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Jerry Scroggin, the owner of a Louisiana Internet Service Provider, says he’s skeptical of a service that proposes to pay ISPs to police their networks for pirated music and movies. I wrote about Scroggin last month following the music industry’s announcement that it would scale back a longtime strategy of suing individuals suspected of music piracy, and instead enlist the help of ISPs to thwart copyright violations. Scroggin argued that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) should help pay the costs incurred when they ask ISPs to chase down suspected music pirates. Days after the story was published, antipiracy firm Nexicon contacted Scroggin about a plan to share money collected from accused file sharers with ISPs. In theory at least, paying ISPs could sway the balance of power in copyright enforcement. Up to now, ISPs have shied away from helping content creators protect intellectual property. There hasn’t been much to motivate them, said Scroggins. Film studios and the major music labels frequently ask ISPs to crack down on copyright violators. They expect this done free of charge, Scroggin said. Under the RIAA’s new plan, ISPs would also be asked to suspend the accounts of chronic offenders. That means an ISP might be forced to wave bye-bye to paying customers without receiving any compensation. If ISPs could somehow be compensated, it might encourage them to become copyright enforcers. The RIAA has said it wants ISPs to do nothing more than honor their own user agreements, which have long prohibited illegal acts, such as unauthorized file sharing. On Thursday, I talked to Kyle Reed, the Nexicon sales associate who contacted Scroggin. He confirmed for me that Nexicon claims it can help ISPs automate and reduce the costs of chasing down file sharers, cut down on false positives and will share revenue collected from suspected copyright violators with ISPs. He said previous antipiracy services have alienated ISPs and Nexicon wishes to avoid that. Nexicon offers a variety of antipiracy services. One offering tracks those people who infringe on intellectual property and sends take-down notices to their ISPs. Reed said the company has the ability to distribute 95 million of these notices per day. That could prove helpful, according to Reed because the company plans to announce more customers soon. As of right now, Reed said Nexicon has only disclosed the name of one customer of this service: the family of rocker Frank Zappa. As part of Nexicon’s “Get Amnesty” service, the company tries to obtain fees from those it claims are guilty of violating copyright law. Nexicon sends e-mails to those accused notifying them that they must “settle” with the copyright owners, which typically means paying a fee. “After opening the email, the infringer clicks a link to visit GetAmnesty.com, where they can settle their infringement to avoid legal action and receive a legal release from the copyright owner,” according to a statement on the company’s site. Nexicon then offers to help ISPs manage the take-down notices they receive from, well, Nexicon and competitors. The company’s Envoy system uses a combination of automated and human systems to flag copyright violations and send take-down notices–saving ISPs time and money, Reed said. He added that the system is less likely to accuse someone by mistake. “The user is presented in real-time a complete inventory of infringements processed by Nexicon on behalf of its copyright owner clients,” the company wrote on its site. Scroggin said he hasn’t heard Nexicon’s entire pitch but wasn’t impressed with the overall approach. “I would still wind up losing customers,” Scroggin said. “I would also have to pay Nexicon for this…I have to survive in this economy but I don’t have the big marketing dollars that bigger ISPs have. I have to fund 401(K)s and find ways not to lay off people. Giving free reign to the RIAA is not part of my business model.” »

Chandrayaan gave full pic of Moon

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair today said the successful of Chandrayan-1 mission has enabled the scientific community in the country to get a complete picture of the moon’s surface and that too to an extent of five metre resolution.

“Though several moon missions were there in the past, no mission had provided pictures and data about the entire surface of the moon. However, Chandrayan-1 is the first mission which will give data on the entire surface,” Nair said.

“It is also sending pictures of moon’s surface to the extent of five metre resolution, which no other country is currently getting. Even the US is not getting that quality of picture of Moon,” Nair said.

Nair said even the US, the leading country in the field of space science research, is getting pictures of moon’s surface in 100 metre resolution.

At a talk on ‘Indian Space Programme’ the ISRO chief said, the pictures sent by the mission would help India exploring the Moon’s surface in a better way and identify minerals on the surface.

“In last two months Chandrayan-1 has sent more than 40,000 images to the base station,” Nair said.

Nair said the Indian Space agency would be able to complete manned moon mission by 2015 AD and added that the transponder capacity would be increased to 500 by the end of 11th Plan period. At present ISRO is operating 211 transponders.

’Indian on Moon by 2020’

The ISRO proposed to undertake the country’s first manned Moon mission by 2020 following the success of Chandrayaan-I, project director of Chandrayaan-I M Annadurai has said.

The successful launch of Chandrayaan-I in October last year has given space scientists the confidence to undertake manned mission to moon, Annadurai told reporters here yesterday.

The Chandrayaan-II mission is expected to be undertaken within a couple of years followed by Chandrayaan-III, he said.

Several countries have approached India to set up a common lunar research centre for conducting various studies, the director added.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 12:05 am and is filed under Science And Mathematics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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