[SA_Dave]

Excellent digest as usual!

Pirates of the Internet

Ultimately the Internet is going to be great for music lovers, artists and even the record labels, if they are willing to hang loose while new business models emerge. But right now the RIAA and its congressional water carriers are hitting the wrong notes. It makes no sense to bring thousands of people into the dockets -and maybe the prison system- for turning on a friend to the fuzz tones of the White Stripes or the inspirational melodies of Orrin Hatch without a license. There are better things for prosecutors and the courts to focus on.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/944690.asp?cp1=1

Orrin Hatch?!? People share his crap? Orrin_Hatch_the_Senator@kazaa?

Digital Freedom Campaign Publishes Safe Peer-To- Peer Guidelines

Of course, this defeats the very object of peer-to-peer networks and will not appeal to a great many users. Or, as the EFF puts it, 'Don't like the idea of turning off file-sharing or changing your file names to prevent stupid robots or RIAA employees from mistaking your files for infringements? Neither do we!' The organisation is urging file sharers to join its campaign to both legalise file sharing and find a new system to 'compensate musicians and copyright holders.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/front_framese...t_bannerad.php

I have no problem with people compensating musicians but copyright holders [in general]=publishers=RIAA=EVIL!!! Is the EFF on our side or not?

Leave P2P Users Alone, Says Publisher
"As for piracy most small MP3s [on the internet] are too low quality to be used in pirated media. I'm more concerned with attacking pirates than students."
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1142697

Quality Will Beat Illegal File Sharing - Apple

Senior Jupiter Research analyst Lee Black said that Apple's success "proves if you give consumers the rights to the downloads they want, they'll buy them". he added: "Consumers have said as long as they can own it and copy it to other devices, they'll pay for it. Give them usage rights and they'll buy it."
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=6665

This is IMO overly optimistic. Legal services won't be as successful as P2P! Maybe in 1999 they could have thrived, but not now. The only reason for iTunes' success is that Mac users have only really had Limewire up until now. P2P has failed the Mac, so iTunes fills the need and customers are willing to pay. The same isn't true for the PC market though.

Buymusic.com Misses The Point

Neither Apple nor BuyMusic.com uses standard MP3 files. Apple uses a format called AAC, which is part of an industry standard called MPEG-4. BuyMusic.com uses Microsoft's Windows Media 9 format. Each system offer better compression than MP3 files, which results in better sound quality in a smaller file.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...y/TechReviews/

Liars!!

Conference Shows Doubts Still Plague Online Music

Contention over publishing contracts, debate over how restrictive to make DRM (digital rights management) copy controls, continuing use of unauthorized file-swapping sites, and failure to capitalize on new marketing techniques made possible by the Web continue to curb growth, according to speakers here.

Good god! RIAA spam here we come...

Internet Song Swappers Say Legal Threats Won't Stop Them

· File sharing will become marginalized as consumers are put off by poor quality, "spyware" and ads.
· Online sales will slowly shift from discs to digital downloads. That's because downloads are cheaper and more immediate, and buyers can pick individual tracks.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21990.html

We'll soon see about that! And until you can buy unrestricted WAV tracks at about a 1/2 the current price, the "value" of digital downloads is even less than that of a CD.

MAXimum Security



For MAX3, the ABIT Engineers listened to users who were asking for information security. SecureIDE connects to your IDE hard disk and has a special decoder; without a special key, your hard disk cannot be opened by anyone. Thus hackers and would be information thieves cannot access your hard disk, even if they remove it from your PC. Protect your privacy and keep anyone from snooping into your information. Lock down your hard disk, not with a password, but with encryption. A password can be cracked by software in a few hours. ABIT's SecureIDE will keep government supercomputers busy for weeks and will keep the RIAA away from your Kazaa files.

This is an extremely vague and misleading description! How is the private key protected? Smart cards only require access to the card itself. If the key's managed by the user, there's a very high probability that he/she will write it down on paper (they're very long numerical strings), thus defeating the purpose. If it's managed by Windows, you may as well be putting a post-it on you monitor : "Hello RIAA! Key is xxx. Have a nice day!" If the process is automated by the BIOS, and a password unlocks it, it could be a better solution than a windows password. The only way this could be foolproof is if some sort of biometric authentication device is involved, but somehow I doubt it! {P.S. TankGirl what happened to that Telepathic Synaptic Plugin Interface you were working on? )

Stan Liebowitz's study is indeed a thorough examination of the situation, perhaps more so than any other presently available. But despite the strength of his conclusions, when one examines the deep flaws in his logic, and the incomplete or biased nature of the evidence he presents, it is impossible to consider his study as admissible evidence in the trial of MP3 file sharing.
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/200...2p_debate.html

Yes! An excellent expose, and although hardly as rant-filled as Courtney Love's classic piece in Wired, it thoroughly and objectively presents both sides of the issue from a musician's standpoint. I'd say it's required reading, just like Janis Ian's insightful essays.