Continued from previous page

     "Generally, a company has a monopoly when they control enough of a discrete market to exercise what is called market power," a bleem! representative said. bleem! believes that Sony is using its position as a entertainment multinational to exert its influence on how video game industry should move.

"Market power is the power to exercise unusual control over certain characteristics of the market such as pricing and products. We believe that the Playstation is such a huge product, with over 70 million consoles and 600 million games out there-that it has created its' own market..."

"Now, Sony is using its market power to try to keep bleem! off the market and out of stores. In doing so, Sony is trying to control how people use the content they have brought. When you buy a game, a movie, a book or any other kind of content, you expect to be able to enjoy that content whenever it is possible. If that means watching a DVD on a plane, reading a book indoors or outdoors, or playing a Playstation game on your laptop, you have paid for the content and you should be able to do what you want with it. Sony is trying to say you can play Playstation games on their console, but not anywhere else. You can't play on your home computer. And you really can't use their software if you don't own their hardware. We think its' wrong for Sony to be able to tell you where you can and can't use your games."

Sony Strikes Back!

     But Playstation doesn't agree with this comment and has sued bleem! for copyright infringement. Sony claims two types of copyright infringement against bleem!

• Direct infringement of their BIOS and Library Code, and
• Intermediate Infringement of the same code.

     According to bleem!,
"First, we don't directly infringe Sony's copyrights because the program bleem! does not contain any code copied from Sony. If you were to look at the bleem! code that performs functions similar to Sony's copyrighted code, the two would look completely different. No copying means no direct infringement..."

     In regards to Sony's claim that bleem! has commited Intermediate Infringment, bleem! has pointed out in further discussions:

"As for intermediate infringement, Sony's claim is that in developing bleem!, our company copied portions of Sony's code by disassembling it and reverse engineering the functions performed by that code...First, in the case Sega v. Accolade about 10 years ago, and now in the recent Ninth Circuit decision in Sony v. Connectix, stated that disassembly of someone else's code for purposes of reverse engineering is a fair use of the copyrighted work, and thus there is no copyright violation. That's why bleem! doesn't violate the copyright laws."

     bleem! can do what they want until courts decide their fate. Right now, they opt to continue with their system, which got tremendous response at the big E3 Gaming Convention. CNN and Forbes Magazine have both talked about bleem! Things are looking up for the small company hitting the big time.

     Soon you can use most of your Playstation titles on the Dreamcast and you don't need to buy a PS2 for backwards capability. You don't even need the original Playstation when you can get better graphics on the Dreamcast.

     Just a few questions come to mind when thinking about the future possibilities of this company. Would they make software so that you can play Dreamcast games on the PS2 to further level the playing field? Will Nintendo get software so you can play Playstation games on that system? As far as their future is concerned, bleem! had this to say, "... (W)e have a lot of great ideas as to where our technology can be applied, but our lips are sealed for now."

     BANDWIDTH will keep you up to date as this issue progresses. Send all comments and questions about this article to Badseed@ybfree.com

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