May 23, 2005
Volume 9, Issue 2
SVC Financial on OTC
DCIA Member SVC Financial Services, a leading provider of electronic payment processing and stored value products and services, announced last week that its common shares have been accepted for quotation on the NASD Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB) under the symbol SVCX.
"Listing on the OTC Bulletin Board enables SVC Financial to reach a wider range of potential investors," said Chris Haigh, SVC President & CEO. "This listing is a significant move to improve liquidity in our common stock and enhance shareholder value. It is also a tremendous step forward in the growth of our company."
SVC delivers global transaction solutions that are easy to use, highly secure, and extremely cost effective. SVC delivers the revolutionary Scoot Mobile ATM Money Card, allowing anyone with a cell phone to store, send, receive and transact funds anywhere in the world.
SVC has also pioneered the Mazarin Media Platform that provides rapid media-based application delivery for any user or organization. Mazarin solutions focus on non-profit organizations, political fund raising, music and entertainment, corporate and consumer marketing.
SVC Payment Services include a profitable micro payment system, debit card processing, and digital asset management.
BBC Preps P2P TV Test
Excerpted from MacWorld Report by Jonny Evans
The BBC is experimenting with a new Interactive Media Player (IMP). This technology will let UK viewers catch up on TV and radio programs they may have missed for up to seven days after they have been broadcast, using the Internet to legally download programs to their home computers.
The BBC will offer 190 hours of TV programming and 310 radio shows, including "EastEnders" and "Top Gear," as well as movies. The trial begins in September. The test group will be able to search for programs they want to see, filter shows by channel, initiate subtitles, and be able to collect and watch episodes of series they have missed.
Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media and technology, said, "IMP could just be the iTunes for the broadcast industry, enabling our audience to access our TV and radio programs on their terms – any time, any place, any how."
"We'll see what programs appeal in this new world and how people search, sort, snack, and savor our content in the broadband world."
Tarnia Signs UK Record Contract
Recording artist Tarnia, who also serves as DCIA Member INTENT MediaWorks' European business development leader, has signed with FRG Records, founded and run by Steve E, former member of the band NRG, which had 8 top-10 singles in the 1990s and a platinum selling album.
FRG has had artists on MTV and also works with companies such as Virgin Megastore and HMV for distribution.
Steve E said, "I was not only impressed with Tarnia's music, but also her networking skills and business sense. This is such a rare find with artists, and it's a pleasure to be working with her."
Tarnia sold 100 singles in the USA last year, and her music is listened to by over 60,000 people a week via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing worldwide.
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Musical group Grace Potter & The Nocturnals is getting used to overflow crowds, having recently sold out several high-profile venues such as Higher Ground in Burlington, VT and Joe's Pub in NYC.
Without a record label, the word is quickly spreading about this Vermont-based band packing major venues and promoting and selling significant amounts of its new album, "Nothing But The Water," online with their infectious sound, persona, and story.
Leading this charge is twenty-one-year-old Grace Potter whose vocal ability has drawn comparisons to legends like Bonnie Raitt, Aretha Franklin, Norah Jones, and Janis Joplin. The band is managed by Justin Goldberg of DCIA Member Indie911.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 As evidenced by the panoply of articles on a wide range of subjects in this week's DCINFO, the distributed computing industry is rife with encouraging activity.
From announcements about financing of service-and-support companies to reports of major entertainment companies finally launching P2P market trials to success stories of emerging artists finding their fan bases and accelerating their careers thanks to their involvement with file sharing, there is a lot going on in various aspects of commercial development to be excited about.
On the other hand, continuing court cases around the world – even with rulings supportive of file sharers this week from Canada and Germany – and actions taken by other authorities – as exemplified this week by Universities from Washington to Valencia – continue to underscore that we still have a long way to go to achieve full-scale adoption of the P2P distribution channel by major entertainment interests.
Indeed, with the decisions of the US Supreme Court and the Australian Federal Court still pending, there are elephants in the room along with any parties negotiating distribution agreements or planning market trials, no matter how prominent they may be in their respective industrial sectors.
And whatever judgments the courts ultimately announce will no doubt unleash a new round of energized legislative activity, along the lines of last year's divisive and acrimonious Induce Act calamity, with distorted smear campaigns already being mounted by well-financed Hollywood interests.
It is an exciting and challenging time to participate in our industry's development, and we would like to invite interested parties to attend our DCIA Summer 2005 Meeting June 16th, on the eve of this year's Washington Digital Media Conference at the McLean Hilton. Our meeting will be open to non-Members and it will focus on advancing commercial solutions for entertainment distribution via P2P during the second half of 2005.
We plan to open the meeting with a recap of the relevant arguments in key litigation now moving through the courts, conducted by knowledgeable experts who have participated in these cases or otherwise represented principal parties along the way.
Our interest is not in scoring the debate or handicapping odds – most observers have conceded that P2P technologies are here to stay and that what is needed now are new business models to harness them. Our concern is in discerning from these arguments what kinds of solutions will be acceptable to leading proponents on each side.
