On the Copyright 2.0 Show, I’ve talked several times about how technology is making it so that all-you-can-eat music plans that allow unlimited streaming of music to whatever device you own may, someday, replace having large libraries of files on all of your devices.

On the surface the system seems to be a good idea. Most users pay less money, artists get paid for every play rather than just once for the purchase, piracy would be less of an issue as anyone could listen to any track at any time and we would have access to our music whenever, wherever.

Yet, it’s pretty clear that services such as Rhapsody, which is now nearly a decade old, aren’t exactly setting the world on fire despite being well-established and largely well-respected. So I decided to give Rhapsody a trial, signing up for a 14-day free trial, I wanted to see how life was without “owning” any music and why more people weren’t doing it.

The answer made it clear to me why these services haven’t caught on with the mainstream and why it may be some time before they do.

Getting Started

After signing up for an account and getting my confirmation I decided to jump right in and start listening to some music.

My first disappointment came when I found that Rhapsody was not available as an app for Mac. In fact, in their FAQ, they seem to blow off Mac users by saying:

Our Mac users are important to us, and that’s why we developed Rhapsody Online, a website that lets you listen to millions of songs on your Mac with just a lightweight plug-in.

In short, Mac users are so valuable to Rhapsody that they are going to eschew giving them the choice of an app, like they do Windows users, and force them to use the site. Still, I brushed it aside and moved.

An avid iTunes user, I thought I was pretty well prepared for what Rhapsody might throw at me but it seems I was mostly wrong. There was definitely a learning curve with Rhapsody. The process of searching for music, adding it toi playlists and listening to it didn’t feel very intuitive. It’s only today, after almost a week with the service, I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Some of the issues come from the fact it’s browser-based. Google Chrome, my browser of choice, blocks popups and I struggled for a while to figure out why I wasn’t seeing the player. I eventually had to whitelist Rhapsody to prevent Chrome from just closing out the new window.

Also, the process of building a playlist seems odd to me. Rather than, as with iTunes, creating a playlist and dragging songs into it (often while listening to other music), the only way to do it in Rhapsody is to just queue the songs up in your actual player and save it. To make matters worse, The “Playlists” feature in Rhapsody instead focuses on playlists others have created for your listening, not ones you make for yourself.

The problem is not that making a playlist is difficult, just that it seems to be a buried feature and not intuitive the first few times through.

I then set about my first task, creating a workout playlist for later that evening at the gym, it was then I began to make my way through Rhapsody’s library and putting rubber on the road.

The Library

I punched in a few relevant bands into my search and was pretty impressed by the depth of Rhapsody’s library. It seemed every band I typed in, no matter how obscure, turned up some solid results. But, as I began to add tracks, cracks began to emerge.

First I noticed that Rhapsody didn’t have anything not already in iTunes. For example, my search for the band Rorschach Test turned up their first album but not their second. I had a similar problem on iTunes recently and had to repurchase the second album secondhand from Amazon. The Beatles were not on Rhapsody, but they aren’t available digitally anywhere, and every other iTunes omission was also missing here.

But then some larger cracks began to form. I did a search for Metallica and, though Rhapsody said it had over 700 tracks available (700!?) there were no Metallica songs in their library for streaming. All of the songs they had were covers, mislabeled or just Metallica somewhere in the name.

This was a major problem with Rhapsody. The music library felt like it was in disarray. Every artist had hundreds of tracks listed, even when they only had a few albums. The reason is that, even if you select to search by artist it puts covers of the artist in the results. Compared it iTunes, it felt disorganized and confusing.

This led to another problem, sometimes there were literally too many choices. A search for Joan Jett found 7 versions of “Bad Reputation” with no clear distinction between them. Some were live versions, but others were just rereleases with no clear indication as to which was the most popular or the “real” version. If you don’t know the correct album, you could be hunting for a while on some tracks.

But then there were other cases where key versions were missing, such as with Local H and the tracks off of their “No Fun” EP.

Where iTunes makes it clear which versions you probably want with clear popularity indicators, Rhapsody makes it a guessing game and at least a few times I guessed wrong. Though there is a “Key Tracks” feature on some artist’s pages, it, as with the Playlist creator, is something you have to be actively hunting for and know where to look to really see. Even then, it isn’t always right, for example Joan Jett’s “Key Tracks” didn’t include “I Love Rock N Roll”. To make matters worse, on the “Popular Tracks” list, which seems to be a duplicate feature, the title was misspelled.

