HDTV: "Consumers may not be pleased to learn that the newest digital sets and set-top boxes may limit or block the recording of premium services or pay-per-view programs, although they will allow recording of over-the-air programs."

"Quietly, opponents said, with few people paying close attention, state legislators are considering bills that would be even broader than the controversial DMCA, which restricts bypassing copy-protection measures."

"They and many others have been singing protest songs since the war began, and many songs are available as free downloads from the artists' sites. [...] In general, though, you're not likely to hear much protest on commercial radio."

Declan's advice: "As I've said before, technologists should remember to do what comes naturally: Invent technology that outpaces the law and might even make new laws irrelevant."

Mostly about larger issues, but touches on the DMCA and DVD copying: "Instead of regulating access to the engineering languages of the coming century, we should teach the languages to anyone who wants to learn."

"The Massachusetts House will be holding hearings for its version of a supposed 'State-Level DMCA' on 2 April 2003 at 10 AM. [...] All members of the public are welcome to attend and speak."

"In an unprecedented leak working against the RIAA and the commercial music industry as a whole, a few individuals have come across and are now offering a complete, high-quality version of Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief", undoubtedly one of the years biggest and most hotly awaited albums."

"The CBS television network has told computer maker Gateway Inc. that it won't air a new Gateway commercial about using computers to make digital music recordings. The decision stemmed from objections not to the images or words in the commercial but to an Internet address flashed on the screen, the network said."

"The British record industry is to prosecute universities that allow students to copy music over the internet through their computer networks. Heads of universities will face criminal sanctions if they collude in the illegal downloading of music files — "copyright theft" — that is costing the music industry £2 billion a year."

New weblog tracking free, legal mp3s.

"The Net is rife with free and low cost legal downloads of music that really matters to people. So says the Net Music Countdown's host, David Lawrence, whose newest blog has people scrambling to snap up the offerings."

"The New York Times [...] said it would allow networks to determine which shows could be rescheduled and to insert commercials into replays. That latter feature would address a major risk to the networks, which fear that widespread adoption of digital recording services could allow audiences to skip through commercials, eroding advertising revenues."

"In a research note published Friday, J.P. Morgan analyst Sterling Auty said that Arista Records, a subsidiary of BMG Music, appeared to be moving to market with CD copy-protection technology produced by SunnComm Technologies."

"Computer manufacturer Gateway Inc.'s latest promotional campaign hit an unexpected snag Thursday when the CBS television network balked at running the company's new commercial, saying it may violate the network's policy against advocacy ads. The commercial urges consumers to buy Gateway computers and receive a bundle of free songs. It closes with the address of a Web site that shows consumers how to copy music legally and calls on them to lobby Congress against anti-piracy mandates."

"Among the booters' most inventive tactics: using wireless radio receivers that capture signals sent to the in-ear monitors musicians wear to hear one another onstage. Fans can record a pristine feed of the entire show from outside the venue."

"Movielink, the online video-rental service co-owned by five major studios -- MGM, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Universal and Paramount -- has yet to interest mainstream consumers, but some attendees at the Digital Media Summit here said the service is a good strategic move."

"But despite his concerns, Moore said he couldn't rationalize releasing a DVD about open-source and free software that many users of that software would be unable to view. He's equally uncomfortable with supporting what he believes are increasingly Draconian copyright control techniques."

"Free peer-to-peer music file-sharing has become larger than the multibillion dollar recording industry with a growth trend that has become "fundamentally unstoppable," a media analyst told a state Senate committee exploring Internet piracy on Thursday."

"Hoping to spark its flagging sales, Gateway Inc. is launching its most extensive promotional campaign to get consumers to buy new computers so they can copy and store music -- without violating copyrights."

"Media members and their guests were told to leave cell phones, pagers and other electronic devices outside the theater. People were then scanned with an electronic wand to ensure compliance."

"FullAudio launched a revamped version of its music subscription service Wednesday and said it finally had rights to distribute music from all five major record labels."

"There will be some licensing issues involved (which we're focused on now), but we understand the importance of interoperability and we're dedicated to ensuring that NGSCB will interact with other operating systems."

