OHNOES: If I had your phone number before, I don't anymore. My phone died. Email me your number! <3
Netflix Suffers Hueg Outage
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online DVD rental pioneer Netflix Incon Thursday worked feverishly to fix the most severe outage in its history, as disc shipments to a third of its 8.4 million customers came to a halt due to a shipping system problem. Labels: internets, movies, television
Red mailers with the Netflix name have become ubiquitous for many Americans who pick films to watch on the Internet and then get DVDs in the mail, usually a day or two later. Advertisements litter the Web with trial offers.
However, Netflix shipped no DVDs on Tuesday. It shipped some on Wednesday but has shipped none so far on Thursday.
Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the Los Gatos, California-based company would give credits to affected customers and was working "feverishly" to determine the cause of the outage and fix the problem.
Swasey said the disruption was not affecting its Watch Instantly Web streaming service, which it offers free to subscribers.
Cary Miller, a media executive and avid Netflix user who receives four or more discs in an average week, said he was not bothered by the disruption.
"Netflix's service has been impeccable," said Miller. "I probably wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't informed me."
It was the second time in Netflix's history it was unable to ship DVDs due to a technical glitch, said Swasey, adding that this outage was worse than one in March.
That was caused by an entirely different problem, which the company has since resolved, he said, without giving details.
In the previous outage, Netflix resumed shipping DVDs one day after a technological breakdown knocked out its site, and it offered 5 percent discounts on bills to members who did not receive DVDs on time.
"This time, the site's been up but our shipping system is down. It's worse than it was in March. We're really backlogged," Swasey said.
NOTIFIES SUBSCRIBERS
Netflix sent e-mails to people who were due to receive discs and were unable to get them.
The e-mail included the following: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement."
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Quick news and notes.
* Today is the last day you can vote in the current Pretty Boy Poll Labels: /b/, anime, dragoncon, Elf, international news, internets, later skater, pixiesticks, Russia, sports news, trap, yaoi
* Related perhaps, please keep the *chan conversations off the tagboard. I don't want to gain notoriety with those folks. It would only end poorly for my sites, I'm sure.
* Boku No Sexual Harassment OAV 3 is now available over on shotalicious.org
* Any donations you'd like to make to help me get to DragonCon and/or Anime Weekend Atlanta this year would be much appreciated. Buying a book gets you a book and me 4 bucks so maybe it's time to finally get your copy?
* Stupid sexy Randy Orton got into a motorcycle accident just after he was cleared medically to return to the WWE and now is out -another- 3-6 months. Damn you Orton!
* I really thought the Opening Ceremony for Beijing's Olympics were the most beautiful thing ever televised.
* In Soviet Russia, Georgia will become part of you. (By force if necessary, apparently.)
* Happy (belated) Birthday Elf.
* Over on the secret Pico x Chico x Coco Hype site, the AMV for Boku No Pico has been fixed to where it now includes sound. Yeah, it kinda helps to have sound in an anime MUSIC video.
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Freedom of speech meet the obscenity law.
A western Pennsylvania woman with a fondness for author Edgar Allan Poe said in court papers that she found solace from memories of a tormented childhood by writing her own dark tales of children being kidnapped, raped and tortured. Labels: crime drama, internets, loli, shota
Karen Fletcher, 56, of Donora pleaded guilty Thursday to six counts of transmission of obscene matters for sharing those stories with others over the Internet.
U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti sentenced Fletcher to five years' probation with six months' house arrest, and fined her $1,000.
"If anyone would have read the story and acted on it, a child could have experienced devastation -- that you're well aware -- they would live with for the rest of their life," Conti said.
Fletcher, who suffers severe panic attacks from agoraphobia, apologized for the ordeal caused by her Web site and its content.
"I never meant for anything like this to happen, I'm sorry," said Fletcher, who charged $10 a month to control who had access to the site and to keep children from reading the stories. "This was never my intention."
Fletcher's case was unusual in that it was the first brought in decades -- and the first ever in Western Pennsylvania -- in which the charges stemmed from text only, with no images or photographs. She was indicted in September 2006 and fought the charges on free speech grounds until prosecutors agreed not to seek jail time.
She faced up to five years in prison.
