[JackSpratts]

Glue Together Two Broadband Links To Make Fat Pipe

Review Edimax BR6524 "Dual-WAN" Router
Fernando Cassia

"If you're really serious about high speed internet connections, contact your local phone company about installing a high
speed digital line. These lines can cost you plenty ... think of thousands of dollars (...) a T1 line has a connection speed of up to 1.544 Mbps.""Networking for Dummies.", 4th Ed.

A (not) brief Introduction to Dual WAN routers
You probably would love to have a T1 or T3 at home, but more often than not, it's hard to justify the luxury. While in some places residential DSL service has reached T1 speeds, in too many others - like mine - residential Cable modem, ADSL and even fixed wireless services offer less-than-T1 speeds. In my home city/ country, for instance, providers of all three available broadband service types (cable, DSL, fixed wireless) seem to have conspired to offer 512 Kbps as the fastest speed. I could rant about the price too, suffice to say we pay the same price for 256 Kbps for which a subscriber can get 1.5 Mbits ADSL in the U.S.

Even if you're lucky and you live in advanced societies with Internet-friendly Telcos and governments where broadband is not only inexpensive and ubiquitous but also fast - Korea, Japan, Sweden, Norway come to mind-, wouldn't it be nice to join your two japanese 45 Mbps DSL accounts into a single, combined data pipe?

A new range of affordable broadband routers now make T1 speeds and beyond available to anyone who can afford it - even if the broadband offerings are limited in speed. These routers have the ability to "join" two broadband links - xDSL, Cable modem, Fixed Wireless, you name it - into a single seamless "big data pipe" shared by all the machines in your LAN. The devices don't even have to be of the same type, as any pair of broadband connections with Ethernet (RJ45) connectivity can be used, and even mixed for additional safety against service outages from a particular (Telco or Cable) infrastructure.

While you won't be able to use the combined bandwidth with a single file download, any applications using multiple simultaneous connections will. The scenarios are many; you can use the combined bandwidth even if you have only one PC behind the router doing multiple downloads -when downloading a web page with graphics for example, when you use a "download accelerator", when you manually start downloading multiple files at once, or when you use a peer-to-peer file sharing program. Of course, if there are multiple machines behind the router accessing the internet at once, the benefits are obvious.

This type of linking of two connections into one is often referred to as "Multi-Homing" and also "connection teaming", it is different from "bridging" where it would require some work on the ISP side to split a single IP address connection between two physical links.

The First Review: Edimax In this first article of the series reviewing "Dual WAN" routers, it is now time to test Edimax's offering, the BR6524 Dual WAN Router.

For the test I decided to add ADSL service to my secondary phone line, which until now only had a sleeping Panasonic fax machine dinosaur connected to it. After the usual delays and fighting the local Italian-owned incumbent telco -who keeps a monopoly on the local loop, by the way-, I got DSL service up and running. I requested their maximum speed offering: 512 Kbps ADSL service (wow! - not), so I could add that extra bandwidth to my existing 256 Kbps link, for a nice 768 Kbps of total downstream speed, or about half what U.S. customers can get on a single link. .

Yes, a pair of 512 Kbps ADSL links teamed into one 1 Mbit pipe would have been better, but my budget as a writer doesn't allow such expenses. This test scenario also serves as proof that the broadband connections that you plug into the router's WAN ports can be of radically different speeds.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13103


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Piracy Now “Terrorism” Says WIPO Chief

Piracy of the know-how to make products from machines to branded baby shampoo is a form of terrorism and must be stopped, the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said.

In addition, the enforcement of intellectual property rights by developing countries was crucial to boost their economies, the director-general, Kamil Idris, told a group of reporters in Geneva. "Piracy is a very serious problem, and this is why when people discuss piracy it is not a north-south issue," he said. "Piracy is like terrorism today and it exists everywhere and it is a very dangerous phenomenon." Idris described how he had heard of children dying after using counterfeit baby shampoo and warned of the potentially disastrous consequences of relying on machines that had been made using an illicitly duplicated model. Last month, the World Health Organisation said that up to 25 percent of medicines consumed in developing nations were believed to be counterfeit or substandard, and it warned they could be useless, harmful or even deadly. "We would like to have consensus by all countries and all nations that piracy is a very dangerous phenomenon today," declared Idris. WIPO lacked the power to interfere with national jurisdictions to ensure that intellectual property laws forbidding piracy were implemented, he said. But the UN agency says it is actively involved in building awareness, the demystification of what intellectual property means and training law enforcement authorities. "Our efforts are related to persuading governments to adopt national mechanisms in order to fight this phenomenon," explained Idris. "I know that combating piracy is not an easy task, but it requires efforts of governments and international organisations and of course the NGO (non-governmental organisation) community." Idris also insisted that better enforcement of intellectual property rights -- such as patents for inventions or copyright for songs -- could stoke the economic engines of many poor nations. The WIPO chief said he recently met a number of Caribbean ministers who told him they believed a greater protection of their home-grown art and culture was "a matter of life or death for their economy". Turning to China -- which was required to strengthen national legislation against counterfeiting before it joined the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001 -- Ibris said the country was making progress, but more challenges lay ahead. International treaties had been signed, national legislation to protect know-how was in place and measures to enforce these laws had also been created, observed the director-general. "But enforcement, the way we want it, still has a long way to go and it continues to be a controversial issue," he admitted.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031203/323/efqp1.html


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States Scrutinize E-Voting As Primaries Near
Paul Festa

Some states are raising last-minute security concerns over e-voting technology as much of the country prepares to switch over from mechanical to electronic ballots in time for the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

After antiquated punch-card ballots led to a contested vote count in Florida during the 2000 race, Congress passed, in 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which offers federal assistance to states that replace mechanical voting machines by 2004.

