America's most popular music genre. "The 40th Annual CMA Awards" featured a wide variety of exceptional talent throughout the three-hour live broadcast.
MUSIC - 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards were recently held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The MTV Europe Music Awards were established in 1994 by MTV Europe to celebrate the most popular music videos in Europe. Originally beginning as an alternative to the American MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards is today a popular celebration of what MTV viewers consider the best in music. Unlike the VMAs, most of the awards are voted for by the viewers. MTV Europe Music Awards always changes its host city. Up until now Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom hosted the event twice. The awards are presented annually and broadcast live on MTV Europe, MTV and most of the International MTV channels as well as online.
TV - Gemini Awards -- The Geminis celebrate excellence in Canadian English-language television, acknowledging our country's triumphs in 87 award categories, in three gala presentations. Since its first broadcast in 1986, the event has grown in prominence and stature to become one of the most prestigious cultural events in Canada. This year marks the 21st anniversary of the awards.
COPYRIGHT - Putting online video to the copyright test by Greg Sandovat, CNET News Nov 1, 2006 -- As copyright issues loom, online video sites are casting about for ways to screen material for music videos and film clips. For the past year, the popularity of social networking and video sharing online has lighted up the technology sector. The stars of each category respectively are MySpace, with more than 50 million registered users, and YouTube, which presents more than 100 million videos daily. Now powerful entertainment conglomerates increasingly want these sites to strip themselves of copyright material. But the nail-biting truth is that while strides are being made in developing ways to weed out copyright work in audio files, little headway has been made in finding an effective way to review video. "No one has figured it out yet," said an executive from a networking site who requested anonymity due to his negotiations with filtering companies. "But there's a busload of money waiting for whoever does." Some companies are getting closer. MySpace took steps on Monday to eliminate unauthorized music from reaching the site. To do it, MySpace turned to a new technology from audio-recognition company Gracenote that identifies waveforms unique to every digital recording. Gracenote scans music downloaded to MySpace and cross checks songs with those in the Emeryville, Calif., company's 10 million-song database, according to Jim Hollingsworth, Gracenote's senior vice president of sales and marketing. The system only needs a few seconds worth of music to identify the music and discern whether a song is copyrighted. Not surprisingly, business is booming at Gracenote. Founded in 1998, Gracenote has attracted a lot of attention from executives at video-sharing and social-networking companies in recent weeks. MySpace executives took only three days to agree to the deal with Gracenote, according to Hollingsworth. "There are literally hundreds of companies looking for solutions," he said. When it comes to video, most companies that allow users to upload videos without any prescreening rely on technology that analyzes a digital file's binary code, or the series of 1s and 0s, for something recognizable. But this method has been criticized because all anyone needs to do to beat the system is alter the clip, such as increasing or decreasing the length of the video by just a few seconds. Several companies, including Gracenote, are working on developing better video filters. Guba, a video-sharing site based in San Francisco, has created a method that works for video much like Gracenote works for audio, said Peter Szatmari, Guba's vice president of business development. "Johnny" is the name of Guba's image-recognition technology, which involves creating digital signatures of copyright material. Szatmari declined to explain the details of the system but said that it uses still photos and 3D technology to scan videos and check them against the company's database of copyright work. This means that Johnny, which has been endorsed by the Motion Picture Association of America, will recognize a clip even if the video has been coded in a different format or the length has been altered. Nothing is completely foolproof, Szatmari acknowledges. New TV shows or movies may not be in Guba's database and that means there's nothing to check against when users try to upload the latest "Lost" episode before Guba technicians have had time to include the show in the database. Another groundbreaker in the so-called acoustic fingerprinting area is Audible Magic, a Los Gatos, Calif., company. Audible Magic's technology also matches the digital fingerprint of a song with a database of copyright music. Meanwhile, companies such as PhotoBucket and Revver are doing it the old-fashioned way--relying on humans to look at each frame uploaded to their sites. Said Revver CEO Steven Starr in an interview last week: "We're going to ensure that this site doesn't cheat content creators out of one cent. Nothing goes on our site unless someone has taken a look at it."