"The use and return cartridges contain a chip that disables the cartridge if it is refilled and replaced in a Dell printer, the spokesperson said."

"Simply Red has released their eighth album, HOME, on their own label, simplyred.com, including lyrics and samples of the music. They apparently hope to make 300-400 percent higher returns than on standard record company contracts."

"On Wednesday, FullAudio announced the commercial availability of MusicNow, a digital music service geared toward older, salaried adults."

"The Mexican Congress is about to consider a revision to its copyright law. Among it many changes, the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100."

"The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

"A U.S. House of Representatives panel has indefinitely postponed a meeting, set for Thursday, that would have focused on a different method for setting copyright royalties for radio and Internet broadcasts."

"Proposed model state legislation will strengthen existing law and provide for both criminal and civil penalties against Internet pirates."

"The music industry said on Thursday it had begun cascading pamphlets on universities across the globe in its latest blitz against online piracy."

"The mexican congress is considering a revision of the copyright law. Among other changes the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100, and at the end of that term, the mexican government has the right to charge royalties for works in the public domain."

"Software, music and movies that employ copy-protection schemes must be prominently labeled with consumer warnings, according to a bill introduced in Congress this week."

"But Pamela Horovitz, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), sees light at the end of what has seemed to be an ever-lengthening tunnel. The next year, she says, just might be the one where offline retailers figure out their role in the digital world."

"Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Lenny Kravitz have joined the ranks of musicians airing their anti-war sentiments in song. Each has made available a track for free download [...]"

"The measurement of audience behavior was based on a review of 10,000 of TiVo anonymous subscribers' viewing patterns during the broadcast."

"Twisting the [DMCA] beyond Congress's intent works to no one's advantage, except that of corporations who seek to squelch competitors. Static Control's request should be granted. If it isn't, consumers will predictably suffer."

"Monday marked the first time pop singer Madonna's music went out digitally to her legion of Net fans--and with the move, the Material Girl broke a little new online ground for major artists."

"America Online is expected to announce that it will replace RealNetworks with Dolby as the default audio streaming technology for its narrowband Net radio service, according to Dolby."

"'In the coming weeks, we will decide whether to salute the (broadcast) flag or lower it,' Smith said. 'For the time being, we'll leave it at half-mast.' The right action will be to lower the broadcast flag."

"If Hollywood is to avoid the same grim future facing the music companies, which have been embroiled for years in legal battles with Web sites and consumers, it must permit digitization and on-demand content, and turn the time-honored business model on its head. That means deciding that home video and pay-per-view windows aren't sacrosanct."

"Protecting copyrights is important. But who should control your listening habits? Who should decide whether you are "approved" to listen to a certain piece of music? I find this disturbing in many ways. But Microsoft's DRM could do something far outside the bounds of copyright protection."

Satire: "Stoughton responded to the cost concern, 'I'd like to point out that a single MP3 on one of these computers could cost our company thirteen billion dollars in lost productivity according to a study released by the RIAA.'"

"Chief among Sonicblue's problems was a lawsuit brought against it by 27 entertainment companies that object to features on ReplayTV that allow users to share recorded shows and automatically skip over commercials."

"In fact, older people now spend so much time online that the AARP, the association for middle-age and older adults, has begun advertising on KaZaA Media Desktop, software used by millions of teenagers and young adults to swap songs online."

"As a legal alternative to Kazaa, Morpheus and other surviving music-swapping services, Streamwaves won't satisfy everyone. Tracks can't be downloaded or moved to portable music players. They can only be streamed to computers for play. But the design and flexibility of the Streamwaves model is already a hit."

"Suppliers who will be affected by the scheme tell the INQUIRER that they believe the primary goal of Microsoft is to push digital rights management (DRM) through the back door. If products cannot be sold unless they have been subjected to a whole battery of Microsoft tests, they will have to conform to the rules of the software giant."

"SonicBlue, the scrappy consumer electronics firm whose pioneering MP3 portable music players and ad-skipping digital video recorders enraged the entertainment industry, imploded in a pile of debt Friday."

