A court has hit pause on the sale of Beatles tunes from the Web site BlueBeat.
Judge John Walter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California late this week issued a temporary restraining order against BlueBeat after being petitioned Tuesday by the Capitol Records unit of music label EMI, which owns the Beatles' recordings.
The judge found BlueBeat's arguments "lacking in clarity" and wrote that the defendants failed to offer reliable evidence to support "their claim that they 'independently developed their own original sounds'."
As Matt Rosoff wrote this week for CNET, BlueBeat's claims have a good likelihood of being laughed out of court. The company's defense includes the assertion that it didn't post the exact Beatles recordings, but rather "psychoacoustic simulations" to which it added some video content, thus creating a new audiovisual work.
BlueBeat was offering Beatles songs and albums for purchase or download for 25 cents per track, in addition to offering free streaming.
"Given that the Beatles catalog, including the remastered Beatles recordings, has never been released by Plaintiffs for digital download or licensed for on-demand streaming, every day that Defendants offer the Beatles catalog for digital download or licensed for on-demand streaming irreparably harms Plaintiffs' exclusive right to control the use of its copyright materials," the judge wrote in his order.
EMI was not available for comment, nor was BlueBeat, whose Web site has been offline throughout the day Saturday. Offline as well were BlueBeat owner Media Rights Technologies and an affiliated company called BaseBeat, both of which also are listed as defendants, along with MRT founder Hank Risan.
Besides Capitol Records, the plaintiffs include Caroline Records, EMI Christian Music Group, and Virgin Records America.
The court set a hearing for November 20.
Record label EMI this week announced that it will begin selling on-the-spot recordings of concerts.
The name of the initiative, Abbey Road Live, is a bit misleading--it doesn't have anything to do with the Beatles album or the recording studio after which it was named.
Rather, EMI is using its Abbey Road brand to indicate that these aren't low-quality bootlegs but professional multitrack recordings, mixed and mastered on the spot, and sold on CDs, DVDs, or flash drives to fans at the venue. EMI also said on Wednesday that it plans to make the recordings available as streams or downloads, so fans can access them from home.
Instant concert recording isn't new: EMI sub-label Mute Records has had a similar program in place since 2004--according to the press release, 10 percent of fans at a recent Blur concert downloaded the show afterward--and Willie Nelson has been selling flash drives with on-the-spot concert recordings for several years.
But having a large record label like EMI on board legitimizes the practice. It's a no-brainer way for live acts to earn some extra cash--and great for fans as well. I can think of many concerts I've attended, after which I would gladly have paid another $20 for a recording. This should become standard operating practice in the next couple of years.
Bert and Ernie shared space on Google's home page on Friday with an ad for Motorola's Droid, the Verizon Wireless smartphone that went on sale on Friday.
(Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET News)As the newsroom's biggest Sesame Street fan, I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the tribute Google paid to the PBS show this week, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.
On Wednesday, Big Bird's feet and lower body graced the home page, while Thursday saw Cookie Monster nibbling on the Google logo. On Friday, Bert and Ernie served as the O's in Google.
But Bert and Ernie had to share the home page on Friday, as Google also used a front-page link to tout the new Motorola Droid smartphone that went on sale at Verizon Wireless stores.
Although such promotional pitches aren't the norm for its homepage, Google has used them in the past to tout the Chrome browser as well as the first Android phone, T-Mobile's G1.
Big Bird's feet served as the "L" in the Google logo on Wednesday, as the search giant kicked off its tribute to Sesame Street.
(Credit: Google)As for the Sesame Street "doodles," Google Vice President Marissa Mayer noted that "many Googlers grew up on Sesame Street."
"We're delighted to have partnered with Sesame Street to create this special series of doodles, particularly since we share the same values of education, diversity, and accessibility," Mayer said in a blog posting.
Lest anyone doubt my devotion to the show, here's a video interview I did with Elmo Live, when that toy came out last year.
Jimmy Wales gives a keynote address at the 2009 Symbian Exchange and Exposition.
(Credit: Natasha Lomas/Silicon.com)If you've ever written something about Jimmy Wales and posted it online, chances are he's read it. He mentions a Twitter post I made, prior to our interview, asking whether people think he's a hero or villain.
With my tweet I'd been hoping to get a feel for opinion on the Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikia founder. Which is he then, I ask? Hero or villain?
"Oh I would say both," he replies with a smile. "Depends on who you are."
Read more of "Jimmy Wales on what's next for Wikipedia" at Silicon.com.
Last week, a music site called BlueBeat made headlines by offering Beatles songs as free streams and 25 cent downloads. The Beatles are known for not making their songs legally available on iTunes or any other online forum, so observers rightly asked "how are they doing this legally?"
EMI, the record label that owns The Beatles' recordings, has a simple response: they're not doing this legally. But here's where the story gets very strange.
The legal reasoning in this case is straight out of "Alice in Wonderland."
