Top Stories
o L.A. City Attorney Sues "Grand Theft Auto" Makers Take-Two, Rockstar
o U.K. Courts Rule File-Sharing is Illegal, Impose Stiff Fines on Individuals
o Ireland's High Court Says ISPs Must Identify Music File-Swappers
o Canadian Record Label to Defend Family Against RIAA Lawsuit
o America Online Forges Broadband Internet Partnerships
o Oxford, Harvard Researchers Launch Anti-Spyware Group
o Study: Clarity of Internet Phone Audio Still Needs Improvement
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Briefly Noted
o Court Date Set to Hear Google Defense Against DOJ Subpoena
o Musiwave Powers Mobile Music Service for France's SFR
o GUBA Offers 20,000 Usenet Videos for Sony PSP
o Al Gore Speech Helps Sundance Festival Website Draw Visitors
o Point.360 to Provide Digital Ad Distribution for CBS Television
o CNET News.com: "Mobile TV Gets on a Roll"
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Los Angeles - Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" video game franchise, and developer Rockstar Games have been sued by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office for its alleged hiding of pornographic material in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." The game received a stricter "Adults Only" rating and was removed from store shelves last year, after it was discovered that a sexually explicit mini-game hidden in the title's source code could be unlocked with an Internet download. The lawsuit alleges misleading marketing and unfair competition, accusing Take-Two of hiding the fact that the game contained pornographic content to receive a less strict rating, and later trying to claim the offensive mini-game was created by hackers and not its employees. "Greed and deception are part of the 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' story -- and in that respect, its publishers are not much different from the characters in their story," Delgadillo said in a statement. "Businesses have an obligation to truthfully disclose the content of their products -- whether in the food we eat or the entertainment we consume." The lawsuit demands Take-Two and Rockstar return $10 million in estimated profits from sales of the game in California, pay fines and cease marketing the game to children. Delgadillo said the Take-Two lawsuit is part of a larger investigation by the L.A. City Attorney's office into the marketing of video games.
http://www.lacity.org/atty/index/attyindex56035142_01262006.pdf
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060127/tc_nm/media_taketwo_lawsuit_dc (Reuters)
http://tinyurl.com/7tqtx (CNET)
http://www.take2games.com
http://www.rockstargames.com/sanandreas
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o U.K. Courts Rule File-Sharing is Illegal, Impose Stiff Fines on Individuals

London - A landmark duo of court rulings in the U.K. has for the first time found music file-swappers guilty of copyright infringement and ordered defendants to pay damages to the U.K. music industry. In the first case, the U.K. High Court granted summary judgment against a man from King's Lynn accused of file-sharing copyright infringement, ordering him immediately to pay nearly $8,900 to the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), a U.K. record label trade group. The man must also pay legal fees totaling nearly $24,000 and as yet unspecified damages. Another man from Brighton was also found guilty by summary judgment and ordered to pay over $2,600 immediately to the BPI, with additional damages likely to follow. "The courts have spoken and their verdict is unequivocal: unauthorized file-sharing is against the law," said BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson. The BPI added that it has settled the majority of the 139 lawsuits it filed against individual file-swappers since October 2004, with some paying up to $11,500 to avoid a court case; the group is currently seeking settlements in 51 other cases launched last December.
http://www.bpi.co.uk/news/legal/index.asp?fName=news_content_file_975.shtml
http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39156000,00.htm
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o Ireland's High Court Says ISPs Must Identify Music File-Swappers

Dublin - The High Court of Ireland this week ruled that Internet service providers in the country must turn over the identities of subscribers alleged to have used file-sharing networks to commit copyright infringement, according to a report from Digital Rights Ireland, a digital civil liberties group. The Irish divisions of the major record labels monitored file-sharing networks using a program called MediaSentry and obtained the IP addresses of suspected file-swappers. They then asked the individuals' ISPs -- Eircom, BT Communications Ireland and Irish Broadband -- turn over the identities of these subscribers. Justice Peter Kelly called file-sharing "a modern form of thieving," ordered the ISPs to turn over their subscribers' identities to the record labels, and suggested the labels pass on that information to criminal prosecution authorities.
http://tinyurl.com/8nr9o (Digital Rights Ireland)
http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=9665363
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/26/irish_isps_court_order
http://www.irma.ie
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o Canadian Record Label to Defend Family Against RIAA Lawsuit

New York - Nettwerk Music Group, Canada's largest record label and management firm, has said it will provide legal defense for a family sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for using file-sharing networks to commit copyright infringement. Songs by Nettwerk client Avril Lavigne are among those alleged to have been offered for downloading; other Nettwerk clients include Josh Rouse, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies. "The current actions of the RIAA are not in my artists' best interests," said Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride. "Litigation is not 'artist development'. Litigation is a deterrent to creativity and passion and it is hurting the business I love." Nettwerk has said it will pay for the Gruebel family's lawyers, as well as any damages should the family lose its case. "Since 2003 the RIAA has continually misused the court and legal system, engaging in misguided litigation tactics for the purpose of extorting settlement amounts from everyday people -- parents, students, doctors, and general consumers of music," said Charles Lee Mudd Jr, a Chicago-based attorney who will represent the Gruebels. "In doing so, the RIAA has misapplied existing copyright law and improperly employed its protections not as a shield, but as a sword."
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=107623
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/nettwerk_sues_riaa
http://www.nettwerk.com
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o America Online Forges Broadband Internet Partnerships

