p2pnet World Headlines: Jan 7, 2010
UFC officials vow to sue individuals for pay-per-view piracy in forthcoming crackdown MMAjunkie
Mixed martial arts fans who watch pirated internet content could soon be pressed against the cage says the president of an industry-leading fight promotion. In a move that could signal a sea change in the viral presence of MMA — the burgeoning sport of caged pugilism — Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, said his company is readying a legal assault on individuals and websites that deal in unauthorized content. “When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it,” White said. The pay-per-view industry, of which the UFC has emerged as one of the most profitable players with an estimated $349 million in revenue in 2009, is the latest front in a war between consumers who want free content and entertainment companies with a product to protect. The weapon of choice for digital thieves: streaming video websites that beam live pay-per-view signals to their home computers, free of charge.
Overall music sales hit an all-time high in 2009; Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ is the year’s top-selling album Los Angeles Times
Overall U.S. music purchases hit an all-time-high in 2009, as sales of albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos topped 1.5 billion for the second consecutive year, according to year-end data released today from Nielsen SoundScan. Total music sales were up 2.1% over those of 2008, but the figures capture an industry still in transition.
Album Sales Collapse As Digital Downloads Top 40% Of Market 24/7
Digital downloads accounted for 40% of all music sales in 2009, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But, that was not enough to stop an overall drop in sales which reached 13% compared to 2008. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Domestic album sales, including digital downloads, fell to 373.9 million units, a decline of 13% from 2008.” The increase in digital sales surprisingly rose only 8.3% for the year. The drop on the sales of physical albums was expected. The slow increase in song downloads was not. It poses a threat to the ongoing success of services like Apple iTunes and may eventually affect sales of multimedia players including the iPod. There are several reasons that digital download sales did not do better last year. The first one is clear and that is the recession cut into the ability of people to pay for almost everything, even inexpensive entertainment. Sales should rebound in 2010 and 2011 if that is the case. The more sinister problem is piracy.
UK to build £500m EU sat-nav system to rival GPS Telegraph
Britain has won a significant share of a €566m (£510m) programme to build the first spacecraft providing Europe’s satellite-navigation system. Surrey Satellite Technology, based in Guildford, and its German bid partner OHB System were awarded a contract to build 14 satellites for the Galileo navigation system, Europe’s much-delayed version of the US-run Global Positioning System (GPS). About 40pc of the €566m order will go to Surrey Satellites. The company is providing Galileo’s navigation equipment, which includes atomic clocks, and the transmission system which sends the information gathered by the satellite down to users. OHB will build the satellite platform.
Netflix to wait 28 days before renting Warner Bros. latest DVDs Associated Press
Netflix’s 11 million subscribers will have to wait nearly an extra month to rent the latest movies by Warner Bros. Under an agreement announced today, Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service won’t send out Warner Bros.’ latest DVD and Blu-ray discs during the first 28 days after they hit the market. The deal is a first for Netflix. The company expects to reach similar agreements with other major movie studios later this year. The moratorium will give Warner Bros. a chance to sell more discs to consumers who can’t wait to see the studio’s latest home releases.
Disney Unveils New Plan To Distribute Movies Online IMDb
The Walt Disney Co. has unveiled a new technology that will allow consumers to buy a movie online, store it remotely, then be able to watch it on a personal computer, a television set, or a cellphone on demand. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Disney plans to announce partners for the technology, dubbed KeyChest, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week and hopes that all of Hollywood’s studios will participate.
Baidu to launch online video site for premium content Reuters
China’s top search engine Baidu Inc said it plans to start a new online video channel that will provide copyrighted content to Chinese Internet users. The company said it will form a new independent company for the purpose, which will derive its revenue from advertising and work with content providers to offer licensed video content.
Give young transsexuals special ID cards: doc The Local
Young Swedes who suspect they are transsexuals ought to be issued special ID cards allowing them to hide their undesired gender during their trial phase as the opposite sex, according to one of the country’s most respected child psychiatrists. “This has to do with the practical aspects of living life as the opposite gender,” Per-Anders Rydelius, chair of the maternal and child health department at Karolinska Institutet’s Astrid Lindgren’s Children Hospital, told The Local. “They must be able to show their ID card without people thinking they are being deceived.”
IE shrinks in ’09 but maintains dominance CNet News
Last year brought market share growth for all major browsers except Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications’ annual industry report released Wednesday. The year ended with Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome enjoying gains of about 3 percentage points, while Apple’s Safari climbed a single percentage point. Opera stayed relatively flat with a gain of 0.23 points, but IE saw a decline of nearly 8 percentage points.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
January, 2010
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/feed
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Free vibrators for Olympic medal-winners
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2010/01/07/12382176-sun.html
VANCOUVER, B.C. — If the Olympic rings don’t tickle your fancy, a local store hopes theirs will.