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain illustration))BlueBeat is owned by a company called Media Rights Technologies, which specializes in digital rights management technology. DRM is supposed to be used to prevent copyright infringement. But according to a 2007 blog post on HuffingtonPost.com by the company's founder, Hank Risan, MRT backed into this business after being--get this--targeted by the RIAA for copyright infringement.
As Risan explains in his post, he and a partner had posted a bunch of streaming-audio files to a Web site about the history of music. The RIAA issued a takedown notice, and the site took the streams down.
The streams had been protected by Windows Media DRM, but according to Risan, an update to the Media Player broke the DRM. In response to this flaw, Risan created MRT and built his own DRM system, which he claimed would be far more robust than the systems on the market at that time. Then, in 2007, MRT sent cease-and-desist letters to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and RealNetworks, ordering them to use MRT's DRM technology instead of their own, on threat of legal action.
The legal reasoning was twisted--basically, MRT argued that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act should force these companies to use the most robust DRM technology available, even if that technology was created by somebody else. Predictably, nothing ever came of this demand.
MRT's legal reasoning is equally funny this time around, as Ars Technica reports. According to the report, MRT claims that it didn't post the exact Beatles recordings. Instead, it posted "psychoacoustic simulations," then added simple video content to them. This constitutes a new audiovisual work, and isn't covered by the existing copyrights, MRT argues. In fact, MRT even went so far as to apply for copyrights on the "new" works!
Perhaps this is all some kind of metacommentary on the frustrating inconsistency of U.S. copyright law, but I predict that MRT is going to be laughed out of court. In the meantime, if you want your Beatles music online, it's still available on BlueBeat as of the time I posted this. I didn't want to give the company a credit card to test the whether the downloads work, but the streams sound pretty close to perfect...especially considering that they're only psychoacoustic simulations.
Although technology and the Internet have taken a beating in the past for potentially limiting people's social interaction, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the opposite might be true.
According to a Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey, which polled 2,512 adults, the dawn of new technology and the Internet has not caused people to withdraw from society. In fact, the study found that "the extent of social isolation has hardly changed since 1985, contrary to concerns that the prevalence of severe isolation has tripled since then." Pew said that 6 percent of the entire U.S. adult population currently has "no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be 'especially significant' in their life."
That said, Pew did find that Americans' "discussion networks"--a measure of people's "most important social ties"--have shrunk "by about a third since 1985" from three people to two. However, Pew found no evidence to suggest that it had anything to do with mobile phones or the Internet. In fact, the organization's study found that mobile-phone use and active Web participation yields "larger and more diverse core discussion networks."
Social media is also helping people expand their social interaction. According to Pew, those who use the Internet frequently "are much more likely to confide in someone who is of another race." Users who share photos online are more likely to discuss political topics with someone of a different party, the organization found.
Do you know your neighbor?
Frequent Web users are more likely to communicate with neighbors in person than those who don't use the Web as often, Pew found. In fact, 61 percent of respondents said that they talk to a neighbor at least once per month. The study also found that bloggers are 72 percent "more likely to belong to a local voluntary association" than those who don't blog.
Perhaps most important, Pew found that just because someone is a heavy Web user, that doesn't mean they remove themselves from traditional social activities like visiting a restaurant or hanging out at a bar on a Friday night. According to the study, Web users are "45 percent more likely to visit a cafe, 52 percent more likely to visit a library, 34 percent more likely to visit a fast-food restaurant, 69 percent more likely to visit other restaurants, and 42 percent more likely to visit a public park." Later on, the study reported that social-networking users "are 40 percent more likely to visit a bar, but 36 percent less likely to visit a religious institution."
So, next time your grandmother tells you that the Web is ruining the world, you might want to tell her to check out Pew's study. For more on these figures and many more, click here.
After three quarters of losses, Lenovo has turned a profit again. The computer maker announced Thursday that its fiscal second-quarter earnings more than doubled to $53 million versus $23 million a year ago.
Profit for the quarter ended September blew way past estimates of only $24 million from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Despite a 5.2 percent sales decline to $4.1 billion from $4.3 billion in the year-ago quarter, Lenovo achieved its profits through extensive cost cuts and a record leap in market share.
(Credit:
Lenovo)
The company had previously kick-started a major restructuring program designed to trim expenses and streamline business operations. As a result, Lenovo was forced to lay off a sizable number of employees and take a one-time restructuring charge of $3 million in the second quarter. But the company now expects to save around $300 million annually.
During the quarter, Lenovo says it also saw its worldwide PC shipments surge 17 percent over the prior year, dramatically outpacing the industry average of only 2.3 percent.
"In the last quarter, our share in the global market climbed to a historic high and we returned to profit," said Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing in a statement. "At the same time, our expenses-to-revenue ratio improved notably, reaching the best level since the acquisition of IBM's PC division. These achievements bear witness to the clear strategies we set at the beginning of the year and our effective execution of those strategies."
Lenovo's quarterly results were powered by its notebooks, which contributed 63 percent to overall revenue. Though notebook sales dipped 1 percent from the prior year, shipments shot up 37 percent, compared with an industry average of 16 percent.