"The country needs adequate incentives to produce more and better content, and it also needs to foster technological progress. On those two points, at least, all should be able to agree. It'd also be helpful if, occasionally, a little First Amendment free speech expressionism were factored into the equation. But how one strikes a better balance and builds a better copyright mousetrap is something it'd be better for the private sector to decide."

"Valenti indicated the MPAA is still determined to protect its content, citing as key concerns the need for a broadcast flag, 'plugging the analog hole,' and prohibiting peer-to-peer file sharing. Valenti chided critics who say the best way to combat illicit Internet distribution is to devise new business models." Regarding Tauzin's DTV bill, "an early tentative provision calling to plug the so-called analog hole would likely be removed."

"Anything Box, the synthpop band from the 80's who had a hit with 'Living in Oblivion' have released an introspective albumn in mp3 format under a 'freeware' style license."

"ORA authors are being encouraged to allow ORA to self-limit their copyright to the Founders' Copyright (14 years with one 14-year extension possible), and to allow ORA to distribute their out-of-print (or post-Founder's Copyright) books to the public using the Creative Commons Attribution license."

"A hybrid dual-layer version of DVD-Audio (DVD-A) that can play on both CD and DVD hardware is expected to hit the market in the next six months, sources tell Billboard Bulletin. The move should help spur consumer adoption of the burgeoning format."

"SunnComm Technologies, one of several companies developing anti-CD copying products, has licensed a new technique that can hide data, video, software or an identifying watermark inside music files."

"The Library of Congress' Copyright Office said on Thursday that it will hold a series of public hearings over the next two months in Washington, D.C. and California to decide what changes, if any, should be made to the section of the DMCA that restricts bypassing copy-protection schemes. [... But] because it won't affect researchers or companies that publish software code that circumvents copy-protection technology, the practical impact of the current proceeding may be limited."

"Consumer electronics maker Sonicblue Inc. SBLU.O said on Friday it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sell the assets of its main product lines."

"In the end, however, the main obstacle to the DVR's popularity may be the structure of the U.S. television industry, which is dominated by cable operators protecting regional monopolies. TiVo has tried to interest cable companies in adding its technology to their set-top boxes, but with notably little success."

"Sony Music has paid Incubus $4.25 million for three hit albums and a series of other products since 1996. For each band member, that has amounted to about $121,000 a year -- a salary a junior recording executive, not a chart-topping rock star, would expect to make."

"A group representing college media centers is warning the U.S. Copyright Office about a possible conflict between two federal laws, one meant to limit electronic access to copyrighted material and the other designed to broaden access to the same material for online education."

"Technology company 321 Studios, with a staff of 60 people, develops products to let people make high-quality replicas of DVDs. But last spring the movie studios, fearing that 321's technology would lead to rampant unauthorized copying, threatened to contact federal prosecutors."

Citing a longer document: "The competitor uses the copyright; the consumer uses the work. The copyright owner, by reason of the Copyright Act and the copyright clause, has not only no right to interfere, but a duty not to interfere with the consumer's use of a publicly disseminated work."

"Article III does not authorize federal courts to issue binding judicial process outside a pending case or controversy. The federal courts are neutral arbiters of claims brought to them by adversary parties—they cannot be assigned the role of private investigator for one side in a dispute that likely will never see the inside of a federal courtroom."

"But people who want to send a wireless greeting with a cute cartoon character using the multimedia messaging, or MMS, function on their phones may be in for a surprise. If they're sending the e-greeting using one of Nokia's newest handsets, they'll probably receive this message: 'Cannot forward copyrightable content.' [...] Still, some members of the wireless industry wonder if digital rights management is being implemented too soon in a market where almost no one -- except for a handful of early adopters -- is using MMS yet."

Aimee Deep: "We're arguing that Aimster is not similar to Napster. OK, I admit that Shawn and I have similar nicknames, but that's about as far as it goes."

MIT Press tried to get permission to print one-line excerpts from rock songs: "One reply, from the representatives of the Kinks, demanded $10,000 for permission to reprint the line 'help me, help me, help, me sail away' from the song 'Sunny afternoon.' The other reply, from representatives of the Kobain estate (which I assume is within Courtney Love’s control) forbids him from reprinting the line 'polly says her back hurts' from the Nirvana song 'Polly.' MIT has nonetheless decided that these words are protected by fair use, despite these demands."