"It's hard to swallow an obscenity case based on words," said First Amendment lawyer Warner Mariani, who represented Fletcher. "But this wasn't the case to push. How many defendants do you see walk out of federal court on probation?"
Though he asked for leniency, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman said this case was important.
"The government views this as a serious case," Kaufman said. "Words have power."
Fletcher's stories included details of the kidnapping and molestation of 2-year-old "Mina" and "Katie," 6, who was kidnapped, raped and tortured. Other stories featured young girls as sex slaves whose torment sometimes ended in murder.
In a sworn statement filed last year, Fletcher said she has blocked out all but a few memories of her childhood growing up in Michigan, but that she strongly believes she was sexually and physically abused. She said she ran away from home at age 14 and spent a year on the streets of Pontiac and Detroit before marrying a man who abused her.
Fletcher moved to Donora in 1999, after escaping that relationship, she said.
A recluse who lives on disability, Fletcher said she discovered that writing fictitious stories helped her cope with the sense of dread she felt. Later she found sharing these stories online brought support from people who were "damaged like me."
Fletcher said she has always feared monsters, and created even worse ones in her stories as a form of self-therapy.
"I have tried to turn things around and write positive things, but I have no confidence in the concept of good overcoming evil," Fletcher wrote. "I can unmask the horror of the monster, but I still cannot save the victims. But, leaving only the fictional victims as the helpless ones frees me.
"I may still be afraid of the monsters, but at least in the stories they prey on someone else, not me."
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Stuck with a Q and a Z.
Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the word game's North American rights, sued the creators of the Scrabulous program on Thursday, less than two weeks after the release of an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook. Labels: court drama, facebook, internets, video games
Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game.
In the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write Web programs that Facebook members can plug into their personal profile pages, Scrabulous has attracted some half-million daily users, despite efforts by Scrabble's owners to end it.
Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. released an official version for American and Canadian Facebook users last week as part of a broader, year-old licensing deal with Hasbro, yet Facebook users have continued to spend countless hours on the unauthorized Scrabulous.
Now, Hasbro is trying to stop Scrabulous completely and collect unspecified damages.
Mark Blecher, general manager for digital media and gaming at Hasbro, said the Pawtucket, R.I.-based company waited until Thursday to file a lawsuit to ensure that Scrabble fans had a legal option first.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, named as defendants Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the brothers in Calcutta, India, who created the program, along with their Web design and technology company, RJ Softwares.
The Agarwallas did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment made after business hours in India. A 24-hour number for RJ Softwares went unanswered Thursday.
Facebook, which was not named as a defendant, refused to immediately block the application, pending a response from Scrabulous' creators.
"Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement," the company said in a statement. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute."
By waiting, Facebook risks losing immunity protection from copyright lawsuits. Under federal law, service providers are generally exempt for their users' actions — at least until they become aware of a specific infringement.
Earlier, Jayant Agarwalla said he was looking forward to competing with the official version, suggesting that Electronic Arts would have a tough time attracting "the attention and patronage of a large and dedicated user base," as Scrabulous has done.
Blecher said that rather than blame Hasbro for trying to block a popular game, "the fans of Scrabble will appreciate an authentic version."
Both games are free.
Mattel Inc. owns Scrabble rights outside the United States and Canada and did not join the lawsuit. It has a deal with RealNetworks Inc. to make a legal version available in other markets.
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POOL'S CLOSED -- DUE TO AIDS
Labels: /b/, crime drama, internets, racial news, you tube
(San Antonio) A New Braunfels woman is outraged over what she considers a racist attempt to intimidate her grandchildren from using her subdivision's swimming pool.
Mary Alice Altorfer is hosting a visit from her two grandchildren, whose father is African American. The children swam at the River Tree subdivision pool every day for about a week before someone posted a flier on the pool gate bearing a picture of a black man with a large afro haircut, his arms folded across his chest and the words “POOL'S CLOSED” superimposed.
“I didn't even get the implication at first — then it hit me like a club,” Altorfer said. “I was furious. These are two little kids, and it just makes me angry. I was shocked and angry and hurt.”
Altorfer said only one black couple lives in the subdivision of 172 homes, which average about $200,000 in value, and they never use the pool. She added that the only African Americans who have used the pool in recent weeks are her 6-year-old granddaughter Isabel Martinez and 9-year-old grandson Nicholas Martinez.
