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ETO Technology News - March 2007 edition
Fresh twist in Blu-Ray Vs HD-DVD story
Sony have denied that they've threatened to revoke the licences of any of their associates who might want to manufacture adult Blu-ray discs. While Sony Disc Manufacturing itself won't be replicating pornographic material on the format, they say their licensees are free to do as they wish. "There's no prohibition against adult content," said Lisa Gephardt, a spokeswoman for Sony Corp. of America. "We don't tell people how they can use the licenses they get from the Blu-ray Disc Association."
The BDA, which handles all Blu-ray technology licensing, said in a statement that the group is "an open organization that welcomes the participation of all companies interested in using and supporting the format, including those that represent the full spectrum of genres in the content industry."
Kids with phones to have additional protection
In February many of Europe's mobile phone operators including Orange and Vodafone Groups, and Hutchison Whampoa's 3 in Europe signed a new voluntary code of conduct specifically designed to restrict access to potentially harmful Internet content by children. The agreement, which was brokered by the European Commission, is in response to the Commission's public consultation on child consumer mobile phone safety.
The primary concerns addressed by the code cover access to pornographic and violent content, as well as privacy risks, bullying and sexual grooming/abuse. The consultation also made it clear that parents and guardians shared responsibility for the safe use of phones with service providers, mobile operators and public authorities.
An extension of the agreement refers to developing a self-regulatory code by February 2008, to be based on the principles laid down by the commission. These include improved access controls to adult content, the classification of commercial content according to national standards of appropriateness and decency, and combating illegal mobile content.
Viviane Reding, EU commissioner responsible for telecoms and media issues said, "This agreement is an important step forward for child safety. The Commission will monitor very closely the effective implementation of today's agreement, for which the deadline is February 2008."
Kaisu Karvala, chairwoman of the trade group GSM Europe, added, "Our industry is happy to see the signatures on this agreement. We need the whole stakeholder community."
The Commission said in its statement that self-regulation is the preferable course of action to ensure that mobiles are safe for children, but if the industry can't do it then public policy will have to step in. "Self-regulation is seen at present as a potentially appropriate way to ensure child protection on mobile phones," the statement said. "Public authorities at national and at EU level will have to monitor developments carefully and assess at regular occasions the efficiency of self-regulation to judge whether public intervention may become required."
Hustler TV do it. Again. And again…
On February the 6th LFP Broadcasting LLC (Hustler TV's parent company) announced that Black Ice Limited and Zero Tolerance had joined Hustler TV's stable of VOD studios.
"Hustler TV continues to offer exclusive adult entertainment that substantially outperforms competing adult services." So said Michael H. Klein, President of LFP Broadcasting LLC. "Now available in over 40 million US homes, our network dominates the PPV and VOD arena with some of the highest buy rates in the industry." As well as their big US presence, Hustler TV also claims to be the largest distributed adult network in Europe and Canada, and launched in Mexico and Brazil in 2006.
"VOD and PPV provide another avenue for us to reach our established customers, while further establishing our brand. It also affords us a great opportunity to introduce our product to customers who may not be familiar with our movies," said Alves of Zero Tolerance. "With Hustler's years of experience and name recognition, we couldn't have picked a better company to partner with."
Return of the phantom XXX?
The controversial proposal to create a special domain for pornographic Internet content appears to be gaining momentum again after several years of on-off negotiations with the 'net's technical co-ordinating body - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is in charge of the creation of domain name extensions.
The .xxx top level domain, which was originally mooted in October 2000, would be specifically for sexually explicit material and it would be voluntary. There would be no requirement for adult .com, .co.uk or other domain extension sites to be switched to .xxx. Some religious groups oppose the proposed domain because they feel it'll lead to a growth in online porn. Some adult site operators fear that the voluntary nature of the domain could become mandatory through future legislation. Another group with fears about the domain are the owners of brand names who already have to buy domain names they don't intend to use to protect themselves from trademark cyber squatting.
Supporters stress that .xxx sites could be more easily filtered, protecting those who don't want to -or legally shouldn't- see porn from it. Thus some religious groups are behind the plan, along with schools, corporations and government agencies who view zoning of content as desirable.
