bruceb news

Here’s more information about Forgent’s claim that it has a patent on the .JPEG file format (see below). It’s not the first time that a company has waited until some technology has become ubiquitous and then popped up with a demand for royalties. The .GIF format went through the same thing in 1999, and a year later British Telecom decided it had the patent for hyperlinking on the Internet and started trying to extort payments from ISPs. The article has more examples and sets out a few ideas on how a company can act ethically if it intends to license technology. […] continued

Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable your PC if you run a file sharing program.

Later this week, Rep. Howard Berman, (a California Democrat whose district includes Hollywood) will introduce a bill that would allow copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a “reasonable basis” to believe that piracy is taking place. The legislation would immunize groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America from all state and federal laws if they disable, block or otherwise impair a “publicly accessible peer-to-peer network.”

The bill doesn’t specify what techniques would be allowed, but nothing is prohibited except a meaningless comment that industry hackers should not delete files. […] continued

This is fun. Forgent Networks, Inc., is attempting to ambush the digital imaging industry by claiming that it owns the software patent on JPEG compression technology. Forgent says it is “in contact” with computer, software, camera, and other digital imaging product manufacturers regarding licensing terms. Can you imagine a company seriously asserting that it has a right to collect royalties every time someone creates a .jpg picture on a computer? It’s the kind of public relations disaster that’s interesting to watch – kind of like watching a train wreck. (Based on its sliding stock price, Forgent appears to be a dying company trying to come up with a last gasp theory to stay alive. […] continued

Here’s one of those things that might be trivial, or it might be enormously significant. There’s no way to be sure – but this is not a time when I have a very high opinion of the decisions made for us by big businesses.

Microsoft included language in the license agreement for Windows Media Player 7.1 that was very very scary. (See my report on November 5.) The language is repeated in the license agreement for a security update that was made available late last week for Media Player 8.0 – more people noticed it this time, so it’s getting more press. […] continued

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., whose district includes part of Hollywood, is preparing a bill that would let copyright owners, such as record labels or movie studios, hack into your computer or effectively disable your Internet connection if you use a file-sharing program. Here’s an article about the legislation now being prepared.

The bill would provide a shield against legal liability for copyright owners who used high-tech attacks to stop file trading. In the announcement of the bill, Berman cited some of the tools that would be protected by the legislation, and which copyright owners have expressed some interested in using. […] continued

A federal court overturned the order entered last month that required Sonicblue to write and install software to monitor what its customers were watching and report that information to the entertainment industry so they could scrutinize it for copyright violations. (See my item below on May 15 for some background; here’s an article about today’s ruling.) Although this is a nice victory for common sense, it’s not the end of this issue by any means. Count on the entertainment powerhouses to continue pressing in the courts and the legislatures to prevent all of us pirates from fast-forwarding through commercials or going to the bathroom during a broadcast. […] continued

Gotta love this story. In 2000, the FBI apparently used Carnivore electronic surveillance in an attempt to collect information on Osama bin Laden’s network. Unfortunately they screwed up and also collected a whole bunch of e-mails exchanged by “non-covered targets” – you know, real people, folks who didn’t think the FBI was going to be looking over their shoulder. Of course, that’s exactly what the FBI promised would never happen when they sought approval of the Carnivore technology. Then the FBI tech was “so upset” that he destroyed ALL of the collected email, including whatever potentially useful information had been gathered on the real target, instead of only destroying the information that was not covered by the warrant. […] continued

More developments in the recording industry’s relentless war to make sure we can’t actually hear any music.

Yesterday KaZaA, the Dutch software and products company which founded KaZaA.com, announced that it intends to shut down because it can’t afford to defend copyright infringement charges brought against it by the entertainment industry. In a court filing, it described the industry’s tactics as “Rambo-style litigation.” For the moment, the Kazaa software will still work; it’s being run by another company that bought the software and web site a few months ago, and the industry’s attack dogs have not yet been unleashed there. Here’s an article and links about Kazaa’s death. […] continued

The states in the Microsoft trial screwed up in a big way yesterday. The lawyers blew it, and the states may have blown a hole in their case.

The states have been insisting that Microsoft be ordered to produce a stripped-down “modular” version of Windows XP in which various “add-ons” (media player, Internet browser, etc.) can be snapped in and out.

Microsoft’s response to that concept has been that such a project is so technically difficult as to be essentially impossible. Windows XP has been written so that the various programs are “integrated,” and the code cannot be easily removed or segregated for the various components. […] continued

According to this story, the Patriot Act (passed last October) has produced results that might take you by surprise. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement officials expanded authority to subpoena information without a court order. The result is that the telecommunications industry and Internet service providers face an escalating barrage of subpoenas for subscriber lists, personal credit reports, financial information, routing patterns that reveal individual computer use, even customer photographs. There are literally hundreds of thousands of subpoenas out there, and the number is roughly doubling every month. It’s become a financial burden to the companies trying to respond – some have put on around-the-clock shifts of employees struggling to comply. […] continued