“I guess whoever put that up probably didn't like our color,” Nicholas said. “It made me kind of upset.”
Altorfer filed a police report Monday afternoon. She said the officer who took the report was unsure what laws the posting of the flier violated but promised to research it. The officer could not be reached for comment.
Mel Soderberg, a member of the River Tree homeowners' association board of directors, said he got a call asking if the pool really was closed after another resident found the flier on the gate to the pool area.
He removed it and later showed it to Altorfer.
Soderberg said it quickly occurred to his wife that the flier was aimed at Altorfer's grandkids, who are visiting from California.
“It was upsetting for both of us,” he said. “I'm sorry it happened, and I hope they catch whoever did it.”
Nicholas and Isabel said the attempt to intimidate them did not work. They were back in the pool Monday afternoon.
“They're not keeping us out of the pool,” Altorfer said. “This granny got mad.”
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Man spamming AOL bad. AOL spamming us with their discs is AOK.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday for sending spam e-mails to more than 1.2 million subscribers of America Online in a scheme that foiled the Internet company's spam-filtering system. Labels: crime drama, internets, new york city
Adam Vitale, 27, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan after pleading guilty more than a year ago to breaking anti-spam laws. He was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL in restitution.
Vitale was caught making a deal with a government informant to send junk e-mails -- known as spam -- that advertised a computer security program in return for 50 percent of the product's profits, prosecutors said.
"Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging in child's play," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin told Vitale as he sentenced him. Vitale earlier apologized and said he had learned a lesson.
Prosecutors said Vitale had 22 prior convictions and had also helped run an online prostitution ring on the Web site www.craigslist.com, but he has not been criminally charged.
In the spam e-mail case, Vitale and another man, Todd Moeller, defeated AOL's filter system by using several different computer servers to relay the e-mails and changed the e-mail header information to ensure the spam e-mails could not be traced back to them.
Moeller, of New Jersey, was sentenced last November to 27 months for his role in the scheme.
Court papers said that in less than a week in August 2005, Vitale and Moeller sent e-mails on behalf of the informant to more than 1,277,000 addresses of subscribers at AOL, the online division of Time Warner Inc.
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A little fight in ya.
I like that. Labels: epic, internets, movies, pixiesticks
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Dumb homophobes change athelete Gay to "homosexual"
And it's really really funny. I mean, that pretty much is the sheer definition of dumbassness when they have this wordfilter like this. Labels: internets, religious news, sports news
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Is that shota?
Hollywood actor Verne Troyer, who starred as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers films, is suing a website over a video of him having sex with a model. Labels: celebrity non news, court drama, harry potter, internets, movies, sex, shota
The star, who stands 2ft 8 ins tall, has filed a $20 million lawsuit claiming invasion of privacy and breach of copyright.
He says the tape was stolen and has since ended up in the hands of the same film producer who distributed a notorious sex tape of hotel heiress Paris Hilton.
Mr Troyer, 39, is the latest in a long line of Hollywood celebrities to have their sex lives aired on the internet.
He made the tape with a former girlfriend, an American model in her 20s.
Mr Troyer filed his lawsuit at a court in Los Angeles and also requested and injunction banning further distribution of the film.
The actor, who is Hollywood's smallest star and also a stunt man, was married briefly in 2004 to a yoga teacher.
The following year he appeared on a US reality television show where he got drunk and urinated in the corner of a gym while riding naked on a scooter.
His most famous film role has been as Mini-Me, a miniature clone of Dr Evil, played by Mike Myers, in the Austin Powers films.
He appears in the second and third films of the trilogy - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember.
The actor also starred as Griphook the Goblin in the film of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
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You know how I know at least 1,029,255 of you are gay?
Don't count out CD sales just yet. Labels: internets, music news
While record stores may be shuttering at an alarming clip, and overall tallies for albums are down another 10% this year, breaking sales figures show the industry on a desperately needed upswing.
At least for the moment.
Last week, Lil Wayne's latest album, "Tha Carter III," moved one million copies, the highest tally for an opening CD week in over three years. That figure handily trounced the biggest debut week of 2007, Kayne West's "Graduation" CD, which pushed just over 950,000.