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - MySpace to crack down on sharing copyrighted music: Company will deploy music fingerprinting technology to prevent uploads - 01nov06 (AP) -- MySpace announced it is cracking down on users posting unauthorized copyrighted music to its website. To accomplish this, the company announced a license agreement with Gracenote, which is offering a technology called MusicID fingerprinting in association with its Global Media Database.The technology will allow MySpace to identify copyrighted music to block its upload to the site. Should a user continue to attempt to upload copyrighted music to the website, they will have their account permanently deleted. GraceNote's database includes 3.8 million CDs, 48 million tracks, 7 million audio waveform fingerprints, and content in over 80 languages. Gracenote used to be formerly known as CDDB. Under that name, the company offered CD recognition technology in 1995.
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TV - Quebecor Calls for TV Ads Revamp at CRTC Hearings by Paul Vieira, Financial Post November 28, 2006 GATINEAU, Que. -- One of the country’s top media executives has called for the CRTC to blow up the rules governing television advertising, advocating for a new regime in which broadcasters would be free to air as many commercials as they saw fit. Pierre Karl Péladeau, chief executive of Quebecor Media Inc., testified Tuesday, the second day of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings on the television industry. Currently, broadcasters, such as Quebecor’s TVA, are limited to 12 minutes of paid ads per hour. In his testimony, Mr. Péladeau and other senior Quebecor executives said it is time to let the market, and viewers, determine how much advertising should be aired. "In the current and foreseeable Quebec market, it is not in any way in TVA’s interest to abuse available commercial air time," Quebecor said in its brief. But John Cassaday, chief executive of Corus Entertainment Inc., disagreed with Quebecor on complete ad deregulation, and said the 12-minute-per-hour limit should be kept. "We’ve come to that view out of respect to our advertisers, who have been unequivocal," Mr. Cassaday told reporters. "Their feeling is that a major concern would be clutter and they don’t want the environment more cluttered then it is now." Meanwhile, Mr. Cassaday also told the committee it is time to liberalize rules governing product placement and drug advertising. It is not up to the CRTC to change the rules regarding drug advertising. That responsibility belongs to Health Canada. Current restrictions on consumer advertising by drugmakers have made it much less attractive as a form of marketing. Companies are not allowed to name a drug along with the symptoms it treats in the same commercial, meaning that campaigns often end up delivering a vague message to consumers. Mr. Cassaday said he realized it is out of the CRTC’s purview, but suggested the broadcast regulator could persuade lawmakers of the merit of changing the rules. The CRTC hearings are aimed at formulating new policy for the over-the-air, or conventional, broadcasters who generally transit through analog signals. The key issue that has emerged is how conventional broadcasters can thrive financially in an environment in which ad revenue growth is stagnant, households have more choice in terms of programming, and technology is changing how people catch their favourite programs.
As a result, analog broadcasters are seeking new forms of revenue — either through looser rules governing advertising or a subscription fee from cable and satellite distributors for carrying their signal. New sources of revenue are needed, they argue, to level the playing field, as conventional broadcasters rely solely on advertising while their specialty rivals pocket subscription fees and sales from commercials. Changes to the ad rules have emerged as a second, or complimentary, option to subscription fees — which cable and satellite providers are set against. Besides Quebecor, CanWest Global Communications Corp. also has pushed for greater flexibility in the advertising rules. Leonard Asper, the chief executive, has argued, for instance, that Canadian-made infomercials should be treated as Canadian content under CRTC rules, and for greater freedom on product placement. (CanWest is the owner of the National Post.)
Meanwhile, Quebecor called for the CRTC to rely on market forces in shaping future TV policy. While it backed a subscription fee for conventional players, Mr. Péladeau said those fees should not be set by the CRTC but negotiated among the analog and digital broadcasters, as well as cable and satellite distributors. But the head of TV broadcasting for Rogers Communications Inc. warned the regulator about a potential Pandora’s Box it might open by introducing a fee. "This could set a precedent that any [analog] broadcaster that found themselves in fiscal distress could find a way to ‘Chapter 11’ their business," Leslie Hope said, in reference to the shelter available under U.S. law for insolvent companies. "It will change the systems a lot more than contemplated."
