My So-Called Digital Life

Microsoft's Zune

So I know this sounds weird, but the new Zune is an attempt to think into the future, when the thought of digital rights "problems" will be a think of the past. Microsoft's yet unreleased Zune which has been touted the "iPod killer" uses Digital Rights Managemet but oddly enough, will not be compatible with Microsoft's PlayForSure technology.

So anyone that has licensed the old techhnology will find out very quickly that the music that they are currently selling will not be playable on the new Zune. What does this mean? Repurchasing? Possibly if all is correct. Where you say? Zune of course. Will all the music that you owned be able to be repurchased? Well only if its available...look at iTunes...sometimes your fav song just is not licensed or it takes a while for it to be added to a library.

So this brings up an interesting question....repurchasing...relicensing...and what about fair use? Recently at a conference I spoke at in Hong Kong, the idea of licensing depending on use (one cost for listening on a CD at home, another price to download to your computer and then to your iPod, another price to copy to a friend). So the whole buying again and again might not be so far away.

If I've made no sense at all, feel free to check out the BBC. They seem to have it together.

iTune songs play on rival players

Recently I was speaking a digital entertainment conference in Hong Kong called Digital Entertainment World 2006 and digital rights were a hot issue. Ron Wheeler, SVP, Content Protection from Foxy Entertainment Group spoke about the issue and all the techonlogies and agreements that are being created to stifle sharing music and video.

He made an interesting comment that its mostly the home users, the personal users who buy a CD, burn it and lend it out or give it to friends. That is where the industry is losing most of its money.

Found this on www.broadbandreports.com. Interesting twist on digital rights and not surprising.

"John Johansen claims to have created software that unlocks playback restrictions of Apple iPod and iTunes music products. And he intends to licenses it for sale to online music stores. Songs bought online from iTunes Music Store can't be played on portable devices made by other companies. Songs purchased from other online music stores also won't work on iPods because they similarly use a form of copy-protection that Apple doesn't support. Johansen's software gets around those restrictions."

There will always be those who keep working on technology hacks and new tech gets created. What will be intestesting is if creating such a "hack" or software for sale would be considered a criminial act.

More of the story can be found here.

Supreme Court to Review Microsoft-AT&T Patent Case

Today, the Associated Press reported that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a patent disput between Microsoft and AT&T. This particular suit has to do with the Windows programs distributed overseas, which already has me interested. But this has more to do with the speech-coding technology that they use...but here is the kicker.

Microsoft has admitted damages in the US...problem is, what they are fighting is that they have to pay for the same product in the foreign market.

Yet the US congress had already established in another case, that US patents can be extended for foreign sales. The juice is definately there. Read the full article below from the Wall Street Journal.

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Supreme Court to Review Microsoft-AT&T Patent Case
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Friday it would hear a patent dispute between giants Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Corp. over Windows programs distributed overseas.

An appeals court ruled that Microsoft had infringed on an AT&T patent for a type of speech-coding technology.

The outcome could be worth more than $1 billion to Microsoft if the justices find that the lower court ruling improperly extended U.S. patent protections to overseas transactions, said Dennis Crouch, a visiting law professor at Boston University.

"Almost every patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft asks for damages for U.S. sales as well as foreign export sales," Mr. Crouch said. Microsoft has acknowledged its liability for domestic sales.

Microsoft lawyers claimed the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in favor of AT&T "threatens to impose massive liability on U.S. software companies" and could prompt companies to move their research facilities out of the country.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, invited by the court to offer his views, urged justices to take the case. AT&T's remedy "lies in obtaining and enforcing foreign patents, not in attempting to extend United States patent law to overseas activities," Mr. Clement said.

AT&T lawyers said that the ruling only protected its patent, which covers a program with a "speech codec" that digitizes speech. "Congress's congressional authority is to protect the rights of U.S. inventors, not U.S. infringers," they said.

Congress extended the reach of patent protections after the Supreme Court ruled against the holder of a patent on a shrimp deveining machine who complained that a manufacturer shipped component parts overseas to avoid U.S. patent law.

The high court had earlier refused to consider a separate case stemming from a jury's decision that Microsoft should pay $521 million for infringing patents held by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California. Microsoft challenged a ruling that the award should be based on worldwide sales rather than domestic sales.