Now, with the presidential primaries approaching, some critics are calling for a second look at the leading e-voting vendors' products--a move that could make some states fall behind schedule. At least one, Ohio, has indicated it will petition the government for an extension, likely delaying e-voting in that state until August, at the earliest.

"This is a storm that we've been waiting for," Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller said. Heller, whose state has been using electronic ballot boxes for 10 years in its largest county, advised U.S. senators on HAVA. "I think it's to be expected that, because there's change, there's going to be some uneasiness in this process."

Ongoing concerns over the security and reporting features of e-voting machines have cast a cloud of uncertainty over the upcoming election season, forcing ballot machine vendors to address a host of complaints over their products amid signs of an escalating voter backlash.

The affected companies say the weaknesses that have been identified to date aren't insurmountable, and most said they expect to fix them on time to meet the HAVA deadlines. But the biggest problem facing e-voting machine vendors may turn out to be political rather than technical, as belated resistance to e-voting systems mounts.

Individual counties in the United States have used electronic voting machines for years, but many voters have only learned about the potential hazards of e-voting recently, through the missteps of one company: Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, Ohio. The company has become a lightning rod for criticism following partisan political statements by its chief executive and revelations of security flaws within its flagship product.

"I think it's been a year of widespread awakening among the American public about the risks of computerized voting," said Kim Alexander, founder and president of the California Voter Foundation. "A huge movement has developed across the nation, with citizen activists joining computer scientists, academics, lawyers, and nonprofits to demand verifiable voting systems."
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5114062.html


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Ohio Halts E-Voting Machines
AP

The state's top elections official said Tuesday that security problems found in new touch- screen voting systems mean they won't be in place statewide in time for the November 2004 presidential election.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said some of the new voting machines would be installed in August, some in November and the rest in 2005.

That means some of Ohio's 88 counties still will be using punch-card systems for the 2004 election. Problems with punch cards in Florida left the outcome of the 2000 presidential race in doubt for more than a month.

The four electronic touch-screen systems must be proven secure before Ohio voters use them, Blackwell said. His office will work with the manufacturers to ensure the problems are corrected, he said.

Ohio and much of the rest of the nation are upgrading voting equipment under legislation passed by Congress after the 2000 election.

The state must ask the Federal Election Commission for an extension in complying with the law, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

Companies that tested the security systems of the four machine types found software that permits votes to be counted more than once, and a risk that unauthorized poll workers or others could gain access to the system.

Identical passwords were discovered for more than one poll worker, while voting booth cases did not provide for locks, leaving a risk of tampering during transportation of ballots.

Each of the voting systems provided by the four vendors -- Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting Systems, Election Systems & Software and Maximus/Hart Intercivic/DFM Associates -- has multiple but not identical problems, Blackwell said.

Mark Radke, a Diebold executive, said the company already had fixed problems in machines used in municipal elections in Maryland.

"These software enhancements will be implemented in all touch-screen units deployed within Ohio and the process-related questions are addressed in the Diebold Election Systems training manuals," Radke said.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61467,00.html


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French PM Calls For International Rules To Govern Internet
AFP

GENEVA - French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin called for "international rules" overseen by the United Nations to govern the Internet.

"The information society offers new opportunities, but like all new technological revolutions it also brings uncertainty," Raffarin told the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society, the world's first such meeting. "It calls on us to establish international rules, which citizens can rely on," said the premier. "For France, the UN is the major source of international rights, which must ensure peace and development. That also concerns the information society," he insisted. According to Raffarin, these international rules must cover technical questions -- such as the attribution of web addresses and management of domain names -- as well as the protection of intellectual property. This would guarantee "network security" and "deal with content while respecting freedom (of expression)." The United States and other countries argue that governance of the Internet should be left in private hands, namely the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031210/323/egrph.html


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The WSIS: Whose Freedom, Whose Information?
Solana Larsen

The UN’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva is intended to create ways of bridging the global ‘digital divide’. But will its political tensions and complex agenda make it less of an “internet-Kyoto” and more of an arid talk shop?

You can’t eat a computer. But having access to information and communication technologies can mean life or death, when it comes to delivering to people around the world necessities like clean water, medical help, education and employment.

The preparatory meetings have gone less than smoothly. A complete breakdown of negotiations has been close more than once. Countries disagree radically on so many things that it is hard to come up with language that can be agreed on by consensus. Nonetheless, for all the hot air, the evasions, the clichés and the diplomatic subsidies, important issues are in play and innovation is occurring.

For the first time at a UN summit, non-governmental participants have been invited to take part in drafting the documents. But some governments – among them China, Egypt, Mexico, and Pakistan – refused to negotiate in their presence.

Civil society participants, who represent over 940 interest organisations, universities, think-tanks, and religious groups, were locked out of meetings on some of the most contentious issues. In frustration over the failure of government to come to terms, they have formed a body and created an alternative declaration.

The only thing everyone can agree on is that there should be more telephones and computers for everyone. In 2000, the UN’s member states promised to uphold a list of “Millennium Development Goals”. One goal demands there should be a computer with internet access for every 100 people around the world by 2015.

With little more than ten years to get online computers within walking distance of even the poorest of the world’s citizens, a meeting of nations is not happening too soon.

