Month: January 2005
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Show Us the Numbers
Today brings yet another story about how Hollywood’s finances are better than ever. Ross Johnson’s story (“Video Sales Abroad Are Good News in Hollywood. Shhh.”) in today’s New York Times tells us that the studios are keeping their overseas DVD sales secret, so as not to interfere with the industry’s tradition of lowballing its revenue.…
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Review of MPAA's "Parent File Scan" Software
Yesterday the MPAA announced the availability of a new software tool called Parent File Scan. I decided to download it and try it out. Here’s my review. According to an MPAA site, Parent File Scan software helps consumers check whether their computers have peer-to-peer software and potentially infringing copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted…
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PlaysMaybe
Natali Helberger at INDICARE questions Microsoft’s new “playsforsure” campaign. Playsforsure is a logo that will be displayed by digital music and video stores, and media devices. The program has a cute logo: According to the program’s website, Look for the PlaysForSure logo if you’re shopping for a portable music or video device and you want…
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Balancing Tests in the Grokster Briefs
The biggest issue in the Grokster case is whether the Supreme Court adjusts or clarifies its precedent from the Sony Betamax case. The fate of Grokster itself is much less important than what ground rules the Court imposes on future innovators. The core of the Betamax opinion is this oft-quoted passage: The staple article of…
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Grokster Briefs: Toward a More Regulable Net
Many briefs were filed yesterday in Grokster, the upcoming Supreme Court case which has broad implications for technology developers. (Copies of the briefs are available from EFF.) There’s a lot to discuss in these briefs. Today I want to focus on two of the amicus briefs, one from the Solicitor General (who represents the U.S.…
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Why Hasn't TiVo Improved?
The name TiVo was once synonymous with an entire product category, Digital Video Recorders. Now the vultures are starting to circle above TiVo, according to a New York Times story by Saul Hansell. What went wrong? The answer is obvious: TiVo chose to cozy up to the TV networks rather than to its customers. When…
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Network Monitoring: Harder Than It Looks
Proposals like the Cal-INDUCE bill often assume that it’s reasonably easy to monitor network traffic to block certain kinds of data from being transmitted. In fact, there are many simple countermeasures that users can (and do, if pressed) use to avoid monitoring. As a simple example, here’s an interesting (and well known) technical trick. Suppose…
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My Morning Pick-Me-Up
First thing this morning, I’m sitting in my bathrobe, scanning my inbox, when I’m jolted awake by the headline on a TechDirt story: California Senator Wants to Throw Ed Felten in Jail I guess I’ll take the time to read that story! Kevin Murray, a California legislator, has introduced a bill that would fine, or…
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Enforceability and Steroids
Regular readers know that I am often skeptical about whether technology regulations can really be enforced. Often, a regulation that would make sense if it were (magically) enforceable, turns out to be a bad idea when coupled with a realistic enforcement strategy. A good illustrative example of this issue arises in Major League Baseball’s new…
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CBS Tries DRM to Block Criticism of Rathergate Report
Last week the panel investigating CBS’s botched reporting about President Bush’s military service released its report. The report was offered on the net in PDF format by CBS and its law firm. CBS was rightly commended for its openness in facing up to its past misbehavior and publicizing the report. Many bloggers, in commenting on…