All in all, I was glad I was streaming these tracks and not buying them, otherwise, I would have been out at least a few bucks downloading tracks I didn’t want.

The iPhone App

As clunky as the Web experience was for me, I have to admit that the iPhone app was actually pretty slick. It integrated most of the features of the website but in a way that was clear and easily understood. Even on my old 3G the app seemed to move quickly and worked well.

The streaming was only once or twice problem. 3G access in the New Orleans are is pretty good so I had no real difficult keeping the stream going through Rhapsody does permit users to download tracks to their phone for situations they don’t have access. However, since that seemed to defeat much of the purpose of the experiment I haven’t tested it yet.

It is worth noting that the downloads you save using the app are no longer available after you cancel your account, unless you purchase the MP3 separately.

Working out with Rhapsody I noticed no difference than if I had been just using the iPod app on my iPhone. The only major change was that some of the music I wanted to listen to was not available and finding new music to listen to was slightly more tedious due to the larger library of music to go through.

Still, the experience was overall pretty good, especially if I set things up before going in, something I would do with iTunes regardless.

The Debate

The debate that arises from all of this is whether I’ll continue with Rhapsody after the free trial. The answer, right now, is probably not.

I own such a large library of music and have a large amount of it on my phone that Rhapsody seems superfluous. Virtually any song I want to listen to I can just play. This makes the gaps in Rhapsody’s library, no matter how small, very annoying. If I want to listen to Metallica’s “Cyanide” or Local H’s “President Forever” (not the live version) I can’t do that with Rhapsody but I can with my iTunes.

I probably spend less than $10 per month on new music and wouldn’t be saving anything using Rhapsody. But, if I were just starting out and working to build a new music collection, it would be an option to consider. However, it would have to be able to fill in some of the gaps for it to be seriously considered for that purpose.

Right now, there is just too much out there Rhapsody doesn’t have. Combine that with a clunky interface clearly designed more for power users than to be intuitive for newbies and I don’t have any more reason to stay onboard. Not when I have a solution that already works reasonably well for me.

Bottom Line

Despite this, I haven’t given up hope on such a system working in the future. It just clearly is not there now. Though some of the wounds are self-inflicted, namely the interface and lack of a Mac app, most of the wounds are from the music industry in the form of music that can’t be licensed for the service.

What’s clearly needed is a hybrid service that integrates both the “rented” music and the “owned” music. Google Music seems to be exactly that, integrating legally-owned MP3s with a at least some streaming and purchasing.

However, most of what is known about Google Music is really just rumors and even if they are Google’s intentions there’s always a chance they won’t come to fruition.

In the end, Rhapsody paints part of a good direction for the music industry, however, much more needs to be done before it clearly becomes the wave of the future. Meanwhile, overseas, services such as Spotify are moving well past what Rhapsody has done, perhaps showing that the future for music isn’t being carved out in the U.S. at all, but rather, is being forged in the EU and elsewhere.

Got any suggestions for the 3 Count. Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: RealNetworks Appeals Injunction on RealDVD Sales

First off today, Real, the company most famous for its RealPlayer product, is appealing an injunction that is barring it from selling RealDVD, it’s DVD ripping and storage product that the movie studios have launched a legal campaign to block.

According to the movie studios, RealDVD, which allows users to rip DVDs to their hard drive and then store them for future playback, is a violation of their copyrights as it allows users to break the encryption on the DVD itself. RealDVD, however, countered and said that they did not simply break the encryption, but wrapped the ripped DVD in an encryption of its own.

The judge in the case sided with the movie studios, issuing a restraining order barring the sale of the product, an order that Real is now appealing, claiming that the lower judge used an incorrect standard when deciding to impose the injunction.

In addition to RealDVD, Real is also planning to introduce a standalone DVD player that also stores the DVDs on a hard drive for easier playback.

2: Console Modder’s Appeal Tossed in UK Court

UK citizen Christopher Paul Gilham, convicted in 2008 of modifying various video game consoles to play pirated games, has had his appeal tossed.

The appeal centered around the issue of “whether the playing of a counterfeit DVD involves substantial copying of a copyright work.” This was an issue because Gilham did not actual copy or pirate any games, but rather, simply sold and installed the chips that enabled his customers to play such games.

The court ruled that it was irrelevant whether or not the chip stored any substantial elements of the game in its ram, but rather, it was illegal because it copies some copyrightable elements, such as characters and artwork.