"But Tauzin did offer Wheeler some advice in order to avoid more regulation: Have the industry clean up its act. If it doesn't want to be hit by legislation, it should improve cell-phone coverage, roll out enhanced 911 service in a timely fashion so that anyone who dials 911 on a cell phone can get help immediately, and build a mechanism to protect content from piracy over wireless devices, he said."

"Two major laws with implications to online copyright have been enacted within the last five years—The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)—both of which include questionable provisions and cloudy expositions that may do more harm than good to content professionals."

"Internet service providers determined to clamp down on file-sharing are fighting a losing battle, say analysts. Increasingly peer-to-peer (P2P) software, which allows surfers to share music and video files, is dodging the defences of internet service providers."

"Major record labels have targeted about 300 companies whose computers were allegedly used by employees to feed file-swapping networks in the latest attempt to crack down on Internet music piracy."

"In what was likely her last speech at a NARM convention -- as she will retire at the end of the year -- Rosen spoke of addressing customers' demands for music in more formats, a deeper catalog, and even 'a way to make compilations without feeling guilty or like criminals.'"

"An attack on corporate use of peer-to-peer software is under way, as companies face increasing pressure from record labels and other copyright holders to stop employees from file trading."

"One front in the war of dynamists and stasists is in California, where Northern California's Silicon Valley is on the dynamist side of liberation, freedom and self-enlightenment. But down south, Hollywood is fighting for addiction, ignorance, top-down dominance and stasis."

"During a recent hearing of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, [Republican congressman John Carter] said jailing college students who download copyrighted music would help stop piracy."

"If you’re a DRM advocate, the first rule of security analysis says that you have to choose a threat model, and stick to it. Either you choose the Napsterization model, and accept that your technology must be utterly bulletproof; or you choose the casual-copying model, and accept that you will not prevent Napsterization. You can't have it both ways."

"The music industry's leading trade group has sent letters to 300 U.S. companies complaining about alleged acts of piracy and copyright infringement in their corporate computer networks and warning of possible fines."

"Recent internal research by Procter & Gamble Co. indicates that consumers who fast-forward through ads with digital personal video recorders such as TiVo still recall those ads at roughly the same rates as people who see them at normal speed in real time."

At Brown University: "'Filtering' students off the Internet has increased substantially in 2003 due to the increase in complaints of illegal file−sharing filed by such organizations as Universal Studios and the Recording Industry Association of America, said Connie Sadler, director of information technology security."

"'The chief executive officer of StreamCast Networks, parent of the Morpheus file-swapping software, has resigned, citing no specific reason for the departure,' the company said late Friday."

"The music industry last week won an important legal battle in its bid to prevent discount etailer cd-wow from selling imported CDs in the UK. [...] These CDs are genuine but their sale in Britain contravenes the UK's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the claimants argue."

"Old and current shows, beefed up with extras, bring in as much as $1 billion a year. Success has erased retailers' skepticism about the format."

"Yahoo Monday launched a subscription video service that features news, sports and entertainment clips, pitting the Web portal against a comparable service offered by RealNetworks."

"After spending more than a year trying to figure out what sort of video programming Internet users will pay for, Yahoo is set to introduce its first subscription video service."

"Familiar issues such as Internet downloading, artist contracts, and business models inspired lively debate from a divided audience, but Andy Gershon -- president of V2 Records (home to Moby, the White Stripes, and much-lauded newcomers the Datsuns) -- achieved a consensus describing the fallout of corporate consolidation and rampant commercialism."

"The advocates of regulation argue at each point that just one more level of regulation will solve the problem. In a rational world, the fact that they were wrong last time would be reason to doubt them this time. But if you simply take on faith that DRM can prevent infringement, the failure of each step becomes, perversely, evidence that the next step is needed."

