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All posts tagged "lawsuit"


Thursday, April 14, 2011

Amazon's Cloud Player, Music Companies, and Copyright: What a Mix!

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Articles & Resources" @ 06:00 PM

http://nilaypatel.co/post/423908369...idth-killed-the

"If you're reading this you probably don't need much background on Amazon Cloud Player - suffice it to say that Amazon launched a new "freemium" cloud storage service that's tied into their music store. You get 5GB of online storage for free and 20GB if you buy an MP3 album from Amazon, and subsequent MP3 purchases don't count against the cap. There's also a Cloud Player app for Android that can play music files stored on your account - it doesn't matter if they're files you purchased from Amazon or elsewhere, and Amazon has tools that'll upload your DRM-free iTunes purchases to make a switch easy. None of this is particularly earth-shattering - as a loyal Amazon MP3 customer who's almost wholly switched to the subscription-based Rdio, I actually think most of these features are a couple years too late."

Nilay Patel shares some interesting thoughts on what's happened since Amazon launched their Cloud Player service - namely, that the music labels got upset. "How dare you listen to music you bought in any way other than via the hard drive that you downloaded it on"? is their basic message. How quaint. The record companies finally got wise and un-shackled our music from DRM - and I believe digital music sales are better than ever, partially because of that - and now they want to dictate how/when/where we listen to our music? I don't think so.


Friday, August 27, 2010

Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Launches Patent Suit Volley

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home News" @ 05:00 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...2.html?mod=e2tw

"They're the everyday fixtures of the Internet experience: pop-up stock quotes on a website, suggestions for related reading near a news article, videos along the side of your screen. Now, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen says he owns the technology behind all these ideas, and he's demanding that some of the world's top Web companies pay up to use them."

Above: He's the dude with the beard.

I've come down hard on patent trolls before, and though I have respect for Allen as the co-founder of Microsoft, the patents he's suing eBay, Google, Facebook, and others for seem like they have the whiff of troll on them. Check them out:

U.S. PATENT NO. 6,263,507:Allows a site to offer suggestions to consumers for items related to what they're currently viewing, or related to online activities of others in the case of social-networking sites. (Accused violators: AOL, Apple, eBay, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, YouTube)

U.S. PATENT NO. 6,034,652, U.S. PATENT NO. 6,788,314:Enables ads, stock quotes, news updates or video images to flash on a computer screen, peripherally to a user's main activity. (AOL, Apple, Google, Yahoo)

U.S. PATENT NO. 6,757,682:Allows readers of a news story to quickly locate stories related to a particular subject, among other things. (AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, YouTube)

Do those seem like true innovations to you? Or more like obvious evolutions of previously established technologies? Should software even be patentable at all?


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Jammie Thomas' Copyright Penalty Lowered

Posted by Jon Childs in "Digital Home News" @ 07:00 AM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-1...LeadStoriesArea

"Last June, a federal jury in Minnesota found Jammie Thomas-Rasset liable for willful copyright infringement and ordered her to pay nearly $2 million. Michael Davis, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, chopped the amount to $54,000, or $2,250 per song.

"The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music," wrote Davis."

Two million for sharing a couple dozen songs, without any intent to make any money does seem a bit harsh. I think everyone agrees that artists deserve to be able to profit from their work, but it seems we have reached a point where people can be financially ruined by doing something that is quite common. Especially since just the cost of a trial could be ruinous for most people. With the RIAA suing deceased grandmothers, people without computers, and 12 year olds, maybe it is time to revisit copyright law in the US.


Tuesday, August 4, 2009

iPod Explodes, Refund Offered Only With Gag Order

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home News" @ 12:27 PM

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk...icle6736587.ece

"Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child's iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company. The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement."

If your product explodes, endangering the owner, the least you can do is offer to replace that product, no strings attached. Apple, in their typically controlling manner, was only willing to offer a replacement product if the owners agreed to never tell anyone about what happened, on fear of prosecution. That's not unusual when we're talking about multi-million dollar settlements, but for an iPod? Gross overkill.


Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Tsera Invented The Touchscreen In 2003, Sues Everyone

Posted by David Tucker in "Zune News" @ 09:01 PM

"A company called Tsera has sued 23 electronics companies in federal court in eastern Texas for violating a patent on touchscreens. The suit, filed on July 15, cites Apple's iPod Classic and Nano products, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Zune digital media player, and several other popular devices as violating a patent, "Methods and Apparatus for Controlling a Portable Electronic Device Using a Touchpad," which was granted in 2003."

Well, here we go again. Is it even remotely surprising anymore when an unknown company with no products that I am aware of digs up a years old patent and sues, well, everyone? No, I didn't think so either. Its hard to say what will become of this suit. Tsera seems to be going especially hard after Apple's iPod and they do indeed hold the patents they are suing over.

According to the Information Week article, there could be some hope in the future. There is apparently legislation in Congress right now to make it more difficult to find courts that will be friendly to this type of litigation. Hopefully that will help but I really think we need to see some sort of reform for the patent process. The patent office can't be expected to identify a potential problem in a patent when its issued but it seems that before these lawsuits are allowed that the patent itself should be given a much closer look.

Someone might want to send the judge a memo that the touchscreen has been around since quite a while before 2003.


Thursday, May 1, 2008

Online Music Services On the Hook for $100 Million in Royalties?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home News" @ 04:00 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/inte...usmorningdigest

"Time Warner Inc's AOL unit, RealNetworks and Yahoo Inc could stand to pay up to $100 million in royalties owed to thousands of songwriters and publishers, after a federal judge established a formula for determining the payments. The move could force the three online services to pay royalties to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) worth 2.5 percent of their music revenue dating back to 2002, ASCAP said. The decision by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sets a formula for potential license fees on songs played by the three online services from July 1, 2002 through December 31, 2009, the trade group said."

I'm a big supporter of the rights of musicians and creators to make a living from their music, but somehow this doesn't quite seem to make sense. Weren't the online music services already paying something to ASCAP, and if so, is this retro-active ruling about bumping up the amount paid? It all seems a bit dubious to me, although there's not enough detail in the article to really grasp the full issue.


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