Now comes more encouraging news. Coldplay's new CD, "Viva La Vida," moved 729,255 copies in its first seven day cycle, according to Hitsdailydouble.com.
Official figures won't be published by Nielsen/SoundScan until June 25th.
Meanwhile, Coldplay also beat an iTunes record. "Viva" inspired over 300,000 full album downloads via that service, more than doubling the figure racked up by the previous one-week itunes download champ, Jack Johnson, who pushed 140,000 in the initial drop of his latest CD.
All this may hardly be enough to save the industry. But it shows that, even in the age of "free music," fans will shell out for the product they want.
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RickRoll with a steel chair!
Labels: internets, television, you tube
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Japanese kids loev their cell phones.
TOKYO - Japanese youngsters are getting so addicted to Internet-linking cell phones that the government is starting a program warning parents and schools to limit their use among children. Labels: crime drama, health news, internets, Japan, loli, shota, technology news, youth news
The government is worried about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyberspace crimes, spending long hours exchanging mobile e-mail and suffering other negative effects of cell phone overuse, Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the initiative, said Tuesday.
"Japanese parents are giving cell phones to their children without giving it enough thought," he said. "In Japan, cell phones have become an expensive toy."
The recommendations have been submitted from an education reform panel to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's administration, and were approved this week.
The panel is also asking Japanese makers to develop cell phones with only the talking function, and GPS, or global positioning system, a satellite-navigation feature that can help ensure a child's safety.
About a third of Japanese sixth graders have cell phones, while 60 percent of ninth graders have them, according to the education ministry.
Most mobile phones in Japan are sophisticated gadgets offering high-speed Internet access called 3G, for "third-generation."
But the panel said better filtering programming is needed for Internet access to protect children.
Some youngsters are spending hours at night on e-mail with their friends. One fad is "the 30 minute rule," in which a child who doesn't respond to e-mail within half an hour gets targeted and picked on by other schoolmates.
Other youngsters have become victims of Internet crimes. In one case, children sent in their own snapshots to a Web site and then ended up getting threatened for money, Kuba said.
Cell phones tend to be more personal tools than personal computers. Parents find that what their children are doing with them are increasingly difficult to monitor, Kuba said.
Some Japanese children commute long distances by trains and buses to schools and cram-schools and parents rely on cell phones to keep in touch with their children.
Parents typically pay about 4,000 yen ($39) a month for cell phone fees per child.
Japan boasts a relatively low crime rate compared to other industrialized nations, but some people are concerned that the Internet could be exploited for serious crimes.
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Their quiz is quite a bit... off.
You are a Flaming Uke!
One of the easiest uke to recognize by sight. Your flamboyantly gay behavior makes it easy for seme to prey upon you, and that is exactly what you want, and you usually have a few tricks up your sleeve as well. You most often have colored hair, designer clothes, and eyes that are constantly roaming, searching for the perfect partner. You are best paired with the Chibi Seme, who will rise to your challenge with their mischievous nature.
Most compatible with: Chibi Seme
Least compatible with: Sadistic Seme, Opportunist Seme
What seme or uke are you? Take the experience at SemeUke.com, or find merchandise here.
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Technical problems knock out Netflix all day.
LOS GATOS, Calif. - Online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc. is suffering a technology breakdown that's knocked out its Web site, inconveniencing its 7.5 million subscribers.
The outage could mean some customers will have to wait longer than usual for their next rentals.
Company spokesman Steve Swasey says the trouble blocked access to Netflix's Web site about 7 a.m. PDT Monday. The site was still down in the afternoon. (Ed note: The service resumed at around 9:00pmEDT)
Swasey says DVDs that normally would have been mailed Monday may not go out until Tuesday because the problem also has hobbled some Netflix distribution centers.
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American Living Shotalicious Ads!!
This past Sunday during the Oscars™, J.C. Penny's American Living brand put out 4 commercials. Two of which feature shota in heavy sugary sweet amounts. Labels: internets, loli, shota, television
You can watch the commercials by going to their website, here, and clicking "Watch The Commercials" at the bottom.
The second one and the fourth one are the most shota inclusive, with the last one particularly Calvin Kline blushworthy as several boys and a girl appreciate their love for both nature and all piling in a bed together. It's saccharine sugary goodness to be sure.
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Isn't pr0n located 3 clicks away from any website?
