Online movies promised by 2005
Top Hollywood executive Jack Valenti has said technological developments could mean newly released films being available online by 2005.The Motion Picture Association Of America chief said issues of secure delivery were almost resolved. Valenti said films should go straight from big screen to internet well before rental release on DVD and video.However, the film business [...]
Macintosh users join Kazaa network
A new piece of file-swapping software for Macintosh computers is drawing thousands of downloads by offering peer-to-peer options that had been limited largely to Windows computers.
Originally released in July, and updated substantially since then, the “Poisoned” file-swapping software allows connections to the hugely popular FastTrack system as well as several smaller networks. That [...]
Road Runner messages ‘censored’, newsgroups complain
Media giant Time Warner appears to be censoring subscribers to its Road Runner Net access service by corrupting newsgroup messages it fears contain pirated material.
For the past fortnight, users of the $44.95 a month service have been complaining that the vast majority of newsgroups messages are “incomplete”, making them unreadable.
While, due to the nature [...]
DC++ 0.304
Changes:
* Fixed missing usercommands (thanks sed)
* Added option not to receive usercommands
* Fixed a bug with bad search result type (hub owners, make sure your users upgrade if they use 0.302-0.303)
(thanks saurod)
* Added “$Supports MiniSlots” for other clients to profit from dc++’s free small files and filelist free slots
(thanks [...]
New stable build of Freenet
New stable build: 5034
A new stable build of Freenet is now available. Among the core improvements are a rethink of load balancing, and some measures to help nodes route information more effectively from the moment they start. This should result in a better experience for new users, along with superior overall performance.
As usual with [...]
Kazaa Calls on its Fans to Help
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Sharman Networks, distributor of the Kazaa Media Desktop peer-to-peer software, is launching a $1 million advertising campaign this week, hoping to mobilize its 60 million users to pressure the entertainment industry cut licensing deals with Sharman.
Striking Back
The campaign, to be launched Wednesday in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, includes advertising [...]
Australian File Traders Avoid Jail
19 year old Peter Tran and 20 year old Charles Kok Hau Ng were looking at five years each for their convictions in Australia’s first criminal prosecution against those who facilitate the trading on music files over the Net. They were also facing massive fines as the music industry tried to pin the loss of [...]
Bands ‘urged to cut album tracks’
Record labels are urging artists to put fewer tracks on albums because fans are put off by too many average songs, the Los Angeles Times has reported.
“There’s been a tendency to overload CDs because the technology permits it,” Sony US president Don Ienner said.
CD sales are competing with websites that give fans songs cheaply or [...]
MPAA refuses to relax screener ban
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood’s major film studios have refused to further relax their ban on sending out videotapes and DVDs of movies competing for Oscars (news – web sites) this year, a spokesman for the studios’ representative said on Monday.
Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents the [...]
Microsoft to Launch Online Music Store in 2004
Microsoft has at last confirmed plans that it will launch its own music-download
store next year, putting it on the path to direct competition with Apple
Computer’s iTunes and a growing list of rival digital song stores.
With unequaled software reach, Microsoft’s entry into the market will almost
necessarily create a splash larger than that of virtually any other [...]
