YouTube Mexico Attracts Local Media Firms
January 15, 2008, 6:55 AM PST

Online video has changed the way Latin music labels discover and market their artists--but entertainment companies are hoping that YouTube Mexico's emphasis on local content will transform the medium into a significant revenue stream.

Heavy traffic from Mexican users to YouTube's main English site and Spain's country site motivated the company to launch a Mexican home page October 11, YouTube international product manager Luis Garcia says. Locally uploaded videos, such as one from 2006 of a little boy named Edgar falling into a river, "spiked globally" in popularity, Garcia says.

While a plan for local advertising on the site is in the works, YouTube is touring the country with mobile kiosks where staffers show users how to upload videos, Garcia says. "Before we think about the monetization aspect, we need to make sure the community finds the site interesting."

To that end, entertainment cable channel Exa TV signed on as a local content partner, along with newspaper El Universal, modeling agency Contempo Models, and soccer site Medio Tiempo. Exa TV director Jorge Shahin says the channel uploads 65 to 70 clips per week, with everything from live musical performances to artist interviews. As a YouTube Mexico partner, Exa content is featured higher in artist search results and gets placement on the Mexico page's "promoted videos" section.

CNET News
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The RIAA speaks--and it gets worse
by Don Reisinger
January 14, 2008 - 7:00 AM PST

The RIAA has quickly become one of the most disliked organizations in the world. Working ostensibly with the interests of the artists in mind, the organization has single-handedly instituted a policy of lawsuits and education in an attempt to curb the piracy of music.

Although this has been going on for quite some time now, I recently read a press release from the organization outlining its successes and what 2008 will look like for its College Deterrence program. The press release tells us that the RIAA (on behalf of the music industry) has sent out "a new wave of 407 pre-litigation settlement letters to 18 universities nationwide as part of an ongoing campaign against online music theft.

The letters reflect evidence of significant abuse of campus computer networks for the purpose of copyright infringement." Once those students receive the pre-litigation settlement letters, they have the opportunity to surf over to the P2P Lawsuits Web page to settle with the RIAA before a court battle ensues. Of course, the story doesn't quite end there.

To get a feeling for why the RIAA has implemented this strategy and has seemingly ignored the piracy cartels all over the world, choosing the soft target instead, I got in touch with the organization and asked a representative 10 questions to clear the air. This transcript will be made available tomorrow on The Digital Home.

CNET Blogs
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"iPod Tax" smacked down in Canada
By Ken Fisher
January 13, 2008 - 10:01PM CT

Canadians (and even their neighbors to the south) can breathe a sigh of relief as the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal quashed a proposed levy on digital music players late last week. The proposed levies weren't cheap: CAN$5 on each Memory Stick or SD card between 1GB and 4GB of memory, and "digital audio recorder" levies which top out at CAN$75 for players with 30GB+ of space.

As we reported last summer, the Copyright Board of Canada argues that Canadians who purchase digital music players and removable memory cards should pay an extra tax in order to compensate artists. This so-called "iPod Tax" would come in addition to existing levies on recordable media enforced in Canada, which are also meant to help compensate artists.

In its ruling, the Federal Court of Appeal found that "the Copyright Board erred in law when it concluded that it has the legal authority to certify the tariff that the Canadian Private Copyright Collective has proposed for 2008 and 2009 on digital audio recorders." The ruling echoes a similar finding in 2004, which also quashed an attempt to put levies on "digital audio recorders."

Technology companies largely stand opposed to such levies, as they are seen as driving prices up and hurting competition, while giving markets in places without levies (like the US) an unfair advantage. Meanwhile, consumers wonder why they need to pay a $75 tax on a 30GB+ music player if they've done nothing wrong.

Ars Technica
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EFF tries to quash labels' "making available" claims
By Nate Anderson
January 13, 2008 - 11:25PM CT

The music labels' case against Jeffrey and Pamela Howell has taken on mythic dimensions over the last few weeks after the Washington Post went a little nuts and implied that the labels were suing the couple for making personal rips of their CDs (it later corrected the story).

The truth is that Howells are being sued for having those rips in a shared KaZaA folder. But lost in the controversy over the RIAA's refusal to say that personal CD ripping is legal is the fact that the Howells aren't being sued for swapping songs with thousands of people around the world; instead, they are charged with making songs "available" for download.