Copyright holders welcomed the decision and the clarification and the ruling will likely make it much more difficult for video game console modders in the UK to make a case that their activity is legal.

3: Don`t Jail Illegal Music Sharers: UN Agency

Finally today, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is a UN agency, has said that jailing file sharers would be counter-productive to correcting the current copyright climate and that it is imperative that alternatives, such as flat rate download licenses, be discussed seriously.

WIPO also warned that the copyright protection for music was “under the most severe stress” though similar problems could come to movies as connection speeds increase.

Though short on solutions, WIPO was quick to condemn all severe punishments for copyright infringement, including the recent Thomas/Tenenbaum rulings in the US and The Pirate Bay convictions in Sweden.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Court issues preliminary injunction in RealDVD case; solid victory for studios and DVD CCA

First off today, the movie studios have scored a major win in their fight with Real over the RealDVD product. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who is also the judge that famously shut down Napster, has issued a preliminary injunction that extends the temporary injunction barring Real from selling the product.

RealDVD is a DVD copying application that is intended to rip DVDs to a hard drive for later play back. However, DVDs are protected by an encryption known as CSS, which the DVD Copyright Control Association grants licenses for people to use to build DVD players. According to the DVD CCA and several studios, Real’s use of the CSS encryption to make RealDVD is a violation of the license they were granted and the court has agreed.

Strangely, though it deals with issues revolving around the DMCA anti-circumvention clauses, this case itself is largely a licensing dispute, with Real believing it had the right to create a product like RealDVD, where the DVD is not present at playback, but the movie studios, and the court at this point, disagree. However, this is just a preliminary injunction so the judge could reverse this at trial, however, that is unlikely and it is far more probably that Real will appeal this and try their luck elsewhere first.

2: Pirate Bay sinks under electric storm

Next up today, The Pirate Bay suffered some downtime yesterday leading to speculation that the recent BREIN court ruling in the Netherlands was the cause. However, that appears to not be the case as the site itself is active again and The Pirate Bay has released a statement blaming the outage on a power failure.

The anti-piracy group BREIN successfully sued The Pirate Bay in the Netherlands, at a trial where no representatives from The Pirate Bay were present, and won an order for the site to block access to Dutch users or face daily fines. However, BREIN has said it will not begin demanding those fines until the 27th, when the site is supposed to be sold to Global Gaming Factory.

3: Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars

Finally today, for those who are interested in rational, civilized copyright debate, I highly recommend that you check out William Patry’s new blog, which he created to promote by the same name. He and former recording industry attorney, Ben Sheffner, who writes the equally great Copyrights and Campaigns blog, are having a friendly back and forth on copyright issues.

Easily one of the best debates on copyright issues as it brings together two of the “smartest men in the room” on copyright issues to argue two very different viewpoints. I can not recommend this read highly enough!

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Pirate Bay Spokesman Peter Sunde Resigns

First off today, Pirate Bay spokesman and one of the four men convicted at The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden earlier this year, Peter Sunde, has announced his retirement from the site. He said that, “I want to build something new and I want to focus my energy in a different direction. I have projects waiting to be finished, a book is waiting to be finalized and many more books are waiting to be read,” as part of his announcement.

Sunde has been perhaps the most famous name associated with The Pirate Bay, has often gone under the name “Brokep” in his postings.

There is no word on who, if anyone, is scheduled to replace him. However, Global Gaming Factory, a Swedish software development company, is still slated to buy the site by the end of the month, though that deal is, according to recent reports, endangered due to lack of financing.

2: DVD-Ripping Appeal Intersects Real’s Ruling

Next up today, in an interesting “chicken and egg” problem for the legal system, two cases involving DVD ripping are set to collide. In 2007, the DVD-CCA, the organization responsibel for the licensing of the DVD CSS encryption technology sued Kaleidescape, the makers of a server that could rip DVDs to a hard drive and play them back. A lower court ruled that Kaleidescape could sell the technology but an appeal was filed and is due any day.

However, in 2008, Real was sued by Hollywood studios, for the creation of a similar product, RealDVD, that would work as software installed on your computer. Though the two cases are different in many ways, the Kaleidescape being a case in the California courts over a contract dispute and the RealDVD one being a copyright lawsuit in Federal court, they hinge on largely the same thing, does the DVD-CCA license allow ripping for the purpose of making a copy to a hard drive?