The issues that divide

A clear plan is nowhere in sight. China won’t hear any mention of human rights and wants governments to have full control over the internet. The United States and Europe have helped weaken proposals on open source software in favour of proprietary software (like Microsoft’s). And many of the wealthiest countries would like all mention of financial support for the developing world erased from the declaration of principles.

The reality is that WSIS is not just about bringing computers to the poor. It is also about making money from selling them equipment and software; privatisation of national communications industries; investment and infrastructure. And it is about seizing power over the internet as it spreads. Many governments want to rein it in and have more direct control.

Open Source versus Microsoft

One of the most inhibiting barriers to the spread of computers in the developing world is the cost of software like Microsoft Windows, which is not only expensive but needs to be updated regularly at a steep price. Governments can save billions simply by switching to free and open source software like Linux, which can be updated or modified gratis by anyone, helped by a global community of programmers. India, Peru, Brazil and South Africa are among nations who have already started switching over to viable alternatives to Microsoft.

In what many suspect is a response to the mounting business threat from open source software, Bill Gates and Microsoft have been donating billions of dollars worth of software and aid to the developing countries where open source is most popular. Accusations abound that United States and European Union delegates at WSIS are in the pockets of Microsoft lobbyists. Certainly, in the centre of the negotiations, the draft for the WSIS declaration of principles has gone from outright “support” of open source software for the developing world to “promoting awareness” about “different software models, and the means of their creation, including proprietary, open source and free software”.

Intellectual property

The issue of intellectual property has become explosive with the advent of digital technology, which enables anyone to make a quick and perfect copy of anything that can be stored on a computer. Since the original Napster, free file-sharing software has accelerated, hurting the profits of the music and film industry (and by extension the American economy). The legal battle between rich copyright holders and regular computer users in Europe and America has been fierce. But the loaded guns of the entertainment business are also aimed at developing nations like China where piracy is both rampant and a significant gain for the economy.

Hollywood lobbyists are given a lot of credit for new, stringent international legislation for the protection of copyright. The extension of copyright periods, and closure of old loopholes like “fair use”, impact on what is allowed to enter the public domain. Developing nations may have less free access to content from literature and science, to policy statements, basic statistical data and social and political analysis – all in different ways important tools of development.

Freedom and security

Fear of terrorism fuels the emphasis on “security” at WSIS. Reliability and integrity of the internet is also required for growth of the United States’s priorities. “Network security” is at the top of their list.

China and Russia are attempting to switch the emphasis onto “information security” and “military security”, causing alarm among critics that the declaration of principles could be used by nations to legitimise censorship and invasions of privacy through surveillance.

Their alarm may be justified. In the draft declaration, a free and independent media are currently only promised “in accordance with the legal system of each country”. This is a significant step back from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees “freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”.

Once again, China is stubbornly opposed to such basic rights. But there are many others with dirty track records, such as Tunisia, the 2005 host of the WSIS. After nearly a year and a half, this country still holds the editor of satirical website Tunezine, Zouhair Yahyaoui, in jail for being critical of the country’s president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates...-8-10-1630.jsp


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How Much Is Digital Music Worth?
John Borland

As the early buzz over new music services such as Apple Computer's iTunes fades, record labels and technology companies are struggling to turn the services into profitable businesses.

Speaking at the iHollywood Forum's Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles Monday, executives on both sides focused on the 99-cent price tag that has become the market's standard for downloadable music.

Critics say that that price needs to come down if mainstream consumers are to start buying in large numbers, making the Internet a serious factor in the record industry's bottom line. Record labels say they can't afford to go lower.

"There's very little money in this to begin with," said David Ring, vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs division. "A lot of people are already recognizing that we're going to have to sell a lot more singles at 99 cents in order for us to make money, and for artists to be able to make a living."

Whatever the ongoing tensions, it's clear that the relationships between record labels and technology companies have improved immeasurably over the past year. Going into the holiday buying season, numerous services are for the first time offering digital music downloads or online subscription services with the blessing of the largest music companies.

That--in theory--will help drive purchases of portable music players such as Apple's iPod or Samsung's Napster device. Music executives hope all of this will help spark consumers' interest in buying music online and offline, and boost industry revenue, which has fallen steeply over the last three years.

Indeed, the download services are seeing some signs that many music listeners are accepting the 99-cent price tag, despite some downward pressure. Apple said Monday that it has now sold more than 20 million songs in fewer than seven months through its iTunes song store.

Online buying patterns are also beginning to emerge, pointing to potential ground rules for the new services. Peter Lowe, Apple director of marketing, said that 45 percent of songs downloaded through iTunes had been sold as part of a full album, rather than in single song form.

This indicates that many people are still interested in purchasing large numbers of songs, or full albums, despite having a la carte options, Lowe said.

Additional research from the NPD Group indicated that iTunes customers bought more music than did ordinary offline consumers over the first four months of that service's operations. The average iTunes customer bought 49 songs online during that time, or the equivalent of about an album a month, compared with the average teenager's purchase of a CD every two months, said NPD vice president Russ Crupnick.

The Macintosh audience may not be representative of the larger market, however, since Apple buyers tend to have higher incomes and greater technological sophistication than the PC audience as a whole, and have previously had less access to the free file-swapping services.

Despite these positive early signs from iTunes and its rival services, consumers are still showing resistance to today's prevailing market price for digital music, conference attendees said.

"I've been hearing 99 cents (as a price for digital songs). If it's that, I would just go out and buy the CD," said Alina, a UCLA student who participated on a panel discussing college students' music behavior.