MUSIC - Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards - The awards, handed out in Toronto this week are part of the three-day Canadian Aboriginal Festival that includes powwows and an arts and crafts fair. Each category of the awards was judged by a panel of five to seven individuals from across Canada who are active members of the professional Canadian music industry. Each panel also has aboriginal members.
COPYRIGHT - U.S. copyright office issues six new rights, including cell phone reuse by A.Jesdanun (AP) - Cell phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets in order to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules. Other copyright exemptions approved by the Library of Congress will let film professors copy snippets from DVDs for educational compilations and let blind people use special software to read copy-protected electronic books. All told, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington approved six exemptions, the most his Copyright Office has ever granted. For the first time, the office exempted groups of users. Previously, Billington took an all-or-nothing approach, making exemptions difficult to justify."I am very encouraged by the fact that the Copyright Office is willing to recognize exemptions for archivists, cell phone recyclers and computer security experts," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Frankly I'm surprised and pleased they were granted." But von Lohmann said he was disappointed the Copyright Office rejected a number of exemptions that could have benefited consumers, including one that would have let owners of DVDs legally copy movies for use on Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and other portable players.The new rules will take effect Monday and expire in three years. In granting the exemption for cell phone users, the Copyright Office determined that consumers aren't able to enjoy full legal use of their handsets because of software locks that wireless providers have been placing to control access to phones' underlying programs. Providers of prepaid phone services, in particular, have been trying to stop entrepreneurs from buying subsidized handsets to resell at a profit. But even customers of regular plans generally can't bring their phones to another carrier, even after their contracts run out. Billington noted that at least one company has filed lawsuits claiming that breaking the software locks violates copyright law, which makes it illegal for people to circumvent copy-protection technologies without an exemption from the Copyright Office. He said the locks appeared in place not to protect the developer of the cell phone software but for third-party interests. Officials with the industry group CTIA-The Wireless Association did not return phone calls for comment Wednesday. The exemption granted to film professors authorizes the breaking of the CSS copy-protection technology found in most DVDs. Programs to do so circulate widely on the Internet, though it has been illegal to use or distribute them. The professors said they need the ability to create compilations of DVD snippets to teach their classes - for example, taking portions of old and new cartoons to study how animation has evolved. Such compilations are generally permitted under "fair use" provisions of copyright law, but breaking the locks to make the compilations has been illegal. Hollywood studios have argued that educators could turn to videotapes and other versions without the copy protections, but the professors argued that DVDs are of higher quality and may preserve the original colors or dimensions that videotapes lack. "The record did not reveal any alternative means to meet the pedagogical needs of the professors," Billington wrote. Billington also authorized the breaking of locks on electronic books so that blind people can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides. He granted two exemptions dealing with computer obsolescence. For computer software and video games that require machines no longer available, copy-protection controls may be circumvented for archival purposes. Locks on computer programs also may be broken if they require dongles - small computer attachments - that are damaged and can't be replaced. The final exemption lets researchers test CD copy-protection technologies for security flaws or vulnerabilities. Researchers had cited Sony BMG Music Entertainment's use of copy-protection systems that installed themselves on personal computers to limit copying. In doing so, critics say, Sony BMG exposed the computers to hacking, and the company has acknowledged problems with one of the technologies used on some 5.7 million CDs.
TV - International Emmy Awards organized by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is the largest organization of global broadcasters, with members from nearly 70 countries and over 400 companies. Sixty percent of the Board of Directors come from countries based outside of the U.S, and represents the world's largest production, distribution and broadcast companies.
MUSIC & INTERNET - Napster vs Itunes (AP) 16nov06 -- It’s now a week or two since the new, revitalised and thoroughly legal Napster relaunched their service as a digital music store, and the fun has already begun. That’s because Apple, hot on the heels of their iTunes service moving onto PC, have said that they are well ahead of Napster, with five times more songs being downloaded via iTunes. Apple have also been quick to quote independent analysis that gives them an 80% market share of the legally bought downloads market, although Napster are understandably upbeat about selling over 200,000 in their first seven days’ trading. The firm claim to be well ahead of expectations.