A ruling in the Kaleidescape is expected any day now and could drastically affect the RealDVD case, likewise, a finding in the RealDVD case against Real could come back to haunt the ongoing Kaleidescape, likely in an appeal to the Supreme Court of California.

it’s a tangled mess to say the least, but an article well worth reading.

3: Cal State Student Faces 10 Year Prison Term for Playing with Video Games

Finally today, Lloyd Crippen, a student at Cal State, has been arrested and faces up to 10 years of jail time for modifying video game consoles, including PS3s, Wiis and Xbox360s to circumvent the copyright protection built in to the systems, allowing them to play pirated games.

Modifying consoles in this manner, is a violation of the Digitial Millennium Copyright Act anti-circumvention provisions. However, it is unlikely he’ll face the full ten year term.

Modifying consoles, or modding, is a fairly common practice in some circles to allow systems to play out of region games, which also would be a violation. However, it appears that Crippen’s efforts were targeted at circumventing copy protection, not region encoding.

Crippen is expected to make his first appearance in court on Monday.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case

First off today, the RIAA scored a big win over Usenet.com. Usenet is an online network that is over two decades old and predates the Web. It was, and still remains, one of the most popular ways to share files and content online and Usenet.com is a service that charges a monthly fee for easy access to that network, including the files.

The fact Usenet.com lost may not be as important as why it lost. The company was accused of massive amounts of misconduct during the discovery process including, allegedly, destroying seven hard drives, sending witnesses to Europe so they can’t be deposed and otherwise obstructing the RIAA from gathering information.

In the end, the judge ruled that Usenet.com can not use the Betamax ruling in its defense, which said that the creator of a product can not be held liable if it has significant non-infringing use, due to the fact that Usenet.com’s relationship with the customer continued after the sale. Also, due to the misconduct, the judge barred the company from raising a defense under the DMCA, which protects Web hosts from liability if they expeditiously remove infringing material following notification.

In the end, it seems as if Usenet.com had a better chance at success before the alleged misconduct and only narrowly escaped a judgment against them on those grounds alone.

2: The Pirate Bay’s Revolt

Next up today, The Pirate Bay users, in a move that was pretty predictable, have revolted in a significant way against their former favorite Bittorrent tracker following its recent sale to a Swedish software company.

Though no one is really sure what will happen to the site, users have been asking for the ability to delete their account, while others have been calling for attacks against the site to bring it down.

However, even if The Pirate Bay is able to complete itself and survive this revolt, its odds of becoming a successful, legitimate business (if that is indeed the plan) are slim. Grokster, Napster and other services have shown have difficult it is to “go legit”.

3: Music copyright lawsuit targets Microsoft, Yahoo, Real

Finally today, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Real (though not Apple) are all being sued by Music Copyright Solutions (MCS) for allegedly not obtaining all of the correct rights to some of the songs in their catalogs. At odds specifically are the rights to some 200 compositions that MSC claims the companies correctly licensed the performance rights to, but not the composition ones. It is the composers that they are representing.

The case would be fairly dull but MCS is suing for each copy of every recording. So if a song is on four different albums, it is listed four times and MCS is seeking the maximum damages possible, $150,000 per infringement, putting the potential liability into the billions.

Now the odds of the judgment/settlement reaching anywhere near that is slim to none, but the numbers are eyeball-popping. Still, it will most likely be settled for a tiny fraction of the requested amount.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Pornographic videos flood YouTube

Yesterday, YouTube was raided by members of the 4Chan message boars, who uploaded score of pornographic clips to the site, many of which were labeled as children’s videos and begin with such content before cutting to graphic content. Some of the affected videos were for music groups among kids, including the Jonas Brothers.

Why would a group of people work tirelessly to expose children to pornography? According to at least one poster it was because “YouTube keeps deleting music”. Whether this is the cause for the entire raid, remains to be seen.

Though YouTube worked quickly to remove the videos, thumbnails for many of them lingered long after the videos were pulled down and were available through a variety of searches. As of this writing, YouTube appears to have eliminated the videos for the most part and searches are working normally.

2: At RealDVD hearing, MPAA says copying DVDs never legal

It appears that Real’s claims about about fair use in the RealDVD case might have a new wrinkle. The MPAA has requested an estoppel ruling form the judge in the case that would bar Real from arguing fair use in the case. The reason? Real had argued the exact opposite about ten years ago in a similar case and won on those grounds.

