Reuters - Websites could get cinema-style ratings

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@gmail.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Websites could get cinema-style ratings

Monday, Dec 29, 2008 3:32AM UTC

LONDON (Reuters) - The kind of ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.

Andy Burnham told The Daily Telegraph newspaper, published on Saturday, that the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.

"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff -- the UK and the U.S. working together -- the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as saying in an interview.

Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibility.

"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Burnham told the paper.

Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.

Any moves to censor the Internet would go to the heart of a debate about freedom of speech on the World Wide Web.

"If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."

He said some content should not be available to be viewed.

"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."

Burnham, who has three young children, pointed to the example of a 9 p.m. television "watershed" in Britain before which certain material, like violence, cannot be broadcast, and said better controls were needed for the Internet.

The minister wants new industry-wide "take down times" so that websites like YouTube or Facebook would have to remove offensive or harmful content within a specified time once it is brought to their attention.

He also said Britain was considering changing libel laws to give people access to legal help if they are defamed online.

Reuters - YouTube dispute underscores music labels weak hand

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

YouTube dispute underscores music labels weak hand

Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 6:37PM UTC

By Yinka Adegoke - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - First it was MTV, then it was Apple, and now it's YouTube.

The music industry, faced with declining CD sales, has repeatedly tried to find new income streams only to see its partners thrive with minimal benefit to the labels themselves.

So in the new battleground of online video, music companies are desperate to avoid past mistakes, but they are finding it tough to negotiate with a powerful new Internet partner.

Warner Music Group's decision to pull thousands of music videos from Google Inc's YouTube last Saturday, after the collapse of contract negotiations, shows just how far music companies may have to go to gain any leverage.

Some of the major labels are even considering forming a joint music video site to boost their bargaining power, said one music executive, as the dispute between Warner and YouTube underscores the limitations of relying on outside partners.

Such a joint venture could look similar to NBC Universal and News Corp's Hulu.com for putting TV shows online, and it could include YouTube in the partnership, said the executive, who declined to be identified as talks were still at a very early stage.

As CD sales plunge and the growth of digital songs slows, music labels increasingly consider online video to be key to revenue growth. But they do not have a strong hand in licensing negotiations with YouTube, which along with News Corp's MySpace.com, has become one of the most important music discovery tools for young fans.

Echoing the success of Viacom Inc's MTV Networks in the 1980s, or Apple Inc's iTunes since 2003, YouTube has in three years grown to become the largest online video site with more than 100 million U.S. viewers in October, according to Web audience measurement firm comScore.

"The first thing kids do when they hear about a band now is go on YouTube to find out more, according to our focus groups," said an executive at one of the major music labels, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Warner, the world's third-largest music company, was the first major media company to sign a licensing deal with YouTube in 2006, permitting the site to stream music videos from artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers and rapper T.I.

That deal, which expired months ago, was signed before YouTube was bought by the deep-pocketed Google. Warner's larger rivals, Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Music, only agreed to deals with YouTube as it was about to be bought by Google, and would likely have brokered more favorable terms, industry insiders said.

0.5 CENTS PER STREAM

Warner wants more money from YouTube for streaming rights, but YouTube has refused to budge from the previously negotiated terms, according to two people familiar with the talks.

YouTube pays record labels every time a video is streamed, or the label can get a share of advertising revenue around the video. The per-play fee is usually around half a cent per stream and the label gets paid the higher of aggregate per-play revenue or advertising revenue.

Warner has made less than 1 percent of its total digital revenue of $639 million in fiscal year 2008 from YouTube, according to a source close to the company.

Meanwhile, Universal Music, the world's largest music company, is likely to make just under $100 million from all its online video partners in 2008, said a person familiar with the company's plans. YouTube will account for "tens of millions" made in revenue by Universal, said the person.

"The labels have to find a balance between how much money they can make from YouTube itself or if they can make more money from promoting their artists on YouTube," said Ethan Horwitz, an intellectual property lawyer at King & Spalding.

Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman faces extra pressure as his is the only publicly traded music company and will need to start showing shareholders a material return on deals with partners like YouTube. Warner's share price has fallen nearly 60 percent since the start of 2008.

Warner had thought that YouTube would be a significant advertising force by now, but instead the site has focused more on building audience than on increasing revenue.

"They made all these early promises of implementing audio fingerprinting while in the meantime we were losing revenues and they've been lagging behind other competitors," said a person close to Warner Music, pointing to MySpace and Time Warner's AOL as offering better rates.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Reuters - RIM sues Motorola for blocking job offers

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

RIM sues Motorola for blocking job offers

Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 7:45PM UTC

BOSTON (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd is suing Motorola Inc, alleging that the mobile phone company improperly blocked the BlackBerry maker from hiring current and laid-off Motorola employees.

The suit, filed in state court in Chicago on Tuesday, comes three months after Motorola alleged that RIM violated an agreement reached in February that the two companies would not solicit each other's employees.

RIM asked for a court order to invalidate the agreement, saying in its complaint that the pact had expired in August and was no longer enforceable.

The Canadian company is also seeking unspecified damages for what it called "unfair competition" practices by Motorola.

Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

"RIM entities continue to grow and hire new employees within the United States and globally against a backdrop of recent public announcements by Motorola that it has and will continue to make massive layoffs," said RIM's lawsuit.

In the lawsuit filed by Motorola on September 4, the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company asked a judge to bar RIM from using Motorola's confidential information, or soliciting or hiring any Motorola employees.

RIM officials could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit, Research in Motion Corp vs Motorola Inc, was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Chancery Division, Case Number 717-200S.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Sharon Lindores and Matthew Lewis)

Reuters - Nokia eases access to Internet services

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Nokia eases access to Internet services

Sunday, Dec 21, 2008 10:23PM UTC

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia on Sunday removed one of the key obstacles for takeup of its new Internet offering, combining sign-ins for its overall services site Ovi.com and for its media sharing service.

Nokia has bought a dozen companies -- including an $8.1 billion acquisition of mapping company Navteq -- to jump-start its Internet business as growth in the mobile phone market stalls.

The handset maker has gathered access to all of the services to its Ovi.com site, but so far they have all demanded additional usernames and passwords, something analysts see as one of the major obstacles for takeup.

"We are pleased to announce that as part of improving your experience with Share on Ovi, we have merged our sign-in system with Ovi.com," Nokia said in a letter to clients.

"This is a key step in integrating Ovi," Nokia said.

Nokia said earlier this month it aims to make annual revenue of at least 2 billion euros ($2.79 billion) from Internet services in 2011, focusing on navigation, music, games, messaging and media -- but is battling with more established rivals such as Google, Apple and Yahoo.

Nokia has not unveiled user numbers for its Internet services, which created revenue of 115 million euros in July-to-September quarter.

($1=.7164 Euro)

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Reuters - Japanese group asks Google to stop map service

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Japanese group asks Google to stop map service

Friday, Dec 19, 2008 5:47PM UTC

TOKYO (Reuters) - A group of Japanese lawyers and professors asked on Friday that Google Inc stop providing detailed street-level images of Japanese cities on the Internet, saying they violated privacy rights.

Google's Street View offers ground-level, 360-degree views of streets in 12 Japanese cities and is also offered for some 50 cities in the United States and certain areas in Europe.

The service allows Web users to drive down a street, in a virtual sense, using their mouse to adjust views of roadside scenery.

"We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing deeply violates a basic right that humans have," Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of constitutional law at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Reuters by telephone.

"It is necessary to warn society that an IT giant is openly violating privacy rights, which are important rights that the citizens have, through this service."

The Campaign Against Surveillance Society, a Japanese civilian group that Tajima heads, wants Google to stop providing its Street View service of Japanese cities and delete all saved images.

Google's office in Tokyo was unable to comment immediately.

Privacy concerns about Google's service have grown in Japanese media, especially after some people discovered their images on Street View.