Bret Fausett, a partner with Cathcart Collins, a Los Angeles law firm, and the author of the popular ICANN Blog said, "There's been a lot of mixed messages sent by ICANN over the years, but I think we're going to get .xxx this time. I bet it gets approved before the second quarter of 2007." A brief history of the debate shows it may be a bold statement:
In March 2004, the ICM Registry resubmitted its proposal for a .xxx domain together with a group of sponsored top-level domains to be restricted to particular industries or groups. The ICM Registry teamed with Afilias, a provider of back-end domain name registry services, on the proposal. Since then, ICANN has approved several other top-level domains including .travel, .mobi and .jobs.
In June 2005, the ICANN board directed its staff to enter into business and technical negotiations with ICM for the creation of a .xxx domain. However, by May 2006 the ICANN board rejected the .xxx registry agreement that the ICANN staff and ICM proposed.
The latest news is that ICM and ICANN have renegotiated the agreement, which was posted on January 5, 2007 and discussed by the ICANN board at its January meeting. The new ICM Registry agreement includes prohibitions against child pornography and mandates machine-readable meta-tagging of content.
Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry said, "We have a requirement for anybody in the .xxx domain to put on their sites machine-readable meta-tags that will make filtering easier. We have asked the Internet Content Rating Association to produce a specific tag for adult content." He added that he had no idea when the final decision on .xxx would be made. "It should have been done two or three years ago", he said. Lawley also stated that the ICM Registry has received tens of thousands of preregistrations for .xxx from operators of pornographic web sites. "`We've received more than twice our original forecast in preregistrations since last May. This leads us to believe that we will have many hundreds of thousands of names registered when we go live."
The ICANN board is expected to consider the latest public comments and revised .xxx registry agreement soon - Perhaps as soon as their next scheduled meeting, to be in Lisbon, Portugal from the 26th to 30th of March.
Vivid Entertainment step up capacity. Disc capacity that is.
Vivid Entertainment Group has announced they'll be launching 'Debbie Does Dallas Again' on both next-gen formats on March the 28th. The simultaneous release on Blu-ray and HD-DVD is regarded as something of a test according to the firm. "We want to see which one the consumer prefers," a spokeswoman said.
Both releases should retail at around $39.99, despite the Blu-ray version costing more than three times as much to make as its HD-DVD equivalent, according to Vivid. The name of the Blu-ray manufacturer hasn't been released, adding fuel to the rumour that Sony may penalise their licence-holders who handle porn. It's an accusation which Sony still denies.
Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment, said it wasn't easy finding a Blu-ray replicating partner from the eight in the world, but Vivid did. Two of the companies are directly controlled by Sony, who won't allow them to handle porn. He says five others have a deal with Disney which stipulates that they cannot touch adult films. That leaves one replicator, which Hirsch is keeping close to his chest. He believes they succeeded in getting Blu-ray discs made where others failed because Vivid is one of the top names in adult films. But Blu-ray may have a short life in the adult film industry unless Vivid succeeds with strong sales of its title against HD-DVD. A poor performance could spell the end of Vivid's use of the format because of the costs involved.
Vivid plans to closely watch how sales of the Blu-ray Disc sequel to the classic "Debbie Does Dallas" stack up against HD-DVD, said Hirsch. Disappointing Blu-ray volume could end its use by Vivid because of the costs involved.
Hirsch said, "Blu-ray is extremely expensive to work with." Authoring a Blu-ray disc is about four times more expensive than HD-DVD, he said, while replicating is three times as expensive. The authoring process is much different to HD-DVD because Blu-ray is a completely new technology, while HD-DVD is an extension of DVD technology, so it's not as complicated, according to Hirsch. Vivid has four more titles poised for Blu-ray release in 2007, but, "I will not pull the trigger until I see what happens," said Hirsch.
With higher costs, the only motivation for Vivid and others to release on Blu-ray at the moment is that there are more Blu-ray players (including Sony's PlayStation 3, which was released in the US in November) in the hands of consumers.
Further Amsterdam AOExpo details
Europe's leading Adult trade event for Mobile, Online and IPTV, AOE is a pan European trade event showcasing exciting opportunities for anyone involved in delivering, billing or promoting adult content and services in the ever expanding world of convergent technologies. Oxymoron?
From the 27th to the 30th of April you'll find networking, informal parties and essential discussion forums at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, Dam 9, 1012 JS Amsterdam that will bring together the largest European gathering of Webmasters, Content Owners, Providers, Billing Companies, Program Owners and Network Operators from across the globe to mix pleasure with business.
Features of the Amsterdam AOExpo will include:
AOE Bar & Lounge - Networking Hub, Entertainment, Corporate Displays.
