“StreamCast Networks, the creators of the Morpheus file-sharing software, is alleging in a lawsuit that auction house eBay is profiting from peer-to-peer technology that rightfully belongs to it.

“StreamCast claims in a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. Central District Court in Los Angeles that Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the duo who developed the technology behind companies Kazaa and Skype, of breaking an agreement to give StreamCast the first right to purchase their FastTrack peer-to-peer protocol.

“FastTrack was the network on which Morpheus’ file-sharing application once operated and is also the technology foundation of Skype’s voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service.”

Greg Sandoval. Morpheus Makers File Suit Against eBay. News.com. May 23, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“In 1846, as the new technology of the telegraph system was catching on, newspapers pooled their resources to create a more efficient news distribution system. Jim Kennedy, vice president of strategic planning at the Associated Press, which was born out of those efforts, says newspapers are facing a similar challenge today.

“Translation: It’s time for newspapermen to stop fighting among themselves and cooperate if they want to survive in the era of splintering audiences, and search-engine news gateways, such as the popular news services created by Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc.

“Yahoo News has held the No. 1 news property spot on the Web for the last eight months. Google News was the No. 11 news site last month, with 9.7 million unique visitors, up 19% from last year. Associated Press grew a paltry 1% to 6.1 million unique visitors.

Bambi Francisco. How Newspapers Can Face Online Rivals. MarketWatch. May 23, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Surfing the Web on a cellphone can be as difficult as surfing the ocean on a tiny board. Now, a company founded by Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Vodafone Group PLC, Nokia Corp., and several other companies, aims to make it easier to browse the Internet on wireless devices such as cellphones or BlackBerries.

“Currently, few Web pages are designed to be accessed via mobile devices. Many sites can’t be displayed on tiny cellphone screens, and most would take a much longer time to download than on a PC.

“Mobile Top Level Domain aims to change that in part by setting up a new domain name specifically for wireless Internet Web sites called dot-mobi. Just as dot-com is the domain name for many Web pages on the wired Internet, dot-mobi will become the suffix for Web pages that are formatted for cellphones and other wireless devices, the company says.”

Li Yuan. New Domain Name — .Mobi — Could Spur Wireless Web. The Wall Street Journal Online. May 23, 2006.

Updates:

Tom Krazit. Mobile-TV Vendors Politely Jockey for Position. News.com. May 24, 2006.

Reuters. Sprint Eyes Media Options, Talks to Sling Media. News.com. May 25, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.