Similar concerns have been raised in other parts of the world, including the United States and Europe.

In one case, a woman was shown sunbathing and in another a man was pictured exiting a strip club in San Francisco.

In March, Google said it would comply with a Pentagon request to remove some online images from Street View over fears they posed a security threat to U.S. military bases.

Web-based Google Maps and a related computer-based service called Google Earth have drawn criticism from a variety of countries for providing images of sensitive locations, such as military bases or potential targets of terror attacks.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

Reuters - U.S. says go slow in expanding .com on the Web

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

U.S. says go slow in expanding .com on the Web

Friday, Dec 19, 2008 6:19PM UTC

By Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government urged Internet standard-setters to move slowly on a proposal to relax rules on domain names such as .com or .edu, over concerns about economic costs and security.

The nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, earlier this year voted to relax the rules on so-called top-level domain names, or TLDs, the suffixes, such as the ubiquitous .com, .net and .org, among others.

Easing the rules could pave the way for companies or individuals to create an array of new addresses for the Web, but the U.S. government said Icann must ensure that introduction of a slew of new names "will not jeopardize the stability and security" of the Internet domain name system.

"It is unclear that the threshold question of whether the potential consumer benefits outweigh the potential costs has been adequately addressed," the U.S. Department of Commerce, said in a letter to Icann dated December 18.

Currently, there are more than 200 TLDs, which also include the two-character country codes used by Web sites, such as Britain's .uk.

Under the proposed system, individuals, companies or groups could apply to have any string of letters established as a domain name. It could be a vanity name, for example -- .smith -- or a category name like .sports or .perfume.

A company could also change its domain to reflect its brand, so Apple.com could become Apple.mac, for instance.

VeriSign Inc now owns the registry for .com and net domain names.

For a company to become such a registry, it would need to apply to Icann, which coordinates the Internet's naming system, at a fee expected to cost more than $100,000.

The U.S. said Icann needs to prove it can handle a potentially huge influx of applications and how it will police issues related to intellectual property rights.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

The Marley Brothers

click here for more news and cool stuff
The Black Rider

Reuters - Alleged Madoff $50 billion fraud hits other investors

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Alleged Madoff $50 billion fraud hits other investors

Friday, Dec 12, 2008 8:18PM UTC

By Jon Stempel and Christian Plumb

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors scrambled to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, a day after the arrest of the prominent Wall Street trader.

Prosecutors and regulators accused the 70-year-old former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market of masterminding a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions through a hedge fund he ran. Hundreds of people, investing with him through the fund's clients, entrusted Madoff with billions of dollars, industry experts said.

"Madoff's investors included captains of industry, corporations (some of which are publicly traded) that used Madoff almost as a high-yielding cash management account, endowments, universities, foundations and, importantly, many high-profile funds of funds," said Douglas Kass, who heads hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management.

"It appears that at least $15 billion of wealth, much of which was concentrated in Southern Florida and New York City, has gone to 'money heaven,'" he added.

Federal agents arrested Madoff at his apartment on Thursday after prosecutors said he told senior employees that his money management operations were "all just one big lie" and "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme."

Madoff is the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, a market-making firm he launched in 1960. His separate investment advisory business had $17.1 billion of assets under management.

"BUSINESS AS USUAL?"

About a dozen angry investors gathered on Friday in the lobby of the Lipstick Building in midtown Manhattan, where the market-making firm and advisory fund are both headquartered, demanding to know the fate of their money.

One woman who declined to give her name said that when she called the firm's offices on Thursday she was told it was "business as usual."

Another investor groused, "Business as usual? Of course it's business as usual. We're getting screwed left and right."

Police later evicted the small group from the building.

The two most prominent hedge funds that invested with Madoff were the $7.3 billion Fairfield Sentry Ltd, run by Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group, and the $2.8 billion Kingate Global Fund Ltd, run by Kingate Management Ltd.

Fairfield Sentry and Kingate Global were among a small group of hedge funds to report positive returns for 2008; the average hedge fund was down 18 percent, according to data from Hedge Fund Research.

