Print

Mail

wiki links

World Business Quick Take

■ Copyright
Parents ignorant of law
Nearly 40 percent of parents in a US survey were unaware they were violating copyrights by swapping music or movies over the Internet, according to a survey released Wednesday. The survey by Nielsen NRG for the Motion Picture Association of America found that despite increasing media attention, two out of five parents who participated in the survey know that their kids download music and movies over the Internet but did not know it was illegal. In addition, the survey found one-third of those parents who have downloaded movies and music learned how to do so from their kids. The survey of 396 people was conducted between Feb. 25 and March 4. All respondents were parents with children between the ages of 12 and 17 and had a computer with Internet access.

■ Music
Personalized radio unveiled
Sony Corp announced what it called the first "personalized radio" service for mobile phones. Under the still-unnamed music streaming service, subscribers would not own any of the songs but could create a customized channel to listen to the music they want, storing favorite tunes in personal playlists. Users would also be able to listen to music from a collection of predefined channels. A "smart personalization" feature could also keep track of the subscriber's music preferences and make song suggestions. Some mobile phone operators already offer music streaming services, but Sony said it is the first to let consumers tailor the music to their own tastes.

■ Mobile Phones
NEC to ship more to China
Japanese hi-tech giants NEC and Matsushita plan to double their mobile phone shipments to China, the world's largest cellphone market, on the back of surging demand, a business daily said yesterday. NEC will raise China-bound shipments to 2 million to 3 million units in the upcoming financial year starting next month from 1 million in the current fiscal year, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The company will also introduce several new high-end models, including a super-thin cellphone equipped with a camera, the daily said. Matsushita's mobile phone arm Panasonic Mobile Communications Co will double its China-bound shipments to 4 million from 2 million in the current fiscal year, it said.

■ E-mail
Chinese get more spam
China's Internet servers were hit by at least 150 billion junk e-mails last year, becoming the world's second-largest destination for spam after the US. Junk e-mails accounted for nearly one-third of all e-mails last year, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the Internet Society of China. "It's a great waste of resources," Gong Shaohui, a member of an anti-spam association, was quoted as saying. "Moreover, if China is dumped on with junk mail, less servers will be left in use here." China already has the world's second-largest population of Web surfers after the US. E-mail users often find messages selling get-rich schemes, Viagra and penile enlargements in their inboxes. The government has said it plans to clean up e-mail spam for fear some messages may have content deemed "subversive," such as pornography and anti-Communist opinions. Internet experts around the world also criticize China for allowing too much spam to be sent to other countries.

This story has been viewed 1633 times.