antipiracy

Update: Friday 10:45 a.m. To include comments from Google.

It's doubtful that they would admit it, but U.S. studio chiefs and music moguls must dream that their country will one day elect a president like Nicolas Sarkozy.

Few of the world's leaders are as aggressive in protecting copyright as the president of France, and he proved it again Thursday during a speech to members of the country's creative community when he endorsed some controversial pro-copyright proposals.

If Sarkozy has his way, France will tax Google and other search engines, Web portals, and Internet service … Read more

A decade after the rise of Napster and a year after promising a new antipiracy strategy, the Recording Industry Association of America appears to be floundering on the piracy front.

The plan adopted last year by the RIAA, the trade group for the four largest recording companies, in place of its controversial litigation campaign seems to have gone nowhere. The RIAA said at the time that it had struck partnerships with major Internet service providers, the Web's true gatekeepers, and that they would help choke off online piracy.

It was all supposed to be a done deal. The Wall … Read more

Verizon Communications has agreed to forward copyright violation notices on behalf of Hollywood studios, including NBC Universal, multiple sources tell CNET.

The news comes after Verizon began issuing the same type of copyright letters on Thursday--as part of a test--on behalf of the music industry.

In addition to its deals with the Recording Industry Association of America and NBC Universal, Verizon has similar partnerships with an undisclosed number of other film studios and copyright owners, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. It is unclear when Verizon began issuing the letters for NBC Universal.

A Verizon spokesman declined to … Read more

Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, says he plans to leave the organization in September when his contract runs out.

On Monday, the blog Politico reported Glickman's departure plans, quoting him saying: "My guess is that I'll end up in the nonprofit or academic world. People who know me know I've had these great extracurricular interests that have been very significant in driving me."

On Friday, I cited an industry source who said that Glickman wouldn't last until the end of his contract. Apparently, the studios will let … Read more

LOS ANGELES--The six largest Hollywood film studios are apparently dissatisfied with the way their trade group has waged war on illegal file sharing. CNET News has learned that at least three leaders of its antipiracy operations have been fired.

Among the three who were quietly ushered out of their posts at the Motion Picture Association of America three weeks ago was Greg Goeckner, the MPAA's general counsel. The others were the MPAA's director of worldwide antipiracy operations and its deputy director of Internet antipiracy. Goeckner will remain with the MPAA until the end of the year.

Other MPAA … Read more

The French National Assembly ignored a vote last week by the European Parliament and approved its "Création et Internet" three-strikes bill on Tuesday.

The measure supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy punishes digital pirates by suspending Internet service if they are caught illegally sharing copyrighted material. The vote comes a little more than a month after the same government body rejected the proposal.

It seems the vote by the French Assembly is in direct opposition to the European Parliament, which last week passed a measure prohibiting EU governments from terminating a user's Internet access without … Read more

With Windows 7, Microsoft is making some subtle changes to the ways it tries to thwart piracy.

As has been the case for some time, Microsoft's strategy hinges on requiring a user to electronically verify their copy of the software, a process known as activation, and then the software also periodically validates that a copy of Windows is genuine.

In Windows Vista, if a user does not activate their software immediately, they get a warning that they still need to do so. The dialog box offers two options, to activate immediately or to do so later. However, the activate … Read more

Updated Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. PDT to include quotes from AT&T and information about Comcast and Cox.

Updated Wednesday at 10:37 a.m. PDT to include a statement from an AT&T spokeswoman who wished to correct what she had previously said. She says now that the company asserts in the letters that it has the right to terminate a policy. She said, however, the company has no intention of doing so.

Updated Wednesday at 3:40 p.m. PDT: AT&T says that it won't ever terminate service of customers without … Read more

Game for Windows - LIVE (GFWL) is an online gaming service for "Games for Windows"-branded PC games. It functions much like an Xbox Live, but for the PC. On Tuesday Microsoft announced a couple of updates to the service.

In an effort to prevent game piracy, Microsoft will be implementing zero-day piracy protection and server-side authentication, that hopefully will help prevent game piracy before a game's street date, and include added protection for publishers and users by requiring authentication for online play.

To help users access additional game content in the most seamless way possible, GFWL … Read more