Hasta La Gadget!

Strange policy changes are afoot in Italy, where the government’s Communications Authority has just issued two resolutions that effectively turn YouTube and other video services into TV stations subject to stricter regulation — and stricter liability for the content they host. Under the new rules, any site that exercises even the smallest amount of editorial control over its content will be considered an “audiovisual service,” and have to pay additional taxes, take down videos within 48 hours if anyone complains of slander, and — most oddly of all — somehow refrain from broadcasting videos “unsuitable for children” at certain times of the day. (No, we have no idea how that works with an online video site.) Making matters worse, the new rules give creedence to the notion that video service providers are somehow directly responsible for what their users post to the site — even if the only “editorial control” they exercise is automated and not overseen by actual humans. We’d expect it the new rules to be challenged in Italian court sometime soon, since they effectively make it impossible to run an online video service in the country, and seem to be in opposition to EU rules that protect internet service providers — and we’ll see if YouTube remains available to Italian IP addresses for very much longer.

Oh, and if you’re worried this sort of insanity will cross over to the US, you should chillax — the laws you love to hate are on your side. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and Section 512 of the DMCA provide “safe harbor” to internet service providers, making it extremely hard to go after them for the actions of their users. You might remember Section 512, actually — it played a starring role in knocking down Viacom’s lawsuit against Google and YouTube back in June. You, the DMCA and the CDA, all hanging out and watching YouTube together — sounds like a lovely afternoon, doesn’t it?

[Thanks, Matthew]

Italy rules YouTube and other video sites are like TV stations, are liable for content originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Left with just two weeks to explain exactly how seven of the web’s biggest properties (and three office supply chains) violated his company Interval’s patents, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen figured out a plan — Intervals’ lawyers are drawing big, colored boxes around large swaths of the allegedly infringing websites’ real estate. In all seriousness, a lot of companies may owe Allen a lot of money if Interval truly has a case, because Interval claims to have patented no less than the ability for a website to take a user-selected piece of content and suggest other related pieces of content that might be of interest. Oh, and it’s also apparently patented pop-ups and widgets, as most anything that displays information “in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user” is getting the same treatment. Hilariously, it appears that the co-founder of Microsoft didn’t provide his lawyers with basic scanning technology, because the PDF of the exhibits they uploaded to the court’s web site is just epically bad — check out everything they say infringes in the gallery below.

Disclaimer: We should note that AOL is among the companies being sued by Allen and Interval, and that Engadget is owned by AOL. So you know, just think about that a bunch, or something.

Paul Allen files amended complaint, points out exactly where patent infringement is hiding originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Say hello to the future of DVRs, at least from Comcast, as its as-yet unannounced Xfinity Spectrum box passed through the FCC’s database shortly after having its existence revealed by the Wall Street Journal. A quick peek at the production-ready manual reveals there’s plenty of new features here, including a new guide design including IMDB-style cast & crew info as well as access to internet services. While it’s hardware makes this Pace RNG-210n a 500GB HD DVR with four tuners, MoCA and IP access, one of the biggest changes is a software makeover means it pops up notifications prompted by your Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Configurable at Xfinity.com/Spectrum, it looks like it will only pull in information when people you follow share pictures, video, or link to info about TV shows and movies, with “most” viewable right on the box itself, plus the option to share what you’re watching on those services. There’s less details available about that “apps” section of the menu but weather, traffic, music and games are promised, take a quick peek at the most interesting sections including a look at the guide, remote and box in our gallery or check out the FCC filings yourself for more details — it’s hard to tell if the changes will make all our issues with cable provided set tops go away, but pretty much any new guide has to be better than what’s there now, right?

[Thanks, cypherstream]

Comcast’s quad-tuner Xfinity Spectrum DVR with internet access revealed by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week Google Cr-48 notebooks started showing up on doorsteps around the country as press and curious users received their test units, and the holiday shopping season started to heat up. This week some of the best videos YouTube had to offer included Google’s sense of humor on display, a really cool (and somewhat destructive) scientific experiment, and lots of holiday cheer. 

This article was written on February 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

It was just over a week ago that Google was demanded by Viacom to remove 100,00 video clips. Just recently, MySpace has announced that they’re taking proactive measures to protect copyrighted videos on MySpace.  They already have a filtering service in place that blocks music which is not authorized.  Their new measures would protect video content.

Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s co-founder says that “MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community. For MySpace, video filtering is about protecting artists and the work they create.”

Currently, MySpace is licensing technology from Audible Magic Corp who obtained rights to a system for scanning video clips.  The system looks for signature vectors like a fingerprint to compare with vectors stored in a database.  If a match is found, then the video would be blocked.

Sharing videos is a huge part of the social-network giant, which many people enjoy and use to increase their networking. This new technology could potentially keep MySpace out of the legal limbo which other video services, like YouTube are facing.

Source: CBC News

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