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RaySat
Brings TV, High-Speed Internet To Minivans, SUVs A growing number of families are starting to keep the kids occupied on road trips with so-called back seat entertainment centers, either a DVD player that came factory-installed with the SUV or a portable one purchased from Amazon or Best Buy to make the drive to grandma's house a more pleasant ride. Wouldn't it be nice, however, if instead of having to pick and choose which DVDs to take in the minivan and needing to switch discs every hour or two, you could just set the kids up watching their favorite TV shows? And what about the teenagers in the third row of seats? Maybe they'd like to chat on IM, surf the Internet or play Web-based games. Vienna, Virginia-based RaySat Inc has unveiled a new satellite antenna that makes all this possible. The company's new SpeedRay is an enclosed roof-mounted, low profile, five-inch high satellite antenna available in two versions - one that provides in-motion satellite TV and radio access and one that adds two-way Internet access as well. The SpeedRay 1000 provides satellite TV reception to moving vehicles. It can be mounted to the roof of an SUV, minivan or recreational vehicle, enabling passengers to watch hundreds of live satellite TV channels. The antenna is compatible with Dish Network or any other direct-to-home broadcast satellite provider worldwide. Getting TV signals on the antenna in the car is "just like paying for an extra receiver" for a satellite TV subscription, according to RaySat marketing directory Lynette Henley. For folks who want more, the company has introduced the SpeedRay 3000, which, in addition to receiving satellite TV and radio signals, essentially turns the vehicle into a "rolling hotspot." It provides Internet access with download speeds up to 2 Mbps and upload speeds up to 128 Kbps to laptops, PDAs and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices. The Internet bandwidth is shared among users in the vehicle. The system's Wi-Fi transceiver, which supports 802.11b and 802.11g, is built into the dish antenna housing and doesn't require any additional installation or connections. The SpeedRay 3000 uses GPS-tracking and phased array antenna technology to provide continuous coverage. The antenna's panels constantly move up and down and rotate back and forth inside the housing to track and maintain the satellite signal regardless of the vehicle's location. Cellular networks are limited to infrastructure and towers; the SpeedRay uses a satellite uplink so it can be accessed anywhere, Henley noted. "With our latest breakthrough technology, we're moving from being purely an in-vehicle entertainment company to being a communications solution provider in moving vehicles," said RaySat president and CEO Samer Salameh.
RaySat's SpeedRay on the Roof According to the company, the consumer market provides a growing potential market for its solutions, since wireless operators are unable to provide the combination of national coverage and high-speed Internet access of satellite communication. Some 10 million vehicles now come equipped for video. Market research firm Frost & Sullivan expects the market to reach 18 million by 2008. RaySat has forged a deal making Audiovox the exclusive marketer of the SpeedRay in the US and Canada. Audiovox is rebranding the SpeedRay 1000 as the Audiovox SkyBox and will deliver it to automotive electronics retailers and installers in Q2. The SpeedRay 3000 won't be available until later in the year. The SpeedRay 1000 will sell for $2,495 and the SpeedRay 3000 is expected to retail for $3,495. Installation and subscriptions to TV and Internet services are additional. In addition to the direct-to-consumer offerings, RaySat has also taken the covers off the StealthRay, an OEM product that will be factory-installed by vehicle manufacturers, rather than attached to a vehicle's roof. The StealthRay is also smaller than the SpeedRay - two inches thick rather than the five-inch thickness of the consumer model. Henley said that the company is in discussions with several car companies including Hummer, but has yet to finalize any deals. RaySat's one-way satellite
technology is already in use on trains in Europe. Its
TorpedoRay product provides high-speed Internet on high-speed
trains, receiving broadband data transmissions and satellite
TV. The company has also introduced the EagleRay antenna,
which offers the same services as the TorpedoRay, plus will
provide two-way uninterrupted communication for sending and
receiving e-mail and browsing the Internet via a laptop PC or
PDA. Top Six Reasons Not to Buy an iPod Appleturns.com
"translates" Microsoft's "Six Tips for Buying
an MP3 Player with Flash Memory." 1. Understand the basics, ie, flash players are inherently better than hard-drive players because they don't skip unless you throw them at the water just right. 2. Make sure you're getting all the goodies, ie, you just won't be happy unless your player can record FM radio and includes, for some reason, a stopwatch. 3. You'll want a display, ie, there's no nobler way to die than by trying to change songs with a three-line, teensy-button human interface while jogging and being struck down by a Dodge Stratus. 4. Let a professional make your next playlist, ie, why listen to your own music when you can listen to nonstop commercials and obnoxious local DJs on FM radio? And record them digitally, so you can share that great beer jingle with your friends and loved ones? 5. Pick the right size for you, ie, Windows Media is great, and we just wanted to harp on that for a minute. Have we mentioned that Windows Media is great? 6. Don't get locked into one
online store; it is, however, just fine to get locked into one
proprietary data format and DRM scheme - as long as it's
ours. Back
to Headlines Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who also headed and sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo, says on his blog that he listened to RIAA head Mitch Bainwol argue that illegal downloads were hurting music sales because sales began to decline after the advent of the P2P networks. According to Cuban, Bainwol said it was "obvious the advent of file sharing coincided with a decrease in music sales. Therefore A leads to B." Cuban disagrees. "Personally, I don't think anyone at the RIAA has a clue what the actual impact of file sharing on music sales is, but then again, I don't know either," he said. Cuban decided to test Bainwol's logic by applying it to what happened to the sale of other digital content after the P2P networks popped up: - DVDs - Huge increase in sales. - Digital Photographs - Huge increase in sales. - Video Games - Huge increase in sales. - Software - Not huge increase percentage-wise, but increases in actual dollars. - Ringtones - Huge increases in sales. "So, using the Mitch
Bainwol/RIAA logic," Cuban says, "If five digital
based products sold since file sharing came on the scene are
showing flat sales at worst, up huge at best, doesn't it hold
true that file sharing can't hurt and must benefit digital
product sales?" Back