Dulles, Va. - America Online said on Friday that it has forged relationships with several providers of high-speed Internet access -- including BellSouth, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Through the partnerships, customers in the markets served by these providers will be offered a service coupling AOL's broadband content and security features with a DSL or cable Internet connection for $25.90 - $29.90 a month. AOL said that it plans to launch a nationwide ad campaign encouraging members to upgrade from dial-up to broadband. Over the past few years, AOL has lost several million dial-up subscribers to either broadband providers or less expensive dial-up firms. The companies plan to begin taking orders for the new service starting Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/acfqs
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o Oxford, Harvard Researchers Launch Anti-Spyware Group

Oxford, England - Researchers at the universities of Oxford and Harvard have teamed up to launch a new project that names and shames suppliers of spyware and other malicious software programs. Organizers said the project would try to enlist the help of Internet users to identify companies that dupe surfers into putting spyware, adware or other deceptive software on their PCs. They also said the project would eventually produce tools that help clean up infested computers. Dubbed the Stop Badware Coalition, the project enjoys the support of such heavy hitters as Google, Sun Microsystems and Lenovo.
http://stopbadware.org
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o Study: Clarity of Internet Phone Audio Still Needs Improvement

San Mateo, Calif. - While the reliability of Internet telephone services has generally improved over the past several months, the major providers still have plenty of room to improve in terms of audio clarity, according to a new study by Keynote Systems. The firm measured 11 service providers on several performance factors. Though the top providers had improved the quality of their call audio since Keynote's initial study in June, the firm said that it found no significant change in the amount of audio delay present in the calls -- a factor that it said "can lead to conversational disruption." Keynote, in fact, said that Internet phones continue to have up to twice as much audio delay as calls placed on traditional phones. Time Warner Digital Phone ranked first in both reliability and audio clarity in the studies conducted in November and December, edging out Vonage and AT&T CallVantage.
http://www.keynote.com/news_events/releases_2006/06jan25.html

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o Court Date Set to Hear Google Defense Against DOJ Subpoena

San Jose, Calif. - A court date has been set to hear Google's defense of its refusal to hand over search records to the Bush administration, which is seeking them to use them in its defense of a law meant to protect children from online pornography. Federal prosecutors also asked AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft for random samples of their search records, but only Google refused, citing its users' privacy. The case will come before U.S. District Judge James Ware on Feb. 27 in a federal court in San Jose, Calif.
http://tinyurl.com/8o9b7 (CNET)
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o Musiwave Powers Mobile Music Service for France's SFR
 
Paris - Musiwave, a provider of branded mobile music entertainment services, said on Friday that it signed an agreement with SFR, a France-based affiliate of Vivendi Universal and Vodafone, to power a full-track subscription-based mobile music download service. Digital rights management for the service will be provided by Switzerland-based Secure Digital Container (SDC). The SFR service will offer access to 80,000 songs from the Universal Music catalog.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060126/sfth039a.html?.v=1
http://www.digicont.com
http://www.sfr.com/en/index.jsp
http://www.musiwave.net 
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o GUBA Offers 20,000 Usenet Videos for Sony PSP

San Francisco - GUBA, a provider of multimedia search and an index of video content available on Usenet -- a bulletin board service that pre-dates the World Wide Web -- said on Friday that it has made more than 20,000 videos from Usenet available for browsing and download to Sony's PSP handheld. GUBA subscribers are also able to subscribe to RSS video feeds using keywords that match their interests. San Francisco-based GUBA said it does not index feature-length films or MP3 on its service.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060127/sff020.html?.v=40
http://www.guba.com
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o Al Gore Speech Helps Sundance Festival Website Draw Visitors

Park City, Utah - Organizers of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival Online said on Friday that during the first week of the festival, an estimated 700,000 viewers watched festival videos on the Internet -- nearly twice as many as had at this point last year. Some of the traffic was generated by an extended interview with former Vice President Al Gore at the festival that was posted to the site.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060126/lath081.html?.v=39
http://www.sundance.org
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o Point.360 to Provide Digital Ad Distribution for CBS Television

Burbank, Calif. - Point.360, a provider of video and film asset management services, announced on Friday that it has signed an agreement to provide digital distribution of advertising content for CBS Television. Burbank, Calif.-based Point.360 will distribute ads from companies including Burger King, ConAgra Foods and Nissan across 1,200 television stations, broadcast and cable networks.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060127/laf021.html?.v=40
http://www.point360.com
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o CNET News.com: "Mobile TV Gets on a Roll"

San Francisco - CNET News.com on Friday reported on the crop of new mobile TV handsets and delivery technologies that are launching in the U.S. The article mentions Qualcomm's MediaFlow, Crown Castle International's Modeo, and the MobiTV service offered by Sprint and Cingular, and covers the variety of new mobile TV handsets from Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, Motorola and LG Electronics. Thirty million Americans are expected to purchase mobile video content in 2010, according to market research firm In-Stat.
http://tinyurl.com/8od3b (CNET)

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