Irritating Tech News

In case you haven't heard about some of the lawsuits/laws going around impacting various Internet technologies, let me point out a few.

1. Verizon sues Vonage

This story actually began back in June 2006. Verizon has claimed that Vonage infringed on Verizon 7 patents in order to offer the service that they provide. For those of you that don't know what Vonage does - their a telephony company based largely on VoIP (Voice over IP) technology. Essentially, your telephone conversations are sent via the Internet, rather than standard phone lines. The great thing about Vonage is that, by using VoIP, they can offer a lot of great services - and at a very low cost to the consumer. For about $25 a month, Vonage allows users to have free long distance anywhere in the US, Canada, and Europe. They can also set up automatic call-forwarding, voice mail services, etc.

Now I really don't know the details of the case. Vonage argues that the testimony presented in the case proves that Vonage used "off the shelf" and "home grown" technologies for its service. The jury, however, decided that Vonage did infringe upon three patents held by Verizon. The result is that Vonage has to pay Verizon a sum of $58 million and must pay a royalty of 5.5% of every sale to Verizon.

However, that's not the real big deal about this. A ruling was put forth stating that Vonage must immediately cease using the technologies identified by those patents. Of course, if they have to stop using those technologies, how can they continue to provide service? I have no idea. Vonage is appealing the ruling (as of April 3) and the result is not yet known.

On April 6th, a judge issued an injunction to bar Vonage from signing up any new customers. Later that same day, a federal appeals court granted a temporary stay of that order.

So, what does all that mean? Well, right now, no one knows what's going to happen to Vonage. If Vonage really did rip off Verizon's copyrights, that's one thing. However, this does seem to be a perfect case of an old entrenched company deciding to beat it's competition by simply suing them into the ground, rather than trying to innovate and actually compete with them. I mean, if Verizon has the same technologies that Vonage has, why can't Verizon provide the same level of service that Vonage does?

2. Copyright Royalty Board Squashes Internet Radio?

On March 1st, the Copyright Royalty Board issued a statement regarding royalties that are to be paid by Internet radio stations (and I also believe this impacts podcasters that use copyrighted music in their shows). Prior to this ruling, all radio stations (Internet and regular FM stations) pay a royalty to the songwriters and/or publishers. Of course, it's long been argued that the additional sales of albums from playing songs on the radio is compensation enough for the copyright holders.

Well, the Copyright Royalty Board (helped heavily, no doubt, by the RIAA) has decided that Internet radio stations are to be held to a different standard. So, in addition to the fees Internet radio stations are currently paying, they must also pay "per performance". The cost will increase each year: $0.0008 in 2006, $0.0011 in 2007, to $0.0019 in 2010. Note that I mentioned 2006. The CRB has decided that these higher fees will be put in place retroactively (effective immediately, even though appeals are in process) so stations will have to pay for performances throughout all of last year.

But $0.0008 doesn't seem like very much, right? Well, that's the cost of a single song being played for a single listener. If a station averages just 1000 listeners and plays 16 songs an hour, that's 16,000 performances an hour, equating to $12.80 per hour. No big deal, right? Well, with 24 hours in a day and 31 days in a month, that comes out to about just shy of $10,000 per month in performance fees. In essence, a tiny Internet radio station like this would be on the hook to pay about $100,000 immediately (because it would be from 2006) and then would be responsible for even more in 2007 because the fee goes from $0.0008 per performance to $0.0011 per performance. It may not seem like much, but that's an increase of 37.5%! And the rate will continue to increase until the yeat 2010.

From what I've seen, the fees required by Internet radio stations will be on the order of anywhere from 125% to 200% of most radio stations' profits.

Assuming this goes through, I think you're going to see a massive decrease in the number of Internet radio stations out there. Most simply won't be able to afford to stay in business.

The thing about this that I find so disturbing is that the RIAA is so paranoid that people will stop buying CDs that I think they're going to the extreme that people really *will* stop buying CDs. Listening to Internet radio, which many people do all day while at work, exposes people to a lot of new music. You hear a good song and you think, "Hmm...maybe I'll buy that." Whether you purchase a hard copy of the album or just buy the track through an online service like iTunes, you're still purchasing the music. Take away the exposure to new music and, personally, I think the RIAA will see a decrease in music sales, rather than an increase, which is what they're after, I'm sure.