During the quarter, the company unveiled a few new products, including the IdeaPad U450p, a thin and light consumer laptop, and SimpleTap, an application to help users navigate the touchscreens on Windows 7-enabled machines like the ThinkPad X200 Tablet and ThinkPad T400s.
Desktop sales, however, fell 13 percent from the prior year's quarter, kicking in only 35 percent to Lenovo's overall revenue. Desktop shipments fell 2 percent, but outpaced the industry average of a 12 percent decline. The company said it has reacted to the PC market shift from desktops to laptops by introducing new entry-level low-cost desktops and revamping its product line for small and medium-sized businesses.
Lenovo enjoyed a stellar second quarter in its home base of China where sales jumped 9 percent to $2 billion. Shipments in the country jumped 28 percent compared with the average of only 0.1 percent. Already the leading PC vendor in China, the company boosted its market share there to 29.4 percent.
Earlier this year, Lenovo said that it would refocus its efforts on China and other emerging markets, a strategy that appears to have paid off.
"Our results are moving in the right direction and we are particularly pleased with our performance in China and in the transactional business model," said Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzhi in a statement.
The year had been a volatile one for Lenovo. The company was hit a string of quarterly losses, leading to the resignation of President and CEO William Amelio in February. Job cuts and the restructuring also took their toll.
But based on its second quarter, Lenovo is optimistic about the near term.
"In the coming quarters, we will continue to reinforce our leadership in China, improve the sustainability and profitability of mature markets, seize growth opportunities in emerging markets and our transactional business, continue to strengthen cost structure, and innovate with raising efficiency and customers' needs in mind," said Chuanzhi.
(Credit:
The Beatles)
No, the digitally remastered Beatles catalog hasn't come to Apple's iTunes. But it has come to an apple-shaped USB device.
Retailing for $279.99, the collection will be released December 8 in North America, three months after the September 9 release of the remastered set of the band's albums (as well as The Beatles: Rock Band video game). The apple shape is in reference to Apple Corps, the Beatles music publisher--which in the past, you may recall, sued tech giant Apple in a trademark dispute.
(Credit:
The Official Beatles Shop)
When the release of the remastered Beatles catalog and Rock Band game were announced for September 9, 2009 (the band has a song called "Revolution 9"), speculation arose that a concurrently scheduled Apple Inc. announcement might bring the catalog, still unavailable for digital download on the Web, to iTunes. That didn't happen. But with the release of the USB collection, the albums are available in non-CD digital form for the first time.
In addition to MP3 and FLAC versions of 14 stereo titles, according to a release, the 16GB device contains "all of the remastered CDs' visual elements, including 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes."
Correction 10:45 a.m. PST: This story initially misstated the release date. It is December 8 in North America. Also, the type of lawsuit Apple Corps filed against Apple Inc. has been corrected. It was a trademark dispute.
Helped by cost cuts and by growth in Internet and phone subscribers, Comcast on Wednesday reported a 22 percent jump in earnings for its third quarter.
The cable provider saw net income of $944 million, or 33 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $771 million (26 cents per share) in the year-ago quarter. Sales also rose, hitting $8.8 billion, up from $8.5 billion in 2008's third quarter, though revenue was slightly below analysts' estimates.
For the quarter, the number of TV subscribers dropped 2.7 percent to 23.7 million from 24.4 million a year ago. But the loss was more than offset by gains in Internet and voice, two services that Comcast has marketed heavily, especially as part of its Triple-Play service.
The number of Internet subscribers rose 6.4 percent to 15.6 million, while Comcast phone customers jumped 20 percent to 7.3 million. Overall, the company saw a quarterly increase in customers of 3.4 percent to 46.8 million. Subscriber growth helped boost third-quarter sales for the cable segment by 2.8 percent to $8.4 billion.
With a focus on trimming costs, capital expenses declined 6.1 percent to $1.2 billion, due in large part to lower spending at the company's cable divison.
"The strength and resilience of our businesses combined with our continued emphasis on expenses and prudent capital management helped us achieve healthy operating and financial results in the third quarter," Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Comcast revealed no new details over its intent to acquire a leading stake in GE-owned NBC Universal. Early last month, reports surfaced that the company wanted to buy a 51 percent chunk of NBCU, with GE owning the rest, to create a new joint venture. If it goes through, the deal could transform Comcast into a major media powerhouse, with control of NBC as well as variety of TV networks and cable stations.
Hulu has debuted a long-requested feature--the ability to find out when new episodes of TV shows will be available to stream.
The video site, which is a joint venture of NBC, ABC, and Fox, calls the new feature Coming Soon. It went live Monday.
Hulu's new Coming Soon feature.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman)The schedule of when TV shows will be released online has been unclear up until this point, leaving people guessing when an episode will be posted. This new feature solves that problem.
The update includes a few additional features. First, people can choose to get an e-mail reminding them when an episode gets posted. This is definitely helpful for those of us who are forgetful and don't use Hulu's excellent Queue feature. Also, Hulu now lets you place the embed code for an unreleased episode on your blog or Web site. I embedded this week's upcoming episode of "The Office" below to show how this feature looks.
... Read more