She said she had never used any of the paid digital music services. The students did not use their full names, in part because in some cases they were talking about downloading music illegally. "If it's 30 cents I would buy it."

A survey conducted by research firm Ipsos-Insight found that consumers said they thought $7.99 was the best price for digital-music albums. The typical price for an online album today is $9.99. Consumers in the survey also said they were still willing to pay considerably more--between $10 and $12--for a physical CD.

Technology companies say record companies need to take heed of these signs and be more flexible with pricing and the restrictions they put on copying and CD burning. Labels, artists and music publishers can potentially make more money with lower prices by offering deals on back-catalog songs that are unavailable elsewhere today and by spurring much more frequent purchases from consumers, technology company executives said.

"There has not really been an attempt to explore the price elasticity of this product," said Robbie Vann-Adibe, CEO of Ecast, a company that provides digital music jukeboxes for bars and retail businesses.

Currently, close to two-thirds of the 99 cent digital song price goes to labels and other copyright holders, leaving slim or even negative margins for the song stores themselves. Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently said his company remains interested in the business because it helps sell the company's profitable iPod music devices.

Music executives say they may become more flexible with this pricing, but it will take time and resources. Their industry has accepted that the future is digital, but it can’t change overnight, they said.

"This business is going to grow," said Courtney Holt, head of new media for Interscope Geffen A&M Records. "But you can't look at old-world models of how we made money and say we're going to duplicate those in the new world. At the corporate level we’re looking seriously at what the record business, not just the record company, is going to be in five years."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5117275.html


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Amazon Wins Ruling On DMCA Safe Harbor

Thanks to an ILN reader for reporting that Amazon has won a California federal court case in which the court ruled that it qualified for the DMCA safe harbor in the sale of a copyright infringing DVD on its site. The court ruled a notification months earlier about potential infringements did not constitute adequate notice since it was not Congress' intent to have a single notice place all future monitoring responsibility on the intermediary.

Case name is Hendrickson v. Amazon.com.


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Rural Co-Ops Challenging Internet Phone Company
Dale Wetzel

North Dakota's small telephone companies are challenging a business that advertises cheap Internet phone calls, saying it cheats them of the fees they collect for granting access to their customers.

Their complaint is part of a mushrooming national debate over how the industry should be regulated.

Thirteen rural telephone cooperatives and small independent companies are asserting that SmartNet Inc. of Dickinson, which does business across North Dakota as CallSmart, is using their networks to connect long-distance calls.

The companies want to force CallSmart to stop doing business until it is licensed as a telecommunications carrier, and to pay them fees for access to their local customers. Traditional long-distance companies, including Sprint and AT&T, already pay the access fees.

"The services offered by ... (CallSmart) and its method of operations are a scheme to avoid legal obligations of paying access charges," the companies' attorney, Don Negaard of Minot, said in a state Public Service Commission filing.

CallSmart's president, Bruce Burke, said his company handles data and is an Internet service provider, not a phone company. Most of CallSmart's customers live outside North Dakota, he said.

He declined comment on the complaint, which the Public Service Commission accepted last week. He had no warning it was coming, and was surprised by it, he said.

"We'll just respond through the process of the PSC, and follow whatever requirements that they ask us to follow," he said.

State regulators in California, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota are among those exploring whether to treat businesses that provide voice service over the Internet as traditional phone companies.

The technology is called "voice over Internet protocol," or VoIP. It converts a person's voice into small packets of data, which are carried over the Internet and reassembled into sound on the other end of the call.

Generally, VoIP provides poorer sound quality, along with conversation gaps -- caused by loss of voice packets -- that can make a speaker's speech sound occasionally jerky and clipped. It is, however, much less expensive.

Last September, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission ordered Vonage, an Internet voice provider based in Edison, N.J., to apply for certification as a traditional telephone company. Vonage has built its business with help from advertising on Yahoo! and other large Internet portals.

Vonage argued it was a provider of information services, not a telecommunications company. But the PUC ruled that Vonage "is offering two-way communication that is functionally no different than any other telephone service."

However, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Minneapolis permanently barred the PUC in October from regulating Vonage as a phone company, saying its order conflicted with federal law and could inhibit the development of the Internet.
http://bismarcktribune.com/articles/...tate/sta01.txt


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Qwest Taps Into Net Telephony
Ben Charny

Qwest Communications International on Monday began selling Internet telephone service to a few hundred of its broadband customers in Minnesota.

Qwest is selecting initial customers, then providing them with either Internet phones or an adapter for their existing home phones, a company representative said. For competitive reasons, the carrier wouldn't disclose the price of monthly local and long-distance dialing plans or the equipment each subscriber needs.

The telephone company said it's the first major telecommunications service provider to offer what is known as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to U.S. homes. "The future of voice communications will be based on the Internet, and Qwest is excited to lead the way for customers," Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert said in a statement.

VoIP is a cheaper alternative to traditional telephone dialing, because the calls use the Internet and avoid telephone company access fees. About 10 percent of all telephone calls now rely at some point on VoIP, and that percentage is expected to rise dramatically during the next decade.

Qwest's intentions signal a further thawing of the once icy attitude among major phone companies' toward a mass- market VoIP service. Like most traditional phone companies, Qwest already uses VoIP to reduce the cost of its own operations, saving an estimated $15 million a month by completing long-distance and international calls "on Net." Qwest, the nation's fourth-largest local phone carrier, sells traditional local phone service in Minnesota, meaning that its VoIP plans will likely eat into its own base of customers.