We will then move to examine two sets of case studies involving early work that has been initiated in file-sharing distribution of entertainment content, which demonstrate the greatest promise for leading to a turnaround of the P2P distribution channel for major labels and studios.
The first set will exemplify those that have been undertaken by P2P software developers and distributors, and their agents, who will personally highlight their experiences to date.
The second will exemplify those that have been introduced by content creators or rights-holders, who will likewise personally describe what's working so far and what more needs to be done.
Finally, in what should be the most valuable and stimulating part of our meeting, we will invite a discussion of new concepts and solutions that may not have been tried yet, with a diverse panel of industry experts representing opposing interests, who will react to recommendations and provide open-and-honest feedback from their perspectives.
We strongly encourage participants at our meeting also to attend the Digital Media Conference. Attendance at our meeting will be at no charge to registered conference attendees, and DCIA Members can register for the conference at a substantial discount. Please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA's Member Services leader at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info to find out more about Membership in the DCIA or to register for this meeting.
Canadian Court Deals Setback to Labels
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Declan McCullagh
A Canadian appeals court has rebuffed an attempt by the recording industry to unmask 29 people accused of unlawfully sharing thousands of music files.
The Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling that said privacy rights must supersede the record labels' copyright claims.
In a 27-page opinion, the appeals court stressed that "technology must not be allowed to obliterate" intellectual property rights, but "the potential for unwarranted intrusion into individual personal lives is now unparalleled."
The ruling is hardly the end of the matter. Instead, it effectively lays out what kind of legal standard the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) must meet in future lawsuits against accused peer-to-peer (P2P) infringers.
In 2004, a lower court declined to order five Internet service providers – Bell/Sympatico, Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications, TELUS, and Videotron – to identify subscribers that CRIA had accused of trading files illegally. CRIA appealed the decision, and arguments were heard in April.
In Thursday's ruling, Justice Edgar Sexton gently chided the lower court for reaching a sweeping decision about whether music file swapping was legal. "In my view, conclusions such as these should not have been made in the very preliminary stages of this action," Sexton wrote. "Such hard conclusions at a preliminary stage can be damaging to the parties if a trial takes place and should be avoided."
German Court Rules for ISPs in P2P Case
Excerpted from The Register Report By Jan Libbenga
ISPs in the state of Hamburg can't be forced to provide customer data to record companies, even when illegal copying is suspected. The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg has ruled that there is no legal basis for demanding customer data. ISPs, the court argues, aren't part of the criminal act. They merely provide access to the Web.
The Higher Regional Court overruled an earlier decision by the Hamburg District Court, which had granted record companies access to customer data after they discovered an FTP server where numbers by German band Rammstein could be downloaded for free. The District Court based its ruling on the German Copyright Act.
The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, however, followed a similar ruling by judges of the federal state of Hesse. Here too the court rejected the claim by a music group to hand over the name of a customer who ran an illegal music server.
Experts believe that the setback for the record industry is temporary as legislators in Germany are drafting a new Telemedia Act, granting the recording industry more freedom in obtaining data from internet service providers.
The developments in Germany are closely watched by experts in the Netherlands. There the Dutch Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands (BREIN) has just launched its largest round of lawsuits yet targeting 42 individuals.
UW Will Not Ban i2Hub
Excerpted from The Daily Report by Brian Alexander
The University of Washington (UW) will not try to prohibit peer-to-peer (P2P) applications often used for illegal file sharing, it said in a statement released late last week in response to allegations of the activity. In early April, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent a letter to the UW pinpointing three UW network users who were sharing copyrighted music over a high-speed Internet backbone between universities.
The UW responds to allegations of illegal activity on its networks using educational initiatives and the enforcement of policies and procedures, the letter said. But it will not prohibit use of applications over which copyrighted songs and movies are shared.
These applications have "substantial uses for non-infringing purposes," the May 3rd letter read. P2P file sharing is an area of research being pursued over Internet2 networks by the Internet2 consortium, according to the letter.
The RIAA complaint was specifically in response to file sharing using i2hub, a program similar to Kazaa or Grokster, but specifically for students at universities on the Internet2 backbone. Internet2 is a super-high-speed network among universities, government agencies, and corporations that can "feel" 100 to 1,000 times faster than commercial Internet connections, according to a spokesperson for Internet2.
In most cases, students using i2hub can trade a movie in less than five minutes or a song in less than 20 seconds – many times faster than file-sharing speeds over commercial Internet backbones, according to the RIAA.
The UW hasn't attached names to the three users the RIAA pinpointed by IP address, a series of numbers used to identify a user on a network, said Oren Sreebny, director of client services and learning technologies for Computing and Communications. The information has been sent to a UW group that investigates complaints, but he hasn't heard anything back, he said.
Lecturer Censored for Defending P2P
Excerpted from Weblog by Jorge Cortell
"Upon the request of various foreign media that would like to cover this story, here is a recap of what happened to me when trying to defend the legal use of peer-to-peer (P2P) in Spain.
