Sky Italia says Current isn’t being singled out – it is requesting that all channels whose deals are up for renewal settle for lower fees, its chief executive said, as he rejected claims that Sky had dropped Current TV for political reasons. “Every deal we are going into, we are trying to cut rates. The […]
Interoperability standards group the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has released new Interoperability Guidelines for the playback of high-quality, premium commercial video. The new standard addresses the increasing demand for simplified access to premium commercial content throughout the home, including movies and network television programming. Developed in conjunction with global cable, satellite and telecommunications service […]
The National Association of Broadcasters has come out in support of legislation aimed specifically at controlling ‘pirate’ and ‘rogue’ websites, especially those registered outside the US, which traffic in unauthorised distribution of licensed content or counterfeit goods. The legislation from Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and his committee would allow the Justice Department to file […]
Jeremy Hunt, the UK Culture Secretary, whose Department for Culture, Media, Olympics and Sport is assessing the News Corp bid for the 61 per cent of BSkyB it doesn’t already own, has admitted that the process is taking longer than anticipated to conclude. He told the Broadcasting Press Guild that the Department was going to […]
Former US Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV cable network has claimed Rupert Murdoch’s Italian satellite TV company dropped the network in Italy because it hired liberal politics news anchor Keith Olbermann. News Corp, which controls Sky Italia, has said its dispute with Current Italy had nothing to with politics and is purely about money. […]
Google has moved swiftly to deny comments by its executive chairman (see below) were not a signal it is ready to violate content protection laws it does not agree with. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said in London “if there is a law that requires DNS, to do X and it’s passed by both houses of […]
Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, has said that proposals from the US and British governments to block Internet access to file-sharing websites would endanger freedom of speech and push both countries toward being more like China. “I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems,” […]
Changes to Intellectual Property systems could add up to £7.9 billion to the UK’s economy, the first report looking at how it can drive growth has suggested. The publication of Digital Opportunity follows a six-month independent review of IP and Growth, led by Professor Ian Hargreaves. He was asked to consider how the national and […]
Sergey Sitnikov, head of Russia’s media regulator (Roskomnadzor), says new “universal” ten year TV (and radio and Internet) licences will be issued later this year or early in 2012, states Russia’s Interfax in a report carried by BBC Monitoring. “Universal licences will start being granted as soon as changes are made to legislation on the […]
Appeals by Playboy TV that two of its websites don’t fall within the scope of ATVOD regulation, have been rejected by Ofcom. This means the two video-on-demand websites must comply with new ATVOD enforced rules designed to protect children from video material which might cause them serious harm. The new rules do not apply if […]