Canadian songwriters want to share their music
The Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) have revealed a new proposal that would allow all Canadian citizens to download as much unauthorized music as they please for the low, flat-rate of $5 CAD per month.
The new proposal, which will require federal approval to pass, will add a $5 CAD surcharge to your monthly ISP bill but allow unlimited music downloading from sources of your choice.
“That’s a very reasonable amount of money to legally, without fear of any legal repercussions, to be able to download that and share it with [whomever] you want to and as many times as you want,” said Eddie Schwartz, president of the songwriters’ group. “On iTunes to download one album, it’s $10. This is half of that and this is pretty reasonable to have access to the entire repertoire of Western music.”
The organization plans to meet at Toronto’s Ryerson University to launch the proposal while asking for an immediate amendment to the Canadian Copyright Act. The new right will be called the Right to Equitable Reenumeration for Music File Sharing and would allow the songwriters to collect fees from all Internet subscribers.
The group went on to say that the new proposal would bring the SAC, and the songwriters, composers and lyricists behind it between $500 million and $900 million CAD per year.
Sony to begin buying LCD TV panels from Sharp
Industry sources have said that Sony is planning to begin buying LCD TV panels from its rival Sharp, possibly as soon as April of this year.
Sony is currently running an LCD panel joint venture with Samsung but this latest move should help the company “secure enough panels to meet fast-growing LCD TV demand without heavy capital investments.”
Currently, Samsung and Sony compete for the highest sales in the global LCD TV market, while Sharp lags slightly behind.
Sharp is currently building the world’s largest LCD panel factory and the company hopes to boost its LCD output capacity by 50 percent over the next year.
Lite-on introduces external Blu-ray drive
PLDS, the joint venture between Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions, has announced the DX-4O1S, a new, faster BD-ROM external drive set to hit stores by April.
The player is only a BD-ROM however and will not having burning capabilities. The drive works via a USB connection making Blu-ray playback very simple. The drive can also read DVD+/-R(W) and CD-R(W) media at high read speeds.
“Due to recent market developments we can expect an increasing volume of movies to be released in High Definition on Blu-ray Discs”, says Jelmer Veldman, European marketing manager at PLDS.
“The market adoption of Blu-ray as the optical disc standard for high definition content results in a growing demand for Blu-ray playback solutions. The portable external Lite-On BD-ROM drive allows users to playback their Blu-ray discs on any PC via a USB 2.0 cable,” added the company.
More details on specs and pricing when they become available.
Acer to begin “pushing” Blu-ray in notebooks
Acer, the large notebook manufacturer has announced that it will be “pushing” Blu-ray notebooks beginning in the Q2 of this year.
The company, which had been signed to both Blu-ray and HD DVD, also predicted that the initial boost in Blu-ray sales would be seen in notebooks and not in standalone players.
Scott Lin, president of Acer, said the company’s reasoning for the notebook push was that “most homes do not yet have Full HD (1080p) ready TVs, a notebook with a Blu-ray disc drive and full HD panel will have more advantages over a stand-alone player.”
There are little details known about the specs of the new laptops but there will be a gigantic 18.4-inch screen model as well as a 16 inch model. Both will have 1080p Resolution.
Sony set to introduce Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players
Sony has announced that its first Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players will be debuting this summer.
The BDP-S350 will be Sony’s first new player since the demise of HD DVD last week and will feature an Ethernet port allowing it to connect to a home network. Curiously, the player will not be able to access online Blu-ray content until Sony releases a BD-Live upgrade for the player. The company says the player will retail for about $400 USD. The new BDP-S550 will cost about $100 more but will be BD-Live capable from the get go.
Both players will be the first of Sony’s line to have picture-in-picture (PIP) content although some Panasonic players already have the feature meaning the new players are not the first of their kind.
