Web Sites Face Film Studios' Copyright Suits
Several major Hollywood movie studios filed suit against two Web sites that direct users to online videos, alleging they contribute to and profit from copyright infringement. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). filed the suits in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against YouTVpc.com and Peekvid.com on behalf of the studios, which include Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox Film YouTVpc.com and Peekvid.com provide users with menus of links to video clips that are stored on other Web sites' computer servers. The suits allege that virtually all of the video the two sites link to infringe copyrights and that the sites are liable for contributory copyright infringement and inducement of copyright infringement. "YouTVpc.com does not violate any copyright laws," said YouTVpc co-founder Billy Duran in a statement. "We take no responsibility for content uploaded by others to video hosts, or provided by video hosts… We have developed a solution to help detour illegal downloading and the MPAA are attacking us rather than capitalizing. The suits are the first the studios have filed against such linking sites, but "we're always looking at similar types of sites and similar types of illegal business models and constantly evaluating new targets and threats," said an MPAA spokeswoman.

YouTube traffic surpasses rivals combined
YouTube, which has had to pull copyrighted videos off its site after legal attacks by some big media franchises, has enjoyed a surge in U.S. audience share that leaves it far larger than the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, a survey found. The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70% from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise. By contrast, visits to the next 64 largest sites tracked by Hitwise rose only 8% during 2007's first five months. As of May 2007, YouTube's market share was 50% greater than those 64 sites combined. YouTube's share of the U.S. online video market was 60.2% in May. Its closest rival, News Corp.'s MySpace Videos site, had 16.08% of market share. YouTube's sister site, Google Video, held 7.81%, while Yahoo had 2.77% and Microsoft's MSN, 2.09%. Start-up Metacafe ranked No. 8 in U.S. visitors to video sites with 1.07%, Time Warner's AOL Media had 0.94% and Veoh was No. 10 at 0.86%.

Blu-Ray to bribe HD buyers with free films
Anyone looking to buy a Blu-ray player or a PS3 might do well to hold off a couple of months - the Blu-ray Disc Association has announced a new promotion that will see each new optical player ship with five (count 'em) movies in the box, according to sources. While Blu-ray players typically retail for a minimum of $200 more than their HD-DVD equivalents, lobbing in five movies means about $100 off the sticker shock. However, since most of the bundled movies are likely to be turkeys, if these promotions in the past are anything to go by, picking up an HD-DVD player and the movies you actually want to watch may well still be a better option. The marketing move is designed to coincide with Blu-ray's one year anniversary in the North American market and to pile the pressure on HD-DVD, which has done fairly well out of Xbox 360 owners. The format wars are far from over, and we can only hope that they get more interesting than crummy bundles. Where's the sex, death and intrigue?

Google Offers Money For Gadgets
Google has announced the launch of Google Gadget Ventures, a new pilot program that will help fund third-party gadget development and gadget-related businesses. Google will offer two types of funding: $5,000 grants for gadget developers who want to improve an existing gadget, and $100,000 seed investments for new gadget-related businesses. Applications will be restricted initially to gadget developers who have more than 250,000 pageviews per week on their gadget. Google aims to “help create an ecosystem where developers can spend more time doing what they love — building great gadgets”. In other words Google wants more gadgets for iGoogle and Google Gadgets and what better way to encourage development than to offer money to gadget builders. It probably goes without saying that this is a smart move by Google; Google’s gadget specific offerings are all smart products but still lag in gadget choice compared to competitors such as Yahoo Widgets, a number of Web OS and Widget specific startups and even OSX.

Cyber-bullying gathers pace
One third of US online teenagers have been victims of cyber-bullying according to research by the Pew Internet Project. The most common complaint from teens was about private information being shared rather than direct threats. Girls were more likely than boys to be targets and teens who share their identities online are the most vulnerable, the survey found. But teenagers still think that the majority of bullying happens offline. Some 32% of teenagers questioned had experienced one of more of the following: having a private e-mail, IM or text messaging forwarded or posted where others could see it, the victim of an aggressive email, IM or text message, having a rumour spread about them online or having an embarrassing photograph posted online without permission. As more and more young people join social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, so they are opening themselves and their personal information up to more people. The survey found that 39% of social network users had been cyber-bullied in some way, compared to 22% of online teens who do not use social networks. The sites themselves offer new avenues for bullies, the survey found.

AOL to Launch Online Coupon System
Time Warner is joining rival News Corp. in the coupon-distribution business as its AOL unit launches the first entry into online couponing by a major media player. AOL hopes to solve some of the problems that have limited online coupon distributors to less than 1% market share. AOL Shortcuts, which is set for a fall launch, aims for a bigger slice of what Michael Lawless, director of brand marketing for the AOL unit, calls "$300 billion in unregulated currency." That's the amount that marketers, mostly package-goods brands and restaurant operators, distribute annually in cents-off offers, mainly through glossy newspaper inserts. News Corp.'s SmartSource and Valassis dominate the business. A handful of online coupon distributors have never managed a 1% market share collectively. AOL is out to change that in a way that overcomes the convenience problems for consumers and fraud concerns for marketers that have kept online couponing a minor player. The plan is to use banner ads, other online displays, and marketers' websites and e-mail programs to attract consumers to the coupon offers. When consumers click on the offers, they are loaded into an account and redeemed automatically when the product is purchased. Unlike most online couponing programs, AOL Shortcuts doesn't require consumers to download and print coupons for paper redemption at stores, a process that could be considered as cumbersome -- if not more so -- as clipping paper coupons from newspaper inserts. Several retailers, he said, have noted the green aspect of the system, which could eliminate tons of paper used in coupon inserts, along with the energy and labor costs involved in transporting and sorting coupons at clearinghouses. AOL faces huge obstacles in making such a system work but, unlike the other players in online couponing, has the financial muscle to pull it off. The first hurdle is making the system work with dozens of information systems at major retailers. AOL likely would have to pay retailers to reprogram their systems. The promise of the AOL plan, he said, is that it overcomes consumer objections to online couponing, which could make it attractive to marketers. It could even draw in younger consumers who largely ignore newspapers and paper coupons now.