to Headlines Sony Shooting for Dominance in Online Movie Service It's about freaking time! Sony Pictures will digitize its top 500 films and make them available in various digital environments within the next year, according to published reports. "We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs did for music, but for the film industry," Michael Arrieta, senior VP Sony Pictures, told attendees at the Digital Hollywood conference. "I'm trying to create the new 'anti-Napster.'" Sony sees two distribution channels for its digitized flicks. It plans next year to offer the films for viewing on mobile phones using flash memory chips. It also wants to start its own online movie service, in competition with Movielink and CinemaNow, to allow broadband users to purchase and/or rent films for downloading to their PCs. Sony and the other movie studios currently make only a few of their films available through the two legitimate online movie services. Sony Pictures, by the way, is one of several major movie studios that has an ownership stake in Movielink. The movie industry has become increasingly restless about the amount of free film downloading that takes place on the Net. It has ramped up its legal attacks against P2P services in the US and Europe in recent months. In particular, it has gone after those that use the BitTorrent technology for file sharing, because its transfer speed makes it particularly good for large files such as movies. No online movie service equivalent to iTunes has yet appeared - one that tightly couples an online store with a non-PC video player - say a TV or a portable video player. Consumers haven't accepted home networking schemes and digital media adapters that purport to let consumers play PC-stored video on the TV in another room. The complaints are they're too complicated, require more wires and wiring schemes and are not easy to install or use. As a result, consumers don't have an easy way to play a downloaded movie on a TV in another room. Sales of and interest in home networking gear is declining, mainly due to the industry's failure to make easy the connection and compatibility of PCs and consumer electronics gear. The same barrier, to a lesser degree, existed between music downloading services and portable MP3 players until Apple worked its magic. No such magician has yet appeared to tear down the PC-CE barrier. Consequently Sony is unlikely to have much success with online movie service. However, like Apple, Sony has all the pieces needed to make a PC-to-CE link work. It makes both PCs and TVs. It also has the RoomLink Network Media Receiver, a device that streams video and audio from a VAIO PC equipped with Sony's Giga Pocket personal video recorder to a TV in another room. Sony also has its PlayStations such as the newly arrived PSP handheld player that can be used for viewing movies. The first million PSPs sold in the states came with a free copy of the "Spider-Man 2" movie. PSP uses Sony's proprietary UMD discs. Already Lions Gate Entertainment and Disney have said they'll make films available in the UMD format. Whether Sony can harness its internal but separate fiefdoms to produce an iTunes-iPod wonder remains to be seen. Perhaps the newly promoted CEO Howard Stringer can get the attention of Sony's badly faltering CE management and wring out an integrated online movie service - one that would work for music as well. Sony faces two problems in developing such a service: 1. Much of the software that Sony has developed recently for its CE gear is archaic in its "look and feel." 2. Sony owns the content and
the content kings within the company are making money for
Sony. That gives them the clout to force copy-protection
schemes on the CE operations that are not acceptable to
consumers. Witness the failures that over-ambitious copy
restrictions have caused in SonyConnect, its dead-on-arrival
online music service, and the its Pocket VAIO MP3 players that
won't appear on anyone's wish list in their current form. Just
think - an MP3 player that doesn't play tracks from iTunes,
the world's most popular online music service, or from any of
the multitude of Windows Media-based services such as those
from Napster and Musicmatch. Back
to Headlines Home
Network Demand Is on the Decline The decline in demand for home networks is necessitating a strategic shift by vendors of such gear, according to The Diffusion Group (TDG). The research shop finds that what it calls the declining "manifest" demand for home networks will require vendors to adopt new strategies that focus on "push" distribution channels. TDG's point is that the initial, "natural" market for home networks was people who had an obvious need, say two PCs, one printer and a broadband connection - and were willing to pay the price - both money and time - to get the network installed. Those so-called early adopters were about 18 million US households - out of about 100 million. The next wave won't be so easy. It involves the folks who have unrealized, or latent, needs that a network would fulfill but aren't willing to spend the necessary time or money to install one. The Real Reason Home Network Sales Are Declining There is another reason, that sales of home network gear are faltering, and it just might be the real reason. Consumers don't need a home network if they only have one PC or if they want their TV or stereo to connect to the network. The CE gear makers have totally failed to make their products usable on a network. It's one thing to make them "networked;" it's quite another thing to make them "network usable." For a number of years a Windows PC and a Mac could be connected to the same network without being compatible. They might as well have been on separate networks as far as using them together was concerned, since they couldn't share files or a printer. The same is true for home networking of PC and CE devices today. Connect them both to a network and what do you have? Nothing. For a time it appeared that the CE industry might settle on Home Audio Video Interoperability (HAVi) as a standard user interface across multiple-vendors products. Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Scientific-Atlanta and EchoStar appear to be the only ones using the HAVi standard and then only on a few models. Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Philips, Sharp, Sony, Texas Instruments, VividLogic and Yaskawa are the "participating" members behind the standard. Grundig, Hitachi and Thomson Multimedia are the "promotional" members. Where is HAVi? Now, however, HAVi appears to be in trouble, based on what we found on its Web site (www.havi.org). The group's chairman and several other HAVi directors listed on the site appear to no longer be involved with the HAVi standard. The "next" scheduled meeting for HAVi members, as posted on HAVi.org, was last July - 2004. The last HAVi.org press release appears to have been sent in February 2004. The contact phone number on the site is answered by a machine at Vivid Logic, which develops HAVi software for CE makers to embed in their products. The next surge in home network sales will likely not occur until the CE makers adopt a universal user interface - one that will allow a TV viewer to play an audio file stored on his PC or play his iTunes library on the stereo. Currently, this just isn't possible in the practical sense. Installing the so-called digital media adapters that are available now is a nightmare - they come with batches of cables that have to be installed. Looking at the back of an existing PC or home entertainment center reveals more cables than most consumers want to deal with. Once they're connected, operating one networked device from another one is mind numbing. Every device has its own interface and strange terminology to be mastered. The fact is that the CE industry hasn't even been able to agree on a universal remote control, which is why most consumers have two to five remotes in their main entertainment room.