In the goofiest waste of law enforcement time we've seen in weeks, an on-campus police officer for a Florida middle school is facing a criminal investigation over his MySpace account. Why? It turns out one of the people on his friends list had a link on his or her profile to an internet porn site. Labels: court drama, internets, porn, school news
Or, as the St. Peterburg Times puts it, "kids could navigate from Officer John's page on the social networking site to 'Amateur Match Free Sex' in just three clicks."
You're reading correctly. Gulf Middle School resource officer John Nohejl didn't have porn on his MySpace profile, and he didn't link to porn. But one of the 170-odd people on his friends list, which seems mostly populated by students at his school, had a link to a legal adult site. Now the New Port Richey Police Department and the Florida attorney general's elite cyber crimes unit are investigating him for making adult content available to underage children.
Nohejl set up his MySpace account late last year with the school's and the police department's support, in a laudable bid to communicate with students where they live.
Presumably, he was expected to check all of his friends' profiles every day for inappropriate links -- because a school cop has nothing better to do.
Lauren Weinstein of People for Internet Responsibility correctly calls the investigation a "witch hunt," and points out that the school itself can be accused of the same crime, if we're now holding people responsible for content three clicks away.
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LOL. Scientology.
An anonymous group of hackers, fittingly known as "Anonymous," has declared war on the Church of Scientology. Labels: /b/, internets, religious news
In a video posted on YouTube on Monday, the group appears to be upset over the way the church tried to eliminate a video of Tom Cruise from the Internet.
"We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the church of scientology in its present form," says the video's narrator. "We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."
The Cruise video in question made headlines last week after copies continued to surface on the Net. In the video, Cruise praises Scientology's virtues and speaks in great detail about the religion. He discusses his faith while the soundtrack to his "Mission: Impossible" films plays in the background.
In the video, which was made in 2004, Cruise said, "There is nothing better than ... going out there and fighting the fight and, suddenly you see, things are better."
Editors at celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com said that the video was posted Monday on YouTube.com but quickly removed. Since then, more copies have surfaced.
The "Anonymous" video claims the attack is for the good of mankind.
"Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed, for the good of your followers, for the good of mankind and for our own enjoyment," says the video's narrator.
The church said the video was an internal production and meant for members of Scientology.
A Web site set up for the project directs members to download denial of service software that bombards Scientology.org with fake requests, slowing it down.
The site also urges members to make prank calls, publicize Scientology documents the church considers proprietary and fax endless loops of black pages to the church's fax machines to waste ink.
This is not the first time the Church of Scientology has dealt with a denial of service campaign. ReligiousFreedomWatch.org once offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to prior threats.
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China continues attempts at purging cyberspace.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China shut down 44,000 Web sites and homepages and arrested 868 people last year in a campaign against Internet porn which will continue until the end of this year's Beijing Olympics, Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. Labels: China, internets, porn
China launched a crackdown on online pornography and "unhealthy" Web content after Chinese President Hu Jintao said the country's sprawling Internet posed a threat to social stability.
Rights groups have said the campaign has been used as a thinly veiled pretext to crack down on dissent and round up online dissidents ahead of the Olympics.
Xinhua said authorities had also investigated 524 criminal cases involving online porn and "penalized" another 1,911 people.
Some 440,000 "pornographic messages" had also been deleted, the agency said.
China has attempted to stifle online criticism of the ruling Communist Party and discussion related to sensitive topics such as Tibet and Taiwan by ordering Web sites to register with authorities.
Authorities registered 199,000 Web sites last year, Xinhua said, but refused 14,000 for failing to get official registration or to apply for official approval.
China employs tens of thousands of human Internet censors and a vast network of filters to control online information.
The anti-pornography campaign would continue until September, Xinhua said, "after the Beijing Olympic Games end".
China last month said it would crack down on video-sharing Web sites, and allow only state-controlled sites to post video content online in new restrictions effective from January 31.
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Free Sex. Oh just one catch...
A Prague brothel has introduced for the first time "reality porn" after unveiling a business model which is making the owners a profitable return. Labels: breeder news, international news, internets, sex
Anyone can go into the smartly-named "Big Sister" brothel and have sex for free, against one condition... they have to be taped.