TFI Friday Opening Party - Exotic Live Acts, Big Stars, Open Bar.
"Industry Leader" Panel Sessions - Content, Traffic & Billing.
Saturday Night "Variety" Party - International Acts, Open Bar.
East Meets West - Eastern European Networking.
Europe Meets the US - Special Discussion Features.
Free Entry to Red Light Clubs.
Canal Booze Cruises, Weed & Beer Tours Each Day!
Queens Day Weekend Events - Street Party, Cruises and Bar Crawls.
One "All Inclusive" AOE Pass - inc. Food, Drinks, Parties, Seminars and More.
GaYoe Party and FREE Club Entry.
Happy Hour Each Night in the AOE Bar & Lounge.
High Tea - Meet the Speakers.
Miss AOE - Parade of Angels.
AOEXPO Bar & Lounge - As an expo for business networking, AOE is constantly evolving to meet the very specific and unique needs of the industry. The AOE Bar & Lounge is a new concept in trade events which creates a networking and trading hub for delegates and vendors alike. Blending bar and lounge areas with stands and displays it's hoped to form the perfect environment to promote brands, showcase products and meet clients. Additionally AOE will feature top class entertainment, provides a focal point for the show and a central rendezvous location for the packed schedule of on site and external networking events. More information and registration information at aoexpo.com now!
Report: Mobile services revenue set to soar
Research by analyst house Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that mobile entertainment as a whole will grow from 2006's $18.84bn to over $38bn in 2011. While SMS is expected to remain the biggest non-voice money-spinner for mobile carriers, mobile internet and user-generated content will make significant additions to firms' bottom lines.
"We are not buying as many games, full-track downloads or multimedia messages as operators would like," said, senior analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media and author of the report, Daniel Winterbottom. "But we are spending a huge amount of time sending and reading text messages, and organising our lives using the phone's address book, clock, alarm and calendar functions. Over time users will warm to other data services as well, and the mobile web is a prime example. Wap failed to take off when it launched five years ago, but more and more users have become comfortable with accessing news or other information on their mobile phones."
Winterbottom anticipates the main driver for the market to be mobile internet, and that over half the world's mobile phone users will be accessing the web from their handsets by 2011. HSDPA is expected to give a high speed surfing and video streaming experience similar to what users experience on their broadband PCs, according to Informa. Mobile games, music downloads, gambling, personalisation and adult content will all grow strongly, as will user-generated video content, Mobile TV and online forums/blogs. Informa believes that these services will be worth US$13.17bn by 2011. However, current SMS and MMS services will not lose their popularity. SMS currently generates two-thirds of operators' data revenues, and will only drop to around 50 percent by 2011.
Show me the money shot! Porn Manager comes back for another pop.
The sequel to HandyGames' 2006 mobile games release Porn Manager, the inspirationally named Porn Manager 2 has been launched. Players originally took on the role of budding porn mogul to try to climb the slippery rungs of the adult film industry. In the sequel, you've made it, and now you've got to try to keep it. As Hugo Hafner, your villa is crammed with pixel porn starlets, Jacuzzis and quite a lot of bling, and the aim of the game is to throw parties and toss a bit of wealth about for as long as possible before ODing on Viagra, or dying in another fashion befitting a dirty old multimillionaire porn producer. Choking on a discarded nipple ring perhaps?
Sex exchange?
It's been reported in the Independent on Sunday that Barcelona-based Private Media Group are planning to switch their listing from Wall Street's Nasdaq to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Alternative Investment Market (AIM). With a market value of $188m (£96m) Private's move is a significant loss for the New York Stock Exchange's technology companies market and comes at a time when a growing number of businesses are shunning Wall Street's stringent regulations -notably the harsh Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was introduced in the wake of corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom- in favour of London.
Private's multi-titled president, chairman and chief executive, Berth Milton, said they were switching exchanges because they were "extremely unhappy with the treatment small cap companies get from the US market and US regulatory bodies. Moving seems like a good idea and also a way of saving money", the newspaper reported. Plus the bulk of Private's investors and businesses are already located in Europe.
Private declared in a recent statement that they provide a third of all video-on-demand adult content in Europe. "Adult content over VOD platforms offers highly profitable revenue streams for content distributors," the firm said. "While adult content makes up, on average, only 20 per cent of the total content offered over VOD, it delivers over 50 per cent of the revenues generated by on-demand services."
