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By the glow of six flat screens inside a windowless room in a California office tower, three content cops from NBCUniversal watch as pirated versions of the cable-TV drama "Suits" begin popping up on the Internet within minutes of the show's closing credits. At first, they come in ones and twos, but in an hour there are 444 unauthorized links to that Thursday night's episode on its USA Network. In two hours more, that number more than doubles, opening up the show to millions of Web viewers around the world as translations into languages as varied as Bulgarian and Chinese begin to roll out. As the pirates click away, the three on the digital beat fire off menacing notices to the website operators hosting the illegal episode, demanding they pull it down. "It's like whack-a-mole," says Andrew Skinner, the manager of content security for NBCUniversal. "You knock off one and there are 50 more behind it."
As Pirates Run Rampant, TV Studios Dial Up Pursuit
[Commentary] Just because technology makes something possible, does that make it right? The question has vexed the Internet for as long as people have downloaded music and movies illegally, which was among the first uses of the Web. So it is progress when a new policy is put in place, even one as modest as "six strikes and you're out." The ease of making digital copies doesn't excuse piracy. But lawmakers have a responsibility to rebalance copyright protection as technology changes. Now that digital technology increases the value of being able to copy, remix and share content, Congress should rethink the amount of copyright protection that is needed.
A Six-Strike Rule for Internet Piracy
Using a wealth of data from mobile devices, developers of apps ranging from children's games to fitness trackers are increasingly testing an array of price points and business models. They are drawing some conclusions: Free remains king, though users on iPhones and iPads generally have a greater tolerance to pay the price to download apps and shut off advertising than those on Android devices.
Users of apps in Amazon's app store, meanwhile, tend to make more purchases within the apps. But overall, the economics of the apps business remains in flux as people upgrade smartphones and manufacturers introduce higher-end devices. As of the end of 2012, the average price for a paid app in the Apple app store was $3.18 on an iPhone and $4.44 on an iPad, according to research firm Distimo. That compares with an average $3.06 in the Google Play store and $2.84 on Amazon 's app store. App stores generally take a 30% cut of the sale.
The Evolving Economics of the App
Nearly five years after Apple kicked off the mobile-apps craze, the industry is booming. App stores run by Apple and Google now offer more than 700,000 apps each. With so many apps to choose from, consumers are estimated to spend on average about two hours a day with apps. Global revenue from app stores is expected to rise 62% this year to $25 billion, according to Gartner.
The apps industry has matured in some respects. Some of the Wild West tactics of five years ago—like scams to accrue more downloads—have given way to more order as Apple and others tighten their rules. App developers are more methodical about marketing their apps and focusing on the few apps that work best. For every Instagram, the wildly popular photo sharing app that Facebook bought for $1 billion last year, there are hundreds of thousands of apps that don't catch on. As the battlefield shifts to new geographies, new categories and new devices, developers are still trying to figure out which business models are the most profitable.
Apps Rocket Toward $25 Billion in Sales
Sweden's public broadcaster, feeling pressure as streaming heavyweights like Netflix and HBO gain ground with their newly-founded Nordic services, is taking the nation's television license fees to a new level by asking smartphone and tablet users to pay up.
License fees have been in place for years as state-backed broadcasters look to fund commercial-free programming, including the BBC. In Sweden's case, anyone owning a television is forced to pay a SEK173 ($27) tab per month for Sveriges Television, Sveriges Radio and educational broadcasting known as Utbildningsradion. That fee hardly looks like a bargain compared with the SEK79 ($12) monthly fee that Netflix Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s HBO each charge subscribers in Sweden. The good news for Swedes is no matter how many televisions one owns, they only need to pay the fee once. The bad news is times are rapidly changing and in order to keep up with the increasing use of nonconventional ways to access Sweden's public broadcasting, Sweden's Radiotjänst collection agency is expanding its reach to computers and mobile devices with an Internet connection. That means people ditching televisions for tablets and smartphones are no longer able to ditch the TV fee.
In Sweden, TV Tax Comes to Smartphones
Google won a key victory in Europe as German lawmakers approved a watered-down copyright bill that would protect the Internet search giant from having to pay fees for displaying links to news articles.
The legislation, which was passed in the lower house of Germany's parliament Friday, would continue to give Google and other search engines free rein when publishing small scraps of text from news stories in search results. Its language is a sharp turn from the bill's original draft, which would have allowed newspapers and other print publishers to stop search companies from showing text snippets, unless they paid licensing fees. Google, which fought vigorously against the legislation, warned it could hinder basic Internet search capabilities in Europe's largest economy and set a worrying precedent for online copyright disputes brewing elsewhere on the continent.
Google Scores Copyright Win in Germany
Here’s an existential question for the modern era: If politicians throw a hashtag and nobody shows up, did they make any noise?
Washington is infatuated with attempts to make various buzzwords trend on Twitter, even though the vast majority of those efforts are #epicfails. In the process, they’ve embarrassed themselves and handed opponents an easy — and often unfair — way to quantify how little the public agrees or supports whatever cause the pol is trying to promote. “If you’re putting it on your podium and then that conversation peters out or doesn’t happen, then it seems to prove that no one is interested,” said Anthony Rotolo, a professor of online communication at the iSchool at Syracuse University. “You’re shining a very bright light on that.”
Are hashtags a political #wasteoftime?
On March 1, President Barack Obama issued the sequestration order for Fiscal Year 2013. The 5% across-the-board cuts include the Federal Communications Commission.
In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), the President called cuts "deeply destructive" and the result of congressional failure to act. He said the sequester "was never intended to be implemented and does not represent a responsible way for our Nation to achieve deficit reduction." If the sequester is allowed to remain in place, the FCC will have to cut $17 million from its $342 million budget over the next seven months.
President Issues Sequester Order
For every winner, there has to be a loser. Smartphone sales have defied gravity in recent years, but there's no defying simple math. Several major Asia-based smartphone manufacturers are talking up their growth plans. South Korea's LG Electronics says its smartphone shipments will jump 50% in year-on-year in 2013. China's ZTE expects to post a 50% increase in shipments too. Huawei Technologies says it will ship 60 million smartphones this year, up 88% from 32 million in 2012. The global market is certainly expanding quickly, but not that fast. Between 2010 and 2011, total global shipments increased 64%, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. In 2012, the pace of shipment growth slowed to 43% year-on-year. In 2013, growth is expected to slow down further to 36%, Strategy Analytics says. With the overall market growing at a slower pace than what individual manufacturers are forecasting, something's got to give.
Smartphone Math Doesn't Add Up
A Q&A with Susan Crawford, a former telecom and tech policy adviser to President Obama.
Why are cable and wireless bills so high? One theory: The smartphone-toting nation is returning to a phone monopoly, and that’s not just frustrating — it may set us back as a global economic power. That’s the argument put forth by Crawford, who is among the cable and phone industry’s biggest agitators. Her new and controversial book, “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the Gilded Age,” is a harsh critique of regulatory decisions at the Federal Communications Commission that have led to sweeping consolidation. Most U.S. consumers have the pick of only one or two broadband Internet service providers, while other countries are offering their citizens faster speeds at lower prices. How did we get here? Crawford chronicles key victories by deep-pocketed cable and phone companies that have vigorously and successfully persuaded federal regulators to approve mergers and shed rules for their industries. She focuses on Comcast’s takeover of NBC Universal, a deal that created a media and telecom juggernaut. Comcast has argued that it consistently offers faster speeds for its 22 million cable subscribers. It has also launched a $10 service to help expand broadband access in poor areas.
Controversial activist takes on the telecom industry