State regulators remain tangled with vexing procedural questions that must be settled before they can come to grips with the market impairment analysis cases required by the FCC’s Triennial Review Order (TRO), officials said. In actions in the last week, states were considering whether they had enough evidence to conduct cases, deciding on splitting cases into phases and ruling on discovery issues.
The lack of patent licenses and failure to pay royalties on DVD players earned expulsions for 6 Chinese manufacturers from the country’s largest trade fair last week.
Shanghai court ruled in favor of 3 U.S. studios in piracy suit against 2 local businesses charged with selling pirated movies on DVD. Cases were first of kind in which studios directly sued resellers of movies replicated without authorization on DVDs, and marked heightened efforts by content owners to police copyrights in notoriously lax Chinese market.
Mandated receiver performance standards “based on the rapidly changing technology of today would lessen incentives to develop and deploy receiver improvements,” CEA told FCC in comments filed this on Commission inquiry on receiver performance requirements.
Kmart is seeking to recover $49 million paid to Handleman under bankruptcy protection, distributor said Mon. Handleman said discount chain filed complaint with U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Chicago, seeking repayment of money it gave distributor as “critical trade vendor” shortly after filing for bankruptcy protection last year. Kmart, which emerged from bankruptcy protection in May, paid more than $300 million to key suppliers deemed so important that prebankruptcy bills were paid immediately. Other creditors wait until bankruptcy process is completed. Such critical vendor payments are common in bankruptcy cases, but federal judge in Chicago ruled earlier this year that Kmart should not have made them. Kmart is appealing that decision, but is continuing to seek money while it awaits final ruling. Handleman said it was confident that appeals court would rule in Kmart’s favor and it wouldn’t have to repay money. Handleman Chmn.-CEO Stephen Strome said in statement that, despite court action, company maintained “strong and continuing business relationship” with Kmart. Shortly after filing for bankruptcy, Kmart announced plan to close 283 stores, move that Handleman said at time would reduce its annual revenue by $35 million.
Verizon Internet Services used occasion of 2nd RIAA subpoena Mon. seeking subscriber information under Sec. 512(h) of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to shore up its argument that controversial provision was unconstitutional.
Despite rosy picture of information technology economy painted by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at opening of this week’s CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany (CED March 13 p7), PC industry in that country isn’t taking proposed copyright levy on PCs sitting down.
Verizon Internet Services vowed appeal of decision by D.C. federal court ordering it to comply with RIAA subpoena seeking information on alleged online music infringer as many weighed in with reaction to case that has drawn national attention. Among them was copy protection giant Macrovision, which told Consumer Electronics Daily Wed. it was partnering with Websense to develop content filtering technology that ISPs could use to track and control traffic in unauthorized content transmitted on their networks, possibly absolving them from actions such as that against Verizon.
Philips threatened liability for patent infringement for any company selling, buying or trading optical discs from unlicensed replicators. Company administers licensing and royalty collection for optical disc patents it and partners own. In Dec. 10 letter, Philips said some replicators remained unlicensed and were infringing on patents, and in some cases were falsifying records and underpaying royalty. It said those replicators were candidates for litigation and product seizure, but it had legal right to collect royalties and damages from any company that had bought or traded infringing products -- even if that party wasn’t aware of supplier’s licensing and royalty status. Letter also said those knowingly purchasing unlicensed discs could be found guilty of willful infringement, with courts assessing treble damages. That would raise royalty to 9? from 3? on CDs, and to 15.9? from 5.3? on DVDs. Letter asked recipients to check Philips Web site for list of licensed replicators (www.licensing.philips.com) or to contact Philips at locations listed on Web site, and to demand suppliers document status of their licensing and royalty payments. On June 25, Philips filed patent infringement charges against 19 replicators and trading companies in U.S.
Red-letter day arrives soon for 321 Studios (321) and its lawsuit vs. content owners in federal court on legality of company’s DVD copying programs. Meanwhile, in follow-up to our report last week on efficacy of DVD X Copy software, we have learned from further testing how $99.99 program works -- and how it seeks to avoid violating anticircumvention provisions of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).