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The movie industry received a blow in its billion-dollar battle to protect copyrighted information from being posted on the internet. A week after imposing an emergency stay preventing a former web site owner from posting DVD decryption programs, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reversed herself and lifted the stay Friday. A software licensing group that works with film studios had appealed a lower court’s ruling after an initial ban was overturned. The webmaster, Matthew Pavlovich, says he actually has no intention of reposting the instructions, which explain how to copy DVDs for free. The information was posted on his site by another user in 1999. Pavlovich’s attorney argued that the information is available at many other places on the web and has also been reprinted in newspapers and magazines. The DVD Copy Control Association first filed suit in California. After winning that round, the association lost on appeal when the court found that since Pavlovich was an Indiana college student at the time, he couldn’t be accused in a California court. It’s unclear whether the Supreme Court will continue to consider the case.
IRS encourages taxpayers to file online
Aiming for a less taxing annual experience for confused citizens and fewer errors to sort through, the Internal Revenue Service has launched a broad campaign to encourage taxpayers to file over the internet instead of using paper forms. The agency will mail nearly 40 million tax form packages and an additional 25 million brochures aimed at those most likely to do their taxes via computer. It’s the first year that filers can do just about everything online at the www.irs.gov site, and the government wants to make sure its audience is aware of it. About 132 million returns will be filed this year, 54 million of them electronically. The IRS says that e-filing saves time, because it cuts down on taxpayer preparation errors. Paper returns have a 20 percent error rate, while electronic ones have a 1 percent rate. To boost citizen interest, the IRS has teamed with a group of tax software companies to offer free preparation to at least 60 percent of individual taxpayers filing via the IRS site. That would make about 78 million taxpayers eligible, although the IRS doesn’t expect to hit that number. Fewer than 50 million filed electronically in 2002, and only 9.4 million of those were self-prepared. Just 6.8 million self-prepared returns were e-filed in 2001.
WSJ Online rejects CBS MarketWatch ad
Apparently the Wall Street Journal Online only has a sense of humor when it’s the one doing the teasing. WSJ.com has reportedly rejected an ad crafted in response to its December campaign that questioned the reliability of free news sites. Ads from that campaign ran on a number of free sites including CBS MarketWatch, which subsequently tried to place an ad with the Journal Online reading “Where does The Wall Street Journal advertise – when they need to reach the online business audience?” Wsj.com turned down the ad, and shortly thereafter tried to yank its own from CBS Marketwatch, according to a New York Times report. The ad still had five weeks left, though, so it will remain on the site until Jan. 19. WSJ parent company Dow Jones didn’t comment on MarketWatch's attempted ad buy, but did say that the campaign dissing free sites hadn’t had the hoped for impact. The rejected ad will still run in Advertising Age.
Revealed: Sponsor of Xbox-cracking contest
The mysterious backer of a crack-the-Xbox-code contest has been unmasked. In an interview with CNET News.com Thursday, Lindows.com chief executive (and Microsoft competitor) Michael Robertson confessed to offering a $200,000 reward to anyone who could hack the Xbox console and fix it so that it would run on Linux, a competitor to Microsoft’s Windows operating system. No one has yet succeeded, so Robertson has pushed back the deadline. Linux is a freely distributed system developed as an answer of sorts to the market-dominant Windows, which runs on more than 90 percent of all PCs. Lindows.com exists for the sole purpose of promoting Linux, and don’t think Microsoft hasn’t gotten a little touchy about it. The Redmond, Wash.-based company has accused Lindows (rhymes with Windows) of trademark infringement. Robertson’s group has filed suit to get the Microsoft Windows trademark nullified. The CEO nonetheless insists that the hack-for-pay Xbox gambit isn’t a publicity stunt, telling CNET that Xbox’s software “sets a dangerous precedent.”
By Job, Steve's autograph proves pricey
You might guess that a Michael Jordan autograph would easily fetch more than a Steve Jobs one if both went up for sale on eBay. Oddly, you’d be wrong. An auction for a copy of the premiere issue of MacWorld magazine signed by Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, drew bids of more than $800 over the weekend. That’s comparable to eBay items sold with signatures of George Washington and John D. Rockefeller, and more than a Jordan-signed trading card now on sale. Of course, the magazine itself is a collector’s item as well. That’s certainly the case for a few other similarly priced autographed items currently for sale on the site --- a Kobe Bryant L.A. Lakers jersey ($799), a Jefferson Davis letter ($862.50) and a Carrie Fisher “Star Wars” trading card ($810). The Jobs auction expires today.
January 6, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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