"A key conclusion of the Jupiter Research study is that music fans -- whether buying CDs in a store or downloading albums or individual tracks over the Internet -- want to own the tunes and are willing to pay a premium to do so. Nearly twice as many online consumers are willing to pay $17.99 for a CD that has unrestricted copy abilities versus a CD at only $9.99 that cannot be copied, the study concludes."

"The British Phonographic Industry said [British Telecom] had been reluctant to discuss the issue of online piracy, despite repeated attempts by its anti-piracy division to get BT to discuss peer-to-peer file-swapping."

"Under closer questioning, however, none of those at the hearing could point to any specific connections between copyright infringement and terrorism. Instead, the reasoning went something like '1) organized crime gangs run bootleg factories. 2) organized crime is linked to terrorism. 3) therefore bootlegs are funding terrorism.'"

"When we talk about fair-use, this is what it becomes in Congressional meetings: everyone's gotta give up something, that means that the public has to give up something."

TiVo press release: their first cash-flow-positive quarter.

"Back in the '70s, it was fashionable to say that computers were causing problems for copyright. I would rather say that copyright causes problems for computers."

New Philips product streams music over wireless.

"The latest finding from TEMPO, the company's quarterly study of digital music consumer activities, shows almost one-fifth of the US population over 12 has downloaded music in the last 30 days. Of that number only 21% feel that free downloading hurts artists. Only 9% feel that downloadling a file is wrong."

"The music industry this week condemned the launch of two recording systems that will let people copy between 30 and 100 hours of music onto a single disc. The launches, from electronics giants Sony and Philips, are being seen as a potential pirates' charter." Obviously the only possible use is piracy: "'It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry,' says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI."

"Unfortunately, the online music services have taken so many precautions to prevent bootlegging that users are going to get sick of jumping through hoops pretty fast."

Against a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights: "So the bottom line is that consumers are best off if the concept of fair use is applied only in the contexts of productivity or sticky transaction costs, and is kept very narrow in the context of consumer uses. Property rights, technology, and markets, allowed to work their magic, will bring us a cornucopia of choices. Legislation will freeze us into pre-Internet patterns."

"The Disney situation is unusual. Only about 2% of copyrighted work between 1923 and 1942 continues to be exploited commercially. Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has proposed a sensible compromise."

"A congressional hearing on the links between terrorism, organized crime, and the illegal trading of copyrighted material produced more complaints about college students using peer-to-peer (P-to-P) networks and other governments sanctioning copyright violations than it did evidence of nefarious connections."

"Representative Lofgren’s objective of ensuring that copyright law provides the proper balance between the interests of consumers and copyright owners is commendable. The DMCA’s prohibitions, in our view, remain important. We cannot at this time support broad exemptions to the DMCA that would undermine the core purpose of the Act -- that technological measures can have an important and proper role in curbing piracy."

"Witnesses and representatives at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property hearing Thursday did express fears that profits from widespread copying of movies, music and software outside the U.S. were being funneled into terrorist organizations, but the hearing produced no concrete examples of that happening."

"Hollywood and Microsoft are uniting to warn Congress that their intellectual property is being stolen and resold by organized-crime gangs around the globe. [...] John Malcolm, a Justice Department official who oversees the computer crime division, warned the panel about the connections between copyright piracy and terrorism."

"U.S. carriers, cash-starved and burdened by billions of dollars in debt, expect downloadable music to create a healthy new revenue source, especially from the teenage market. [...] But the initial rollouts of services from Sony, America Online and soon MTV are missing actual music to download."

Natalie Merchant's manager: "We're not trying to recoup some enormous debt. The economics of making this record are very prudent. When we sell 200,000 copies, we'll be standing on our chairs, hollering. If we released this record with these kinds of goals on a major label, we would look like a failure. At Elektra, if you just sell 1.5 million, everyone goes around with their heads down."

"Music buyers who applied for a share of a price-fixing settlement involving major U.S. record labels and retailers will receive about $12.60 apiece if a judge signs off on the deal."

"The suspected leader of one of the Internet's oldest piracy groups has been indicted, and his extradition from Australia is being sought, a top U.S. attorney said Wednesday."