AIM has received some criticism in recent months, principally from some investors who have raised concerns about the quality of companies listed on the market. In response, the LSE recently instituted new rules for AIM advisers, making them more accountable for the companies they bring to market.
Shock news: Something happens in Canada!
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver Raymond Roussin has been widely reported in the press expressing his great concern about Canadian mobile carrier Telus Mobility's decision to offer pornography. Telus is Canada's second biggest mobile service provider, and the first major wireless carrier in North America to offer adult content direct. They charge $3(Canadian) for a photo and $4 for a 1-2minute video clip. While pay-per-download porn is hardly news in Europe, it's a bigger deal in conservative North America.
Roussin says, "Telus has crossed the line which brings the problem of the accessibility of pornographic material further into the public realm... Given the increasing awareness about the problem of sexual addiction to pornography through Internet access, and the abuse that this perpetuates of vulnerable persons, Telus' decision is disappointing and disturbing."
Paul Schratz, media representative in the Archbishop's office, said that since Roussin made his public statement, his office had been inundated with media requests for interviews, from as far away as New York. The office has also received phone calls from people who are cancelling their Telus service 'in disgust'.
Alberta-based director of media relations for Telus, Jim Johannsson, admitted that Telus is taking advantage of an untapped market. He said "adult content is out there," and that Telus is providing, "a legal safe alternative" to pornography already available on mobiles via the Internet.
Johannsson added, "Any cell-phones equipped with Internet browsers have been able to access [pornographic] content unrestricted for two years." He stated that while parental control software is available for home computers, "no parental controls for cell-phone Internet browsers are available yet," because the technology is much newer and that when such software is available, Telus will offer it to subscribers.
Telus' decision to offer pornography was partly based on its tracking of the Internet sites accessed by its subscribers. That tracking discovered that about 20 percent of the search terms entered by clients on their mobile Internet browsers were intended to find adult content. Moreover, 13 of the top 25 websites accessed were pornographic websites of the most explicit kind; and only two of those sites offered any kind of access control, by asking subscribers to affirm that they were over 18.
In contrast, Johannsson argued, "We're giving consumers the option to access [pornography] in a responsible way, with proper age verification and ensuring that the content is actually legal for download in Canada." Under Canadian law he Internet has been established as a bastion of free speech and it's illegal for Telus or any other Internet service provider to block access to any web content which is legal to be viewed in Canada.
Johannsson said that Telus' move is just part of "a global phenomenon" in which "all media is migrating . . . to the technology clipped to your belt. We can't stop it, but we can provide information and tools to manage the risks." They plan to do this via credit-card-based age verification by a third party, where a password is used to restrict future access by others using the phone.
Launching the adults-only service in January, by February 13 Telus had received 150 complaints it from people threatening to take their business elsewhere. Detective Wendy Leaver of the Toronto police sex crimes unit observed, "They'll probably make a fortune, but it's morally irresponsible."
Aaaarrrr! Yet more pirate booty!
A hacker on the popular Doom9.net message forum has claimed to have cracked the 128bit processing keys intended to protect encrypted content on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. By breaking the key files, and films, can be extracted from both the next-gen formats.
In January this year hackers broke a more cumbersome key, but this new crack makes it easier to rip the content off the disc and effectively puts the skids under studios' hopes that the new media would be more pirate-proof than DVD.
The hacker, who's known as Arnezami on Doom9.net, expanded the January breach to unlock all Advanced-Access-Content System-protected content. AACS is an extra security layer, which prevents HD discs from illegal copying by restricting which devices can play them.
"AACS took years to develop and it has been broken in weeks," said BoingBoing.net reporter Cory Doctorow. "The developers spent billions, the hackers spent pennies." He sees a bleak future for copy protection. Once the key is broken, encrypted content can be hacked, extracted and posted on BitTorrent or other file sharing services, there are very limited means for plugging the holes the hackers created. Typically, it takes electronics manufacturers longer to issue a security patch than it does for hackers to crack it.
"There is no future in which bits will get harder to copy," added Doctorow (35). "Instead of spending billions on technologies that attack paying customers, the studios should be confronting that reality and figuring out how to make a living in a world where copying will get easier and easier. They're like blacksmiths meeting to figure out how to protect the horseshoe racket by sabotaging railroads."
Arnezami has already posted cracks to movies such as "Constantine," "Lady in the Water," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," "Mission Impossible 3" and "Miami Vice."