FTC on Net neutrality: No new laws needed
The FTC warned against regulations to ensure providers of high-speed Internet service treat all content the same way, saying such rules could stifle innovation. Network neutrality proposals, backed by Internet content companies like Google and eBay, would bar Internet providers from charging extra fees to guarantee access to the Internet or give priority to some content. In a report, the FTC sided with high-speed Internet providers such as AT&T and Verizon, saying the government should be cautious about imposing such regulations. The concept of net neutrality is being studied by regulators at the FTC and has been the subject of much debate among lawmakers in Congress. Some lawmakers in Congress tried unsuccessfully to get net neutrality legislation passed last year. Companies like eBay and Google worry that AT&T and Verizon will charge them more to get access to consumers or make it harder for consumers to access unaffiliated content. The network providers counter that they would not block access to public Internet sites, but want to offer private Internet-based services with faster speeds for uses such as downloading movies. The high-speed providers welcomed the FTC report.

Outdoor Ad Spend Advances
Outdoor advertising spending totaled $1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2007, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA). Local services and amusements grew 11.5% in the first three months of the year and accounted for the most spending in any category. The communications category posted the largest gain, up 20% over the first quarter of 2006. Insurance and real estate outdoor ad spending increased nearly 15%. The OAAA attributed the gain to agents eager to compete in a cooling housing market. Restaurant outdoor ad spending grew nearly 10%, while the retail and financial categories each grew less than 1%. The OAAA said its members account for more than 90% of industry income, with more than $6.8 billion in annual ad revenues.

Deter Forgeries
As anyone who does business in India knows, you can't get very far without the right piece of paper. That makes forgery a big problem and one of the most common types of fraud. At a research and development laboratory here in India's tech hub, Hewlett-Packard is researching a way of marking new paper documents with a bar code that helps prevent forgeries. "Trusted Hardcopy," H-P's internal name for the project, is one of several innovations that are part of a big push by the personal-computer maker to devise products for specific markets that will also have broader use. The aim: To help capture what it calls its "next billion customers" -- a reference to massive emerging markets such as India and China. With Trusted Hardcopy, which is just one of the tailored efforts, rather than requiring holograms or watermarked paper, the system uses equipment no more complicated than some software, a scanner, and a computer. The bar code is designed to act like a digital signature. H-P envisages government entities, public offices and companies as potential users, such as for the registration of land ownership. The Asian-Pacific region, which includes India and China, accounted for $4.5 billion of H-P's total revenue of $25.5 billion for the three months ended April 30. But with an increase of 16% over the year-earlier period, the Asian-Pacific region was the company's fastest-growing geographical area. H-P, based in Palo Alto, Calif., declined to provide results just for India. India's technology industry is expected to grow dramatically in coming years. In 2011, India's tech industry is likely to be worth more than $110 billion in annual revenue, says research and consulting firm IDC (India) Ltd., up from $48.5 billion in 2006. Now there's a computer for only one in every 50 people, a total of 22 million. But that is expected to grow significantly as India's economy expands at an annual clip of about 9%. Already H-P is India's biggest seller of PCs in terms of units sold, with a 21% market share, ahead of India's HCL Technologies, which has 14%, and China's Lenovo Group, with 10%. H-P employs more than 29,000 people in India, its second-largest single-nation work force after the U.S., with a business that spans areas including outsourcing, manufacturing, technology services and customer support. By focusing its research in India, as well as at its labs in Russia, China, and elsewhere, H-P aims to invent products that fit a particular local need but can also be used in other markets. Another product H-P is developing is "TVPrintCast," which sends data over television networks. A set-top box receives the data, and the consumer can then print out the information. TV penetration in India is far higher than computers -- in 2005 India had 500 million TV viewers, compared with 6.5 million Internet users. The product would mean, for instance, that while watching a cooking program, the recipes featured could be broadcast and printed out. H-P isn't the only one in the running: An Novatium Solutions is already selling a product called Nova netTV, which allows desktop computing on a TV.

French Love Online Streaming
Nearly eight in 10 Internet users in France initiated a video stream in April 2007, according to comScore data. The study counted usage by those ages 15 and older. French video stream usage was slightly higher than in the US, where 76% of Internet users initiated a video stream in April 2007. The average French streaming video viewer initiated 64 streams, compared to 65 streams per streamer in the US. In France, streamers allocated 13% of their total time online to viewing streaming video. The most popular streaming Web sites were Google sites (including YouTube), with 22% of all French streams initiated. Of the 1.28 billion streams initiated in France in April 2007, 285.7 million came from Google sites. Another 249.2 million came from Dailymotion, and France Telecom accounted for 23.9 million streams.

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