response 126 of 154:

Jun 11 20:17 UTC 2003

I mentioned in an earlier piece that the previous owners of Replay TV,
the Sonicblue company, had been much more willing to fight legal 
battles to defend innovative products.  In the short term, expect to 
see the copyright industry with much more veto control on new products.
 

response 128 of 154:

Jun 16 03:09 UTC 2003

If TiVo doesn't fall for this, they're going to run ReplayTV into the ground.

One of these days the industry is going to take one of these concepts too far,
and it's going to backfire, and the public is going to revolt with their
wallets.  This would have had such potential if hard-disk television was more
popular.

response 130 of 154:

Jun 16 16:55 UTC 2003

Today we know what a chain of CD stores -- the largest in the country,
I think -- is worth:  zero.  Nothing.  Nada.
 
    "Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said Monday it has shed its
     troubled Musicland Group, turning it over to Sun Capital 
     Partners, a Florida-based private investment company...
 
    "Sun Capital Partners PAID NO CASH but assumed all of Musicland's
     liabilities including its lease obligations.
 
    "Richfield-based Best Buy paid nearly $700 million for Minnetonka-
     based Musicland two years ago, but the group failed to meet 
     Best Buy's expectations..."

                                          ((emphasis KRJ))

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?oldflok=FF-APO-1700&idq=/ff/
story/0001%2F20030616%2F110427528.htm&sc=1700&floc=NW_5-L7

(Sorry about the ugly URL, I'll look for a tidier one.)

Jeez.  A $700 million investment wiped out in two years.
After this deal, I'll be surprised if the Tower Records chain, which  
is also for sale, doesn't proceed to bankruptcy liquidation.

response 132 of 154:

Jun 16 17:41 UTC 2003

Hadn't realised Media Play was owned by Best Buy.

I wonder how this affects Best Buy's in-house CD operation.

response 134 of 154:

Jun 16 20:59 UTC 2003

I wonder the same thing.  Best Buy is miles ahead of places like WalMart for
music selection, and strong on prices.  It sounds like they might just feel
that they can do fine in music on their own without extra market penetration.


When you think about it, they owned a lot of their competition--they just
weren't doing well enough to justify them to continue to own it, because Best
Buy probably does fairly well on its own.

response 136 of 154:

Jun 17 14:08 UTC 2003

I almost never shop at chain music stores these days because they rarely
have the music I'm looking for.  If I'm going to have to ask them to
special-order something anyway, I might as well just buy it online and
get it delivered to my doorstep.

response 138 of 154:

Jun 18 13:10 UTC 2003

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/5865
Senator endorses destroying computers of illegal downloaders

By Ted Bridis, The Associated Press Jun 17 2003 3:04PM
The chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he
favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of
people who illegally download music from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch during a hearing on
copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating
battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against
illegal music downloads.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally
exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology
executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading.
Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal
anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy
Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds
technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately
downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer
"may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song writing
royalties, acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for
copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed
technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online
behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines,
we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the
only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few
hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness
of their actions, he said.

"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," said Hatch, who
has earned royalties for composing music.

A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, Jonathan
Lamy, said Hatch was "apparently making a metaphorical point that if
peer-to-peer networks don't take reasonable steps to prevent massive
copyright infringement on the systems they create, Congress may be
forced to consider stronger measures."

The RIAA represents major music labels. 

response 140 of 154:

Jun 18 18:55 UTC 2003

How do they plan to 'damage' computers without invading the homes of the
owners?

response 142 of 154:

Jun 18 20:31 UTC 2003

And what ever happened to due process?

response 144 of 154:

Jun 19 07:03 UTC 2003

        Maybe less people are buying into TiVo because, with little
thought, TiVo will think you are gay.
(ps. don't TiVo King of Queens).

response 146 of 154:

Jun 20 18:45 UTC 2003

There have been articles about it.  If you can find them, they're hysterical
(like what happens when you try to convince your TiVo you aren't gay).

response 148 of 154:

Jun 26 13:05 UTC 2003

Sometimes it overcompensates.  Here's the story:

 http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1038261936872356908,00.html

response 150 of 154:

Jun 26 14:22 UTC 2003

This should be about as popular as death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31434.html

Line'em up! RIAA to sue thousands
By Ashlee Vance in San Francisco
Posted: 25/06/2003 at 21:10 GMT

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has issued the
biggest threat to date against online file-traders, saying it will sue
thousands of individuals into submission.

Starting Thursday, pigopolist grunts will begin combing P2P networks in
search of industrious file traders. Once the RIAA has targeted a large
store of copyrighted files, it will serve a subpoena on the user's ISP,
grab his/her name and address, and fire off a lawsuit.

"The RIAA expects to use the data it collects as the basis for filing
what could ultimately be thousands of lawsuits charging individual
peer-to-peer music distributors with copyright infringement," the RIAA
said in a statement. "The first round of suits could take place as early
as mid-August."

A pair of recent court rulings opened up this means of attack on
file-traders. First, a Los Angeles judge in April said P2P service
operators could not be held responsible for their users' actions. This
decision blocked the RIAA from shutting down large chunks of the P2P
community in one go - think Napster - and pushed them toward nailing
individuals.

More recently, the RIAA won another decision over Verizon, which gave it
permission to see the name and address of the ISP's customers.

Users face civil lawsuits, thousands of dollars in fines and even
criminal prosecution. At least the legal action is a more civilized way
of conducting business. Sending out fake files and having musicians
swear at users are puerile forms of protest.

For now, file traders should swap with caution. The RIAA plans to inject
network scanning software out into the vast P2P world and track what
files users are looking for and what they trade. If the RIAA bot spots
an infringing song, it marks the date and time the file is accessed.

It's unfortunate the government did not have such sophisticated tools
when it was examining the music labels' pricing fixing scheme that
pushed CD prices higher throughout the 1990s. Maybe then, the labels
would been hit with something harder than a slap on the wrist.

Time, perhaps, for a good old-fashioned consumer boycott?