Perhaps There Is No Future for CE Makers in Digital Media The major indictment against the traditional CE makers is their failure to develop a market-share leading digital media product. Apple leads in MP3 players and online music services and TiVo leads in DVRs with Motorola in second place. Network gear makers NetGear and Buffalo lead in home networking. If there is any success in digital media adapters, it's US companies like NetGear. The CE industry's failure to develop a universal user interface standard leaves the door open to Microsoft, just as Microsoft found the door open to make Windows the universal standard for PCs. One example of the chaos that existed pre-Windows: Every software developer had to engineer his own printer drivers for every model of every printer manufacturer. Microsoft came along preaching the universal Windows salvation. It told the printer companies that if they developed the printer driver and embedded it in Windows, then any software that ran on Windows would work optimally - more or less - with their printer. It told the software developers that if they wrote their software to comply with Windows' standard interface, then their software - and any compliant version of it - would run any Windows supported printer. Problem solved, support and development costs slashed, consumers made happy without having to learn anything about different interfaces. What is missing in the CE industry today is the foresight to develop such a standard and the clout to impose it. This creates the opportunity for Microsoft to step in, something the CE players dread because they have seen Microsoft, with some help from Intel, drain all the profits out of making PCs. Ask IBM, Gateway, HP and Sony for proof - a value-add business model doesn't work in a commodity industry. Two Doors for Microsoft Microsoft has two potential entries into the CE market, not including the possibility that one of the big CE makers - say Sony, Samsung or Matsushita - might see the light and put a CE version of Windows on all its products: 1. Virtually every home will eventually have a DVR-based set-top box, as a hub, perhaps the hub, for storing digital media files. If the big sellers of such gear - the cable TV or phone companies - were to standardize on Windows as the operating system, then they and Microsoft could dictate that every CE maker who wanted to connect its gear to the box would have to use Windows-compliant software. The cable TV companies, at least at this point, seem to have shied away from Microsoft. The phone companies, who desperately need a set-top box strategy that's clearly better than the cablecos', are the better targets. SBC and Verizon in their recent announcements indicate that Microsoft-based set-top boxes are in their future. 2. Microsoft, Intel and the PC makers have started selling PCs that are increasingly CE-like in function and operation - all based on the Windows Media Center operating system. They haven't been very successful at it, yet. Reports are that only about 1.4 million such "entertainment PCs" have been sold since HP launched the first one in September 2002. You've got to hand it to Microsoft, though. It keeps trying until it gets it right - just ask Netscape, Lotus and WordPerfect about Microsoft's persistence and deep pockets. There is no reason that the PC crowd shouldn't ultimately succeed, perhaps even at selling TVs and stereos (Oops. They're doing that already, aren't they?) It is that course - Wintel-based CE gear - that poses the biggest threat to the traditional CE makers - a threat that will ultimately force them to adopt a universal operating system and user interface, - whether Windows, HAVi or another, or watch the PC crowd take over their business. With the HAVi standard a non-factor, at least for now, the industry's left with the question of who could develop or lead the development of a CE-based universal user interface that all CE makers could incorporate, assuming it's not Microsoft. The two names that pop up immediately are Apple and Sony - working separately, perhaps even together. Apple has the software know-how and the credibility in digital media. Sony, despite its management and financial failures of late, still has lots of clout in the CE industry. TDG says that home networking makers have had a few good sales years as they sold via retail channels into a market of pent-up demand. TDG now says that the "manifest" or "overt" consumer demand for home networks is at an all-time low, having declined for each of the last three years. "There is no doubt that manifest demand for home networks continues to decline," said Michael Greeson, president and principal analyst with the research firm. "TDG's most recent analysis found that approximately 10% of non-networked broadband households are interested in buying a home network, with 5.9% (more than one-half of this group) being 'somewhat interested' and only 1.4% stating they would 'definitely' purchase a home network during 2005. This is the lowest level of interest we've seen in several years, and is indicative of a flattening of the demand curve and a requisite shift in channel strategy." At year-end 2004, approximately
18 million US households owned a home network, the vast
majority (almost 16 million) being households that also
subscribe to broadband Internet service. More than 60% of
these 18 million households purchased their home network in
the last two years, reflective of a very dramatic ramp-up in
demand for home networks that took place between 2003 and
2004. While this impressive demand attracted attention from
technology vendors and VCs alike, consumer research suggests
that this rapid uptake is about to be exhausted - that is,
barring any radical shift in network marketing and
distribution strategies. Advantage to the Cable TV and Phone Companies TDG says that the more effective sellers of home networking in the future are the cable TV and phone companies, not the retail stores and Internet retailers that have led the charge so far - Comcast, not Best Buy. The cablecos and telcos have the three things needed to install and support home networks, as this paper has reported several times: 1.They already have trucks and trained people in every US neighborhood. 2.They have a rent/lease business model that lowers the consumers' upfront costs. 3.They have gear in their central offices that can remotely monitor and support home networks and much of the gear that will be attached to it. Most importantly, they have the
motivation - the fierce competition for survival that each is
bringing on the other. Both want to control the wire to the
home and wring the maximum amount of revenue out of it.