Verizon Communications plans to begin selling Internet telephony services to broadband customers early next year. SBC Communications also is testing Net telephony services, according to a company representative. In October, regional phone company BellSouth announced plans to sell VoIP to small and midsize businesses.

The Bells are reacting to cable companies, which are selling less-expensive Internet phone service to their broadband customers. Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are both using VoIP technology.

But major cable providers Cox Communications and Comcast are hesitant to dabble in VoIP. Instead, they are content to sell phone services to a combined 2.1 million people using an earlier generation of telephone switches, which hog more bandwidth and are more expensive to operate than VoIP. Some Cox and Comcast executives believe VoIP as a technology is still not ready for widespread adoption.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5119020.html


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Time Warner Cable Reaches VoIP Deals
Ben Charny and Jim Hu

Time Warner Cable and two U.S. telephone service providers announced agreements Monday that may help the cable company's attack on the local and long- distance phone service market.

Sprint Communications and MCI will supply Time Warner Cable (TWC) with the necessary technology bridge so the cable company's Digital Phone subscribers can reach traditional telephone customers in a total of 27 markets, according to a TWC spokesman. The long-distance carriers also plan to provide Digital Phone subscribers with a location-based 911 service and local-number portability.

Sprint Communications and MCI will supply Time Warner Cable with the necessary technology bridge so the cable company's Digital Phone subscribers can reach traditional telephone customers in 27 markets.

VoIP is generating significant interest, particularly among cable companies that want to challenge traditional long-distance and local phone service providers.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352-5116936.html


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AT&T To Offer Internet Calling
Margaret Kane and Scott Ard

AT&T plans to let customers place telephone calls using Internet technology, an increasingly popular option for businesses and individuals that's cheaper than routing calls over the century- old telephone system.

The long-distance giant announced Thursday that it expects to have a service delivering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) available to consumers in the top 100 markets by the first quarter of 2004.

AT&T already offers managed VoIP services to some businesses and has been testing a consumer service in three states since October.

The company said in a press release that it would "expand its VoIP portfolio and aggressively market a full suite of VoIP-enabled services to business customers worldwide."

AT&T is the latest and largest telecommunications company to embrace VoIP, but it is far from alone. Several start-ups, such as Vonage, 8x8 and VoicePulse, offer a similar service, and many Baby Bells are also testing the waters or are expected to do so soon. VoIP providers typically charge about $40 a month for unlimited local and long-distance. AT&T did not release pricing information Thursday.

Using the Internet to send phone calls is generally cheaper than standard methods, because users don't have to pay access charges to the various telephone companies that route the calls over their networks. Such charges can amount to 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of offering local service.

Cathy Martine, a senior vice president in AT&T's Consumer division, has been named to oversee the new VoIP project at AT&T, CEO David Dorman said in a release. Martine had previously managed the employee trial and the subsequent consumer trial of VoIP for AT&T

AT&T's plans emerged the same week that cable giant Time Warner Cable said it reached deals with Sprint and MCI to expand its VoIP service. The company's Digital Phone plan costs $39.95 a month and allows unlimited local and long-distance service. Those who aren't Time Warner Cable customers pay an additional $10 a month.

And Qwest Communications International on Monday began selling Internet telephone service to a few hundred broadband customers in Minnesota.

"Unlike many of our competitors, who are constrained by geographic reach or broadband access technologies, our voice over IP offer will be available in cities across America to customers with different kinds of broadband access," Dorman said in a release.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5119779.html


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Standards Body Seeks To Help Content Owners Develop Flexible Business Models

The Content Reference Forum's goal is to enable interoperability that will let consumers more easily access the content they want and share it with others.
Tony Kontzer

Despite the glut of digital content available on the Internet, a host of barriers--such as the wide array of software formats and device types used to access content—still prevents content owners from developing truly flexible business models. A group of technology vendors and content providers has formed a standards body to solve that problem by creating a technical and business architecture that will support such business models.

The Content Reference Forum this week goes public with its first proposed specifications, and the ultimate goal is to enable the kind of interoperability that will let consumers more easily access the content they want and share it with others--regardless of format, platform, or other preferences. The initial set of specs, which the forum is calling the Baseline Profile 1.0, is focused on distribution of content to Internet-enabled PCs. Eventually, the forum plans to develop standards for distributing content to other devices, such as mobile phones and set-top boxes. The group also will work on standards for business processes such as reporting, payment services, and registration of any parties who hold a stake in the distribution of content.

The centerpiece of the forum's architecture is a data package called a "content reference," which serves as a unique identifier of a piece of content and the context in which it will be used. Those references then trigger "reference services," essentially a set of Web services that check the content reference against contractual agreements related to the content, automatically triggering options to purchase the content, thus preserving the rights of content stakeholders. The way those involved in the forum see it, it's time to overcome the Catch-22 that has prevented mature digital-content business models. "It's hard to create new business models without the technology infrastructure," Dmitry Radbel, VP of advanced technology for forum member Universal Music Group and chairman of the forum's requirements and architecture working group. "On the other hand, there's no motive to create a technology infrastructure if there are no business models."

While a handful of digital-content services have achieved a degree of success, Radbel says, current distribution models often don't take things such as device types or software platforms into account. Making content more abstract will result in services that can be format- and bandwidth-agnostic, he says. Moreover, the forum's architecture of content references and reference services will provide better capabilities for tracking all the participants involved in a content value chain so that even the most minor business agreements can be respected. "Our concern is, how do we capture the business rules related to the content?" Radbel says.