Lessig in The Guardian: "The big problem is that there's sympathy with that view among people who think about it in a dispassionate and balanced way, but there's no lobbying support for that view. The problem is the gap between what makes sense and what gets lobbying support, and that explains a lot of the craziness of America now."

"But a second front is developing in the music counterrevolution, with a different set of weapons aimed at a different kind of target. The strategy is to keep listeners - especially older, more affluent ones - buying discs, and making what is on them richer in sound and appeal."

"Based on the recommendation of its patent office and following fierce lobbying by VG Wort, an association of German composers, authors and publishers, Germany is poised to enforce a 3-year-old law and impose a copyright levy of $13 plus 16 percent in value added tax per new computer sold in the country."

"Millions of people download copyrighted songs and even movies from the Internet with little fear of being caught. That's about to change."

"Contrary to implications in recent media reports, Dutch lawyers say their small European country shouldn't be held up as the poster child for file-sharing and copyright violation."

"So we filed a petition to rehear the case that made the claim of principle in as careful and balanced a way as possible. Again, such petitions are never granted any more. But if there is a place to express such criticism, respectful of the institution and tradition that these justices serve, it was in this form, without the pressure of publicity."

Professor Hollar's treatise is now online.

Fritz Attaway: "What monopoly problem do you see? (laughter) We are not in the business of creating the essential material. We make entertainment. If you don’t like the entertainment, and quite frankly, sometimes we make movies we can’t subpoena people to see…" Mozelle Thompson: "You fly to Washington and tell us how important your industry is, and now you come here and play, like oh, we’re just fluff..."

Great summary of Berkeley DRM conference: "[Fair use] is all mucky and complicated and it’s described entirely in terms of its exceptions. [Joan Feigenbaum would] rather we turn around and start thinking about the common cases, start specifying consumer rights affirmatively (rather than as exceptions to copyright-holders’ rights), and get some default rules that satisfy our expectations most of the time."

"The harm from extensions is not just that prices are higher. The real harm is the removal of a vast amount of our recent past from a domain where it might be usefully or easily cultivated."

John Perry Barlow: "I fear that Digital Rights Management today is Political Rights Management tomorrow. That embedding these kinds of technological controls into the very architecture of computing has the capacity to become a form of political control in the not so distant future. Because you're putting at a very basic level surveillance capacity, control over what information may or may not travel, and a whole range of things in the architecture that can be very easily used to suppress dissent."

The MediaCenter PC: "The company doesn't release sales figures, but analysts say HP's version of the new breed of PC is so popular that some stores haven't had enough of them in stock to meet demand. In fact, some say, multifunction TV-PCs could rekindle the sluggish PC market by appealing to consumers eager to replace their computers, photo albums, CD, DVD and VCR players and TV sets with one single machine."

"File traders are used to weeding through the chaff to get to the wheat, but over the past year a new tactic, "spoofing," has emerged in the fight against file trading. Spoofing is the practice of spamming trading networks with decoy files in an effort to frustrate traders, and, hopefully, drive them to seek music from one of the industry's legitimate downloading destinations."

"Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren re-introduced a bill Monday that seeks to preserve consumers' rights to make digital copies of music, movies and books for their own use."

"Like the phoenix from the ashes, the once-wildly popular Napster song-swapping service is slated to be relaunched before the end of the year, its new corporate parent Roxio Inc. said."

"A Dutch Internet company Thursday said it had developed software that could be used to compensate musicians whose songs are swapped online, a move it said could cut out the embattled music industry."

"No one would call a parent a criminal for fast-forwarding through a movie's sex scene while their children were in the room. But some were calling Bill Aho a criminal after his company developed software that automatically filters nudity, graphic violence and foul language from popular DVD movies."

"Jack Valenti, long considered Washington's top lobbyist as head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said recent speculation that he is stepping down is premature but acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he has asked the major movie studios to put a succession plan in place."

"If Moriarty were the CIO of an ordinary business - a bank or a computer company, say - it would be easy for him to simply rig the network to block all file swappers. But Moriarty is the CIO of Harvard University, a place dedicated to the free exchange of information. Completely banning a particular way of sharing information would seem almost sacrilegious to many of Harvard's students, faculty, and staff."