Installing and supporting the home's network is another way of
doing that. NetGear, which makes home networking products, has
set up a "service provider" division to focus on
selling and supporting the cable TV and phone
companies. Back
to Headlines Point-Counterpoint in Grokster, StreamCast Case In all the noise surrounding the Supreme Court review of the record labels and movie studios' suit against P2P firms Grokster and StreamCast this week, the case comes down to this: 1.P2P firms make money selling advertising that's aimed at the millions who copy and make copyrighted files available for downloading. That's why Grokster, StreamCast and the other P2P outfits are willing to give away their software and services. Over 90% of the music and movies that users share on the P2P networks is copyrighted. 2.A US District Court and an
Appeals Court have ruled that, like the makers of videotape
recorders, the P2P firms cannot be held liable for the actions
of their users. The decision was based on a 1984 Supreme Court
decision in which the studios were suing Sony, which made the
Betamax VCR. Back
to Headlines Court Hears Cable Wholesale Argument The Grokster/StreamCast case isn't the only technology-related one before the Supreme Court this week. The court also heard one that contends the cable TV companies are like the phone companies and as such must provide third parties access to their infrastructure. A California ISP called Brand X initiated the suit, which attacks the FCC's contention that the cablecos are information companies carrying data rather than communications companies, such as the telcos, which the FCC does regulate. Brand X wants the FCC to require cable TV companies to sell access to their networks at wholesale in much the same way that the phone companies are forced to sell access to their networks to third-party ISPs such as EarthLink and Covad. The Court's decision could impact the way the FCC regulates the two classes of companies. If common sense prevails, the cable TV companies would be classified the same as phone companies. They have said repeatedly they will offer phone service over their lines and are openly marketing it with frequent ads. If they are providing phone service to some consumers, then they are phone companies. Ask a subscriber to Time Warner Cable's phone service who his phone company is and the answer comes back, "Time Warner Cable." At the same time, the phone companies are bent on using their infrastructure to becoming providers of TV programs in direct competition with the cable TV services. Some of the financial impact of the case has been reduced by a recent FCC decision that frees the phone companies from having the price that they can charge third parties who lease the phone companies' infrastructure imposed on them by state governments. Consequently, the phone companies have begun raising those rates and done so to the point that third parties no longer find it profitable. The result is that third-party ISPs have found it difficult to compete with the phone companies who've been cutting their monthly broadband rates. If Brand X wins, it could be winning a pyrrhic victory. One other inconvenient, perhaps even unfortunate, result of the FCC's decision to classify cable TV and phone companies separately is that the cablecos and third-party broadband VoIP providers such as Vonage do not have to offer the 911 emergency phone service. A Texas court ruled last week that Vonage must notify subscribers to its service that they will not be able to use 911 for emergencies. In the end, the court battle is between a heavily regulated industry - the phone companies - and a lightly regulated one - the cable TV companies. It now appears that technology has brought both industries into the same classification, call them what one might - phone companies that deliver TV programs or cable TV services that deliver phone service. The cable TV industry, in fact, calls its annual trade show the "National Cable and Telecommunications Association" show. It appears that the FCC's
various equivalents in Europe have done a better job of
forcing the phone companies to open their infrastructure to
third parties. Europeans seem to be ahead of the US now in
both broadband availability and broadband speeds. Cable TV
hasn't been as widespread in Europe as in the states.
Satellite TV, particularly in the UK, has had better market
penetration. If the Supreme Court or Congress forces the FCC
to regulate both the cable TV and phone companies, it will not
necessarily be a win for American consumers. Of late the FCC
has given in to the demands by the phone companies that
setting rates and terms be left to them rather than government
directive. Canada Tightening Copyright Laws Canada's copyright laws have proven virtually useless to the record labels and movie studios in fighting the P2P networks. That could change and the country's copyright laws could become stricter if Canada joins 50-odd other nations and ratifies two treaties from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Canadian courts in the last year have ruled that under Canadian copyright laws, as written, it is not illegal to upload or download songs and movies on P2P networks. Current US court rulings make it clear that sharing files (uploading) for others to copy (downloading) is illegal. The same is true in parts of Europe. The two WIPO treaties would make unauthorized file sharing illegal in Canada. They would also bring Canada's laws more in line with the US' Digital Millennium Copyright Act by making it a crime to circumvent copyright protection on CDs and DVDs. "Clearly, once we get implementation of the treaties there'll be no doubt it'll be illegal to engage in unauthorized file-sharing," Graham Henderson, head of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, told Canadian Press. All political parties have
approved the changes to the copyright laws in pre-committee
meetings. They will be introduced in Canada's House of Commons
within a few months. Back
to Headlines MGM v Grokster: Notable Quotes Some quotes about the MGM v Grokster case that the Supreme Court this week held a hearing to review: - "If Grokster is illegal, the Internet is illegal, the postal service is illegal, a room where I can hand you a CD is illegal. It's not a slippery slope; it's a vertical cliff." - MP3.com editor Eliot van Buskirk - "It's a collision of two of our biggest and fastest-growing industries in this country. If the Supreme Court gets it wrong, innovation in one or the other industry is unduly hindered." - James Gibson, a University of Richmond law professor who specializes in intellectual property and computer law, in the New York Post. - "Should the Supreme Court uphold the previous rulings, Hollywood would lose a powerful weapon in its campaign against file sharing. But should the court strike them down, Hollywood could seize control of emerging digital entertainment technologies and hamstring them much as it did to radio, television and multiplex. To say that innovation would be irreparably harmed as a result would be a vast understatement. Certainly, I don't think anyone wants Mitch Bainwol (RIAA head) and Dan Glickman (MPAA head) designing their next convergent media device." - John Paczkowski of SiliconValley.com - "This is the most important case before the Supreme Court this year. At face value, the case concerns peer-to-peer file sharing. But in truth, the case is much broader. It's about preserving America's proud history of technological innovation and protecting the ability