3. Viacom Attacks YouTube

If you're not familiar with YouTube, think of all those hockey highlights that I post out here that you all ignore. They're all from YouTube. YouTube is a website where users can upload their own video content so that it can be shared among other "netizens" from around the world. Just like with Napster, a few years back, plenty of copyrighted material ends up on YouTube. Anything from commercials to TV shows to clips from movies.

Viacom has decided to sue YouTube for <Dr. Evil Voice>one billion dollars</Dr. Evil Voice>.

Currently, the letter of the law states that, if a copyright holder finds copyrighted material on an Internet providers site, that provider must allow for the copyright holder to request it be removed and, upon doing so, the provider must remove it promptly. YouTube (which was recently puchased by Google) claims that they do exactly that - whenever someone requests that they remove copyrighted material, they do so.

Viacom has now stated that YouTube is not a standard hosting company so they should be held to a different standard. I'm paraphrasing here, but Viacom is essentially saying that YouTube is a media company and making money off copyrighted material that doesn't belong to them. Due to the presence of copyrighted material on YouTube's site, people come to the site. With high traffic, YouTube can sell advertising space, which makes them money - hence Viacom's claim.

Personally, I'm of the viewpoint that the material on YouTube is more suited for promotional value than anything else. Seriously, who wants to watch a full length TV show on a tiny little screen over the web? However, I'll watch a 30 second clip and, if I like it, I might actually go and watch the show. In that respect, YouTube is providing free advertising for companies such as Viacom.

Now, there are two ways I can view this, and I'm seriously not sure which side I think is more true. On one hand, Viacom could really be trying to bury YouTube as they feel that they're losing money due to the website. On the other hand, Viacom may be well aware that YouTube is providing free advertising but believe they might actually get YouTube to pay Viacom for advertising for Viacom. My significant other doesn't believe Viacom is that smart, but I don't really know. I'm of the mind that Viacom tossed out the $1 billion number just to draw attention. They don't really want to put YouTube out of business - they just want to get more money. But that's really just my opinion.

Seriously, though, I've enjoyed this hockey season far more than most seasons past - and not just because the Pens finally had a good season. Even in the self-proclaimed "state of hockey", it's hard to follow hockey. Few people around me care and when I do talk about hockey (usually on this blog), no one wants to listen, much less talk back. I can watch an hour of SportCenter to see 5 minutes of hockey highlights - hopefully, now that the playoffs are started, I'll get 15 minutes. However, I believe the NHL has done a great thing after losing a season due to lockout.

After that happened, a lot of networks didn't want to touch the NHL. ESPN dropped their contract with the NHL and games weren't even going to be televised until The Outdoor Network (now Versus) picked them up. However, the NHL really embraced the community of folks that write about the NHL in blogs and post highlights on YouTube. Heck, I don't know how many serious hockey fans haven't watched The "Boom" video at least a handful of times. The fact that I can find highlights on my own whenever I want and read other peoples' opinions on various blogs means that I'm far more interested in what's going on around the league than I have been in the past. YouTube serves a purpose that fits right in with Viacom.

Personally, I think this is just another case in which we've got lots of lawmakers that don't understand technology and media companies with lots of money and hidden agendas.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter, everyone. I know it's a day late, but what can I do? I hope everyone had a good weekend. The wife and I had a pretty relaxing weekend, which was nice after a long week at work. Yesterday, we spent a lot of the day on the phone talking with family that we haven't seen for far too long.

Last night, we watched an episode of Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. Absolutely awesome. It's like going back in time and watching Wild America with Marty Stouffer when I was a kid. If you get a chance, check it out. They run episodes every so often on Discovery.

This week should be busy. I'm doing a presentation for a quality conference tomorrow morning at the clinic. I don't know how many folks will actually show up, but I think there are about a hundred registered to come, right now. Once that's done, I've got a software conference to attend up in the cities this weekend. And, of course, somewhere in there, I still have plenty of work to get done (and hockey playoffs start on Wednesday). So I'll keep busy.

In the Cold

So...it's cold again. Go figure. We had a gorgeous weekend a while back - then we had a week of gloomy rain - now it's 18 degrees with a wind chill that makes it feel like it's 1. There were actually schools cancelled in Minnesota this week due to snow. In April. Gotta love Midwest weather. Then again, if it didn't suck from time to time, we'd never really appreciate the good days.

I've been looking at getting a new computer to replace my current PC, which is beginning to show it's age. The latest is that I just picked up Command and Conquer 3 and I didn't even bother trying to install it on my machine - it doesn't even come close to the minimum specs. So we play that one exclusively on my wife's box (where it looks absolutely awesome, mind you).