Another area of concern is trying to figure out how content owners can take advantage of the file-sharing distribution channel. "Peer-to-peer networks are here," Radbel says. "We don't like much of what's going on, but you can also look at it as the glass being half full and say, 'How can we use it?'"

In addition to Universal, founders of the forum include ARM Holdings, ContentGuard, Macrovision, Microsoft, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and VeriSign. The initial Baseline Profile specs are expected to be formally released in mid-2004.
http://www.informationweek.com/story...cleID=16700059


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Hacker Admits Sharing $2.2 Million In Software

A Mercer County man admitted in federal court Monday that he violated copyright law by sharing $2.2 million worth of pirated movie, music and game software over the Internet.

James Remy, 40, of Washington Township, who was not accused of profiting from the scheme, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Trenton to one count of copyright infringement.

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said Remy, a computer enthusiast who works for a printing and graphic design company in New Brunswick, operated what is known as a warez server, which allows other Internet users to download files for free. Christie said Remy was among a group of file pirates tracked by federal agents nationwide under the government's "Cybernet" operation.

During a nine-month period from Oct. 26, 2000 through July 24, 2001, the value of files downloaded from the server Remy set up was $2,242,712, Christie said.

Remy faces a maximum of three years in prison when sentenced March 19 by Judge Mary L. Cooper. His lawyer, Darrell L. Paster, said he will ask for leniency, because his client, a husband and father of three, has never been convicted of a crime, and never intended to make money.

"He did not do this as a protest or an act of civil disobedience," Paster said. "He didn't think what he was doing was immoral. While he knew it was wrong on some level, he never would have done it had he known the criminal consequences."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...,3642553.story


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Coke Enters the Music Business
Reuters

Coca-Cola is launching an Internet music download service in Britain next month, the first consumer brand to jump into Europe's crowded Internet music market, the company said on Monday.

The soft drinks maker said that in January it will begin selling music downloads from a catalog of 250,000 songs supplied from each of the five major music labels.

The artists range from Eminem to Elvis, delivered through a partnership with OD2, a British music-download company. The companies did not announce the pricing plan for downloads.

The European market for legal music downloads, though small at the moment, has attracted intense interest from major media companies and retailers ranging from Virgin Megastores to Time Warner's AOL unit. Still, the industry-sanctioned sites are running well behind the free file-sharing services run by Kazaa and iMesh.

Coke, which has huge brand appeal and a massive marketing budget, is expected to bring some much-needed publicity to the subscription download services.

Coke's main rival, PepsiCo, will join forces with Apple Computer iTunes download service in a 100-million-song "under-the-cap" giveaway beginning in February. The Apple service is not available in Europe.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61509,00.html


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Judge Orders SCO To Show Linux Infringement
Stephen Shankland

IBM won a tactical victory Friday in a legal battle with SCO Group when a judge ordered SCO to show within 30 days the Linux software to which it believes it has rights and to point out where it believes IBM is infringing.

But SCO also said it will open a new copyright infringement claim in its legal attack.

In a hearing in Salt Lake City, Federal Judge Dale A. Kimball required SCO to produce two key batches of information IBM had sought in the case.

In one batch, called Interrogatory No. 12, IBM sought "all source code and other material in Linux...to which plaintiff (SCO) has rights; and the nature of plaintiff's rights." In the second, Interrogatory No. 13, Big Blue sought a detailed description of how SCO believes IBM has infringed SCO's rights and whether SCO ever distributed the source code described in Interrogatory No. 12.

The information IBM sought is at the heart of the case, a bold lawsuit SCO began in March that alleges IBM moved technology from Unix to Linux against the terms of its contract with SCO, violating trade secrets in the process. SCO is seeking $3 billion from Big Blue, and is also trying to compel Linux-using corporations to license SCO's Unix. The judge's decision is one of the first moves in a case that will affect not just IBM but also other computing giants including Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, SAP and Dell that have embraced Linux.

IBM in August countersued with four patent violation claims and a defense that charges SCO with violating the terms of the General Public License (GPL) that governs Linux.

In the spring, when SCO first said Unix code had been copied into Linux, Chief Executive Darl McBride told CNET News.com, "We will be happy to show the evidence we have at the appropriate time in a court setting," but thus far the company hasn't done so.

IBM welcomed Kimball's decision. "IBM has said all along SCO has failed to show evidence to back its claims. We are very pleased the court has indicated it will compel SCO to finally back up its claims instead of relying on marketplace FUD" (fear, uncertainty and doubt), spokeswoman Trink Guarino said.

With interrogatory No. 12, IBM is essentially seeking to pin down what precisely SCO believes is in Linux that infringes Unix intellectual property. Though it hasn't said so in court, SCO executives in interviews have pointed to Unix technology including read-copy update (RCU), symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), nonuniform memory access (NUMA) and IBM's Journaled File System (JFS).

Work on that software took place at IBM or a company called Sequent it acquired. SCO doesn't dispute that IBM owns copyrights to that software but does argue that the agreement under which IBM and Sequent licensed Unix prohibit Big Blue from making the software public.

Interrogatory No. 13, in which IBM is trying to find out if SCO distributed Linux software that violates SCO's Unix intellectual property rights, would provide evidence that relates to IBM's counterattack. IBM argues that SCO's distribution of a Linux product means it has agreed to the GPL's terms and therefore given permission to use that particular Unix technology in Linux.

Another charge coming
To the original charges in the case, SCO plans to add a new one: copyright infringement.