Commercial Drive’s Womyns’Ware has erected a naughty guerrilla marketing campaign designed to bait athletes and visitors to their east Vancouver location.
Olympic ticket holders get a 10 per cent discount in the store, accredited media receive a $5 coupon and a free sex-toy guide, medal-winning athletes will score a free vibrator and registered lugers will take home a free “Slip Kit” to boost performance. Did we mention five-packs of penis rings – which can be used to create your own Olympic logo – are on sale?
“We respectfully decline the opportunity to comment,” wrote VANOC
January 7th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Influential U.K. magazine slams Harper
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/01/07/12380136-cp.html
The Economist, the influential British magazine that once deemed Canada “rather cool” and later dubbed former prime minister Paul Martin as Mister Dithers, is not amused by Stephen Harper’s recent parliamentary tactics.
The magazine’s print edition has published both a critical story about the suspension of Parliament and a scathing editorial denouncing what it calls Harper’s “naked self interest.”
The editorial likens Canadian ministers to hapless former U.S. president Gerald Ford “who could not walk and chew gum at the same time.”
heh
January 7th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
“Influential U.K. magazine slams Harper”
See http://www.p2pnet.net/story/33526
Cheers!
January 7th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Re: UFC getting on the “sue-’em-all” bandwagon
“When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it.”
Don’tcha just love how history tends to repeat itself, one way or another, rather than be learned from?!
I’d laugh, if only it didn’t represent a really huge problem with the present world.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Mexican government says Starbucks owes for using pre-Hispanic images on coffee mugs
http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/GB/20100106/CP07/301069782/1030/WHISTLER/mexican-government-says-starbucks-owes-for-using-pre-hispanic-images&template=cpArt
The Mexican government says it has notified Starbucks Corp. that Mexico is owed intellectual property rights for a line of coffee mugs showing pre-Hispanic images.
Starbucks says it is working with Mexico to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. It says the mugs have been removed from its shop shelves pending the discussions.
laff
January 7th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Ok this doesn’t equal Bell trying to steal kids lunch money or to get them to “bug mom and dad” for money, but it made me shake my head just the same.
Bell-Virgin Mobile ads pulling in cities:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/01/07/12385061-cp.html
Two Canadian cities have banned a pair of steamy billboard ads for Virgin Mobile after public complaints.
The ads, which each show a man passionately kissing a woman while touching her buttocks with the caption “Hook Up Fearlessly,” were pulled recently in Mississauga, Ont., and are now being removed by the Calgary Transit Authority.
Calgary Transit spokesman Ron Collins said they wanted to avoid anything that might be seen as sexual exploitation of either men or women. …
The transit authority uses guidelines set out by Advertising Standards Canada stating that sexual exploitation should be avoided, he said.
As noted in another p2pnet story Bell does not adhere to, or give a hoot about ads standards Canada and even refused to answer to them, prompting the Ads Standards Canada to go to the press to reveal what happened.
Virgin Mobile has no plans to change its campaign, which is currently running across Canada, he said.
There will eventually be four ads in all, including one that hasn’t been seen in Calgary yet showing two men kissing over the same caption.
heh.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Here is a picture of the Bell ad:
http://money.canoe.ca/News/MediaHold/2010/01/07/12384106-cp.html
Hot pice of ass.
But I think I would feel awkward with my 9-yr old daughter at a bus stop looking at that. I’m not in any way homophobic (and have gay friends) but toss two men in that picture and with my daughter at a bus stop, yeah I would feel extra awkward when her eyes widen and I say that’s normal, keep looking at it.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:22 am
@RW:
Don’t you mean the VIRGIN ad??
January 8th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Bell-VIRGIN.
Yes.
Like Bell hasn’t raped enough people already.
Bell-Virgin is like Military-intel.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:40 am
Maybe I don’t understand what Devil’s Advocate is getting at, but VIRGIN is owned by Bell Canada. Its their “cheap” brand when people dump Bell mobile and look for cheaper, they think VIRGIN isn’t Bell.
But maybe I just don’t understand what being alluded to here.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:07 am
“But maybe I just don’t understand what being alluded to here.”
Are ya sure?!
‘Cuz for a second, it sounded like you did!
January 8th, 2010 at 3:27 am
With the UFC getting upset about piracy, shouldnt they also be upset with bars charging customers to see the fights on the big screens, cause I thought that was not allowed to happen. If 150 people go to a bar to watch the fight instead of paying for it themselves at home, how much money is lost there. Sure not everyone is going to pay for it but Im sure at elast some of them would. Why pay 50, 60 70 or whatever it is when you can pay 5/10 bucks and watch it at a bar.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
oh, you devil you.