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For the HTML edition of this newsletter, please refer to
this page :

http://www.digital-digest.com/newsletter/issue27/index.html
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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LIVE UPDATE Issue 27
Your "whenever I have time to write one" newsletter
Sunday, 17th January, 2002

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TOP NEWS SUMMARY :

0. Section Zer0 - An Introduction to this Issue

1. SupportFAQ - Grand Opening

2. DMCA Under Fire

3. How to Cancel/Change Your Subscription Email Address/Settings
- how to maintain the subscription to this newsletter even if
your email address has changed

4. A Simple Thank-you
- a thank-you message for all those that joined this list

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0. Section Zer0

Welcome to this, the 27th issue, of the Digital Digest LiveUpdate
newsletter.

First of all, Happy New Year. The last year has been a year full of
surprises, some nice, some not so nice. This year, hopefully, will
see the expansion of Digital Digest - already, we have a new section
which has just come online.

I've been busy working on some new online sections, which finally
replaces some of the outdated sections that have been there since the
beginning (and haven't been updated in quite a while). All of our new
sections are a combination of PHP and MySQL, which seems to be quite
popular these days, and also makes updating easier for me. Stay tuned
for more new section in the coming months ...

Enjoy :)

-- DVDGuy

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1. SupportFAQ - Grand Opening

Digital Digest's new SupportFAQ is where all FAQs concerning the
topics covered on Digital Digest (eg. DVD, DivX, SVCD, VCD ...) will
be situated.

The database already contains a handful of DVD and DivX FAQs, some
DVD tech-support guides (from the now closed DVD Digest Tech Support
Zone) - more articles and FAQs will be coming soon. Since all the
articles and FAQs are stored in a MySQL database, they can be
searched, and some of longer articles have fully printer-compatible
versions.

You can access SupportFAQ here :

http://www.digital-digest.com/supportfaq/


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2. DMCA Under Fire

A couple of days ago, I posted a news story about an U.S. congressman
who has taken tasks to bring down the controversial "anti-
circumvention" clause of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The "anti-circumvention" prevents even the fair use of devices that
circumvent copy protection schemes - this would make CD and DVD
ripping illegal, even if it is just for personal backup use. The
clause also artificially protects weak protection schemes - anyone
who tries to break the protection scheme will be acting against the
law, even if all they were trying to do was to prove that the copy
protection was weak to start with.

Since computers are usually necessary to copy CD/DVDs, new anti-copy
systems could see CD/DVDs not being able to be played on computers
(and a new CD copy protection scheme by the Vivendi Universal's
Universal Music Group could see this scenario come true in the very
near future), and this would remain legal under the DMCA, but will
seriously violate consumer's rights. Similarly, if a user tries to
use a program to defeat the copy protection, even if just to enable
playback, he or she would be breaking the law under the DMCA.

You can read the full ZDNet news story here :

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5101325,00.html

You can post your thoughts on the issue here :

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?threadid=1937


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3. How to Cancel/Change Settings/Email Address for Your Subscription
to this Newsletter

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe :
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@egroups.com using the email
account that receives this newsletter.

To change the email address that receives this newsletter :
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


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4. A Simple Thank-you

Just a note to thank all the thousands of people (3000 at last
count), including you, who joined the DVD Digest LiveUpdate program.
We've spent quite a bit of time developing this site, and making it
what it is today, and really do appreciate your continued support.

We have changed most of our click ads into banner impression ads,
which means you no longer need to click on them, although it will
still help my advertisers. And if you are interested in advertising
on our site, or even on this newsletter, please contact us or refer
to our Advertising page :

Our contact :
advertising@...

Advertising page (banner/button/cube) :
http://www.digital-digest.com/advertising.html

Email Advertising (opt-in/out newsletter) :
advertising@...

We hoped you enjoyed another LiveUpdate newsletter. We'll try to make
this newsletter a regular fortnightly one in the future.

Thank-you

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