SCO's attorneys "decided to notify the court they will be adding (copyright claims) as part of the claims. There will be a new filing on that coming out in the near future," SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said. The attorneys told Kimball of the intention on Friday, Stowell said.

SCO wasn't legally permitted to include copyright claims until it resolved a tussle with Novell--which sold much of its Unix intellectual property rights to SCO's predecessor-- over who actually held the copyrights. Only in June did SCO unearth the document that showed it had copyrights.

But thus far, its copyright actions have been unusual, said intellectual-property attorney John Ferrell of Carr & Ferrell.

"Since May, SCO has been saying they have proof of copyright violations by IBM and the rest of the Linux community, yet they've provided nothing that's been very convincing," Ferrell said. Without that evidence, SCO's attempt to force Linux-using corporations to license SCO's Unix is weakened, he said. "It seems if you're trying to get people to pay, it's reasonable to show them what the violation is."

SCO and IBM have each filed several motions to try to compel the other side to release information. In a motion Wednesday, IBM criticized SCO for delivering source code to IBM that had been printed on 1 million sheets of paper.

"Knowing full well that IBM would need its source code in electronic form so that proper analyses--such as those SCO itself claims to have performed--could be conducted, SCO instead produced the source code on one million sheets of paper," IBM said in the motion. "The only reason for SCO's production of code on paper was, we believe, to stall the progress of these proceedings while giving the (false) impression of being forthcoming in its discovery responses."

In response to IBM's complaint, Stowell said, "If a company wants code, it's the other party's decision to provide that any way they feel like providing that."

Kimball on Friday also scheduled a Jan. 23 hearing to address SCO's concerns that IBM isn't being sufficiently forthcoming, Stowell said. SCO is seeking source code to versions of Unix that IBM has developed and sold.

The attorney representing SCO on Friday was Kevin McBride, whom Stowell said is the SCO CEO's brother.

In other legal action, IBM on Wednesday subpoenaed Sun Microsystems; which recently expanded its Unix license with SCO Group and has a warrant to purchase shares in the company; Schwartz Communications; a public relations firm that represents SCO; and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. IBM spokeswoman Guarino couldn't immediately describe the purpose of the subpoenas.

One Fortune 500 company signed up for SCO's program to buy Unix licenses for running Linux, but Stowell said Northrop Grumman was not that company.

A Northrop Grumman representative declined to comment on the company's legal matters.
http://news.com.com/2100-7344-5114689.html


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Judge Blocks Movie 'Screener' Ban
Patricia Hurtado

In a Hollywood ending where the little guy prevails against the big studios, a federal judge ruled Friday that an industry ban against sending out screening copies of movies posed irreparable harm to independent filmmakers during an important awards season.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mukasey ruled that the ban against so-called screeners should be lifted now, in time for the upcoming Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild prizes.

"The plaintiffs will likely suffer irreparable harm as a result of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) screening ban," Mukasey said from the bench.

"It's thrilling to see that justice prevailed," filmmaker Theodore Hope told reporters after court. Hope, a plaintiff, is an independent producer whose movies "21 Grams" and "American Splendor" have garnered critical acclaim this year.

"The big problem I've always had is reaching an audience," Hope said. "Piracy. . .is a huge threat to the industry and needs to be discussed and acted upon, but I don't think this ban was the right way to combat it."

In a statement issued late Friday, Jack Valenti, the MPAA's president, vowed to appeal.

"We know, without dispute, that in the past screeners have been sources for pirated goods," Valenti said. "We will appeal because the impact and growing threat of piracy is real and must be addressed whever it appears."

In their suit, independent filmmakers contended that the motion picture association conspired with the seven major studios to hinder the indies' ability to promote films.

Valenti testified Wednesday that he decided in October to impose a partial ban against screeners or promotional DVD copies of movies for end-of-year award consideration.

Valenti agreed to make an exception to about 5,600 Academy Award members who would instead receive poorer quality VHS copies of movies, since the DVD format was highly desirable for bootleggers.

But in his ruling, Mukasey said Hope's testimony described the importance of screeners for the success of an independent film.

"The success of an independent film is dependent on the critical success surrounding the film and screeners are essential to attaining that acclaim," Mukasey said.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/...,3521688.story


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Go-Kart Records Sides With Kazaa

As the Recording Industry Association of America continues to clamp down on Internet music piracy, Go Karts records is encouraging it with free album downloads.

"We at Go-Kart Records want to make it perfectly clear that the RIAA does not represent the views of all record labels," a record-label spokesman said in a statement. "So, we are putting our music where our mouth is to prove a point. We believe that if you like the music you hear you will support it by going to shows, telling your friends, and buying the bands' CDs."

If users appreciate what they hear, they can make contributions to the label and band through a Pay Pal donation.
http://www.aversion.com/news/news_ar...m?news_id=1534


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53 Arrested Under Newly Amended Copyright Law

KUALA LUMPUR: Fifty-three people have been arrested under the newly amended Copyright Act, which came into effect on Oct 1.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Sulaiman Mahboob said one of them was fined RM32,000 for possession of 16 pirated VCDs.

“The rest have been remanded and will be charged,” he said after the ministry’s post- Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Under the Act, a person who makes, hires, sells, rents out, distributes, possesses, exhibits, trades or imports pirated copies could be fined a minimum of RM2,000 and a maximum of RM20,000 per copy.

Previously, only a maximum fine of RM10,000 was stipulated.

Sulaiman said the level of piracy in Malaysia had decreased and such items were no longer as visible or as easily obtainable.