"Essentially, students are being asked to help police other students to "cease and desist," he said. And complaints from copyright holders and their electronic bloodhounds have increased over the past month."

"Weighing in for the first time, U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters said Thursday that Hollywood has good reason to "insist" that something be done to protect digital TV from piracy, even if that means changing the rules governing what a consumer can or can't do."

"In a first for the music industry, a major record label will introduce new songs on a new video game, not the radio. The goal is to lure young, male consumers into buying entire CD's when they are released to stores up to four months later."

"When it comes to the subject of copyright protection, neither Intel nor Hewlett-Packard can make up its mind what to do. The two companies seem to simultaneously love and loathe the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that's famously unpopular among hackers, programmers and the open-source crowd."

"In an uncommonly harsh application of a widely used Internet enforcement tool, a Windows news site was taken offline for nearly 24 hours this week after Microsoft accused the site of infringing its copyrights."

Press release: "Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) today introduced legislation designed to protect consumer’s ability to enjoy digital copyrighted material."

"Hollywood and Silicon Valley carried their battle over Internet piracy to Capitol Hill on Thursday, debating the need for technology to prevent the illegal trading of movies and television shows online."

"In this case, progress in one channel of communication -- the Internet -- might very well lead to the creation of laws that, at least for consumers, hamper a competing channel -- viz., broadcast."

"The essence of AOL Time Warner's Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo: watching programs on their own schedules, with fast-forward and rewind. But it also lets networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials."

"After targeting colleges and companies and their computer users, Hollywood is taking its battle to curb illegal downloads to people who watch movies the old-fashioned way -- by purchasing a ticket."

"Fritz Attaway (MPAA) said that he thought that while it is difficult for consumer groups to participate in standards body decision processes, consumers have the marketplace and can take or leave technologies, as they see fit."

"Printer maker Lexmark International Inc. won a legal skirmish in the ongoing war between printer companies and scrappy vendors of refilled ink cartridges."

"U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has a strikingly simple idea to bolster customers' rights to freely use software, movies and music that they've paid for: Force the sellers of such products to tell the truth about the restrictions they're imposing on users."

"The Business Software Alliance commends Representative Lofgren for her continued leadership on technology issues, but we have critical reservations about her approach and the changes to copyright law proposed in the BALANCE Act of 2003, formerly the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002."

"Campus technology directors are scrambling anew to comply with copyright laws after a major movie studio stepped up its pressure on student downloaders by issuing an unprecedented number of cease-and-desist orders."

"The European Court of Justice on Thursday weighed limits on the right to protect ideas through copyright, in a case that may have broad implications for intellectual property in Europe."

"A representative for Telstra, which is also an Internet service provider, said Thursday that federal police visited one of its Melbourne offices last week in connection with alleged piracy that involved downloads of music potentially worth up to $36 million (60 million Australian dollars)."

"The city-state has been a success story in fighting pirated movies, but an industry association warns that Singapore could just be shipping the problem out of the country."

"You are attempting to save a document that contains the following trademarked and/or copyrighted language: [...] Options: Save document as is, and alert the appropriate authorities."

"Static Control Components, locked in a bitter fight with Lexmark International, added new charges to a previous antitrust lawsuit filed against the printer manufacturer. The suit seeks at least $100 million in damages."

"According to the Court, the Lexmark software implements the access control measure; but the Static Control software which is completely identical to the Lexmark software is improperly circumventing the measure. In other words, circumvention is determined not by what a device does, but by whether the maker of some complementary product has approved it."

"In my experience, you hear this phrase almost exclusively from advocates of big, complicated, intrusive, systems that have turned out to be much weaker than planned. Having failed to build a technologically strong system, they say with cheerful revisionism that their goal all along was just to 'keep honest people honest.'"

"But after years of denial and confusion, belligerence and panic, most of the big record labels have coalesced around a set of prices at which they will make almost all of their music available to an ever-expanding array of legal online services."

"If I loan a book to a friend to read, am I committing an act of piracy? The day is fast approaching when at least some people will answer that question in the affirmative."