BOOKS - Le Salon du livre de Montréal ouvre tout grand ses portes à la lecture et accueille dans le grand hall d’exposition de la Place Bonaventure des milliers de visiteurs prêts à vivre une aventure exaltante qui redonne de la chaleur au corps et à l’esprit. Du 16 au 20 novembre prochain, auteurs, illustrateurs et éditeurs déballeront pour vous sur des kilomètres et des kilomètres tout un monde de mots et d’images à découvrir! Le Salon du livre de Montréal est membre de l’Association québécoise des Salons du livre et de l’Association de professionnels en exposition du Québec.
BOOKS - Court rejects appeal on Brown's "Da Vinci Code" - Nov 13, 2006 (Reuters) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear an appeal by author Lewis Perdue who said that parts of Dan Brown's bestseller, "The Da Vinci Code," was copied from one of his novels. Without comment, the justices declined to review a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York that the two books are not substantially similar and that Brown's suspense novel does not infringe on the other book's copyright. The appeals court upheld a similar ruling by a federal judge. "The Da Vinci Code" has more than 40 million hardcover copies in print worldwide and remains on best-seller lists three years after its publication. The book, which has a complex plot that partially hinges on Leonardo Da Vinci's art, has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church because the story is based on the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had children. Perdue's novel, "Daughter of God," was published in 2000. He sought $150 million in damages. Brown and his publisher, Random House, urged the Supreme Court to reject Perdue's appeal and said the books had radically different plots, characters and settings. Perdue's novel "is a 'shoot-em-up' thriller involving Nazis and Russian mafia, where husband and wife protagonists battle an ultranationalist Russian leader and a megalomaniacal cardinal seeking to depose the pope," lawyers for Brown and Random House said.
INTERNET - Cybersquatting is the act of registering a popular Internet address--usually a company or famous person's name--with the intent of selling it to its rightful owner. Comparing cybersquatting to online extortion, a U.S. Senator has introduced to Congress the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. This bill, if enacted, would make cybersquatting illegal. Violators would be charged a fine of up to $300,000. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has also outlined anti-cybersquatting tactics, which have been endorsed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - ironically enough, someone recently registered www.wipo.com in order to sell it back to WIPO for several thousand dollars). Even though legislation has not been enacted, almost all cybersquatting court-case decisions are against cybersquatters. According to the U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price, an act which some deem to be extortion. The term is derived from "squatting", which is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Cybersquatting is however, a bit different in that the domain names that are being "squatted" are being paid for through the registration process by the Cybersquatters. Cybersquatters usually ask for prices far greater than that at which they purchased it. Some cybersquatters put up derogatory remarks about the person or company the domain is meant to represent in an effort to encourage the subject to buy the domain from them. As with many controversial issues some argue that this practice is consistent with a capitalistic and free market ethos. Cybersquatters sometimes register variants of popular trademarked names, a practice known as "typosquatting." Cybersquatting is one of the most loosely used terms related to domain name intellectual property law and is often incorrectly used to refer to the sale or purchase of generic domain names such as shoes.com; where a covetous party has designs on unseating the entity that was first to register. source: webopedia
TRADEMARK & SPORTS - England football star Wayne Rooney has won a legal battle for the ownership of a website in the player's name -- BBC News 2006 - England football star Wayne Rooney has won a legal battle against a Welsh TV actor for the ownership of a website in the player's name. Everton fan Huw Marshall, from Wrexham, registered WayneRooney.com in April 2002, when the striker was just 16. The case had been taken to the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. A ruling was made that the domain name must be handed to the Manchester United striker and his management company. A World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) panel said the present owner's claim he had registered the domain in order to create a fan site was "a difficult story to swallow". It added that the current owner acted in "bad faith" when he registered the domain, and that it should be handed over to Rooney within 10 days unless the decision is challenged in a civil court. The WIPO panel was set up in 1999 to allow those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight costly legal battles or pay large sums to so-called cybersquatters. Mr Marshall, an actor who appears in S4C's Welsh-language drama Tipyn o Stad, registered the domain six months before Rooney's profile soared after scoring a last minute goal for Everton against Arsenal. The strike made him the Premiership's youngest goal-scorer at the time. Mr Marshall, a lifelong Everton fan, said he had registered the name after seeing Rooney play in April 2002, with the view to setting up an Everton-based website. But the actor said he never got round to building the site and then Rooney had left Everton for Manchester United. 'Huge legal documents' "His agent actually contacted me back in 2002 before they registered Wayne Rooney as a trademark asking to purchase the website. "I said if they wanted it they were more than welcome to have it, but then that fizzled out and they never got back to me," he said. Mr Marshall said he had fought the action because of the way Rooney's agents had handled the issue. "They hadn't contacted me for four years and then the next thing I know I'm getting huge legal documents from Geneva saying I'm denying poor young Wayne a living," he said. "Unfortunately he gets the domain name back and I'm faced with a legal bill of over £6,000."