of consumers to access and utilize technology...The Betamax principles stand as the Magna Carta for the technology industry and are responsible for the explosion in innovation that has occurred in the US over the past 20 years. If these principles are undermined, we may witness the end of popular and revolutionary products and technologies such as the iPod, TiVo and even the Internet itself, and also the premature deaths of thousands of products that still only exist as a concept in the mind of young entrepreneurs." - Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) president and CEO Gary Shapiro - Speaking about the entertainment industry's perceived need for expanded grounds for lawsuits to discourage inventors from profiting from future gadgets and software that could be used for copyright infringement, Theodore Olsen, the former US solicitor general who now works for the entertainment industry, said, "This sort of thing is out there now and you can't go - and I may be wrong about this - but I don't you think you can go into people's homes and pull software out, or that anybody's likely to do that. But it would be an important statement; an important point here is to stop the worst of the activity, stop the people who are making money." - A ruling for entertainment companies could mean that if "I'm a new inventor, I'm going to get sued right away." - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. - "Grokster doesn't pass the smell test with a lot of the justices. There were some concerns that they don't want to see technology or innovation stifled. Grokster is wrong from a variety of perspectives." - Sony BMG Music Entertainment CEO Andrew Lack, who was present at the hearing. - "I know perfectly well if I can get music on my iPod without paying that's what I'm going to do." - Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Souter said even iPod users would steal music if they believed they could get away with it. He questioned why the entertainment industry would sue Grokster but under the same legal theory wouldn't sue Apple so aggressively it would "lose his shirt" on the basis that iPod purchasers store and play pirated music on their iPods. - "That seems wrong to me." - Justice Anthony Kennedy when asking Grokster's lawyer whether profits from enabling people to illegally swap copyrighted files can rightfully be used to help finance a start-up technology business. - "The scale of the whole thing is mind-boggling," said entertainment industry lawyer Donald Verrilli, who noted that his clients have no interest in suing inventors who take steps to block their customers from stealing. He said that Grokster and other file-sharing services actively encourage consumers to steal, calling Grokster's software "a gigantic engine of infringement that thieves use to steal 2.6 billion songs, movies and other digital files each month." Possible Results The Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision in June. There are a number of possible results from the Supreme Court's deliberations. It could uphold the two lower courts' decisions in favor of Grokster and StreamCast, plus any unnamed P2P services. It could overrule the lower courts. It could send the case back to the district court and instruct it to conduct a trial. Remember - the district court never held a trial; it issued a summary motion based on the briefs that the two sides had filed. There is no possible Supreme ruling, at least in this case, that will make legal the sharing or downloading of copyrighted files without permission. The tens of millions of users who do it daily will still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits. The thousands of such suits that are already in the courts will still be valid. Should the entertainment industry lose, it will be faced with "trench warfare" in the sense that every P2P-using copyright violator will have to be sued. That's a pricey proposition, but one the entertainment industry will have no choice but to pursue. The entertainment industry will also continue its guerilla tactics of posting falsely named tracks, flooding the P2P networks and send instant message of warnings to those it thinks are in violation of the copyright laws. It is ironic that at a time
when so much of American and European industry is under siege
from Asian and Far Eastern competitors, that two of its
fastest growing industries are at loggerheads with each other.
Entertainment and technology are two of the largest
job-providers and exporters. Back
to Headlines How Sharman Missed a Date with the US Supreme Court When Judge Stephen Wilson rendered his summary judgment against Grokster and StreamCast in his Los Angeles District Court, it started the companies on a road that led to their appearance this week before the US Supreme Court. A third defendant in that suit was Sharman Networks, whose Kazaa file sharing operation is larger than Grokster and StreamCast combined. How Sharman escaped from a Supreme Court visit is detailed in Judge Wilson's ruling: "Additionally, it is important to reiterate that the instant motions concern only the software operated by Defendants StreamCast (the Morpheus software) and Grokster (the Grokster software). Defendant Sharman Networks, proprietor of the Kazaa.com Web site and Kazaa Media Desktop, is not a party to these Motions. Accordingly, the Court offers no opinion in this Order as to Sharman's potential liability. While it appears that the primary root super nodes on the FastTrack network have been and are operated by Kazaa BV/Sharman, it is not alleged that Grokster operates these super nodes." Sharman has enough legal
troubles in Australia where the labels are in the process of
trying to sue it out of business and force Sharman and its
partner Altnet to "reveal all" as to who controls
Sharman and possibly who controls the FastTrack network that
Sharman, Grokster and StreamCast use for
infrastructure. Back
to Headlines *************************** NY Times Highlights 'A Few Points Along the Line Between News and Opinion' Our goal each week is to bring you news reports that indicate trends in the digital media industry. To those reports we add some analysis and opinion based on our years in the industry, discussions with industry leaders and trackers plus reading and watching other reports too numerous to count. Legendary ex-Intel CEO Andy Grove once admonished computer journalists to bring their memory when they wrote an article. The following is excerpted from a Daniel Okrents column in the New York Times titled "A Few Points Along the Line Between News and Opinion." Okrents is that paper's public editor, serving as the "readers' representative." "The tone and tenor of a newspaper you've been reading all your life can grow to be as familiar, and as comforting, as your mother's voice. But all this columnizing represents an inevitable, perhaps monumental, transformation in American newspapering. "Max Frankel, who was executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994, once convinced me that journalistic innovation usually begins on the sports pages, and I think we're now in the middle of one of those moments when innovation is about to morph into standard practice. More and more often, the lead article in the sports section is a Sports of The Times column; just last Wednesday, Selena Roberts's take on Barry Bonds ("We Won't Have That Surly Superstar to Kick Around Anymore") dominated the section's front page. "The key word in that sentence is 'take.' What won Roberts's piece its prominent position, sports