The previous case dealt with Streambox VCR, a product that allowed the downloading and storing of Real’s streaming music and video, saying in part that, “The DMCA does not have a fair use exception allowing individuals to circumvent access and copy protection measures.”

Real, for their part, compared DVDs to CDs, where the copying of the data onto your hard drive (for example, iTunes) is an understood fair use and standard practice.

The judge heard closing arguments on the hearing and did not issue a ruling. That will be handed down at a later date.

3: Wikimedia Foundation to Add Creative Commons License for All Content

Finally today, The Wikimedia Foundation, which includes Wikipedia, has added the Creative Commons BY-SA license to all of their content. Under the current system, existing content will be dual-licensed and new content will be CC-BY-SA licensed only.

The CC license was chosen because of requirements of GFDL, the former license, that made reusing content in Wikipedia difficult. Those requirements included the requirement to copy the full license along with any reuse of the content, which could have hindered many uses of the work.

This change was made possible in November of 2008 when the Free Software Foundation updated the GFDL license to allow double licensing and portability. This decision has not been approved by the board of directors at Wikimedia but was supported by over 75% of all voters in a recent Wikipedia survey.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index 2009

The law firm Taylor Wessing has released its 2009 Global Intellectual Property Index, which it says “provides an assessment of the best and worst jurisdictions to obtain, exploit, enforce and attack particular types of IP”. The results were not very surprising this year with the United Kingdom taking the top spot, followed by Germany (which moved up one spot) and the United States (which Germany bumped down).

At the bottom of the 24-country list was Brazil, India and China, with China being the worst.

What is most interesting is that most of the countries on the list improved their “rating” since the first study last year, but the United States dropped 11 points, largely due to a “slip” in the patent index. down to 751. Still, that puts it well above China who, despite a 43 point improvement still only had a score of 491. The U.S. is also number one in the copyright index of the study.

2: RealNetworks accuses MPAA of antitrust violations

Next up, the fight between Real and the MPAA has gotten even dirtier as Real has now filed an antitrust complaint against the MPAA. As most probably already know the MPAA sued Real over its RealDVD product, which allowed users to rip DVDs and store them to their hard drives.

According to Real, the MPAA, which is made up of several different studios, conspired to boycott Real after the launch of the RealDVD project, which is currently not available for sale due to a restraining order. The company believes that the MPAA’s members engaed in a “horizontal conspiracy” to blacklist RealNetworks and other Real properties.

Whether this will pan out or not remains to be seen, but others have tried antitrust allegations as part of copyright lawsuits and, typically, have failed. Still, if Real is able to prove a conspiracy, that could change.

3: A Book Author Wonders How to Fight Piracy

Finally today, author Peter Wayner has posted an article on the New York Times site about book piracy and the problems it creates. He feels, as the author of technical textbooks, that the widespread piracy of textbooks has had an overwhelmingly negative impact and cautions that technical books are the “canary” warning other genres since they are typically pirated first.

One interesting point he makes, in a direct attempt to answer Cory Doctorow, is that obscurity is not his enemy. Once his books were pirated, his sales did not go up in any meaningful way. Whether this is unique to him or a broad trend will need more study but it seems to reason that, while piracy may help some authors, for those that write technical books, who are usually obscure even when their books are purchased, it might not.

He also points out that, even as other types of book publishing have seen growth, the tech publishing industry shrank by 8% last year. What exactly this means for books as it relates to piracy remains to be seen.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Hollywood in showdown over DVD ‘ripper’

First off today, RealDVD is getting its day in court. The product, which is produced by the company Real and allows users to backup their DVDs to their hard drives, had trial begin Friday.

Previously the judge in the case had issued a temporary order forbidding the sale of RealDVD, which allows users to break the CSS encryption on DVDs and copy them to their computers, saying that it appears to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, the judge, which is the same judge that shut down Napster in 2000, wanted to save the matter for a full trial so he could better understand the technology.

According to Real, the product is not a violation as it fills a legitimate need, to backup DVDs. RealDVD also does not allow users to make additional copies of their DVDs as the version on their hard drive is wrapped in its own version of DRM.

The trial is expected to last three days.

2: Rapidshare Shares Uploader Info with Rights Holders

Those who use Rapidshare to trade files illegally may want to be a bit more wary. A section of the law commonly used against traditional file sharers is also being used to compel RapidShare, which is hosted in Germany, to give up the IP address and other information of uploaders.

