PUBLIC MARKS from multilinko with tag digital

Canadian musicians are rising up against p2p lawsuits, statutory damages, DRM and anti-circumvention legislation. They've started a new group called the Canadian Music Creators Coalition.

Digital Rights Management, to repeat my argument, is not about stopping piracy, but about shutting down fair use. The aim of shutting down fair use is simple: the copyright owners want to nickel and dime users.

Nearly half of all households now own a digital camera, estimates Merrill Lynch in a new report I just got my hands on, and people are taking four to five times as many pictures as before, but they are printing less. The reasons for this are because 1) it costs nothing to take a digital photo, 2) you can view it immediately on your camera or computer screen, and 3) you can share it digitally as well (for free). Yet, for companies to make money from the digital photo boom, they will have to convince people to print more photos.

Calling the ability to convert analog video content to a digital format a "significant technical weakness in content protection," H.R. 4569 would require all consumer electronics video devices manufactured more than 12 months after the DTCSA is passed to be able to detect and obey a "rights signaling system" that would be used to limit how content is viewed and used. That rights signaling system would consist of two DRM technologies, Video Encoded Invisible Light (VEIL) and Content Generation Management System—Analog (CGMS-A), which would be embedded in broadcasts and other analog video content. Under the legislation, all devices sold in the US would fall under the auspices of the DTCSA: it would be illegal to "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic" in such products. It's a dream-come-true for Hollywood, and in combination with a new broadcast flag legislation (not yet introduced) would strike a near-fatal blow to the long-established right of Fair Use.

PhotoVu™ Compatible with World’s First Built-in WiFi-Enabled Digital Camera, the Nikon® COOLPIX P1 For direct wireless viewing of photos from camera to PhotoVu Digital Wireless Picture Frames Boulder, CO—October 18, 2005—Today PhotoVu™ announced the compatibility of their PV1945 and PV1750 wireless digital LCD picture frames with the world’s first built-in WiFi-enabled digital cameras, the Nikon® COOLPIX™ P1 and P2. By easily accessing the WiFi features of these new cameras, a person can immediately view the photos they’re taking on their PhotoVu frame.

Buying and using digital music is a far from easy decision today - there are various competing and incompatible formats, stores and players out there in the market, primarily Apple (AAC + iTunes + iPod), Windows (WMA + various stores + WMA-compatible players), and Sony (Atrac3 + Connect.com + Walkman). How do you then ensure that the music and player you buy today will not be incompatible with your player, online store or the OS?

Some enterprising developer had taken apart a laptop, crammed it into a shadow box and set it to boot Windows CE off of a CD. Pictures could be uploaded via a flash or USB drive and a mat board created a nice-looking frame around the laptop’s LCD screen. This guy was definitely on to something.

Technology firms are pushing a futuristic vision of home entertainment not because consumers are desperate for it but because they themselves are

The biggest standby loss of energy, sometimes referred to as "leaking electricity," occurs in modern consumer electronics. Even when your television is turned off, it's really in standby mode so that it can respond to your remote control. Along with TVs, VCRs, cable boxes, and satellite dishes account for the largest share of a home's leaking electricity, roughly 35 percent. Audio equipment makes up another 25 percent of standby losses; a small compact audio unit can draw 9 watts while it's ostensibly turned off. Communications equipment such as answering machines, cordless phones, and fax machines are responsible for an additional 10 percent of home electricity losses. Today's estimates say that the average household constantly leaks about 50 watts of electricity. Right now, the only way to prevent some appliances from leaking electricity is to unplug them when they might not be in use for a long period of time. Watts wrong According to the EPA, lighting accounts for approximately 24 percent of total end-use consumption of electricity in commercial offices, the largest piece of the energy consumption pie. Making sure to turn off lights when you have left the room is the easiest thing you can do to reduce your energy costs. The problem isn't so much the amount of time they are left on but the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs.

When Morgan's mother and a client recently took CDs with some of his shots to a printing lab, the photo technicians spurned them. They said that since the shots seemed to have been taken by a professional, printing the pictures might be a copyright violation.

When cameras used only film, consumers didn't have much of a choice about where to get their photos printed, unless they had a darkroom at home. Now, with 80 per cent of cameras sold this year projected to be digital models, consumers have more options than ever about where, or even if, to print their snapshots. One result is an all-out war among retailers, printer manufacturers and on-line companies like Snapfish for a piece of the $8.2-billion (U.S.) pie that the Photo Marketing Association International said consumers spent on printing photos last year