Eidos’s Hitman: Contracts for PS2 was once again the #1- rented videogame in the U.S., according to Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data Thurs. for the week ended May 16. Rentrak said the title earned an additional $263,667 in its 4th week, for $1.13 million to date. The Xbox version of the game, meanwhile, was #7 (down 3 in its 4th week, $145,982 in the week, $636,211 to date). The only other publisher with more than one Top 10 SKU was Take-Two Interactive’s Rockstar Games, whose Red Dead Revolver for PS2 was #2 (up one in its 2nd week, $238,810 and $415,785). The Xbox version was again #8 ($137,889 and $249,006). Electronic Arts (EA), which had dominated the top 10 for months, had to settle for only one top 10 title for the 2nd consecutive week: Need for Speed Underground for PS2 at #5 again in its 26th week ($149,196 and $7.8 million). The only other Xbox title was Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow at #9 (down 3 in its 8th week, $131,282 and $1.62 million). Rounding out the top 10 were all PS2 titles: Midway’s NBA Ballers at #3 (down one in its 6th week, $218,046 and $1.52 million), Sony Computer Entertainment’s Syphon Filter: Omega Strain at #4 (up 22 in its 2nd week, $168,512 and $229,033), Vivendi Universal Games’s Van Helsing at #6 (up 10, 2nd week, $147,080 and $238,399) and Capcom’s Onimusha 3: Demon Siege for PS2 at #10 again ($116,934 and $292,003).

NTIA Acting Dir. Michael Gallagher still must approve and sign a report on improvements to the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) preparation process before the report is passed on to Congress, said Darlene Drazenovich of the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management. Drazenovich’s comments were made during a meeting of WRC Informal Working Group 1 (IWG-1) Tues. NTIA asked for comments on the process in Oct. (CD Oct 24 p6) and has since submitted a draft report exceeding 40 pages to the International Radiocommunications Advisory Committee (IRAC), the FCC and the State Dept., Drazenovich said. Some recommendations concerned methods to improve Radio Conference Subcommittee (RCS) liaison with the WRC Advisory Committee (WAC) and the IWGs, and what the RCS liaisons can or should do to provide information on the status of the RCS. Drazenovich said the report recommended including private sector observers in the core WRC delegation. Meanwhile, the group declined to approve new preliminary views for inclusion in the June 8 WAC meeting. The view that was presented, on agenda item 1.2, dealt with the “feasibility of sharing between meteorological satellites [Metsats] operating in the space-to-Earth direction and the fixed service [FS] and fixed satellite service [FSS] in the space-to-earth direction in the band 18.0-18.4 GHz.” While the preliminary proposal would “meet the Metsat data transmission bandwidth requirements in the already established 18.1-18.3 GHz contiguous FSS allocation,” there was doubt whether Metsats would meet FSS criteria for communications with Earth stations. Another proposal was expanding the Metsat allocation to 18-18.3 GHz. IWG-1 Chmn. Jennifer Warren suggested document edits be circulated electronically for inclusion at the June 8th WAC meeting.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

Software developer 321 Studios will appeal another federal court’s preliminary injunction against the sale of its DVD X Copy family of DVD backup software. In a suit vs. 321 by Macrovision, U.S. Dist. Judge Richard Owen, N.Y.C., granted the plaintiff’s request for injunction May 11. Owen also denied the defendant’s motion to transfer the case to Cal., where another federal court had enjoined sales of 321’s products. Each court found the DVD X Copy line violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) provisions against circumvention of copy control technologies, in this case, DVD’s Content Scrambling System (CSS). Since the Feb. 20 Cal. ruling, 321 has been able to sell only copying software that lacks a “CSS ripper.” Macrovision sued 321 for copyright infringement on DMCA grounds, and for infringement of Macrovision’s copy protection patents. “We are disappointed that Judge Owen didn’t address any of our legal issues, and therefore the main issues in this case,” a 321 spokeswoman told us Tues.: “We plan to appeal.” In his order, the judge said he'd ruled March 3 in a similar case, Paramount Pictures v. 321 Studios, that 321’s software violated the DMCA, and therefore he “need not reach all the issues raised here.” Separately, 321’s DVD X Copy Platinum and DVD X Copy Xpress ranked 2nd and 5th respectively among top-selling PC software titles in March, according to research firm NPD. It’s not known if the titles sold were the new “ripper-free” versions or original ones still in the retail pipeline.