Copyright © 2006 Associated Press

IBM Sues Amazon Over Patents

It seems that everyone is patent crazy right now..or at least crazy to file them and not use them or not use them and go after those who make good with something slightly similar. Have we all not had enough. I'm not one to say that if people have good ideas then they are not entitled to file a patent and keep the idea theirs. The thing is...if one is not going to do anything with the patent except hoard them until technology advances enough where people need to use, I think its wrong.

But that is not what is happening in the case of IBM and Amazon.com. IBM is claiming that Amazon.com has "knowingly infringed" on five of IBM's patents. If anyone has seen a real patent book, especially one from IBM, where they must own thousands of patents, it would not be surprising if something was missed.

That said, this case is a little different, as many people pay IBM for a license to sue their patents, which they claim are the basis of Amazon.com's business model. If you want to read more on the story, keep reading below.

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Market Scan
Update -- IBM Sues Amazon Over Patents
Matthew Kirdahy, 10.24.06, 1:25 PM ET
On the eve of Amazon.com’s third-quarter earnings report, IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) announced that it is suing the online retail powerhouse for “knowingly infringing” on five of IBM’s patents.

The most viable defense Amazon.com has against IBM, must somehow disprove the validity of the computer company’s patents. Suffice it to say, the retailer has some homework to do.

“They (Amazon.com) have people doing homework today that I can assure you,” said Ronald Mann, professor at the School of Law at the University of Texas.

Amazon.com did not return a call for comment, but will certainly field questions on the matter when it announces its third-quarter earnings Tuesday after market close.

The retailer’s stock was trading up on Tuesday, showing almost a 2% increase, or 56 cents, compared with the previous market close of $32.88.

IBM shares increased slightly, trading at $91.70.

Mann said that if a company can prove that the same product was in use prior to the issuance of a U.S. patent, then the current patent is void. But in this case, when dealing with Internet retail, a business barely in its teens, it’s unlikely the patents were in use before Amazon.com was established.

“These are high-quality patents and important IBM intellectual property that are core to Amazon.com’s business,” said Ed Barbini, IBM spokesperson. “In fact, Amazon.com has built its business model on these patents.”

In a statement, IBM said the lawsuit involves patents pertaining to Amazon.com’s customer recommendation and purchases, advertising, Web site navigation and data storage.

Mann said the patent that pertains to ordering items using an electronic catalogue is the oldest of the five patents. It was issued in 1994.

“There weren’t a lot of Internet retail stores back then, if any,” he said.

With this new lawsuit, Amazon.com is treading on familiar ground. Mann cited the 1-Click purchasing dispute between IPXL Holdings and Amazon.com, which Amazon.com won in November 2005.

IBM said it would prefer to deal with this without litigation, but more than a dozen attempts since 2002 to get Amazon.com to pay for using these patents proved fruitless. Meanwhile, IBM licenses these patents and others to companies who pay for them.

IBM would not name the companies that are licensed to use these patents.

Charles King, an IT analyst at the Hayward, Calif.-based Pund-IT, said it’s too early to say how this lawsuit would affect Amazon.com’s business. “Where there might be some concern, depending on how long that the suit is out in light of day, any pressure exerted on Amazon.com would come either from the company’s partners or from the large institutional shareholders,” King said. “They could decide that there is a potential liability there."

King also said IBM prides its innovation in the world of technology on intellectual property and certainly values privacy. Taking this issue to the mats is uncharacteristic of the organization, so this approach might get IBM exactly what it wants – just payment.

The company spends about $6 billion on research and development annually. In the past 13 years, IBM has earned more U.S. patents than any other company in the world. Last year, it was granted nearly 3,000 patents.

“The implications of the lawsuit, if it went to court, could be pretty fundamental for Amazon.com if a judge rules in IBM’s favor,” King said. “And the fact that this intellectual property has been licensed would suggest that other companies believe there is value in this material.”

Sony Lands Grouper

Even though Sony bought the video sharing site, Grouper Networks last August, they still have some major issues to contend with such as rights management and the fact that YouTube has surpassed them in popularity by leaps and bounds. It's ironic that half the reason they bought Grouper was because it was so "open" in terms of content. This might get Sony in a whole heap of trouble as copyrighted material keeps landing on their servers.

It will be interesting to see how a media giant handles the situation. On top of that, users are generally hestitant to post personal information on a major site belonging to a large company. Hence the move to "private" YouTube. But now that they've been bought as well, where oh where will people feel comfortable posting now? For free that is.

For more on the story, click here.