Uncategorized

Intel chips in with blockchain code for Hyperledger

June 21, 2016By rightstech

The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project has another big name on board: Intel.

The project was announced in December, but got its first serious impetus back in February when IBM slung its blockchain code into the effort. During this month, the project has coalesced further, and is on the prowl for more contributors. A joint proposal between IBM and Digital Assets has now become “Fabric,” an incubator-level project (under active development but not yet production-ready) that the two hope will form the foundation code base of Hyperledger.

Source: Intel chips in with blockchain code for Hyperledger • The Register

Self-proclaimed Australian ‘bitcoin founder’ builds patent blockchain empire

June 21, 2016By rightstech

89538102_craig_wright Craig Wright, the Australian who claims to be the inventor of bitcoin, is attempting to build a large patent portfolio around digital currency and technology underpinning it, according to associates of his and documents reviewed by Reuters.

Since February, Wright has filed more than 50 patent applications in the United Kingdom through Antigua-registered EITC Holdings Ltd, which a source close to the company confirmed was connected to Wright, government records show.

Source: Self-proclaimed Australian ‘bitcoin founder’ builds patent blockchain empire | ZDNet

Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Petition Digital Copyright Reform

June 21, 2016By rightstech

For the last three months, the music industry has been fighting — or at least negotiating in public — with YouTube. Now, artists are adding their voices.

In an ad that will run Tuesday through Thursday in the Washington DC magazines Politico, The Hill, and Roll Call, 180 performers and songwriters are calling for reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which regulates copyright online. A range of big names from every genre signed the ad — from Taylor Swift to Sir Paul McCartney, Vince Gill to Vince Staples, Carole King to the Kings of Leon — as did 19 organizations and companies, including the major labels.

Source: Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Petition Digital Copyright Reform | Billboard

As E-book Sales Decline, Digital Fatigue Grows

June 21, 2016By rightstech

The Codex Group’s April 2016 survey of 4,992 book buyers found that e-book units purchased as a share of total books purchased fell from 35.9% in April 2015 to 32.4% in April 2016.

In light of the April study results, Codex president Peter Hildick-Smith believes that the book industry’s experience with digital sales differs from that of music and video because of two factors. First, electronic devices are optional for reading books (unlike for listening to music or watching video), and the current range of e-book reading devices—including smartphones, tablets, and dedicated e-readers—has not delivered the quality long-form reading experience needed to supplant print, even with e-books’ major price and convenience advantages. Second, Hildick-Smith said, a new consumer phenomenon, “digital fatigue,” is beginning to emerge.

Source: As E-book Sales Decline, Digital Fatigue Grows

Breaking: “Pause Ether, DAO Trading”, Ethereum Founder Buterin Tells Exchanges

June 17, 2016By rightstech

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has asked digital currency exchanges to “pause” ether and DAO activity following a hack of the DAO smart contract address.

The ongoing hack and possible theft, deemed as an “attack” on the DAO by Vitalik Buterin, has the co-founder of Ethereum issue a plea seeking digital currency exchanges to pause ether (ETH) and DAO transactions.

Source: Breaking: “Pause Ether, DAO Trading”, Ethereum Founder Buterin Tells Exchanges – CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News

Merlin hails 73% rise in streaming revenues for indie labels

June 17, 2016By rightstech

The survey offers a positive picture of the indie market, with 65% of surveyed labels saying their businesses grew in the last year, and 79% saying they are optimistic about their future prospects.

Digital is key to this, as you’d expect: 62% of Merlin’s members say digital is now more than 50% of their revenues – for a third, it’s over 75% – with 39% of labels saying that more than half of their digital income came from outside their home market.

Source: Merlin hails 73% rise in streaming revenues for indie labels

NCTA Pitches ‘Ditch the Box’ Set-Top Proposal

June 17, 2016By rightstech

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association and other parties opposed to the FCC’s “unlock the box” set-top proposal are pitching a compromise “ditch the box” (#ditchthebox) alternative they say “combines enforceable obligations and open standards, which are centerpieces of the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, with the market-driven apps solutions preferred by critics of the FCC’s proposed mandate.”

They said after talks with ISPS about how to achieve the FCC end of a competitive market, they hit on an alternative based on enforcing an industry-wide commitment–“binding, enforceable obligations” to “develop and deploy video ‘apps’ that all large MVPDs would build to open HTML5 web standards,” which they say would benefit consumers and commercial rights.

Source: NCTA Pitches ‘Ditch the Box’ Set-Top Proposal | Multichannel

The Uncanny Mind That Built Ethereum

June 16, 2016By rightstech

Over the last two years, as Ethereum has evolved from concept to code, so too has the mystery surrounding Buterin. The resounding chorus of the people working on Ethereum is that he is to be admired and adored, and they are more than willing to contribute to Buterin’s colorful, often hilarious hagiography. I’ve been told by various people that Buterin learned to speak fluent Mandarin in just a few months, that he’s an autistic wunderkind, that all of his worldly possessions fit into one suitcase, that he once ate an entire lemon without removing the rind, that he’s an android powered by the Ethereum network.

Even those who have worked closely with Buterin seem mystified by him, as though this person is meant to be observed but not really understood.

Source: The Uncanny Mind That Built Ethereum — Backchannel

Twitter invests $70m in SoundCloud two years after walking away from $1bn deal

June 15, 2016By rightstech

There’s no inklings on what the new investment will be used for, but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed the news, saying: “Earlier this year we made an investment in SoundCloud through Twitter Ventures to help support some of our efforts with creators.”

The two companies have worked together on streaming Audio Cards, which allows users discover and listen to audio directly within their Twitter timelines.

Source: Twitter invests $70m in SoundCloud two years after walking away from $1bn deal – Music Business Worldwide

In Open Music Initiative, a Possible Rights-Tech Blueprint

June 14, 2016By rightstech

headshot-final-200x300 With this week’s announcement of the Open Music Initiative (OMI), the music industry is once again embarking on an effort to solve a problem that has long-vexed the business, but particularly since the rise of streaming services: the lack of a shared, secure and trusted way of knowing who owns what and what they’re owed for the use of their music.

Spearheaded by the Berklee College of Music’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE), along with the MIT Media Lab, brings together a wide range of music industry stakeholders, including the major record companies, music publishers, streaming services, rights organizations, artists representatives and technology developers, among others, to develop a technical framework for data exchange that will enable interoperability of systems and services throughout the music rights ecosystem.

“It’s not a secret that the infrastructure of the music industry, especially the one around creative rights, has not evolved to accommodate for the ways that music is being created and consumed today,” BerkleeICE founding managing director Panos Panay said in a statement. “We want to use the brainpower, neutrality and convening ability of our collective academic institutions, along with broad industry collaboration, to create a shared digital architecture for the modern music business. We believe an open sourced platform around creative rights can yield an innovation dividend for creators and rights holders alike.”

Another key objective of OMI is to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that have sank previous industry efforts to establish a standardized rights-management infrastructure, such as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) and the Global Repertoire Database (GRD).

“There are a couple of words that a verboten around here,” Context Labs CEO and Berklee Trustee Dan Harple told RightsTech.com. “One of them is ‘database.’ We are not building a database. A ledger is not a database. There may be databases that interoperate with OMI, but we’re not building a database.”