MUSIC - Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame announces 2007 inductees (CP) 10nov2006 -- Folk singer Joni Mitchell and old-time country legend Wilf Carter are among those to be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF).The names of four songwriters, 25 songs and two Legacy Award recipients were announced at a press conference at Toronto’s King Edward hotel hosted by singer/songwriter Kim Stockwood. Singers Marc-Andre Fortin, Sophie Milman, Joel Plaskett, Marie-Eve Janvier, and The Trews performed the songs of some the inductees. Also being inducted are Quebec singer-songwriter Jean-Pierre Ferland and Broadway and movie composer Raymond Egan. Prolific songwriters Henry Burr and producer Sam Gesser will receive the Legacy Award.Among the songs to be honoured are "How About You" by Ralph Freed and Burton Lane and "You Were On My Mind" by Sylvia Fricker (formerly Tyson)."It's wonderful because that's what my ego is wrapped up in... my songs, not myself as a performer. I think I'm a better songwriter than I am a performer," Fricker told canada.com.She said being recognized by the CSHF is important. "It introduces a whole new generation of people to the material, which is wonderful."Also honoured at the 2007 gala will be "Spinning Wheel" by David Clayton Thomas, a song that has been recorded by more than 400 artists in 20 different languages since he wrote it in Toronto in 1967."As a songwriter it's an especially great honour," said Thomas. "There are so many great songwriters in Canada so to be in that kind of company is an honour in itself."Thomas said continues to be stunned by the popularity of the song. "In concert I've been singing it for 35 years. It's become a necessity now and I still enjoy doing it. When someone comes to my concert they want to hear 'Spinning Wheel.' You see the audience light up when you go into the first notes of it. It's a joy."A number of francophone songwriters will be recognized for their work, including Muriel Millard for "Dans nos vieilles maisons and Georges Langford for "Le Frigidaire." The fourth annual gala ceremony will take place Jan. 28 in Toronto. Tickets are now on sale through the CSHF Web site and organizers promise an all-star roster of talent. The show will be broadcast on CBC Radio on Jan. 29 and will air on CBC Television on March 5. Last year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame gala honoured songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Gilles Vigneault and attracted performers like Willie Nelson, k.d. lang and Jann Arden.To date, the Hall of Fame has inducted 17 songwriters, 59 songs and eight industry legends.
MUSIC - Country Music Association Awards (CMA) were recently held in Nashville, Tennessee. Recognized worldwide as "Country Music's Biggest Night," the CMA Awards represent the pinnacle of achievement for Country Music artists, musicians, producers, publishers, songwriters, video directors and industry executives who work in America's most popular music genre. "The 40th Annual CMA Awards" featured a wide variety of exceptional talent throughout the three-hour live broadcast.
MUSIC - 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards were recently held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The MTV Europe Music Awards were established in 1994 by MTV Europe to celebrate the most popular music videos in Europe. Originally beginning as an alternative to the American MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards is today a popular celebration of what MTV viewers consider the best in music. Unlike the VMAs, most of the awards are voted for by the viewers. MTV Europe Music Awards always changes its host city. Up until now Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom hosted the event twice. The awards are presented annually and broadcast live on MTV Europe, MTV and most of the International MTV channels as well as online.
