March 31, 2011 · Posted in
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As part of its commitment to expanding its role as the International Content Protection Association, CDSA has announced new senior-level appointments to its Board of Directors.
Joel Bigley, Senior Vice President Worldwide Operations and Business Execution, Deluxe Digital Studios; and James Dunkelberger, General Manager Worldwide Product Release and Security Services, Microsoft have been named to the CDSA Board. Richard Atkinson, Chief Piracy Specialist & Consultant, Anti-Piracy Worldwide, has been named as a strategic advisor.
“The expansion of our worldwide content protection programs as well as the successful rollout of a new, industry-wide risk management software solution is at the forefront of CDSA’s new suite of anti-piracy and content protection initiatives. With the addition to our Board of Joel Bigley, James Dunkelberger and with the ongoing strategic advice of Richard Atkinson, our industry association is in an even greater position to develop the most relevant, new advancements in collaborative activities for the protection of our industry's most vital assets,” says CDSA Chairman Spencer Mott, CISO of Electronic Arts.
Joel Bigley, apart from his operational responsibilities, provides leadership for quality, performance, and security for all Deluxe Digital Studios (DDS) business entities worldwide. Bigley built the Quality Management System (QMS) and the Security Management System (SMS) at Deluxe Digital Studios, both industry leading programs that have led to worldwide CDSA certifications, industry leading scores on MPAA audits, and success on various other audits by studios and industry organizations.
James Dunkelberger is the General Manager of Microsoft’s worldwide Product Release and Security Services team, which is responsible for many aspects Microsoft’s IP protection strategy. He has worked at Microsoft for the last 15 years and over the last seven years has worked in product security, including physical protection of IP both internal to the company and in the supply chain, anti-counterfeiting technologies and strategies, product quality controls, and product activation investigations.
Richard Atkinson created and ran Disney’s Anti-Piracy Operations team for six years, and was also a technology innovator for famed Walt Disney Imagineering. Prior to Disney, he was Chief Communications Technologist for Northrop Grumman. As a strategic advisor to the board of CDSA, Atkinson plays a lead role in its new Content Protection Work Group Program and serves as Co-Chair of CDSA's annual Entertainment Content Protection Summit, which is co-produced with Variety.
March 31, 2011 · Posted in
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Amazon in Big Push to Clinch Music Deals (The Wall Street Journal)
News Corp.’s Fox tells Time Warner Cable to stop offering its channels on the iPad (Los Angeles Times)
Google to Testify on Piracy before House Subcommittee (CNET)
Report: Three Sony Online Entertainment Studios Close (Joystiq)
‘Wolverine’ Pirate Pleads Guilty to Copyright Infringement (The Hollywood Reporter)
March 31, 2011 · Posted in
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NCR Corp. says that it is in the midst of installing Blockbuster Express rental kiosks in 309 RaceTrac convenience stores located in five Southeastern states. Nearly 200 machines already are installed, with remaining kiosks to be in place by June 2011.
RaceTrac is running a two-month promotion on Coke soda and select snacks in support of the new installations.
With a current network of 8,000 machines, NCR aims to operate 11,000 rental kiosks in the U.S. by year’s end.
The company also has been pitching retailers on using the machines for automated sales of DVDs, CDs and videogames, according a recent Bloomberg report.
March 31, 2011 · Posted in
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Four studios — 20th Century Fox, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. — will offer $30 “Home Premiere” rentals to DirecTV’s nearly 20 million customers, in an anticipated launch of the premium VOD service next month.
Variety reports that cable network Comcast also will join the Home Premiere launch by offering the service in certain cities in late April. Studios will add movies to the service two months after their theatrical debuts; the $30 price will get consumers a two- or three-day viewing period, depending on the distributor.
March 31, 2011 · Posted in
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Google is adding a service that allows users to vote on search results to flag them as good content, the company announced on its official blog today. The service, named +1, is similar in functionality to dedicated content aggregation sites like Reddit, and all votes are tied to your Google account.
+1 is a feature that users can now enable through Google Labs' experimental search options. Once on, +1 adds a little button next to every search result that allows searchers to flag content they find "pretty cool" or "useful." When one of your contacts has given their +1 seal of approval to a search result, it shows up in your search results with a line of text saying your friend "+1'd this."
Google is a little late to the upvote party, but unlike services such as Digg or Reddit, the timeliness of the mob's approval doesn't seem to be a factor. Content that has won someone's approval will game your results until the distribution of +1s shifts.
Given the size of the Internet, limiting the crowd that is able to sort through it for you to your circle of friends doesn't seem like the best solution. In the same vein, the assumption that Google users only have contacts whose opinion they respect may be a little off-base. The service could prove useful if you have a cadre of impeccably tasteful friends, but we hope this isn't meant to be the magic bullet for Google's increasingly SEO-burdened results.
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Deluxe’s Bigley and Microsoft’s Dunkelberger Added to Board; Atkinson Named Advisor
LOS ANGELES — As part of its commitment to expanding its role as the International Content Protection Association, CDSA has announced new senior-level appointments to its Board of Directors. Joel Bigley, Senior Vice President Worldwide Operations and Business Execution, Deluxe Digital Studios; and James Dunkelberger, General Manager Worldwide Product Release and Security Services, Microsoft have been named to the CDSA Board. Richard Atkinson, Chief Piracy Specialist & Consultant, Anti-Piracy Worldwide, has been named as a strategic advisor. Read more
March 30, 2011 · Posted in
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First-day sales of the 3DS in the U.S. were the highest of any hand-held videogame system launch in Nintendo’s history, the company stated on Tuesday (via USA Today).
Nintendo did not provide actual sales figures for the new system, which retailers began marketing on March 27. Game industry tracking firm NPD Group is expected to release a first-week sales estimate for the 3DS on April 14.
By comparison, Nintendo’s DS hand-held sold some 500,000 units in the U.S. during its first week of availability in late 2004 (via Gamespot).
March 30, 2011 · Posted in
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Theater owners and movie studios attending the exhibition industry’s CinemaCon event this week both mused that the quality of this year’s films has failed to match that of early-2010 blockbusters such as “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
Middling films have contributed to a 20% decline in theater attendance in the U.S. and Canada for the year to date, the Los Angeles Times reports. A summer slate that includes a new “Pirates of the Caribbean” installment, “The Hangover Part II,” and other sequels should narrow the admissions gap with 2010. But attendance for the full year is still expected to be slightly off, according to analysts.
March 30, 2011 · Posted in
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Microsoft issued on Tuesday an open call for participants in a public preview of “an updated disc format” for its DVD-based Xbox 360 game console.
The company did not disclose specifics of the update. Gamasutra speculates it could entail a new approach to securing the content of the DVD-9 game discs. A source tells Digital Foundry that game developers could gain 1 GB of storage capacity on the discs — a significant increase, given the discs’ maximum capacity stands at about 8GB — if Microsoft implements the new change.
In a post on the company’s Major Nelson blog, Microsoft’s Larry Hryb says that the Microsoft is seeking “multiple thousands” of Xbox Live users for the beta program.
March 30, 2011 · Posted in
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Amazon’s Cloud Risks War with Labels, Studios (CNET)
Blockbuster Posts Loss Ahead of Auction (The Street)
Roku Gets a Boost From Best Buy (All Things Digital)
Video Buyers Group Confab Canceled (Home Media Magazine)
In-app Billing Launched on Android Market (Android Developers Blog)
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