A View on View :: As the tech world turns.....

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the blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.

the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc.

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As the tech world turns.....

by Mark Evans on Thu 01 Apr 2004 11:20 PM EST | Permanent Link

When it rains, it pours. At least, that seems to be the climate in the tech world. In a nutshell, here's what has been keeping me busy this week:

1. The file-sharing world couldn't help but focus on Canada after the a Federal Court judge ruled that our copyright laws make downloading and uploading music legal. What's ironic about this decision is the ISPs who argued they couldn't or wouldn't disclose the name of their customers who had shared music using Kazaa, et al have built their high-speed businesses on the appeal of downloading music. Looks like ISPs can eat their cake and have it too.
2. Not sure if anyone is still interested in Manitoba Telecom's battle against the evil hedge funds but it looks like the Allstream deal is nearly done, while the income trust dream is as good as dead. That is, unless hedge fund manager Jim Macdonald has a a trick up his sleeve. Hey, he almost got the Toronto Stock Exchange to do his dirty work by tapping little-used regulations.
3. So what do you make of Google's move into the e-mail market. Sounds like a good deal: it's free and you get a whopping one gigabyte of storage. Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch was right. The "fee" for using Gmail is you agree to let Google look at your e-mail messages so it can deliver "contextualized" advertising. It's a great thing for Google; great for advertisers but a mixed blessing for Gmail users.
Speaking of Gmail, I wonder if the Fan 590's Gord Stellick is thinking about trademark infringement given that he's been using the term "Gmail" for the last couple of years. Gord, you should have registered the domain and made Google give you a few of their pre-IPO dollars for it.

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Re: As the tech world turns.....

by ronaldo on Wed 07 Apr 2004 02:31 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Mark,

Isn't it ironic that the music industry's ultimate goal was "music for the masses" and now, with Internet they have achieved that? ;-)

Seriously, though, it would be quite interesting to get legal opinion on this matter. For instance, if someone goes to a library and copies some documents on a Xerox machine, theoretically he/she is infringing on copyright laws. Ditto for someone taping a movie being shown on TMN on his/her VCR machine. Or someone borrowing a CD from a friend and making a cassette tape copy of the songs. Practically speaking though, these violations are seldom scrutinized, because enforcing the law in some of these cases is quite difficult. But taking this to the realm of the Internet, where these files can be copied "en masse" takes the problem to a new dimension. Going after the ISPs to get them to reveal sensitive customer information might not always work, as this ruling shows. Particularly in a country like Canada, where consumers pony up a fee as compensation to the music industry whenever they buy blank CDs...

However, besides litigation, maybe the music industry should also consider other alternatives. Perhaps the new technology to put in digital keys/signatures on the files (which is used by Puretracks service) could be one solution. But the bigger one, though is the promise of going to a store like HMV, and being able to burn a blank CD with a compilation of favorite hits (and paying a license fee for each song). In other words, to turn this into a positive and give the public more choice. This may not sit well with some artists (and could very well mean the end of albums with one or two big hits and a bunch of other "fillers"). But in the long run, I believe it will be the preferred way for the savvy consumer to purchase music in the future... either that or a personalized version of a single artist's best hits...

Disclaimer: These opinions are my own and do not represent those of my current employer...

PS> Very good article + interesting posts from David Akin's blog as well

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