TV - Gemini Awards -- The Geminis celebrate excellence in Canadian English-language television, acknowledging our country's triumphs in 87 award categories, in three gala presentations. Since its first broadcast in 1986, the event has grown in prominence and stature to become one of the most prestigious cultural events in Canada. This year marks the 21st anniversary of the awards.
COPYRIGHT - Putting online video to the copyright test by Greg Sandovat, CNET News Nov 1, 2006 -- As copyright issues loom, online video sites are casting about for ways to screen material for music videos and film clips. For the past year, the popularity of social networking and video sharing online has lighted up the technology sector. The stars of each category respectively are MySpace, with more than 50 million registered users, and YouTube, which presents more than 100 million videos daily. Now powerful entertainment conglomerates increasingly want these sites to strip themselves of copyright material. But the nail-biting truth is that while strides are being made in developing ways to weed out copyright work in audio files, little headway has been made in finding an effective way to review video. "No one has figured it out yet," said an executive from a networking site who requested anonymity due to his negotiations with filtering companies. "But there's a busload of money waiting for whoever does." Some companies are getting closer. MySpace took steps on Monday to eliminate unauthorized music from reaching the site. To do it, MySpace turned to a new technology from audio-recognition company Gracenote that identifies waveforms unique to every digital recording. Gracenote scans music downloaded to MySpace and cross checks songs with those in the Emeryville, Calif., company's 10 million-song database, according to Jim Hollingsworth, Gracenote's senior vice president of sales and marketing. The system only needs a few seconds worth of music to identify the music and discern whether a song is copyrighted. Not surprisingly, business is booming at Gracenote. Founded in 1998, Gracenote has attracted a lot of attention from executives at video-sharing and social-networking companies in recent weeks. MySpace executives took only three days to agree to the deal with Gracenote, according to Hollingsworth. "There are literally hundreds of companies looking for solutions," he said. When it comes to video, most companies that allow users to upload videos without any prescreening rely on technology that analyzes a digital file's binary code, or the series of 1s and 0s, for something recognizable. But this method has been criticized because all anyone needs to do to beat the system is alter the clip, such as increasing or decreasing the length of the video by just a few seconds. Several companies, including Gracenote, are working on developing better video filters. Guba, a video-sharing site based in San Francisco, has created a method that works for video much like Gracenote works for audio, said Peter Szatmari, Guba's vice president of business development. "Johnny" is the name of Guba's image-recognition technology, which involves creating digital signatures of copyright material. Szatmari declined to explain the details of the system but said that it uses still photos and 3D technology to scan videos and check them against the company's database of copyright work. This means that Johnny, which has been endorsed by the Motion Picture Association of America, will recognize a clip even if the video has been coded in a different format or the length has been altered. Nothing is completely foolproof, Szatmari acknowledges. New TV shows or movies may not be in Guba's database and that means there's nothing to check against when users try to upload the latest "Lost" episode before Guba technicians have had time to include the show in the database. Another groundbreaker in the so-called acoustic fingerprinting area is Audible Magic, a Los Gatos, Calif., company. Audible Magic's technology also matches the digital fingerprint of a song with a database of copyright music. Meanwhile, companies such as PhotoBucket and Revver are doing it the old-fashioned way--relying on humans to look at each frame uploaded to their sites. Said Revver CEO Steven Starr in an interview last week: "We're going to ensure that this site doesn't cheat content creators out of one cent. Nothing goes on our site unless someone has taken a look at it."
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - MySpace to crack down on sharing copyrighted music: Company will deploy music fingerprinting technology to prevent uploads - 01nov06 (AP) -- MySpace announced it is cracking down on users posting unauthorized copyrighted music to its website. To accomplish this, the company announced a license agreement with Gracenote, which is offering a technology called MusicID fingerprinting in association with its Global Media Database.The technology will allow MySpace to identify copyrighted music to block its upload to the site. Should a user continue to attempt to upload copyrighted music to the website, they will have their account permanently deleted. GraceNote's database includes 3.8 million CDs, 48 million tracks, 7 million audio waveform fingerprints, and content in over 80 languages. Gracenote used to be formerly known as CDDB. Under that name, the company offered CD recognition technology in 1995.
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posted by Professor Mark Vinet at 12:42 PM
