FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
FITUG e.V.Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft |
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[Hier sollte deutlich werden, dass der Umbau der Architektur des Internet nicht lokal von GEMA und IFPI z.B. mittels des RPS-Projektes betrieben wird; die gesamte Branche trachtet heftig danach, siehe Bronfmans untenstehenden Fuenf-Punkte-Plan. Bevor man solche Vorstellungen als pure Wunschphantasien abtut, sollte man sich jedoch IMHO eindringlich klar machen, dass die Hollywood-Lobby beim U.S.- Gesetzgeber bisher noch immer das bekommen hat, was sie haben wollte. Lary Lessigs diesbezuegliche Warnpredigten stimmen nicht unbedingt optimistisch. --AHH]
http://www.currents.net/news/00/05/31/news2.html
Daily News
Firm Thinks it Can Solve Music-pirating Problem
By Sherman Fridman, Newsbytes
May 31, 2000
As litigation pitting the recorded music industry against music service providers such as Napster and MP3.com continue, an Internet start-up, SealedMedia, Inc., believes that it has the answers that will allow the transfer of digital content over the Internet while preserving the copyright owner's control over access to that content. In an interview with Newsbytes, Alan Mutter, CEO of SealedMedia, Inc., explained that his company is just facilitating what content owners and consumers have been doing for a long time: selling and buying content. And, Mutter stressed, his company's technologies works with any digital audio, video, or print media types, including MP3, streaming media, HTML, PDF, JPEG and GIF.
In an overview of the process, Mutter said that SealedMedia's technology enabled content publishers to "seal" their digital content and then define licenses for that content.
The content is separated from the rights or licenses that go with it, so that the content can be distributed freely over the Internet. When the consumers want to hear or view the content, they must first get a license to do so.
A consumer who wants to access digital content from a producer who participates in SealedMedia Inc.'s process, receives an encrypted file. Before a consumer can access the content, it must be opened with the user's "key." This key, which remains with the user, has authentication information and specifies that the consumer has paid for a license and the terms of the license, the file's time length and whether the content be copied or accessed multiple times.
Mutter assured that this entire process takes place as quickly as any online purchase transaction, and that various payment plans are supported. In addition, Mutter says that to view content, a one-time download of a small reader file is necessary, and that a user's "key" is password-activated.
Mutter said that the acceptance of SealedMedia's technology by content producers has been "awesome," and that the technology was developed at "the right place, for the right thing, at the right time." What's driving SealedMedia's "staggeringly good" acceptance, according to Mutter is that after several years of experimenting, content publishers of all types are realizing that selling ads and subscriptions don't make money. The boards of directors of these companies, Mutter says, have laid down the law: "Make money or else, we're tired of giving this (content) away."
In fact, Mutter says that a lot of corporate executives with whom he presently deals don't even have business cards yet, they're so new on the job--they've just been hired by companies that sent them packing because they were not making money.
Mutter believes that consumers will pay for content they want, and Tuesday's announcement from MP3.com Inc. [NASDAQ:MPPP] would appear to support that conclusion.
MP3.com announced Tuesday that it has formed a new business unit to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity for growth that it sees in the multi-million dollar retail music licensing market.
In a prepared statement, MP3.com said that its Retail Music Division would be providing Web-enabled, business-to-business music delivery to grocery stores, fashion outlets, shopping malls, restaurants and other retail establishments.
According to MP3.com, these establishments would be able to select from over 424,000 songs and audio files from more than 67,000 artists at the MP3.com site. This music is licensed, and subscribers to the service can manage and modify their music selections anytime and anywhere utilizing an online private account page.
"We estimate that retail music licensing exceeds $500 million annually and to properly capitalize on this opportunity it was imperative to form a distinct business division," MP3.com chairman and CEO, Michael Robertson, said in a prepared statement.
One inducement that MP3.com claims will turn a business expense into a "revenue producer" is that subscribers to the Retail Music Service will be able to insert their own or merchandiser advertising into their music programming.
For a long time, SealedMedia's Mutter said, companies have considered copyright infringement as a "cost of doing businesses." But now, he said, with the advent of businesses models which have at their core the wholesale giving away of content, publishers are banding together to put a stop to the practice.
The fact that content producers were no longer going to accept wholesale copyright infringement appears to be borne out by remarks made by Edgar Bronfman Jr., head of a major entertainment conglomerate--Seagram Co. Ltd. [NYSE:VO]--on Friday at Real Conference 2000. Seagram owns well-known brands in the areas of motion pictures, print and recorded music.
In the text of his remarks obtained by Newsbytes, Bronfman said that the most central and critical challenge for the current technological revolution is the protection of intellectual property rights.
"If intellectual property is not protected," Bronfman said, "across the board, in every case, with no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing world, what will happen? Intellectual property will suffer the fate of the buffalo."
To preserve the intellectual property buffalo, Bronfman vowed to "move a Roman legion or two of Wall Street lawyers to litigate in Bellevue and San Jose."
Bronfman outlined five steps, which he said that Universal, Seagram's main entertainment brand, would be taking.
"First," he said, "we are focused on creating and launching a consumer-preferred and legal system for consumers to access the media they desire, beginning with music." In this regard, Bronfman said that a secure downloading format would be launched in a few months. Real, Magex and InterTrust Technologies were the companies mentioned by Bronfman as Universal's partners in this area.
Secondly, Bronfman pledged to emphasize that taking recording music without paying for it is "stealing." He emphasized that the technological revolution exemplified by the Internet cannot be allowed to overturn the principles of law, justice and civilization.
Universal's third initiative is to use the technology that "enables crime" to protect against crime and criminals. Bronfman said that the technology exists to "trace every Internet download and tag every file." He said that he fully intended to "exploit technology to protect the property which rightfully belongs to its owners."
The fourth avenue of attack, according to Bronfman, is to utilize existing laws to bring to justice those who "demonstrate contempt for law and copyright." In this area, Bronfman noted the lawsuits filed against Napster, MP3.com and iCraveTV. "We will take our fight to every territory, in every court in every venue, wherever our fundamental rights are being assaulted and attacked," he vowed.
Bronfman's fifth proposal makes a distinction between anonymity and privacy. He said that he recognized the right of citizens to privacy, but not to anonymity, which he compared to the "digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank."
Bronfman raised the fight against online piracy to epic World War II proportions. "World War II," he said as he asked everyone in the audience to join in the fight to protect and defend property rights, "was won by the Allied forces, not only because we were right, but also because we had more men and women, more weaponry and more money."
Bronfman left no doubt that he equated content producers to the Allied forces and "that money in turn would train more men and women and build more weaponry" for the fight against online pirates.
Bronfman did not say what the penalties should be for "all those who hold fairness in contempt, who devalue and demean the labor and genius of others."
Bronfman held myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella as the ringleaders, "the exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of someone else's property."
Does all this indicate that the days of free content on the Internet over? Yes and no, according to Mutter.
Mutter believes that there will still be free content available on the Web, just not as much of it. Some cuts from an album may be free, but the entire album won't be, he says. There will be just enough free material to "get your head inside the tent," Mutter said.
More information about SealedMedia, inc. is available at http://www.sealedmedia.com
The Web site for MP3.com, Inc. is at http://www.mp3.com .
Seagram Co. LTD maintains its Web site at http://www.seagram.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com