In one case, the police raided the house of an individual that uploaded Metallica’s new “Death Magnetic” album to the site.

Germany copyright law, unlike U.S. law, does not provide clear protections to Web hosts that host infringing material uploaded at the direction of their users, making them more likely to cooperate, especially with record labels and movie studios.

3: ‘Digital Barbarism’ Wages Online Copyright Battle

Finally today, a new book by author and novelist Mark Helprin challenges the notion of copyleft and makes his case for both a lengthier copyright term and stronger rights.

Without having read the book, there isn’t much to say, but there is a sample from the book in the article linked above as well as information to purchase your own copy. Obviously, I’ll have more on this in the coming weeks, after I’ve had a chance to buy and read the work.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Don’t call it DRM: Microsoft explains new gaming piracy tech

First off today, in an interview with Ars Technica at the GDC conference, two Microsoft spokesmen explained some recent changes to the “Games for Windows” platform and some non-DRM anti-piracy measures.

The first measure is a zero-day countermeasure that will check and see if a game has been released or not. If the game hasn’t been released and was obtained either as an early copy or a pirated download, the game is encrypted and won’t decrypt until launch date. Once the game is released, there is a one-time check to confirm this and decrypt the game.

The second measure involves online activation to ensure that there is a licensed attached with every copy. Though users will be able to install games on as many systems as they wish, they will only be able to have one online account. This only works with online games.

The goal, according to Microsoft, is not copy protection, but license protection. They say that games could easily be distributed over file sharing networks since users won’t have a license and, in fact, it could theoretically be used to cut costs.

2: RealNetworks: ‘We Didn’t Think’ MPAA Would Sue Over DVD Copying Software

Second up, in a move that’s likely to cause a few “facepalms”, Real has claimed that they did not anticipate that the MPAA would sue them over their RealDVD software, which lets users make copies of DVDs to their hard drives, and that is why they destroyed the records that are being subpoenaed.

How one in Real’s position could claim that a lawsuit by the MPAA wasn’t foreseeable is rather baffling, but according to the law companies and individuals are only required to keep such records if they feel that a suit is likely.

Obviously, the case is ongoing.

3: GoDaddy Domain Takedown

Finally today, in what is an unusual use, and perhaps legally dubious, use of the DMCA takedown system, Conservapedia, a conservative answer to Wikipedia, successfully secured the takedown of a domain rather than a site.

The domain in question was Failapedia.com which, as both a joke and political statement, was forwarded to Conservapedia. No content from Conservapedia was hosted on this domain and the traffic to the Failapedia domain was simply forwarded on. Conservapedia admin Andrew Schlafly clearly took offense to the joke and filed a DMCA takedown with GoDaddy, who eventually disabled the domain.

The issue is that the DMCA does not provide any guidance on domain registrars, just on hosts. Since no content was hosted on the domain, it is unclear if and how the takedown works under the law.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: TelstraClear bails from copyright code talks

First off, in New Zealand news, the telecommunications company TelstraClear has backed out of negotiations on the implementation of controversial Section 92a, which would require ISPs to disconnect accused file sharers in the country.

The law was postponed last month to allow time for the ISPs and major copyright holders to hash out a draft proposal for implementation of the law. Since implementation would require that all ISPs agree, it seems unlikely that such an agreement will be reached at this time.

When the law was postponed, government officials said that, should the agreement not be reached within a month, that the law would be “suspended”, a fate that seems very likely at this time.

2: MPAA: RealNetworks hamstrings lawsuit by destroying evidence

There are developments today in the lawsuit between the MPAA and Real Networks over Real’s DVD ripping product, RealDVD. The MPAA is accusing Real of destroying evidence related to the case and has said that Real has “irreparably impaired the integrity of the judicial process.”

The court has filed an order to Real to preserve all evidence moving forward but it is unclear if any further action will be taken by the courts.

3: Microsoft dismisses $90m lawsuit

Finally today, Microsoft is involved in a copyright and patent dust up to the tune of $90 million. At issue specifically is Microsoft’s live chat feature, which lets players talk to one another while they play games on the Xbox and Xbox360. According to the suit, Microsoft approached PalTalk about creating the solution for the systems but, according to Microsoft, they decided to use another company instead.

The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft has violated Paltalk’s copyright and “patents concerning interactive applications over multiple computers.” Microsoft has dismissed the suit, saying that “The patents aren’t worth much, certainly not USD 90 million.”

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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