editor Tom Jolly told me, was the wish to provide 'distinctive coverage of a widely covered event.' Most readers would already have learned about Bonds' explosive meeting with the press from broadcast or Internet news sources, or even from the guy in the next seat on the subway. What Roberts could bring to the issue were her intelligence and her knowledge of the issues, the milieu and the characters; she could explain the event not just usefully but distinctively. NBC and ESPN, Sportsline.com and WFAN, The Post and The Daily News all had the details of Bonds' Tuesday pronouncements, but only The Times had Selena Roberts. "This reliance on columnists to report and explain (as the best columnists do) has spread elsewhere in the paper, but rules vary. Business editor Lawrence Ingrassia tells me that when his columnists (notably Gretchen Morgenson and Floyd Norris) write the occasional news story, special care is taken by both the writers and their editors 'to make sure that the reporter's opinions aren't injected into the story.' Jolly's version of special care is more confining: 'We've drawn a strong line between our Sports of The Times and On Baseball columnists and our reporters. Our columnists only write columns. Our reporters only report the news.' "I think Jolly's tougher policy is wise, especially in the transitional period before the newspaper of the future finally arrives; I'd like to see Morgenson and Norris continue to report these stories, but to present what they discover in the clear voices they've already established in their columns. The sports and business sections are both riding a wave toward that future, where writers' authority of voice and distinctiveness of thought will distinguish great newspapers from the rat-a-tat of more conventionally iterative (and instant) forms of journalism." Subscribe now and learn the
"what" and why" behind every digital media
industry move. US
Takes Steps to Turn Spectrum Famine into Feast US emerges as a wireless nation: The combination of the spectrum changes ... reflect an FCC that is determined to help the US emerge from its broadband backwater and support competition and new services on a level with those offered in other developed economies. Finally, there is a range of bandwidth options becoming available to the operators of WiMAX and high power Wi-Fi, a range that could even help the US leapfrog its neighbors in terms of wireless capabilities. The big question mark hangs over how far the new regulations will have real teeth, especially where they challenge the interests of the incumbent telcos. The regional Bell operators and other powerful interests will be lobbying hard to win concessions that could severely weaken the apparent progressiveness of the new policies. This will be an early, and major test for the new FCC chairman Kevin Martin. One change in the FCC's approach is already clear, however - there will no longer be tolerance for companies that waste one of the US' most scarce resources, open spectrum. The Bell operators will be forced to use their 2.3GHz licenses, or lose them. Their decision, and how they move ahead in this increasingly attractive band, will help to shape the evolution of the US broadband wireless market in the coming few years. Europe losing mobile technology and IP lead to Korea and US: Europe has been accustomed to being the world leader in mobile technologies, and its vendors to being the greatest beneficiaries in terms of revenues, particularly from intellectual property. The US' Qualcomm may have destroyed the dream of global harmonization by throwing CDMA into the mix alongside GSM, but still the mobile world was based primarily on the Europe dominated foundations of first generation NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) and second-generation GSM. Now that lead is faltering, and there are signs of defensive action both from Europe as a body - keen to protect an industry that represents over 3% of its total GDP - and from individual players, scared of losing the technological edge, and the revenues, to challengers from Asia and the US. In the past week, we have seen the formation of a European group, E-Mobility, to further the interests of homegrown technologies on the world stage; and an aggressive move by Ericsson to protect its claimed patents, with a lawsuit against handset maker Sendo. Mobile talking shops and posturing in the law courts are nothing new, of course, but this time around, these are symptomatic of a sharp raising of the stakes... "In order to maintain the position of Europe in the global market for mobile and wireless systems in the 2010 to 2020 timeframe, it will be necessary to develop large scale European approaches to system research and development as well as to wireless services and applications in the context of digital convergence," said Magnus Madfors, chairman of the eMobility Steering Board. The group aims to create a
research program focusing on a wireless platform that spans
personal area and near field communications, to wide area
networking. It claims that wireless and mobile are more
important to the European economy than the Internet and that
the jobs created by the sector could rise from four million
now to 10 million by 2010 if Europe can "ride the next
wireless wave" and dominate the agenda.
Back
to Headlines Tandberg Wins €4m Deal for TV-over-DSL Norway's Tandberg Television has won an order worth over €4 million from an unnamed European phone company for its video compression technology that will be used for a commercial TV-over-DSL system that's expected to go live this summer. Tandberg's compression technology, called EN5930, will be used to deliver MPEG-4 AVC video and enable MPEG-2 encoding. EN5930 provides low bit-rate
encoding of up to 50% less than MPEG-2, enabling broadcast
quality video to be delivered over bandwidth limited DSL
networks. The product will allow telcos to offer TV services
as part of a "triple-play" bundle including phone
and broadband that will allow the telcos to compete with cable
TV operators. Back
to Headlines France Telecom Testing WiMAX for Rural Broadband France Telecom has begun trials of pre-WiMAX equipment as part of its planned rural broadband access program in remote parts of the country such as the towns of Amilly, Lehon and Le Salvetat, according to Wireless Watch. The company is targeting broadband coverage of 96% of the population by the end of this year, with ADSL being the main network. France Telecom has been
excluded from bidding for many 3.5GHz licenses because
France's regulatory agency wants to stimulate competition, but
it obtained some regional test licenses specific to extending
rural access. The initial France Telecom deployments use WiMAX
backhaul and Wi-Fi front ends. The most advanced is the Lehon
site, whose trial phase will end next month and covers
residential users and government departments. The other
projects will finish in August. In Amilly the equipment is
being tested with businesses and in Le Salvetat with
consumers. Wider rollout will depend on whether France Telecom
can obtain frequencies. Back
to Headlines Tele2 Netherlands Offers Broadband Tele2 Netherlands will start offering ADSL broadband in addition to its fixed and mobile telephony and dial-up services. It will use KPN's infrastructure. Prices are: ADSL Basic - 512 Kbps /256 Kbps - €19.95/month ADSL Plus - 1024 Kbps /352 Kbps - €24.95/month ADSL Super - 2048 Kbps /416 Kbps - €29.95/month Subscriptions include free Web
mail, five e-mail addresses and 10MB of space for home pages.