More interestingly, HD DVD players have had PIP and Internet capabilities since 2006 meaning Blu-ray is still catching up
DualShock 3 finally coming to US PS3s among other new bundles
At its annual retail and publisher conference Sony America has announced that new PlayStation 3 and PSP bundles will be hitting retailers beginning in April.
They company also announced that the wireless DualShock 3 controller will finally be available in North America starting in April for the MSRP of $55 USD.
The first new bundle will include the 80GB model, a DS3 controller and “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” for $499 USD.
In June the company will be releasing a special limited-edition PSP bundle that will include “a copy of the God of War: Chains of Olympus PSP game and a “deep red” coloured PSP handheld with a silk-screened image of Kratos on the back of the unit. The Pack will also include a UMD of the movie Superbad as well as a PSN voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops.” The suggested retail price is $200 USD.
“Working closely with our retail and publishing partners and sharing our hardware and software roadmaps at Destination PlayStation gives us a great opportunity to outline some key milestones for the year,” said SCEA CEO Jack Tretton.
“In response to incredible demand, we will be manufacturing more 80GB PS3s for North America and the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots 80GB PS3 bundle is an ideal way to offer that continued value to our consumers.
“With Blu-ray having won the format war, our stellar software line-up and a broad product portfolio, we will continue to drive the incredible momentum we’ve been generating since last fall,” he added.
YouTube is back in Pakistan
Just 3 days after it blocked access to the popular video sharing site, Pakistani officials have lifted the ban on YouTube, citing that the “anti-Islamic” video clips had been removed.
The so-called “anti-Islamic” clips were trailers for an upcoming movie by the Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilder. The movie allegedly will show Islam as a fascist religion and that has proven to incite violence, especially towards women.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issued notices to all 70 Pakistani ISPs telling them to ban access to the site, but that ban has since been lifted. As the PTA says, the “totally anti-Quranic… very blasphemous” video has been removed despite the fact that other Wilder clips still remain available.
Dreamworks “stuck” with Toshiba, HD DVD
Dreamworks Studios has announced that they are still “locked” into an exclusivity deal with Toshiba to distribute their movies on HD DVD only and would continue to do so until Toshiba tells them differently.
“We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
“As you know, we have been well-compensated for our support. It really is in their court at this point to really declare what the next step will be. We’re poised either way to jump into the marketplace when the conditions are right to do so,” he added.
Katzenberg’s comments seem to imply that all the past rumors were indeed correct and Dreamworks and Paramount were paid over $150 million USD to go HD DVD-exclusive for 18 months. It seems however that Paramount had a different clause in there contract because they recently dropped HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray.
Sony PSP Go!Messenger finally arrives
After it announced in mid-January that Skype would be heading to European PSPs, Sony has confirmed that the wireless communication package Go!Messenger will also hit European PSPs by the end of the week.
The package, jointly developed by Sony and BT lets users “send voice, video and instant messages to other Go!Messenger users from any wireless Internet connection, and will work over wireless Internet - including that provided by the 2,500-plus BT Openzone hotspots around UK city centers.”
The service is free in theory but you will need to purchase the PSP Go!Cam, which is a mic and video camera, if you want to use the package.
“Enabling more than 8.5 Million PSP users across the SCEE region to communicate with each other, through Video or Voice chat, truly confirms the always evolving nature and potential of PSP,” said PSP European marketing manager Stephane Hareau.
Wii dominates consoles in Japan again
According to new data figures from Enterbrain, the ever popular Nintendo Wii has dominated the Japanese console market again, outselling the next closest competitor, the Sony PlayStation 3 by an almost 4-to-1 margin.
As of February 24th, 331,627 Wii units had been sold in Japan, compared to 89,131 PlayStation 3s.
The PS3 has been closing the gap recently but the blockbuster hit “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” eliminated that, at least for the month. The game reached one million units sold in 11 days, and has now sold 1.33 million.
As always, the Microsoft Xbox 360 lagged terribly behind in the region and shows no signs of improvement.
