industry

NEW YORK--The four largest record labels are unhappy with the way the courts have interpreted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in recent years and may need to ask Congress for changes, according to Jennifer Pariser, the attorney who oversees litigation for the Recording Industry Association of America.

The DMCA is just not providing the kind of protection against online piracy that Congress intended, Pariser said at a conference here on Thursday.

"I think Congress got it right, but I think the courts are getting it wrong," Pariser said during a panel discussion at the NY Entertainment & Technology … Read more

Megaupload lives to fight another day.

The Internet file-storage business accused of helping millions around the world to store pirated videos, music, and software, has settled a copyright suit filed against it in January by Perfect 10, a porn studio with a long history of accusing tech companies of copyright violations.

Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed and representatives from the two companies did not respond to CNET's requests for comment. Megaupload is the parent company of multiple services, such as Megaporn, MegaVideo and MegaPix.

In e-mail exchanges this year with CNET, the company confirmed that it is … Read more

Update, 2:26 p.m. PST: Additional reporting reveals that Amazon, not the music industry, asked app developer IIS to pull back an iPhone app that would play music from Amazon's cloud service.

An iPhone developer agreed to pull back an app that allowed users to listen to songs stored in Amazon's cloud--but it wasn't pulled at the request of music labels, as previously reported.

Evolver.fm, a music blog, reported earlier today that Interactive Innovative Solutions (IIS), which works with Apple's IOS devices, was forced to remove the app, called aMusic, because of legal issues … Read more

Ashland, Ore.-based electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo announced on Wednesday that it has raised $28 million from investors to boost development of electric powertrain technology.

Leading the charge was investor Polaris Industries, a powersports giant that makes all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, motorcycles and road-legal electric vehicles.

I recall inviting Polaris CEO Scott Wine to SmartPlanet's New York City headquarters way back in February 2010; at the time, we discussed some of his company innovations under development, including military vehicles that can shrug off small arms fire and his company's entry into sustainability, from supply chain simplification to the company'… Read more

First Solar's board of directors ousted the solar company's chief executive, Rob Gillette, replacing him on an interim basis with Chairman Mike Ahearn while it searches for a permanent replacement.

Shares in the world's most valuable solar company plummeted more than 24 percent to $43.71--its lowest level since March of 2007--following the unexpected Tuesday announcement.

"It's an absolute and total surprise," said Mark Bachman, an analyst with Avian Securities LLC.

The U.S. solar company said in a brief statement that its board of directors has asked Ahearn to serve as temporary CEO … Read more

The solar industry is in for a dire quarter as falling government subsidies and low volumes further drive down equipment prices at a time when oversupply has already led many sector players to lower their full-year profit outlook.

A pickup in demand for solar panels, widely expected by industry players for the second half, failed to materialize, pushing several U.S. companies, most notably panel maker Solyndra, to file for bankruptcy in recent months.

European players have been cutting their outlooks on falling demand in Germany, among them SMA Solar, the world's No.1 maker of solar inverters and … Read more

Malware has been discovered on computer systems in Europe that has identical code to the Stuxnet worm and could be the precursor to the next big computer attack on critical infrastructure systems, Symantec said today.

Unlike Stuxnet, which targeted specific Siemens SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software and appeared to have been written to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the new malware installs a backdoor and is designed to gather information, like design documents, that could be used in future attacks, Symantec said.

The malware, written to run on Windows systems, is dubbed Duqu because it creates file names … Read more

The video game industry just can't seem to turn things around.

Research firm NPD announced yesterday that total industry sales on hardware, software, and accessories hit $1.16 billion last month, representing a 6 percent drop compared to September 2010 when industry sales reached $1.23 billion.

Although September's performance was somewhat disappointing for the industry, it was far better than August. NPD reported last month that industrywide sales in August hit just $669.9 million, representing a 23 percent decline compared to the $873.8 million the industry generated in August 2010.

On the hardware side last … Read more

Using post-consumer materials and finding more energy-efficient ways to produce vehicles are just part of Ford Motor Co.'s strategy to reduce the company's global carbon footprint.

Ford is looking at the energy use and carbon emissions of 128 global suppliers. These suppliers account for nearly 60 percent of the company's $65 billion in annual purchases.

In 2010, the automaker surveyed 35 top suppliers that make seats, steering systems, tires, and metal components. What Ford discovered was how much the companies varied in their readiness to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the 2010 survey results, … Read more