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Judge Says No Antitrust Violation In Hollywood Killing RealDVD

TechDirt  Jan 11 10

In the ongoing saga of Hollywood's bizarre and self-defeating attack on RealNetworks for its RealDVD offering, a judge has dismissed Real's countersuit claiming antitrust violations by the Hollywood studios in effectively creating a cartel that controls the encryption on DVDs and refusing to license it to Real for the purpose of its DVD backup solution. The court basically said that there is no harm to Real caused by any actions of the Hollywood studios, because the real "harm" is in the fact that it created an infringing product in RealDVD. This reasoning isn't surprising given the earlier rulings in this case, but is no less ridiculous when looked at in context (and with any bit of common sense). Full story...

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Just As It Tries To Kick People Offline, The British Gov't Wants To Move All Public Service Online

TechDirt  3 hours ago

Just as it considers kicking people offline via the Digital Economy Bill, it looks like the UK is getting set to move all sorts of government services online -- giving every UK citizen a unique webpage, where they can access all sorts of personalized gov't services.

Irish Collection Society Wants Hotels To Pay Performance Fees For Music Played In Guest Rooms

TechDirt  2 days ago

We've seen all sorts of ridiculous claims by performance rights collection societies trying to demand performance rights for things that clearly were not intended as "performances.

Hot News Is Back: Court Blocks Website From Reporting The News

TechDirt  2 days ago

In the last few years, there's been a push by some companies to bring back the immensely troubling "hot news doctrine," that appears to violate everything we know about the First Amendment and copyright law.

Would UK Politicians Support The Digital Economy Bill If It Applied To Offline Activities As Well?

TechDirt  2 days ago

The entertainment industry always likes to take the digital world and compare it to the physical world as if the two were the same -- often making claims like unauthorized downloading is "just like stealing a CD from a store.

Nestle Discovers The Streisand Effect... But Only After Making Things Worse And Worse... And Worse

TechDirt  2 days ago

Earlier this week, reader Jorvay sent over the news of how food giant Nestle had massively overreacted to an (admittedly disgusting) anti-Nestle video put together by Greenpeace and posted to YouTube.

More ACTA Leaks: Would Create Special Organization To Manage Worldwide Copyright Laws

TechDirt  3 days ago

The more of ACTA that leaks, the worse it seems. KEI has the details on another portion of ACTA that had not leaked yet, which focuses on setting up new institutions that would manage ACTA after it was implemented.

People Realizing That Viacom's Filings Take YouTube Quotes Totally Out Of Context

TechDirt  3 days ago

I had pointed this out in a comment yesterday, but with so many press reports suggesting that Viacom's filing found some sort of "smoking gun" in the YouTube emails concerning founders talking about "stealing" videos, it's worth pointing out that Viacom appears to have taken these quotes totally out of context.

The Onion Puts Out An Equally Accurate Report On Recording Industry Revenue Issues

TechDirt  3 days ago

Ah, leave it to The Onion to successfully encapsulate the state of the recording industry with a report that is basically as accurate as most of the reports that come out of the RIAA these days: The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that the combined revenue brought in by Warner, Sony, EMI, Universal, and countless independent music labels in 2009 totaled $18.

Too Little Too Late: Universal Music Finally Realizes That Maybe CDs Were Too Expensive

TechDirt  3 days ago

David Herron alerts us to the news that it's finally occurred to the brain trust at Universal Music that, perhaps, CD prices were too high.

Despite Plenty Of Warning EA Still Decides To Follow Ubisoft Down The Wrong Path With DRM

TechDirt  3 days ago

Last summer, we wrote about some reports that EA was going to require a constant internet connection for Command & Conquer 4.



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