November 2011

Here’s a quick cheat sheet on the issues around the Stop Online Piracy Act.

1. What is SOPA?: The Stop Online Privacy Act would punish Web companies that host unauthorized copyrighted content such as movies, songs or software. Critics of the legislation say that it could increase lawsuits against Web companies or give the government too much power to shut down sites for hosting the content.
2. Who is for/against it?: The Motion Picture Association of America is, unsurprisingly, one of the lead voices supporting the bill, but it is joined by allies from the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and, yes, even the International Association of Firefighters, who say that piracy saps the tax dollars that support emergency services. The list of opponents is even more varied, from Web firms such as Google (which has made a huge push against the bill) to progressive rights groups who say the bill could stifle free expression online to tea party activists who say that the measure gives far too much business-strangling power to the government.
3. Why all the buzz?: The bill has the potential to affect a wide range of industries – and it’s got a lot of momentum behind it. Despite the controversy, the bill has a great deal of bipartisan support.
4. How does it compare to the Senate’s bill?: SOPA, critics say, goes even further than the Protect IP Act, because it grants the government even broader powers to go after Web sites hosting copyrighted content. Internet openness group Public Knowledge said that “SOPA is significantly worse than its Senate cousin” because it lowers the barriers to who can be considered liable for IP theft, saying that sites that don’t do enough to prevent piracy — such as search engines — can also be held liable for infringement.
5. How big of a problem is piracy?: Setting aside the debate of how it should be legislated, there’s evidence that online piracy is a serious financial problem for the country. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that U.S. companies lose $135 billion a year to counterfeiting and piracy.

Google has decided to join the rest of the online music party and begin selling music directly to users.

The announcement came during the company's Google Music event wherein Google announced various changes, improvements, and new features coming to its music streaming service. The most significant announcements, however, revolved around the fact that Google is finally getting on the music-selling bandwagon instead of referring its customers to content partners, and the company will even begin allowing musicians to upload and sell their music directly to customers through the store.

Google has partnered directly with music labels in order to sell music downloads directly to customers via the Android Market. The company said it had already signed deals with EMI, Sony, and Universal -- with one member of the Big Four conspicuously missing -- as well as thousands of indie labels and a number of indie "aggregators" such as TuneCore and CD Baby. "You don't need to search the web anymore for music," Google said during its presentation, "just search the market!" The most interesting element of the presentation was related to Google's new Artist Hub; this essentially allows musicians without a music label to completely bypass services like TuneCore -- which is what allows them to put their music on other major music stores like iTunes and Amazon -- and upload their music directly to Google for sale to users. Artists can build their own artist pages, upload original content, and set their own prices, with Google giving artists 70 percent of sales revenue. Musicians who want to participate in the Artist Hub are required to pay a one-time registration fee, but won't have to pay annual or upload fees after that.

Two transparency groups urged senators not to combine the e-government fund with the Federal Citizen Services Fund, both of which pay for government transparency initiatives. The letter from OMB Watch and the Sunlight Foundation follows a similar White House request in a Statement of Administration Policy sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Nov. 10. The White House and the transparency groups also asked senators to maintain adequate funding for e-gov. The White House didn't specify how much funding they would like the e-gov fund to receive. The transparency groups asked senators to restore President Obama's original budget request of $34 million.

Millions of current and former Netflix customers woke up Nov 16 to an e-mail about a class-action lawsuit involving the price of online DVD rentals.

It's legit, and it's the latest twist in a legal saga that started two years ago. In May 2005, Wal-Mart and Netflix struck a pact: Wal-Mart would scrap its struggling DVDs-by-mail subscription service and instead encourage its customers to sign on with Netflix. In return, Netflix agreed to promote Wal-Mart's DVD sales business. But in 2009, a group of Netflix subscribers banded together and filed a lawsuit charging the two companies with collusion. The gist of their complaint is that the two companies agreed to carve up the market and stay off each other’s turf: DVD rentals for Netflix and DVD sales for Wal-Mart. The deal helped Netflix entrench itself as the market's dominant player and raise its subscription prices, the lawsuit alleges. Last year, a California judge certified the lawsuit as a class action, bringing Netflix's entire subscriber base into the lawsuit. He has not yet ruled on the merits of the case. Wal-Mart decided to take its chips off the table. It agreed earlier this year to settle the case, without admitting any fault. Netflix is continuing to fight and remains in litigation.