"For me, the overall topic is too complex to be resolved with a single formula or policy. The term "intellectual property" is overly broad. We need multiple metaphors."

"Should universities therefore crack down on file swapping, in response to Congress's request? On the contrary. Instead, universities should take the lead in mounting free speech and "fair use" challenges to the application of NETA and the DMCA. They should also take the lead in spearheading lobbying efforts that seek to achieve a more moderate legislative solution - one under which legal file swapping is plainly protected, and its parameters are clear."

"Digital-music executives familiar with the situation say Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has been meeting with the major record companies to generate support for the venture."

"Replacing a car's transmission could become more expensive if automakers decide to embed auto parts with computer chips protected under a controversial copyright law. That's just one scenario critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act envision if the law is interpreted to include a broad range of digital devices beyond the scope originally envisioned by legislators. [...] 'This is a travesty, and this needs to be addressed legislatively. This is out of scope of the DMCA,' said Alex Alben, vice president of public policy for RealNetworks, speaking at a conference on digital rights management recently."

"Although DVD burners are here, it's fair to say they haven't really arrived. And if Hollywood gets its way, perhaps they never will."

Online music services: "No matter which service you try, you'll almost always pay more for an album's worth of music than you would by buying a CD in the store. Furthermore, none of these services exploit the virtues of the Web by including lyrics, tour dates and other news."

"According to one of the music-service executives I interviewed, a generation of new, copy-protected CD players and discs are on the way. They'll work exactly like DVD's."

"Music fans are keeping a venerable tradition of the 1960's alive: following their favorite bands around the country, making recordings of concerts, and trading those recordings. But the tradition has been given new life through vastly improved technology that allows recordings to be duplicated without the loss of the sound and feeling of the original, and through the Internet's role as a meeting place for fans seeking to exchange their favorite performances."

"Digital broadcaster Pseudo.com plans to release a weekly TV show hosted by rap star Ice-T on the Internet file-sharing network Kazaa, in attempts to start a new model of advertising-supported television."

"During a hearing Thursday, members of the House of Representatives' subcommittee overseeing intellectual-property law warned the FCC that a possible proposal for digital TV regulations could encroach upon Congress' turf. [...] Democrat Rep. Howard Berman, whose Southern California district borders Hollywood, said he was worried that the FCC could veer in a direction that might mandate "fair use" rights that would not be favorable to the entertainment industry."

"British telecommunications company BT Group on Thursday announced the launch of a subscription-based music download service, a crucial component to expanding its lead in Britain's residential broadband market. [...] At a cost of 1 pound per "burned" download, in most cases it would be cheaper to buy a CD in a store than download the entire recording on Dotmusic, a fact of life for nearly all industry-backed subscription services."

"Apple Computer and major record labels are expected to launch an online music subscription service within several weeks, entertainment industry sources said. [...] The service will use a high-fidelity format called Advanced Audio Codec, which delivers higher quality sound than the MP3 format and prevents copying between computers."

"These advances are setting the stage for a new round of conflict among tech companies, consumers, and Hollywood. The technology industry is working with music and movie studios to create new services, digital locks, and filters that can balance consumer rights and copyrights."

"Attempts to protect copyrighted material have strayed from their original purpose, say lawyers, technologists and academics, but few can agree on the solution."

"Technology scholars, business leaders and policy makers gathered at California conferences this weekend to argue whether a mismatch between two different technologies and the legal policies that govern them could inhibit free expression and innovation."

"So Eldred was important because it rejected the effort to persuade the Court to adopt an orientation toward copyright that would have been destructive."

"The media industries are under siege. The reason is simple: these industries depend on forms of control and artificial scarcities that are incompatible with digital distribution."

"Cornell University officials have developed a new "pay by the drink" billing system that will charge students and employees incrementally for Internet use as a way of controlling what officials call "irrational consumption" of bandwidth."

"Federal police have executed search warrants on Telstra and internet company Eftel in one of Australia's largest investigations into alleged music piracy, which could be worth up to $60 million."

"Top executives at the major record companies have finally found an online music service that makes them excited about the digital future, sources said Monday."