"People who came to us for portfolio construction were often already invested with Bernie Madoff, he had hundreds of clients," said Charles Gradante, who invests in hedge funds as a principal at Hennessee Group LLC. "Now his whole legacy is destroyed. He was God to people."

In a Ponzi scheme, a swindler uses money from new investors, who are lured with the promise of high or consistent returns, to pay off earlier investors.

Prior to Madoff's arrest, investors had wondered how he was able to generate annual returns in the low double digits in a variety of market environments. Many questioned how U.S. regulators were able to ignore numerous red flags with regards to Madoff's fund.

"Many of us questioned how that strategy could generate those kinds of returns so consistently," said Jon Najarian, an options trader who knows Madoff and is a co-founder of optionmonster.com.

In May 2001, Barron's reported that option strategists for major investment banks said they couldn't understand how Madoff managed to generate the returns that he did.

"We weren't comfortable with Madoff," said Brad Alford, president at investment adviser Alpha Capital in Atlanta. "We didn't understand how his strategy could generate the kind of returns it did. We will walk away from things like that."

MORE TO COME?

U.S. stocks tumbled in early trading Friday, with some investors citing the Madoff case as well as the failure of talks in Congress on a rescue for the U.S. auto industry. The market later staged a limited rebound.

Investors overseas were also reeling from the alleged fraud.

Benedict Hentsch, a Swiss private bank, said it had 56 million Swiss francs ($47 million) of exposure to Madoff's investment advisory business. UniCredit SpA's fund management unit, Pioneer Investments, has exposure through its Primeo Select hedge fund, two people familiar with the matter said.

Bramdean Alternatives Ltd said almost 10 percent of its holdings were exposed to Madoff, sending shares in the UK asset manager crashing.

CNBC Television reported that Sterling Equities, which owns the New York Mets baseball team, had accounts managed by Madoff.

"UNFORTUNATE SET OF EVENTS"

Madoff said "there is no innocent explanation" for his activities, and that he "paid investors with money that wasn't there," according to the federal complaint.

Prosecutors also alleged that Madoff wanted to distribute as much as $300 million to employees, family members and friends before turning himself in.

Charged with one count of securities fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed separate civil charges.

A federal judge is expected later Friday to hold a hearing on whether to put assets under Madoff's control into a receivership.

Madoff's lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said on Thursday, "We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events." His client was released on $10 million bond.

Madoff is a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's nominating committee. His firm has said it is a market-maker for about 350 Nasdaq stocks.

He is also chairman of London-based Madoff Securities International Ltd, whose chief executive, Stephen Raven, said the firm was "not in any way part of" the New York-based market-maker.

"Our business activities are not involved in any way with the U.S. asset management company with which the reported allegations appear to be concerned," Raven said.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan, Edith Honan, Aarthi Sivaraman and Leah Schnurr and Dan Wilchins in New York; Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston, Steve Slater in London and Lisa Jucca in Zurich; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and John Wallace)

Reuters - Nokia takes on Huawei in connecting laptops

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Nokia takes on Huawei in connecting laptops

Friday, Dec 12, 2008 1:43PM UTC

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top mobile phone maker Nokia plans to tap the surging market for connecting laptops to wireless networks taking on market leader Huawei Technologies, its senior official said.

Nokia will start to ship its first Internet stick in early 2009, aiming to benefit from its know-how and experience in developing 3G technologies, Tapio Markki, vice president for hardware platform components at Nokia, told Reuters.

"Leveraging these capabilities, we believe we are well-positioned to become one of the winning providers for HSPA modem solutions. The market for HSPA modems is expected to grow very rapidly during the coming years," Markki said.

Nokia declined to comment on the price of the device -- which uses HSPA, a super-fast 3G technology -- saying it would be sold mostly through operators and bundled with services.

Strategy Analytics said it expects the global market for so-called "dongles" -- external USB modems and PC cards -- to grow to 26 million units next year from 20 million this year.