Anyway, as I've been looking at new machines, I've actually started looking at getting a Mac. I don't know that I really will, or not, but their top-end desktop, the Power Mac, currently comes with 2 Intel Xeon dual core processors. Needless to say, that's some pretty serious power for a desktop system. So I've been looking at some information about OS X (the operating system for a Mac) to see what I think of it. So far, I've been pretty impressed, but I'd love to sit down and play with one for a while. Nonetheless, Apple has a new OS on the horizon (Leopard) so I wouldn't think of getting one until that came out. So, even though I'm looking, there's no new machine in my immediate future.

So, all that said - hockey news.

The collegiate season is winding down quickly. The Badgers, after winning the national championship last season, made a rather poor showing and didn't even make it to the post-season tournament this year. Last night, in the frozen four, MSU topped Maine and BC bested North Dakota. The championship game will be tomorrow between MSU and BC.

In the NHL, time is ticking down before the playoffs and, while most of the playoff picture is coming into view, there are a few stories out there to watch.

1 - Claude Julien is fired as the coach of the New Jersey Devils.
This may not sound like that big of a story until you realize that, when Julien was fired by GM Lou Lamoriello, the Devils had accumulated 102 points in the standings, had won four of their last five, were the favorites to win their division and claim the second seed in the Eastern Conference. Oh - and they had only 3 games to go in the regular season.

Coaching duties will be picked up by the GM that did the firing, Lou Lamoriello. Talk about turning the spotlight directly on your team.

2 - Montreal, Toronto, and New York duke it out for the last playoff spot in the East

As it stands right now, Montreal has the final spot in the playoffs. They have one game reamining - against Toronto, who trails Montreal by just one point. It would seem that their game on Saturday will decide the final playoff position. Toronto, should they win in regulation, could jump in front of Montreal in the standings and snatch away that final precious playoff spot.

However, even with that drama, we can't forget about the New York Islanders. The Islanders are 2 points behind Montreal (and 1 behind Toronto), but they have 2 games to play, unlike Montreal and Toronto, who are down to their final matchup. Should Toronto win their game against Montreal, the Islanders would still be able to claim the final spot by finishing the season with two wins.

3 - Calgary fights to hold on to the final playoff spot in the West

Calgary has nearly assured themselves a spot in the playoffs. There is only one unclaimed position in the West and, right now, Calgary holds it by 3 points over the Colorado Avalanche. Each team has two games to play. If Calgary can win their next game against a horrible Edmonton club (1-8-1 over their last 10 games), the battle is over. On the other hand, there is still a chance for a last minute thriller.

If (and it is a pretty big "if"), Calgary should lose to Edmonton and Colorado beats Nashville, the final playoff position in the West will be decided by what would quite literally be the final game of the season - Calgary vs. Colorado on Sunday night.

Honestly, I think the odds are stacked against a last-minute thriller in the mile-high city, but it could be the perfect end to the season.

4 - Position Battles in the East and West

Even with their playoff hopes well intact, there are a few teams that are still jockeying for position coming into the playoffs.

In the West, you've got a couple key matchups.

Anaheim leads their division over San Jose by just one point. The winner of that division will claim the number 2 seed in the playoffs while the loser will likely be relegated to the number 6 seed. That's quite the swing for only a point or two. Anaheim leads by one point and has one game in hand over the San Jose Sharks.

There's a similar battle in the Northwest division where Vancouver leads Minnesota by 1 point. The winner of the division will claim the number 3 seed while the loser will fall to number 7. As it is in the Pacific, the leading Vancouver Canucks have one game in hand over the Minnesota Wild.

In the East, there's really only one battle and it's over home ice advantage. Then Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottowa Senators will be facing off against one another in the playoffs. That much is certain. One will be the number 4 seed (claiming home ice advantage) while the other will be the number 5 seed. Which will be which is yet unknown. Thanks to some last second heroics last night (Maxime Talbot scored the game winner for the Penguins with just 10 seconds left to lift them over the Senators), the Penguins have pulled dead even with the Senators with 103 points. Each team has 1 game remaining on the schedule. The Senators control the tie-breaker, courtesy of having one more win than the Penguins do, but whoever fares the best this weekend will control home ice in that first round matchup of the playoffs.



So, even with the playoff picture nearly in place, there's still some room for some last-second drama over the weekend. The playoffs officially begin next Wednesday.