Reston, Va.
– The monthly analysis of the U.S.
search market for January by comScore, the Internet measurement firm, shows
that Google accounted for 65.4% of the search market share, down 0.3% for the
month. Microsoft’s Bing had 11.3% market share, up 0.6 percentage points from
December, while Yahoo lost 0.3% share and now holds 17% of the U.S. search
market.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uckp7
Cupertino,
Calif. – Apple has launched a
promotional countdown that will culminate with the sale of the 10 billionth
song download on its iTunes Store, the buyer of which will win a $10,000 iTunes
gift card.
Related Links:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-song-countdown
Los Angeles – Former Pirate
Bay spokesman Peter Sunde
has launched a new micropayments service called Flattr, that aims to serve as a
virtual tip jar for musicians, artists, software developers and others, GigaOM
reports. Users pay a monthly fee to Flattr, and may then click a Flattr button
on partner websites to make a donation.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uckuu
(GigaOM)
London – TV-Links,
now-defunct U.K.
website that offered links to unauthorized streaming TV episodes on third-party
websites, has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud and violations of
the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, TorrentFreak reported.
U.K. copyright
holder-backed organization Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) led the case
against TV-Links, which has been offline since 2007 — after the initial police
raid was conducted on its operations.
The judge in the case found that TV-Links
should be afforded protection under Section 17 of the European Commerce
Directive 2000, deeming the site, which itself hosted no copyrighted content, a
"conduit of information."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uckqr
(TorrentFreak)
http://newteevee.com/2010/02/12/tv-links-wins-in-court/
http://snipurl.com/uckqo
(DMW previous coverage)
Santa Monica, Calif. – Video game publisher Activision
Blizzard (NASD: ATVI), a unit of Vivendi, has laid off around 200 employees and will shutter
is Luxoflux development studio, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Activision
acquired Luxoflux in 2002; the studio employed 56 people. Other studios hit by
the layoffs are said to include 50 of the 170 employees at Neversoft, lead
developer on the "Guitar Hero" franchise, and half of the 180
staffers at Radical Entertainment.
Kotaku additionally reports that layoffs
also hit Activision’s RedOctane — which originally developed "Guitar
Hero" — and Underground Development studios.
Santa Monica, Calif.-based
Activision reported a loss of $286 million for the fourth quarter of 2009,
partly blamed on weak sales of its music-based and casual games.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uckj8
(Los Angeles Times)
http://snipurl.com/uckhw
(Kotaku)
http://snipurl.com/ucki3
(Kotaku)
Washington
– In a move of interest to the software and media industries, Attorney General
Eric Holder announced on Friday the formation of a new Department of Justice
Task Force on Intellectual Property to target intellectual property crimes and
piracy. The Task Force, to be chaired by the Deputy Attorney General, will
focus on strengthening efforts to combat intellectual property crimes through
greater coordination with state and local law enforcement agencies as well as
international counterparts.
"The rise in intellectual property crime in
the United States
and abroad threatens not only our public safety but also our economic
wellbeing," said Holder.
"This Task Force will allow us to identify
and implement a multi-faceted strategy with our federal, state and
international partners to effectively combat this type of crime."
Related Links:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-ag-137.html
McLean, Va. – Publisher Gannett’s (NYSE: GCI) USA Today is requiring each of its
nearly 1,500 employees to take one week of unpaid leave between March and July
in response to continued weakness in publishing and media markets.
The media
company is also extending a salary freeze announced last year for at least 90
more days.
"A furlough means no one will be permitted to work while on
furlough and no one will be exempt, except for business necessity," wrote
USA Today Publisher Dave Hunke.
"That means when you are on furlough,
there is no work, no office phone calls, no voice mail, no e-mail and no PDA
checking."
Hunke cited the continued downturn in national advertising
sales and paid circulation for the actions.
Related Links:
http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/urgent-usat-extends-wage-freeze-adds.html
Mountain View,
Calif. – Following criticism over
the privacy settings on its new Buzz social features on its Gmail service,
Google (NASD: GOOG) last night announced a raft of changes to thes service based on users’
feedback.
"In particular there’s been concern from some people who thought
their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular
the lists of people they follow, and the people following them)," Google
said in a blog post.
"In addition, others felt they had too little control
over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block
people who didn’t yet have public profiles from following them."
The
corresponding changes Google made to Buzz will make the option to not show
followers or people a user follows on their public profiles more visible; allow
users to block anyone who starts following them; and provide more clariety on
which of a user’s followers and people they follow can appear on their public
profiles.
However, some critics are saying that Google needs to go
further with the privacy settings with Buzz, for instance making the sharing of
Gmail contacts with whom a user most frequently interacts an opt-in, rather
than opt-out choice.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uck2x
(Google blog post)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10452412-265.html
http://snipurl.com/uck37
(Business Insider)
Washington
– Google (NASD: GOOG) has filed a rebuttal to the U.S. Department of Justice’s objections to
a settlement over Google’s plans to create a digital index of the world’s books,
setting the stage for a face-off between the two sides in court later this
month. The Justice Dept. raised objections to the first version of the
settlement agreement between Google and authors and publishers, and reiterated
similar objections to the revised settlement that Google submitted to the court
in November.
It believes that the agreement will give Google an unfair
advantage in the online books market, and to its search engine.
The Justice
Dept. also objects to the service’s policy of asking publishers to opt-out
should they wish not to be included, while it contends U.S. copyright
law calls for an opt-in.
In its filing this week, Google tried to rebut these
assertions, as well as those raised by competitors and others, such as the Open
Book Alliance.
"The purpose of copyright law is to promote the creation
and distribution of expressive works," Google says in the filing.
"The [settlement] advances this purpose as much as any case or agreement
in copyright history."
The company adds: "Google is a new entrant and currently
has zero percent share in any book market. It does not have monopoly power and
there is no ‘dangerous probability’ that it will acquire such power."
"Despite
the spin from Google’s attorneys, the amended settlement will still offer the
search and online advertising giant exclusive access to books it has illegally
scanned to the detriment of consumers, authors and competition," the Open
Book Alliance said in a statement.
"We continue to wholeheartedly agree
with the Department of Justice’s recent characterization of the settlement as,
‘a bridge too far.’"
U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin has scheduled a
hearing for Feb. 18 to discuss the revised settlement agreement.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ucjic
(AP)
http://snipurl.com/ucjo2
(Open Book Alliance statement)
http://snipurl.com/ucjos
(DMW previous coverage)