"In particular European operators, such as Vodafone, are aggressively promoting and subsidizing dongles right now, because they are seen as a secondary device that provides additional revenues for carriers beyond a traditional handset," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics.

Nokia tried to enter into the business of connecting laptops to wireless networks in late 2006 when it said it had developed an embedded 3G module for notebook computers, which Intel agreed to sell as part of its next-generation Centrino Duo mobile technology platform.

But in early 2007, Nokia and Intel made a joint decision to cease cooperation on the connectivity module.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Reuters - Illinois governor arrested on corruption charges

This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com

Illinois governor arrested on corruption charges

Tuesday, Dec 09, 2008 6:50PM UTC

By Michael Conlon and Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on corruption charges, including that he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by fellow Democrat and President-elect Barack Obama.

Prosecutors also said the governor tried to muscle the Chicago Tribune into firing editorial writers who were critical of him.

While Obama has long distanced himself from the governor of his home state -- who has been under investigation on other issues for years -- Blagojevich's arrest was likely to be an embarrassment to the president-elect.

The case shines a light once again on old-style corruption in the Chicago political caldron from which Obama emerged.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, said in a statement.

It was enough to make Abraham Lincoln "roll over in his grave," Fitzgerald later told reporters, adding the arrest of Blagojevich was made because he wanted to stop a "crime spree."

In Illinois, the governor selects a successor when there is a mid-term vacancy in the U.S. Senate. Obama, who takes office on January 20, resigned from the Senate soon after winning the November 4 presidential election.

How the case might affect his Senate replacement was unclear. There were immediate calls from both Republicans and Democrats in Illinois that Blagojevich resign, allowing the lieutenant governor, also a Democrat, to step in. Under state law, Blagojevich could still make the appointment even if later indicted.

But federal prosecutors said they moved against the governor before he could make the Senate choice.

Neither Blagojevich or his office issued a statement after the charges were revealed. The governor and a senior aide were taken into custody at their Chicago homes. Blagojevich was due in court later on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors said Obama was not implicated.

"I should make clear the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever," Fitzgerald said.

Obama aides would not immediately comment on the charges against the governor, but said the Obama transition office would be issuing a statement.

"FOR SALE" SIGN

The 51-year-old Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were each charged in a federal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and a second count of solicitation of bribery.

In his statement, Fitzgerald said the charges "allege that Blagojevich put a 'for sale' sign on the naming of a United States senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism."

Blagojevich was accused of threatening to withhold state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of the Chicago Cubs' baseball home, Wrigley Field, in order "to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical" of him, Fitzgerald said.

Blagojevich allegedly was caught on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month.

He was seeking a "substantial" salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or union affiliated organization, a spot on a corporate board for his wife, promises of campaign cash, as well as a cabinet post or ambassadorship in exchange for his Senate choice, an FBI affidavit said.

Even though it was unclear what would happen now to the selection of a successor to Obama in the Senate, the spot would be certain to go to a Democrat. Democrats, with independent allies, will hold at least 58 seats in the 100-seat Senate when the new Congress convenes in early January. A Minnesota Senate seat is still undecided.

Blagojevich, in his second term, is the latest in a string of Illinois governors to run afoul of the law. His immediate predecessor, George Ryan, is in jail following a federal corruption conviction.

HEFTY PRISON TERM POSSIBLE

If Blagojevich is convicted, each mail and wire fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison while each bribery charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000.

Blagojevich was elected to the Illinois state House in 1992 and later won a seat in the U.S. Congress that had been held by another politician who ran afoul of the law, Dan Rostenkowski.

He became Illinois' first Democratic governor in nearly 30 years when he replaced Ryan in 2003, on a platform of reform. But his popularity has descended to an all-time low after wrangles with fellow Democrats in the state legislature, some of whom had threatened him with impeachment.

(Reporting by Michael Conlon and James Vicini, Kyle Peterson and Karen Pierog in Chicago, Editing by Jackie Frank and Frances Kerry)