Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Dell: If at First You Fail Miserably …
Looks like Google has updated its arrogance algorithm again. Having dismissed Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit over video clips on YouTube as a “mistake,” the company is taking the same tack with a similar suit brought against it by Mediaset SpA, a television company run by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (shown at right). The suit, which seeks $779 million in damages, claims YouTube illegally hosts some 325 hours of Mediaset SpA programming. “Given the information that’s come to light and the quantity of illegal files on the site, it’s possible to say that the group’s three TV channels lost 315,672 audience viewing days,” the company said.
So another angry finger is pointed at Google (GOOG). Not that the company seems to care all that much. “YouTube respects copyright holders and takes copyright issues very seriously,” Google said in a statement. “There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs.”
A predictable reply, but one that does little to address the fact that YouTube’s efforts to help rights owners easily manage their content haven’t exactly been working. If they were, Mediaset SpA wouldn’t have found 325 hours of its programming on the site, and earlier this month I wouldn’t have been able to watch the entire “Sex and the City Movie” as a series of YouTube clips.
Steve Jobs has apparently accepted the unacceptable: Things don’t always go Steve’s way. The mercurial Apple (AAPL) CEO has been notoriously intransigent when it comes to matters of variable pricing on iTunes, arguing that charging higher prices for more popular content might backfire, sending customers off to the file-sharing networks. Now, as predicted yesterday, he appears to have reconsidered that stance, at least when it comes to HBO’s Emmy Award-winning programming.
This morning, Apple’s U.S. iTunes Store began offering six HBO series: “The Wire,” “Flight of the Conchords,” “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” “Rome” and “Deadwood.” The first three are priced at iTunes’ standard rate of $1.99 per episode. The second three are $2.99 each, marking the first time Apple has allowed variable pricing for TV shows in the U.S.
Quite a coup for HBO (TWX), especially given some of the other concessions it was able to win from Apple: HBO programs won’t be offered for purchase on iTunes until they hit the DVD window, and new episodes of series won’t be available until months after their TV premiere.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
You’re 14 and have no source of income. What would convince me to lend you money if I’m not sure you can pay it back?
Could loltraders be next?
… with Toy Story 2
Biden and Palin square off in melody
And this remembered: the Upper East Side, with its stone townhouses and husk dwellings, matched to the apotheosis: Gossip Girl as voice alone now to the Houses of Talk and passing periods as the Internet announces that it is now about to be the great catting time of the day and the wonted welcome will not be expected or exaggerated or even given to Serena …
The only Hotmail you got is when Ballmer gets sweaty …
“London Expensive,” “Los Angeles Nice to Visit but You Wouldn’t Really Want to Live There”
13 million digits in a 16.73 megabyte file
A vintage look at new games
On 10/22 at approx 2:34 a.m. CET, a tachyon field failure in the main resonating ring of the LHC causes a “temporal blowback.” Shortly thereafter, the resulting destruction of the strong nuclear force causes the world to vaporize in seconds …