Clients enter the brothel and choose which woman they'd like, varying from Asians to redheads, from a touchscreen menu.
The idea is to have clients have free sex and do what they please with the women, taping everything and upload the videos on the internet, which will then be viewed by members-only users who pay monthly fees for access.
Bloomberg news agency interviewed one of the customers of the Prague brothel, 36 year old bank-security technician 'Nick'.
He told Bloomberg he drove for over eight hours to enjoy the 'priceless' fun.
"Sex is no taboo,'' Nick says, though he asked that his last name not be used. "You have to free your mind.''
The Czech brothel is simply marrying the latest internet technology with what many view as the oldest profession.
The owners of the business say the innovative idea is becoming more and more popular.
"Our goal is to attract as many people as possible to catch the first reality sex TV,'' says marketing manager Carl Borowitz, who goes by the name Carlos. "This is National Geographic for adults. Everyone's curious to watch their neighbor.''
Visitors to Big Sister start at the electronic menu, which provides each woman's age, height, working name and the languages she speaks. After a customer makes his selection, a manager makes sure the client signs broadcast release forms, and then the intimate details are arranged with the partner for the evening, Bloomberg reported.
Every move is recorded by more than 50 video cameras mounted everywhere from the toilets to the bed posts.
"It does seem people like all extremes of reality TV,'' says Paul Levinson, chairman of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York, who wasn't aware of Big Sister.
"As media gets more advanced it gets more real. As much as high-definition has replaced black-and-white, this advancement has also been seen in terms of content.''
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Netflix offfers even moar instant gratification in effort to fight off Apple newcomer.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Girding for a potential threat from Apple Inc., online DVD rental service Netflix Inc. is lifting its limits on how long most subscribers can watch movies and television shows over high-speed Internet connections. Labels: internets, movies, television
The Associated Press has learned the change will become effective Monday, on the eve of Apple's widely anticipated move into the movie rental industry. Although Apple hasn't confirmed anything yet, Chief Executive Steve Jobs is expected to make it official during a presentation Tuesday in San Francisco.
Netflix is gearing up for the increased competition by expanding a year-old feature that streams movies over the Internet instead of making customers wait for their online rental requests to be delivered through the mail.
Until now, Netflix restricted how long its more than 7 million subscribers could use the streaming service each month, based on how much they pay to rent DVDs.
For instance, under a popular plan that charges $16.99 per month to rent up to three DVDs at a time, Netflix customers could watch as many as 17 hours of entertainment each month on the streaming service, dubbed "Watch Instantly."
With Monday's change, virtually all Netflix subscribers will be able to stream as many movies and TV shows as they want from a library containing more than 6,000 titles. There will be no additional charge for the unlimited access.
Only the small portion of Netflix customers who pay $4.99 to rent up to two DVDs per month won't be provided unlimited access to the streaming service.
The unlimited streaming option figures to become more enticing later this year when LG Electronics Inc. will begin selling a set-top box that will deliver the content to TVs.
Removing the time constraints on its streamed entertainment could give Netflix an advantage over Apple's movie rental service. Apple will charge $3.99 for movies that can be downloaded and played for up to 24 hours, according to media reports citing people familiar with the company's rental plans.
Letting subscribers stream as much as they want could erode Netflix's profits because the Los Gatos-based company isn't raising its monthly rates even though its expenses may rise if increased usage drives up the licensing fees owed to studios.
Providing unlimited streaming access "fits within the parameters of our overall financial goals," Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said. The impact of the change will likely be addressed when Netflix discusses its fourth-quarter earnings in a call scheduled for Jan. 23. The company had earned $51 million on revenue of $903 million through the first nine months of 2007.
With more than 90,000 titles available in its DVD library, delivering movies through the mail is expected to remain Netflix's primary moneymaker for years to come.
Nevertheless, Netflix has spent about $40 million on the development of its streaming service during the past year.
The service still doesn't appeal to many Netflix subscribers because it requires watching the entertainment on a personal computer with a high-speed Internet connection.
Subscribers must also use a computer running the Windows operating system to watch streaming Netflix content, which leaves out most Mac users.
Netflix hasn't specified how much content has been streamed since last summer, when management disclosed that more than 10 million movies and TV episodes had been watched through the service. The company says its streaming service has gained the most traction among younger subscribers more accustomed to watching movies on laptops.
