Online piracy is not solely responsible for dwindling sales of recorded music, says a report. Media analysts Screen Digest said broader cultural trends and the debut of DVD had left many consumers with much less to spend on their music collections. But the boom in sales of music through online portals will help to offset [...]

This technology enables content owners, and content service providers, such as operators and internet service providers to automatically identify video segments and hence ownership of material by comparing unique ‘fingerprints’ extracted from the video segments with fingerprints in a specially compiled database. Compared to manual monitoring methods, Video Fingerprinting allows better statistical sampling, faster response [...]

DoveTail, which is currently in early beta (you can test it today), is a distribution platform for independent film, TV shows and music videos – Rocketboom also makes an appearance. They have a web-based showcase where you can view films, add tags and make comments – you can also embed clips in external sites like [...]

Here’s a fascinating ‘To Whom it May Concern’ missive from Mark Luker, EDUCAUSE vp. It’s for, and on behalf of, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the Big Four Organized Music Family, and it goes: Please let me call your attention to a short, effective video for educating students about the consequences of [...]

A new GMail feature lets you play MP3 files right inside the GMail interface without having to download the MP3 or open an external media player. When you receive an audio file as an email attachment, click the play button and Google will play the audio file for you in a popup window. Very neat [...]

A Google executive said on Tuesday that entrepreneurs creating new start-ups could be thwarted unless Congress enacts extensive laws imposing Net neutrality regulations on broadband providers. “I’m not worried so much about Google in this regard,” David Drummond, Google’s general counsel, said at a 90-minute debate organized here by the Progress and Freedom Foundation. “I’m [...]

Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it would release new versions of Windows in South Korea this week to comply with an antitrust ruling against the U.S. software company. Earlier this year, the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined Microsoft 32.5 billion won ($34 million) and ordered it to provide two separate versions of Windows, saying the company [...]

Sony Pictures Entertainment today is expected to join Hollywood’s new-media mash-up by buying online video service Grouper Networks Inc. With its $65-million acquisition of Grouper, the movie and television unit of Sony Corp. becomes the latest traditional media company to vie for a growing — and potentially lucrative — Internet audience that prefers its entertainment [...]

Google could face legal action in Brazil for failing to provide details of site users allegedly involved in pornography and crime. Brazilian prosecutors say that Google’s community website Orkut – popular in Brazil – contains information promoting crime and child pornography. Federal prosecutors want a judge to order Google in Brazil to disclose users’ information [...]

A Central Florida woman offers a warning that movie titles for children may actually be hardcore pornography in disguise on a popular file-sharing service, according to a Local 6 News report. The report featured Sally Rodriguez, who was recently surfing the Internet with her daughter, Delanee, 7. Rodriguez and her daughter used a file-sharing service [...]

The Roots, a Philadelphia-based rap favorite, have just tapped college-focused mtvU on a pre-release promotional strategy. The channel is now featuring exclusive live performances leading up to the August 29th release of Game Theory. As part of its “Live Leak” promotional concept, mtvU is “leaking” performance cuts daily across its cable and broadband properties, a [...]

Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom and CBS, on Tuesday called for Hollywood to take a more flexible approach to pricing as it seeks to combat piracy and protect its intellectual property. In a speech on Tuesday night, Mr Redstone suggested that studios might charge consumers one price for a single viewing of a digitally downloaded [...]

Not long ago Weird Al let it be known that the very record industry that says it is out to search and destroy file sharing so artists like him would get paid, has failed to pay him a fair revenue generated from his music on iTunes. “THE RECORDING industry is using online sales to screw [...]

Can video fingerprinting and watermarking technology stop copyright violators? YouTube visitors upload 65,000 videos every day and download 100 million of them. Since all those videos have to come from somewhere, it’s no surprise that many are pirated — that is, copied from commercial TV broadcasts and movies and posted without the permission of the [...]

CULVER CITY, CA – According to a press release from California-based technology company Audible Magic Corp (AMC), the “first Los Angeles-area municipality to offer the public a free all-access wireless Internet system” is now filtering that access to strain out “illegal and problematic content” on their network. According to the AMC release, Culver City decided [...]

If you read way down to the bottom of a Wall Street Journal interview with Bill Gates that ran yesterday, you’ll discover that the Microsoft executive admitted to watching pirated movies on the Internet. The confession came as he was talking about content he had viewed on YouTube. Here’s part of the exchange: WSJ: You [...]

At least five employees of Apple’s retail stores have been fired after downloading copies of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard from the Internet that were distributed to developers at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference two weeks ago. “Dozens” more also face termination, Think Secret has learned. advertisement The axed employees had apparently been overheard discussing their [...]

Paul H. Wilke, a 52-year-old Illinois man the Big Four Organized Music cartel is trying to nail for alleged copyright infringement, says he’s never used p2p file sharing programs, let alone illicitly distributed songs or made them available for distribution online. Nor, he says, are any of the songs cited by the Big Four’s RIAA [...]

According to “Team Underdog,” they have successfully created the first Modchip to play your backup games on the Xbox360. The site reads: The NME-360 enables your XBox360 to play backups of your highly valuable original games. NME-360 is a universal solution for ALL currently available XBox360 Consoles on the market. Forget crazy dual mods with [...]

Seeing a high-quality copy of “Desperate Housewives” obtained 15 just minutes after the episode’s airing was a seminal moment in Disney’s corporate decision to offer parts of its content online (via Apple’s iTunes store), said Disney exec Anne Sweeney in her keynote address Monday morning here at the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit. Sweeney, [...]