I have been teaching Intellectual Property among other subjects in the Polytechnic University of Valencia for over 5 years. Two weeks ago I was scheduled to analyze the legal use and benefits of P2P networks when dealing with copyrighted works according to the Spanish Intellectual Property Law, Private Copy provision, research papers, books, and court rulings.
I was even going to use the network to prove that it was legal, since members of the Collecting Society SGAE had appeared on TV and newspapers saying that 'P2P networks are illegal' (sic), and to that extent I contacted SGAE, National Police, and the Attorney General in advance to inform them.
The day before the conference, the Dean, pressured by the Spanish Recording Industry Association and the Motion Picture Association of America, tried to stop it by denying permission to use the scheduled venue. So I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time. Finally I gave the conference in the university cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people.
Later on that day, I received a call from the Director of the Masters Degree Program where I was teaching telling me that the Dean had called and had asked him to 'make sure I did not teach there again.'
The Director called and asked me to remove any link to the university from my website, and also to 'hide' the fact that I was teaching there. Then he told me about the pressures and threats he and the Program received to be subjected to software licenses inspection, copyright violations inspections, or anything that may damage them. Obviously I had to resign to save his job and everybody else's at the Masters Program. So I did.
It is not so important that I lost my job even though my ratings from the student satisfaction questionnaire were the highest of the whole Program, and I never violated any rule, contract, or regulation. I don't even mind so much that I never received a direct phone call from anyone objecting to my ideas or procedures. What I regret the most is to have suffered CENSORSHIP inside my own university in a European Union member state, of all places on earth, and as a result of pressures and threats coming from Collecting Societies and Recording and Movie Industries – on my website you have proof of all that.
When are we going to do something about it? We can't let them impose their failed, outdated, and inefficient business model through threats, pressures, and silence. We must speak out. I am willing to travel the world as I am doing now in conferences all over Spain to tell my story, and they will not silence me. The truth has to be known."
Coming Events of Interest
- Emerging Business Models in Digital Music – Join this discussion and networking event produced by the Entertainment and Telecom Practice of Greenberg Traurig, ThinkAndLink, and AllAccessGroup, with featured speakers co-author of "The Future of Music" Gerd Leonhard, co-author of "The Art of Digital Music" Kelli Richards, and Greenberg Traurig's Judith O'Neill, at the MetLife Building in NYC on June 2nd at 6 PM.
- OMMA WEST Conference & Expo – MediaPost presents two days of workshops and keynotes with more than 50 of the industry's knowledge leaders addressing search, behavioral targeting, and cross-media integration, June 6th-7th in San Francisco. Consider the industry's most vital debates: how to re-aggregate media which has dis-integrated, and how to market in an era of consumer control. Take home tools and knowledge of immediate value with focused conference tracks for media, marketing, advertising and online publishing.
- Digital Media Summit - DCIA Member Trymedia Systems' SVP Gabe Zichermann and industry data resource BigChampagne's COO Adam Toll will be featured speakers at iHollywood Forum's 4th annual Digital Media Summit being held at the Universal Hilton in LA June 7th-8th. This conference is for senior executives whose businesses involve generating revenue from creation, distribution, and delivery of digital content, services, and media.
- DCIA Summer Meeting – The DCIA will hold its Summer 2005 Meeting on Thursday evening, June 16th, from 7 to 9 PM, at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner, McLean, VA. This meeting will focus on advancing commercial solutions for P2P distribution of entertainment content. A light buffet dinner will be served. Please contact DCIA Member Services leader Karen Kaplowitz at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info for more information.
- Digital Media Conference – The 2nd annual Washington Digital Media Conference is set for Friday June 17th at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner. This is a must-attend event for media, entertainment, and technology businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies involved in the digital distribution of media, including information, education & entertainment products. More than 300 digital media industry decision-makers and policy-makers attended the 2004 conference. Featured speakers this year include DCIA Member representatives Les Ottolenghi, CEO of INTENT MediaWorks, Tom Meredith, CEO of P2P Cash, Marc Freedman, CEO of RazorPop, Russ Reeder, CEO of RightsLine, Phil Corwin, US lobbyist for DCIA Member Sharman Networks, and DCIA Best Practices leader Elaine Reiss.
- DRM Strategies Conference – Jupitermedia's comprehensive event on digital rights management business and technology issues will be held July 27th-28th at the Puck Building in NYC. This is a must-attend for those involved in content security in both consumer media distribution and information security. The conference will feature leading industry figures who will introduce the fundamentals of DRM, shed light on future DRM directions, and provide incendiary debate on today's controversial issues of online piracy and digital copyright.
- Technology Law Institute – A Digital Media Rights panel will be featured September 20th at the Headquarters of the State Bar of Georgia, in downtown Atlanta, GA. Kilpatrick & Stockton's James Trigg will moderate with speakers Miles O'Brien from CNN, Kevin Lapidus from YellowBrixx, and Marty Lafferty from the DCIA.
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