In a new amicus brief, the EFF argues that there's no such thing as "attempted copyright infringement." Yet. The labels allege that 11 specific tracks were shared by the Howells, though the only evidence of such sharing was the fact that the files were in a shared folder and were also downloaded by the RIAA's investigative arm, MediaSentry (now SafeNet). According to the EFF, though, this simply is not evidence of actual copyright infringement.

The group takes no position on whether the Howells are guilty or not, but it does want to challenge this particular method of attack. Because the law specifically gives copyright owners the ability to control copies distributed "to the public," the music labels need to show that such distribution took place.

Ars Technica
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Under pressure from EMI, RIAA could disappear
By Nate Anderson
January 11, 2008 - 10:40AM CT

Is the RIAA as we know it about to disappear? As rumors continue to swirl that EMI will pull its funding from music trade groups like the RIAA and IFPI, an IFPI spokesman tells Ars that the group is in the middle of a major internal review of its operations.

That review will include a look at the "structure and operation of the organisation and its relationship with the national groups, with a view to finding greater efficiencies and cutting costs," we're told. That leaves open the possibility that the review could lead to a merger of the IFPI and RIAA, which is the largest (and most expensive) of the "national groups." If that happens, the "RIAA" might disappear even as its work continues.

The comments from the IFPI fit with a new story in Variety which claims that EMI will pull funding from the trade groups by March 31 unless major changes are made. Consolidating the two groups appears to be one of the options on the table.

Losing one of its four pillars would come as a huge blow to both the IFPI and the RIAA, and the review now in progress is an attempt to retool the trade groups' missions to better serve the record labels that fund most of their operations.

Ars Technica
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Roadblocks en route to free, legal music
By Greg Sandoval
Jan 9, 2008 1:47:00 PM

Free music--the legal kind--is supposed to make a splash in 2008. A handful of analysts are calling for the music industry to focus less on CDs, digital rights management, and subscription services, and more on giving their product away for free.

Whatever gold that is still left to be mined from the music industry is supposed to be had through advertising revenue, according to some. But exchanging songs for ad money is a frightening proposition for music executives who have depended on hawking discs for decades, and are still putting up major roadblocks for the free, ad-supported model.

Couple that with less-than-stellar execution on the part of companies trying to give music away, and you have a business model still trying to get into first gear. "The major labels must embrace an ad-supported model for downloadable music," wrote Pali Research analyst Rich Greenfield last week. "We sense they have no desire to do this."

Indeed, one of the problems is that some of the services in the free-music sector have been less than impressive: Some of the competitors have been plagued by operational troubles. Some were forced to delay launching for months while others have suffered financial setbacks.

ZDNET Blogs
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Sony to distribute content in DivX format
By Jacqui Cheng
January 08, 2008 - 09:30PM CT

Sony Pictures Television announced today that online retailers will soon be able to offer Sony content for download in DivX format. The news came as part of a partnership with DivX, Inc. that will also let those files be playable on DivX Certified devices.

"We are dedicated to finding legitimate outlets for our content and to that end are excited to be working with DivX to provide retailers with an expanded ecosystem for the digital distribution and playback of our digital media," said Sony Pictures executive VP of Digital Distribution & Mobile Entertainment, Michael Arrieta.

A spokesperson for DivX, Kristina Weise, told Ars that this would offer consumers high-quality Hollywood content in DivX for the first time ever, and that the deal would cover "all titles in the Sony Pictures Television library." She also said that all titles would be download-to-own, but that there will be some type of unspecified DRM. Tracking down those DivX Sony movies might be a challenge, though.

"We have no announcements with retailers at this time," she told us. The news comes just a few weeks after Sony added official DivX support to its PlayStation 3, which had been announced in November. Microsoft beat Sony to the punch, however, with its fall update to the Xbox 360 that included support for DivX.

Ars Technica
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DRM is dead for music. What's next?
By Eric Bangeman
January 08, 2008 - 09:36AM CT

LAS VEGAS—CES is best known for what seems like miles and miles of shiny consumer electronics, product demos, and expansive booths. But some of the most interesting action takes place off the beaten track of the show floor, in meeting rooms where players from opposite ends of the tech world come to discuss the issues of the day. Such was the case at this year's show.

In a discussion called "The True Cost of DRM: What Can't We Do Now?" moderated by Paul Sweeting of Content Agenda, four panelists had different takes on impact of DRM over the past decade, while managing to agree that, when it comes to music, DRM is indeed dead.