The subscriber does the installation with a free ADSL modem
worth €72. Back
to Headlines WiMAX Will Supplement Fixed-Wire Broadband, Not Compete WiMAX will not become a new broadband service competing with the cable TV and phone companies as some analysts, and this publication, had thought, according to the new "Positioning WiMAX: How WiMAX Stands Up To DSL, Cable, Wi-Fi and 3G" report from Pyramid Research. What wireless WiMAX broadband will do, instead of becoming a third source of residential broadband, is change the way that existing fixed-wire carriers - the cablecos and telcos - deliver Internet access. The survey shows that industry players expect fixed-line operators and ISPs to deploy WiMAX to provide backhaul and high-speed Internet access. Survey respondents also said that WiMAX has potential as a mobile solution, supplementing cell phone networks. The report says that WiMax and cellular convergence will have to wait until 2007, when the next-generation 802.16e WiMAX comes to market. Report author Ozgur Aytar expects this adoption pattern "to provide fixed providers with the capability to offer mobility services and compete for mobile data market share." The number of WiMAX subscribers will reach 10.9 million by 2009, most on 802.16d networks. There'll be a 64% compound annual growth rate in customers for 802.16e between 2009 and 2012. Pyramid expects faster growth if the costs associated with network deployment and subscriber adoption drop even faster than anticipated. It says that operators in developing countries and rural markets in particular will have a great opportunity to use WiMAX for backhaul and broadband access. Aytar said, "With the next-generation of WiMAX, the technology will live up to the hype - but time is working against WiMAX as competing technologies like HSDPA* emerge. Vendors need to bring their solutions to market on-time and up to specifications." * High Speed Downlink Packet
Access (HSDPA) is the next step for GSM cell phone technology,
following the 384 Kbps speeds of UMTS with the promise of 3
Mbps on a mobile phone or handheld device. HSDPA is a
competitor to WiMAX because it's more mobile, even though it's
not as fast. WiMax speeds could eventually achieve 70 Mbps.
Some analysts predict the two technologies will eventually
converge as HSDPA gets faster and WiMAX's mobility improves.
Until then, each technology will appeal to a different market
- HSDPA to the mobile/voice market, WiMAX to the
broadband/data sector. Back
to Headlines Cincinnati Bell to Test IPTV: 'Our Future Depends on This' Cincinnati Bell plans to begin
testing Internet Protocol television - IPTV - to deliver
high-quality, even high-definition, TV programs to subscribers
in competition with the cable and satellite companies,
according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The company would begin
making the TV service available to about two-thirds of its
600,000 subscribers early next year if the test is successful,
according to Cincinnati Bell president and CEO Jack Cassidy. Telecom Italia Offers 4 Mbps Broadband Telecom Italia is increasing
its subscribers' broadband speed to 4 Mbps, at least for the
85% of them whose connection is capable of the faster speed.
The service, called Alice 4 Mega, has speeds up to 4 Mbps down
and 256 Kbps up and will cost a consumer €39.95 a month when
it launches March 31. Cable TV company Charter Communications has begun offering video mail as part of its Charter High-Speed Internet bundle of services. Called Charter Video Mail, it's is available free to customers, regardless of the speed of their connection. A Web cam is required to send video mail but not, of course, to view it. "Video Mail is the latest
in a continuing series of enhancements to our Charter
High-Speed Internet product," said Barbara Hedges,
Charter's VP of broadband marketing. "Most recently, we
launched a new, customizable portal, along with premium
content and Charter Music. And now we've added Charter Video
Mail to the bundle." Back
to Headlines Tiscali Has 1.65m Broadband Subscribers Tiscali, at the end of
December, had 1.65 million ADSL subscribers, up from a
year-earlier 840,000 users, a 97% increase. During 2004,
Tiscali started unbundling DSL lines in France and Italy and
continued to do so in the Netherlands, ending the year with
330,000 unbundled customers. It also has 5.7 million dial-up
users. Back
to Headlines US Falling Behind China in Broadband "The FCC should be
responsible for results, not rhetoric. I've been writing
lately about how cable at very modest incremental investment
can go over 100 Mbps to nearly every home, and DSL, at a
slightly greater but not unreasonable cost, can go to 50 Mbps
symmetric. Others like Dewayne Hendricks point the way to get
there wirelessly, and Paul Morris and Utopia are building
fiber. The geeks can argue which is the 'best' tech. The FCC's
job should be to make sure at least one of the choices rapidly
gets to almost every American home. China has installed over
five million lines of fiber to the premises in two years; the
US shouldn't be falling behind." - Dave Burstein in the
DSL Prime newsletter. Back
to Headlines Comcast Appoints Content Tsarina When the largest broadband provider in the US talks about broadband delivered content, the broadband and content industry had best listen. Comcast this week appointed Elizabeth Schimel as senior VP of content development for its broadband operation, reporting to David Juliano, president of Comcast online and voice services. The move signals that a) content is becoming a competitive differentiator for the broadband companies, and b) a new market is developing for content - online adapted content. Schimel will work with Comcast.net, the company's consumer portal, to deliver "best-in-class" content through new strategic partnerships. "Liz's unparalleled blend of industry relationships, deal-making skills and technology expertise will further enhance our efforts to creatively deliver best-in-class content over broadband, making Comcast.net the most valuable online destination available today," said Juliano. "Comcast provides our customers the best broadband experience by combining premier content with our innovative built-for-broadband applications, such as The Fan. Along with serving up thousands of videos each day from Disney, CNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox Sports, MLB, USAToday and more, our patented broadband multimedia video player also offers unique video search capabilities. This successful execution of our guiding principle: it's all about speed and what you can do with it, has led Comcast to become the nation's Number One broadband provider with seven million customers." Schimel was previously VP of consumer business development at AT&T Wireless Services, where she led the content strategy and execution of new business initiatives for wireless Internet portal and messaging applications. She also ran the AT&T Wireless ringtone and downloadable content business, a significant revenue driver for the carrier. Her accomplishments included the launch of a series of first-to-market wireless products in the US, including the single-largest text-messaging event ever, in partnership with the television series American Idol. Prior to AT&T Wireless, Schimel held key senior leadership positions with major media, entertainment and financial organizations such as Soundview Technology Group and Bertelsmann, where she was responsible for launching and running BMG's online music service, heading worldwide operations for its videogame businesses and running marketing and strategic development of electronic publishing. As VP and general manager of BMG Entertainment's Online Division, Schimel pioneered the company's online and digital music business and negotiated partnerships with major media brands, including forming GetMusic, a joint venture between BMG and Universal Music. "I am thrilled to be joining Comcast, which I believe to be our country's most innovative broadband, media and entertainment company, said Schimel. "As our country's number one broadband Internet provider, Comcast sets the standard for the online content experience. Its built-for-broadband portal and base of seven million customers make it an incredibly attractive platform for providers to showcase their content." Comcast added 1.7million new