The ITA also states that the CV cash deposit rates for all non-reviewed companies are unchanged by the results of this review.

In its first full week available, Warner’s The Last Samurai was the #1-rented DVD in the U.S., Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended May 9 showed Thurs. Rentrak said the title earned $7.39 million in the week and $7.49 million to date. Last week’s #1 DVD -- Fox’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World -- dropped to #4, earning an additional $3.43 million for a total of $16.45 million to date. The only other new DVDs in the top 10 were Warner’s Chasing Liberty at #9 ($1.85 million in the week and $1.89 million to date) and Universal’s Peter Pan at #10 ($1.60 million and $1.65 million).

Electronic Arts (EA) had one of its weakest U.S. game rental weeks in memory, Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended May 9 showed Thurs. EA had only one title in the top 10: Need for Speed Underground for PS2 at #5 (down one in its 25th week). Rentrak said the title earned an additional $132,408 in the week for a total of $7.65 million to date. The #1-rented game was once again Hitman: Contracts for PS2 from Eidos ($266,351 in its 3rd week, $870,321 to date). Eidos had one other SKU in the top 10 again: The Xbox version of Contracts at #4 (down one, 3rd week, $156,149 and $490,229). Other publishers with 2 titles in the top 10 were Midway Games, Take- Two Interactive and Ubisoft. Midway’s were the PS2 version of NBA Ballers at #2 again in its 5th week ($218,518 and $1.30 million) and the Xbox version of it at #7 (down one, 5th week, $115,500 and $725,183). Take-Two’s were the PS2 version of Red Dead Revolver on its Rockstar Games label at #3 in its first week ($176,975) and the Xbox version of it at #8 ($111,117). Ubisoft’s were Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for Xbox at #6 (down one, 7th week, $116,505 and $1.49 million) and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield for PS2 at #9 (down 2, 7th week, $107,832 and $1.22 million). Rounding out the top 10 was Capcom’s Onimusha 3: Demon Siege for PS2 at #10 (up 21 in its 2nd week, $107,169 and $175,069).

The International Trade Administration (ITA) frequently issues notices on antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty orders which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued and neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period.

Draft versions of 2 World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-07) agenda items were introduced and tabled at a Wed. meeting of the 2nd informal working group (IWG-2). IWG-2 is looking at agenda items concerning satellite services and high altitude platform stations (HAPS). The group discussed agenda item 1.6, Resolution 415, which considers “additional allocations for the aeronautical mobile service in parts of the bands between 108 MHz and 6 GHz, in accordance with Resolution 414 (WRC-03) and, to study current satellite frequency allocations, that will support the modernization of civil aviation telecom systems, taking into account Resolution 415 (WRC-03).” While the issue was defined as looking at creating broader satellite frequency allocations to include civil aviation telecom systems and other non- aeronautical telecom services while remaining compatible with existing allocations, there was group discussion about whether the inclusion of “non-aeronautical services” was necessary. Draft author David Weinreich of Connexion by Boeing said it was important not to restrict the frequencies to only aeronautical uses, but also fixed satellite service (FSS) applications in remote areas. A 2nd draft for agenda item 1.21 created little discussion. The item proposes “to consider the results of studies regarding the compatibility between the radio astronomy service and the active space services in accordance with Resolution 740 (WRC-03), in order to review and update, if appropriate, the tables of threshold levels used for consultation that appear in the Annex to Resolution 739 (WRC-03).” IWG-2 plans to meet May 27 in order to finalize preliminary views on both agenda items before the June 8 meeting of the WRC-07 Advisory Committee.

ITA sources state that Dongkuk's AD rate of 0.85% already reflects an adjustment for export subsidies found in the companion countervailing (CV) duty investigation.