The panelists included Patricia Aufderheide of American University, coauthor of a recent fair use primer for online content creators; Russ Frackman, a partner at the law firm of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp who specializes in copyright, trademark, entertainment, IP, and technology litigation; Jonathan Lee, VP of business development for content-protection company Media Defender; Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo! Music; and EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

Ian Rogers began by making the pronouncement that DRM is done when it comes to music. "When it comes to music, we're set," he said. "Next question: do we have to go through all of this nonsense with video?" The answer, unfortunately, appears to be a resounding yes. "I think DRM in video is robust and healthy, and we'll be stuck with it for a long time," said von Lohmann, who then brought up a point we've touched upon repeated here at Ars over the years. "[DRM] is not about piracy.

Ars Technica
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Sony-BMG to sell (some) DRM-free music downloads... through stores
By Peter Sayer
January 08, 2008

January 08, 2008 (IDG News Service) -- Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada. The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99.

Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies." In contrast, online retailer Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels.

Apple's iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less. Independent retailer eMusic also offers around 2.8 million DRM-free paid MP3 downloads.

Computer World
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Another nail hangs over HD-DVD's coffin
By Dean Pullen
January 8, 2008 - 9:24 AM

A REPORT in the Financial Times declares that Paramount has a clause in its HD-DVD exclusivity contract allowing the company to bail from HD-DVD if Warner defected to Blu-ray, and that Paramount is 'poised' to do so.

The Warner Bros.' move gives Blu-ray about 70 per cent of Hollywood’s output, although the format's grip on film content will even increase further when Paramount comes aboard. Universal, one of the last major studios with HD-DVD exclusivity, has declined to comment on its next-generation DVD plans since the Warner Bros.' move.

It is unclear whether DreamWorks Animation has the same get-out clause in its contract with the HD-DVD camp. Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony, held out an olive branch on Monday, saying the company would be "open to dialogue" with the HD DVD camp to "grow the market". The move came as new figures showed that Blu-ray had opened up a decisive lead over the rival home entertainment format.

Alleged 'insiders' over at AVS Forums reckon Warner's decision might have gone either way. Warner's decision to dump HD-DVD for Blu-ray went down to the wire - and was almost persuaded, along with 20th Century Fox, to go exclusively with HD-DVD instead.

The Inquirer
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Apple antitrust suit alleges monopoly over music, players
By Jacqui Cheng
January 04, 2008 - 12:15PM CT

Apple has been sued once again for its iPod/iTunes tie-in, with the plaintiff alleging that the company has an illegal monopoly over the online music and video markets. The suit was filed earlier this week by California resident Stacie Somers, who points out numerous limitations to Apple's iTunes Store and the music purchased from it.

She alleges that these limits violate the Clayton Act, Cartwright Act, California's Unfair Competition Law, and the Sherman Antitrust Act, among others. The complaint, seen by Ars Technica, begins by saying that the iTunes Store is limited to Apple's proprietary software, "unlike most Internet sites."

Apple's clear dominance in the digital music player, music, and video markets—90 percent, 83 percent, and 75 percent respectively, according to the complaint—make it clear that Apple has no interest in making its hardware or music compatible with competing technologies (most notably, Microsoft's).

For example, AOL, Best Buy, FYE, MusicMatch, Napster, Yahoo! Music, and Virgin Digital all sell music in WMA format, whereas Apple "refuses" to do so, and also refuses to make its protected AAC files compatible with other players. The complaint goes so far as to allege that Apple has intentionally disabled WMA compatibility in the iPod.

Ars Technica
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Netflix, LG To Offer Movie Set-Top Box
January 2, 2008, 7:20 PM PST

DVD rental company Netflix on Wednesday said it was developing a set-top box with LG Electronics to let subscribers watch movies streamed directly from the Web to their TVs. Netflix, with about 7 million subscribers, has for quite some time said it was looking to extend its Internet movie delivery feature--which lets subscribers play back about 6,000 films and TV episodes on PCs--to the television.

The leader of online DVD rentals will be entering an increasingly crowded and confusing market when it rolls out the new device via an LG-networked player sometime in the second half of 2008. Like Netflix's PC instant viewing feature, the online TV streaming feature would be included in all of its various price plans, generally ranging from $4.99 to about $16.99 a month, at no extra charges. About 90,000 titles are available through the Netflix online mail order service.

