nets

Consumer groups slam NBC's antipiracy plea

About a month ago, we reported that media conglomerate NBC Universal has asked federal regulators to require that broadband providers do more about piracy on their networks.

As the Federal Communications Commission weighs whether to impose so-called Net neutrality requirements on companies like Verizon and AT&T, NBC general counsel Richard Cotton urged the regulators to issue a statement that "broadband service providers have an obligation to use readily available means to prevent the use of their broadband capacity to transfer pirated content."

On Monday, which marked the last day for reply comments to issues raised in … Read more

No doomsday for Net radio...yet

Looks like there's been a truce in the fight over Net radio.

After threatening to impose per-song performance royalties on Net radio stations, which could have increased costs for some Net broadcasters by hundreds of millions of dollars, royalty collection agency SoundExchange offered to delay the new royalty payments until 2008.

Savenetradio.org, a coalition representing Internet radio broadcasters, rejected that previous offer, saying that the threat of drastically increased fees in 2008 was little better than the July 15 deadline, as it would staunch any investment into Net radio. An eleventh-hour court appeal failed, and it looked like … Read more

Samsung store in Europe

When Microsoft released its Zune player-store-software combination, it effectively drove a stake into the heart of PlaysForSure, the company's logo program that identifies Windows Media-based online stores and the players that work with those stores. Sure, Microsoft still claims that it's equally committed to both initiatives, but PlaysForSure partners have a right to be concerned that their technology partner is competing directly against them.

Samsung was one of Microsoft's most steadfast digital media partners: it released one of the earliest Portable Media Centers (portable audio-video devices based on Windows Mobile software, which beat the video iPod to … Read more

Net radio repreive

Looks like the day of Net radio silence worked. Enough publicity was generated that SoundExchange, the organization responsible for collecting royalties on Internet radio broadcasts, has offered to impose a $2,500 maximum fee per broadcaster on July 15, rather than instituting the per-song fees that could have put many small broadcasters out of business and raised costs for big broadcasters into the tens or hundreds of millions (!) of dollars.

Nonetheless, it's only a temporary reprieve: the original fee increase will still go into effect in January 2008, if SoundExchange has its way. SaveNetRadio, the group that organized the … Read more

Six places to store your files online

Since we saw the beta release of Windows Live Folders a couple of days ago, I thought that now would be a good time to take a look at the different online storage solutions that are out there now. So, without further ado here are six places to store your files online.

Box.net Box.net is one of the most talked about online storage solutions. It offers some really solid features, which make up for the storage being on the smaller end of the offerings. Of course, it offers the standard sharing between users that other services have, but … Read more

Net neutrality on Congress's fall agenda?

Never mind that federal regulators discouraged so-called Net neutrality regulations in a report unveiled Wednesday. Democrats in Congress say they still believe it's necessary to enact a new law to clamp down on the perceived threat posed by broadband operators that want to charge content owners extra fees for priority placement.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), one of the chief sponsors of such legislation that was rejected on multiple occasions by a Republican-controlled Congress last year, plans to revive the effort this year, an aide said Thursday.

The congressman declined to comment on the Federal Trade Commission report itself but … Read more

Hating lovepostcards.net

Tom is your average computer user with antivirus protection that does just fine until the day it all comes crashing down. When a lovepostcards.net link automatically appears on his forum posts, Tom knows he's been pummeled by Trojans.

What got him? How did he oust the intruder? What insights from the CNET Download.com editors can keep you from a similar fate? Find out in this week's Spyware Horror Story!

FTC on Net neutrality: No new laws needed

The lifelong bureaucrats at the Federal Trade Commission are hardly a bunch of Hayek-quoting, Ron Paul-voting libertarians.

Which is why it's worthwhile to note the conclusion that the FTC reached on Wednesday about Net neutrality: No new laws.

It took the FTC a mere 169 pages to arrive at that result in its new report on the topic, probably one of the most exhaustive treatments of Net neutrality to date. It concludes: "We recommend that policy makers proceed with caution in evaluating proposals to enact regulation in the area of broadband Internet access."

Translated from government-speak, that … Read more

Internet radio is dead for today; democracy, on the other hand...

In case you've haplessly been attempting to listen to Internet radio streams throughout the day, you might have noticed most are dead. This is by no means a fluke, and on a wider scale, it's a mass protest to the royalty rate increase that passed legislation in early March. The rate increase, which gives the RIAA (whose Web site is coincidentally down today) more money for every track served to listeners, has been the focus of much debate and controversy. The new fees go into effect July 15th.

The new fees don't just affect the smaller broadcasters … Read more

Day of Net radio silence

Tomorrow, some of the most popular and prominent Internet radio stations will go silent to protest the imposition of new fees that many Webcasters claim will drive them out of business.

The protest stems back to a Mar. 2007 decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to impose per-song performance royalties on Web radio, starting at 0.08 cents per song (retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006) and increasing gradually to 0.19 cents per song by 2010. The former rules forced Webcasters to pay a minimum annual fee and 12% of their revenues. (Small Webcasters might be able to abide by these old rules … Read more