FTC sets maximum royalties on Rambus
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The Federal Trade Commission finalized its ruling that Rambus Inc. violated antitrust laws, imposing limits on the royalties the memory chip designer can charge.
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(InfoWorld) - An operation that allegedly installed illegal spyware on computers will give more than US$2 million to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint. The FTC has obtained a settlement order against Enternet Media Inc., Conspy & Co. Inc., Lida Rohbani, Nima Hakimi and Baback Hakimi, all based in California, the agency announced Wednesday. The defendants distributed software called Search Miracle, Miracle Search, EM Toolbar, EliteBar and Elite Toolbar, the FTC said. In an order issued by Judge Christine Snyder of the U.S District Court for Central California, the defendants are prohibited from interfering with computer use, such as distributing software code that tracks Internet activity, changes browser settings and inserts new advertising toolbars onto browsers. The defendants also are permanently prohibited from making misleading representations regarding the performance, features, and cost, of any software, including misrepresenting that the code is an Internet browser upgrade or other computer security software, music, song, lyric or cell phone ring tone. The Web sites of the defendants and their affiliates caused installation boxes to pop up on consumersâ computer screens, the FTC said in its complaint. In one variation of the scheme, the boxes offered a variety of freeware, including music files, cell phone ring tones, photographs, wallpaper and song lyrics. In another, the boxes warned that consumersâ Internet browsers were defective, and offered free browser upgrades or security patches. Users who downloaded the supposed freeware or security upgrades did not receive what they were promised, Instead, their computers were infected with spyware that interfered with their computers and was difficult to uninstall, the FTC said. The defendants' software tracked Internet activity, changed home-page settings and inserted a large frame onto browser windows that displayed advertisements, the FTC said. At the FTCâs request, the court froze the operationâs assets last fall and ordered it shut down. The settlement requires the defendants to give up just over $2 million of their spyware-related profits and includes a suspended judgment of $8.5 million. The FTC brought the case with assistance from Microsoft Corp., Webroot Software Inc. and Google Inc., the agency said.
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. government regulators will require Rambus to license its DRAM (dynamic RAM) chips to other vendors, and will cap the royalty fees Rambus can charge to both current and future DRAM manufacturers, according to an announcement Monday by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The order "is designed to remedy the effects of theÂ unlawful monopolyÂ Rambus established in the markets for four computer memory technologies that have been incorporated into industry standards," the FTC said in a release. In order to ensure that other equipment makers can freely use the technology, the FTC will also require Rambus to hire an FTC-approved compliance officer to ensure that Rambus is honest in revealing its patents to standard-setting bodies. The announcement followed allegations that Rambus convinced industry groups to declare a standard technology for the memory used in PCs, servers, printers and cameras without admitting that it owned the patents to those technologies. When the groups announced the standards, Rambus had enormous leverage over the entire industry. Rambus executives are scheduled to discuss the ruling in a conference call with reporters at 10 a.m. ET on Monday.
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Bloomberg News) â Companies that lease tracts in the Gulf of Mexico in an oil and natural gas sale planned for March will pay higher federal royalties, the Minerals Management Service said Tuesday.
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Amid continued controversy over applying the Fairness Doctrine to radio, the controversy over charging webcasters millions in retroactive royalty fees has seemingly come to a conclusion. On Thursday, the House of Representatives failed to come to the rescue of webcasters in a dispute with record companies over new royalty rates the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) put into place. Still, many broadcasters claim they cannot afford the increased fees and might go silent forever.
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If a new online radio webcasting royalty rate, proposed last week by the Copyright Royalty Board of the US Library of Congress, is ratified and put into effect, online webcasting leader AOL Radio may receive a bill for copyright holders' royalties retroactive to 2006 amounting to $23.7 million, payable to a collective representing the US recording industry. And that's not the half of it.
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Six months after U.S. regulators capped royalties that vendors must pay to Rambus Inc., the European Union (EU) is taking a close look at the company&#39;s monopoly on the DRAM (dynamic RAM) chip market.
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WASHINGTON - A complete rewrite of the U.S. copyright system was just one proposal aired Thursday during a contentious series of panel discussions at a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) workshop on peer-to-peer technology.
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I saw an ad in yesterday's NY Times that offered the complete New Yorker magazine archive, including all the cartoons and ads, going back to 1920-something for a bit more than the hard disk would cost. The ad was from J&R, the company that makes the product is Pexagon. $149. Sounds like there might be DRM. I asked for something like this from the music business. A hundred gigs of popular music for $500, all pre-installed on the disk without DRM.  Someone at the New Yorker had this idea too? It's a good one. Bulk content for collector types. Another source of revenue. I want to run my own personal radio station, so having every song of a certain genre or from a certain period makes the diff.
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The radio industry has agreed to pay &#36;1.7 billion over six years to a group that doles out royalties to songwriters under an agreement in which stations will now pay a set fee for music, rather than a percentage of yearly revenue.
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Cambridge Antibody Technology Group Plc won a court ruling awarding it higher royalties from US partner Abbott Laboratories for its role in developing one of the biggest drugs to come from the UK&#39;s biotechnology industry.
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A court ruling bodes well for next-generation royalties.
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WASHINGTON - Two lawyers on federal regulatory issues predicted Thursday the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would ignore a recommendation by an administrative law judge to end its antitrust case against Rambus Inc.
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$2,500 limit on multi-stream stations Music industry taxman SoundExchange is offering a new deal to internet radio broadcasters who say upcoming royalty hikes will kill online broadcasting.â¦
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The Federal Trade Commission made final its ruling that the memory chip designer violated antitrust laws, imposing limits on the royalties the company can charge.
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Blog: Recording industry tells federal regulators the proposed merger shouldn't be approved unless the combined satellite radio providers pay "fair market" royalties and do more to protect their content.
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Internet radio gets ready for a fight after the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board quietly releases a retroactive rate hike that could mean financial disaster from music streamers. By Eliot Van Buskirk.