broadband subscribers in 2004. Back
to Headlines UK-wide Wi-Fi Network to Use Lampposts & Electrical Wires Last Mile Communications will begin field tests that could ultimately provide a UK nationwide Wi-Fi network by using lampposts as wireless, according to PC Pro reports. The company would install Wi-Fi access points on about 150,000 UK lampposts and use the existing electrical cables for infrastructure. Users would initially be able to access the Internet at speeds of around 40 Mbps, eventually after upgrades at 400 Mbps for users within 200 meters to 300 meters (200 yards to 300 yards) of the lamppost. Last Mile patented and developed two key global technologies called WDirect and MagicBook. WDirect is the transceiver technology that sits inside existing lampposts and roadside architecture. MagicBook is the open source, operating system and reception technology that operates with existing and future generations of laptops, PCs, PDAs and handheld phones in the transport, telematics and broadband markets. WDirect equips existing
roadside signs and lampposts with small computers and large
cache memories that are user and location aware. This micro
cell technology transmits to ranges of up to 250 meters but at
extremely low power levels with user exposure to
electromagnetic radiation at approximately one thousandth of
that of a mobile phone. Back
to Headlines *************************** What's the Online Reporter? The Online
Reporter is a newsweekly that has the broadest coverage of any
digital media publication. Wherever content is turned into
digits, whether it is the cell phone, set-top box, MP3 player,
peer-to-peer file sharing, PCs or Wi-Fi hotspots, you'll find
The Online Reporter bringing the news to its customers. Microsoft Launches Video Service for Windows Mobile Devices Consumer electronics makers have been pushing the video capabilities of their new portable gear such as multimedia cell phones and portable media players, but are consumers buying? In parts of Asia and Europe, the answer is a resounding "yes," but in the US, the jury's still out. While there are a number of fledgling video services for portable devices, they tend to be rather pricey for the average consumer, who's likely too leery of the newfangled offerings to be willing to shell out five bucks a month or more to give them a try, despite having spent a few hundred dollars on a video-enabled device. Microsoft this week launched a new mobile video service that just might pique their interest. Of course, since this is a service from Microsoft, it's only available to folks with Windows Mobile-based devices such as Portable Media Centers and select Smartphones and Pocket PCs. MSN Video Downloads, at www.msnvideodownloads.com, is essentially a portal where consumers can go to download a variety of mobile video content ranging from news and sports to home improvement and food-related programming. Content is updated on a daily basis. For $19.95 a year, subscribers can choose the content they want to receive from the Web site. The selected digital videos are then downloaded daily to the user's Windows Media Player 10 library on a Windows XP PC. Once the content is downloaded, the user can then transfer it to a Portable Media Center or other Windows Mobile device. There's also an automatic deleting feature that lets the user choose how long video from the service directory will remain on the PC, thus avoiding a large backlog of clips. The site offers a limited amount of free video content that can be downloaded even without a paid membership. The video content is compliant with devices that carry Microsoft's "PlaysForSure" logo. Creative, iRiver and Samsung are among the companies that offer Portable Media Centers. "Readily available digital video content remains a key driver for the portable multimedia player market," said Josh Martin, associate research analyst at IDC. "The proliferation and growth of video service providers will serve to fill the existing video content void and increase adoption of portable multimedia players such as Windows Mobile-based devices." Microsoft says that it designed
the service to keep people better entertained and informed,
wherever and whenever they want. - BreakTV: Behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive interviews with television's hottest celebrities. - Cookie Jar Entertainment: Children's entertainment from the provider of such TV series "Paddington Bear," "Animal Crackers" and many others. - DIY Network: Videos about home improvement, crafts, hobbies, indoor-outdoor living and kitchen and bath remodeling. - Fine Living TV Network: Programs featuring travel destinations, mind and body enrichment, ideas for entertaining and home design as well as videos for automobile enthusiasts. - Fox Sports: In-depth news, analysis and national and regional coverage of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, the National Basketball Association and select college basketball and football highlights, as well as Fox Sports Net original programming including "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" and "Beyond the Glory." - Food Network: Fun and interesting videos featuring grilling tips, ideas for entertaining, healthy eating, quick-and-easy recipes and pop-culture food specials. - Fun Little Movies: Original, live-action comedy and "Fun Funny Phone Films" such as humorous headlines in "Comedy USA," sci-fi parody "Spacey Movie" and the "Mini-Bikers," where little people on little motorcycles fight crime, a little at a time. - Headliners Entertainment Group: The operator of Rascals Comedy Clubs presents a selection of comedy clips including performances from popular stars such as Tim Allen, Rosie O'Donnell, Drew Carey and Ray Romano. - Home & Garden Television (HGTV): Selected programs featuring remodeling, home building, design and decorating, kitchen and bath to enhance a home's curb appeal. - IFILM: Movie trailers, viral videos, short films and other exclusive IFILM content. - TotalVid: Deep selection of action sports clips including surfing, snowboarding, skiing, windsurfing, street racing, kiteboarding, skateboarding, climbing, kayaking, off-road, Moto X, mountain biking, inline skating, BMX and more - Want Media: Music videos,
live concerts, Broadway shows, extreme sports and motor sports
programs, full-length films from independent filmmakers and
underground cinema. Back
to Headlines ****************** "The Internet is the greatest vehicle for the distribution of entertainment ever invented." - Yair Landau, vice-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and president of Sony Pictures Digital, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business' "Future of Content" conference. For the best intelligence about the Internet as an entertainment delivery vehicle, subscribe now to The Online Reporter. Published
weekly, the annual subscription is $595. SafeNet Technologies BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of information security firm SafeNet Inc, is acquiring DMDsecure.com for €7.5 million ($9.6 million) in cash. Amsterdam-based DMDsecure provides carrier-grade digital rig |