Apple's rental service is expected to offer its customers more flexibility, allowing movies to be viewed on the Cupertino-based company's ubiquitous iPod and iPhone, as well as on computers.
Still, most people seem to prefer watching movies on their big-screen TVs - an issue both Apple and Netflix are trying to address.
Apple last year began selling a $299 device designed to transport video from computers to TVs. LG Electronics hasn't disclosed the price of its Netflix box, which is expected to debut in late summer or early fall.
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What won't the RIAA and MPAA do to try and stop online piracy?
For the past fifteen years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet. Labels: controversial, internets, movies, technology news, television
But ISPs may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop.
At a small panel discussion about digital piracy here at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and telecom giant AT&T said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.
Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox, and on some university networks.
Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider – Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.
“What we are already doing to address piracy hasn’t been working. There’s no secret there,” said James Cicconi, senior vice president, external & legal affairs for AT&T.
Mr. Cicconi said that AT&T has been talking to technology companies, and members of the MPAA and RIAA, for the last six months about implementing digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level.
“We are very interested in a technology based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,” he said. “We recognize we are not there yet but there are a lot of promising technologies. But we are having an open discussion with a number of content companies, including NBC Universal, to try to explore various technologies that are out there.”
Internet civil rights organizations oppose network-level filtering, arguing that it amounts to Big Brother monitoring of free speech, and that such filtering could block the use of material that may fall under fair-use legal provisions — uses like parody, which enrich our culture.
Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, who has led the company’s fights against companies like YouTube for the last three years, clearly doesn’t have much tolerance for that line of thinking.
“The volume of peer-to-peer traffic online, dominated by copyrighted materials, is overwhelming. That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,” he said. “The question is how we collectively collaborate to address this.”
I asked the panelists how they would respond to objections from their customers over network level filtering – for example, the kind of angry outcry Comcast saw last year, when it was accused of clamping down on BitTorrent traffic on its network.
“Whatever we do has to pass muster with consumers and with policy standards. There is going to be a spotlight on it,” said Mr. Cicconi of AT&T.
After the session, he told me that ISPs like AT&T would have to handle such network filtering delicately, and do more than just stop an upload dead in its tracks, or send a legalistic cease and desist form letter to a customer. “We’ve got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.
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Australia to censor the net. WTF Mate?
The Australian Government has announced that they will be joining China as one of the few countries globally that broadly censor the internet. Labels: Austrailia, controversial, internets, sex
The Labor Party’s policy was announced prior to the Australian Election in November and was justified on the basis that the previous Government’s policy of providing free copies of NetNanny to all Australian households who wanted it didn’t adequately protect children.
As recently as the week prior to the election, Labor Party candidates were telling those concerned about the proposed law that the censorship wouldn’t be compulsory, and that the “clean feed” would be opt-in, not opt-out. Today’s announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy states that the censorship regime will be mandatory, although people will be able to opt-out of it. The problem of course then becomes if you opt-out questions will be asked as to why you want out, which in itself may lead to Government monitoring.
To be censored by the Australian Government is “pornography and inappropriate material.” X rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino style internet gambling, certain forms of “hate” speech and R rated computer games. BitTorrent would be a possibility, even if certain downloads for personal use may be legal under Australian law, sharing those downloads would not be. How far “inappropriate material” may extend was not made clear, for example questioning Government policy where it comes to Aboriginal people could be deemed to be discrimination under Australian law and hence blocked by the censorship regime. Worst still, bloggers or those (such as forum owners) who allow users to comment or post could find themselves blocked under this proposal should someone say or post the wrong thing. If there is one certainty in any country that implements broadscale censorship, once they start blocking content it doesn’t stop, and certainly every do-gooder group and special interest lobbyist will be wanting the Government to add to the list.
There is also a potential cost involved to Australian Internet users. The previous Government regularly cited feedback from ISP’s stating that the cost of implementing a “clean feed” would be passed onto internet users, who already pay some of the highest internet access costs in the Western world for on average slow services.
Notably Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was a former Australian Diplomat in China, and speaks fluent Mandarin; given Australia’s boom is fueled by mineral exports to China, it would seem that Australian Government policies are now by China in return. This video from before the election may have foretold some of the future.
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