Pricing and other specific details of the LG product were not available, but a person with knowledge of the situation said LG would likely embed the receiver into its $799 dual-DVD player, which supports the competing Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition DVD formats. The promise of increased Web video viewing has lured many companies into the sector, including Vudu, which offers a set-top box for $399 that lets consumers buy or rent movies from a selection of about 5,000 titles.

Apple now offers Apple TV, which has failed to gain significant traction, while TiVo is also letting users download TV shows and movies through a partnership with Amazon.com Inc. Wal-Mart Stores late last month canceled its online video download service that enabled purchased videos to be played on PCs.

CNET News/REUTERS
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In the DVD war over HD, most buyers are sitting it out
By Eric A. Taub
December 31, 2007, 1:30 PM

What if nobody wins the high-definition DVD format wars? That increasingly looks to be the situation for the next-generation DVD technology, which is available to consumers in two incompatible formats.

A little more than 18 months after their introduction, the two systems--Blu-ray, developed by Sony, and HD DVD, from Toshiba --have sold around 1 million stand-alone players combined. Both sides promote their technologies, their movie studio allies and the growing list of movies available in the new formats.

Yet neither has a clear advantage, either in terms of technology, number of movies or, increasingly, the price of the equipment. According to data from Adams Media Research, 578,000 HD DVD and 370,000 Blu-ray machines will be sold by the end of this year.

The winner of the format wars could be determined by which company has the most content, in the same way the VHS-Betamax VCR war was decided. But both formats offer about 400 movies. Studios allied with the Blu-ray camp include Columbia, Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, Miramax, New Line and Sony.

CNET News/The New York Times
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Wal-Mart cancels movie download service
December 27, 2007 - 5:05 PM PST

Wal-Mart Stores quietly canceled its online video download service less than a year after the site went live, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. Wal-Mart shut down the download site after Hewlett-Packard discontinued the technology that powered it, Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella said in an e-mail.

She added that it will not look for another technology partner. HP spokesman Hector Marinez said the company decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform "as expected." He noted that the Internet video business remains uncertain and is changing rapidly.

Wal-Mart will continue offering physical DVDs for sale at its stores and online, but would not continue the online downloads business, said Colella, who declined to disclose the number of downloads sold on the site. A message at the site said the service was stopped on December 21 and Wal-Mart offered no refunds for the downloaded videos.

Videos purchased on Walmart.com can be played using the Microsoft Windows Media Player or the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager, but cannot be transferred to a computer other than the one used to download them, according to the site. The giant retailer's foray into online video downloading began in February and was hailed by media industry experts as a "game changer" that could introduce millions of DVD buyers to the practice of downloading.

CNET News/REUTERS
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3 down, 1 to go: Warner Music Group drops DRM
By Nate Anderson
December 27, 2007 - 01:27PM CT

Warner Music has bent beneath the force of the anti-DRM winds sweeping the globe. The label will now offer its complete catalog, DRM-free, through Amazon's new MP3 store. The announcement means that EMI, Universal, and Warner now offer their catalogues in DRM-free digital formats, making Sony BMG (of rootkit fame) the lone holdout among the majors.

Amazon now claims to offer for than 2.9 million songs in MP3 format from over 33,000 unique labels. Warner's announcement says nothing about offering its content through other services such as iTunes, and represents the music industry's attempt to make life a bit more difficult for Apple after all the years in which the company held the keys to music's digital kingdom; no one could sell major label tracks to iPod owners except for iTunes, and iTunes even become a go-to destination for non-iPod owners who wanted a simple, cheap way to pick up some songs.

Now, with the move to MP3, the labels that have chosen to open their music have a way to encourage multiple download services to flourish, keeping labels safe from being dominated by any single digital distributor. The move comes just before Amazon plans to give away one billion tracks, a promotion that will begin with the Super Bowl in January, and Warner was no doubt interested in jumping on board the promo train before it left the station.

Will Sony BMG, which has apparently never met a form of copy protection that it doesn't like, follow suit? The "Mene, mene..." is already on the wall, and it looks likely that Sony BMG will go DRM-free, too, by the end of 2008. The entire movement to free music from DRM's shackles has had stunning success in 2007 after years in which such widespead moves to MP3 looked impossible. Could movies be next?

Ars Technica