He said the number of permanent premises and stalls selling pirated VCDs and CDs had fallen from 2,036 on July 21 to 1,823 on Nov 21.

He credited this to the ministry's campaigns and active enforcement of copyright laws.

On reports of a piracy network being responsible for the sale of pirated early version copies of Microsoft’s computer operating system that was only due to be released in 2006, Sulaiman said his ministry would have to obtain more details to begin investigations.

Asked about reports that Indian Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Satyabrata Mookherjee had urged Malaysia to get tough on music and video piracy, he also said the Government would investigate once more information was obtained.

On another matter, Sulaiman said investigations on three major cooking oil suppliers alleged to have hoarded supplies had been completed.

He said one of the suppliers had been fined RM1,000 while the other two cases were with the ministry’s legal adviser.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story...221&sec=nation


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A Toll Booth for File Sharers

Microsoft and Universal Music join a group that aims to ensure payment for digital goods by letting users pass around links to products.
Jon Healey

The world's largest record company is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. and other companies to try to change the way people use the Internet to buy music, movies and games.

Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, Microsoft and the five other companies are expected to announce today that they are collaborating on technology to ensure payment to copyright holders while letting computer users share digital products, as tens of millions of people do on networks like Kazaa.

Companies from chip makers to discount retailers are eager to figure out how to profit from delivery over the Internet, which is rife with pirates.

File-sharing networks are very good at distributing songs, videos and software for free — although the networks are frequently used for illegal copying.

They also can distribute digital material wrapped in electronic locks that enable copyright owners to charge users for the contents.

But the dominant brand of electronic lock, which Microsoft provides, has limited capabilities, said Albhy Galuten, senior vice president for advanced technology at Universal Music Group.

"It doesn't provide any sort of complex or innovative business models, which is why nobody uses it," he said.

Universal, Microsoft and the other companies — Japanese telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., chip maker ARM Holdings, Internet security company VeriSign Inc. and rights-management specialist Macrovision Corp. — have joined forces in what they call the Content Reference Forum.

The name derives from what the forum aims to do, which is to create a system in which people would share customized links, called "content references," rather than the music or movie files themselves.

It would work like this, according to forum President Michael Miron:

Clicking on a link would trigger a series of hidden electronic messages that would determine what kind of digital file your PC could be offered, how much you should be asked to pay for the file and how your money would be split among the various participants in the distribution chain.

That approach would enable companies to change prices and other terms on the fly.

For example, Galuten said, a record label could offer an album free to the first 5,000 people who download it, then charge $2 to the next 5,000 people, then $5, and so on.

It also would provide a bridge between incompatible types of software and across international borders with differing distribution rules, said Miron, who is also chief executive of ContentGuard Holdings Inc., a firm that makes rights-management software.

The links could work on existing file-sharing networks. But copyright owners would have to convince users to share and download links instead of actual songs, movies and software programs.

The forum isn't the only group offering a way to sell goods through file-sharing networks. Woodland Hills-based Altnet Inc., which helps companies sell digital goods through the Kazaa and EDonkey networks, has deals with several video game, software and independent movie and music companies.

On Tuesday, Altnet announced agreements with three independent labels offering selected releases from classic rock and blues artists, including Jethro Tull and Ike Turner.

In other developments in the online music market, Music Choice is expected to announce today a partnership with Santa Clara-based Roxio Inc.'s Napster service to enhance the free online radio service that Music Choice plans to offer next year to cable-modem users.

Through the partnership, people will be able to buy downloadable versions of songs as they play on Music Choice's channels.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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RIAA Hires ATF Chief for Anti-Piracy Unit
Reuters

The trade group representing the music industry said it had hired the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to lead its efforts against digital piracy.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America said Bradley A. Buckles would head its anti-piracy unit, working with law enforcement agencies and staff investigators around the country to stamp out the piracy of music that the industry has blamed for slumping sales and lost profits.

Buckles will leave the ATF on Jan. 3 after 30 years of service, including four as the bureau's director during which he oversaw a staff of more than 4,800 and a budget of more than $800 million.

RIAA member companies include Vivendi Universal's Universal Music, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music, Bertelsmann's BMG and EMI Group.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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New P2P features.

Microsoft Preps Windows XP Service Pack 2 Beta For Release Within Next Week
Paula Rooney

Microsoft is prepping Windows XP Service Pack 2 to be released into beta testing within a week, sources said.

Service Pack 2, or SP2, expected to be delivered in finished form during the first half of 2004, is considered a significant Windows update because it offers enhanced security features and rolls up all the security patches and updates that have been released since the last service pack shipped in September 2002.

Sources familiar with the Service Pack 2 beta said the update offers Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) turned on by default, better patch detection and management features, changes in the way e- mail attachments are handled and support for the Security Configuration Wizard, planned for the first Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 due in the second half of next year, partners said.

Partners say it will take a long time to test this beta code due to the variety of new security features and other new instant messaging, peer-to-peer (P2P) and video features introduced in SP2 beta. "This is big," one partner said of the update.

SP2, for instance, also features new support for Microsoft's P2P technologies, Microsoft Live Communications Server for corporate instant messaging and improves upon compression/ decompression performance for video, said sources familiar with the beta.

One provider in the licensing arena said some service packs can be overlooked but probably not this one.
http://www.crn.com/sections/Breaking...rticleID=46604


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ONLINE MUSIC

Detecto-Ware Sniffs Out Kazaa

If you're worried that the teenager in your home may be illegally downloading music, there's a new software program that will scan your computer to tell you if the popular peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa are present.

ShareControl, available for download for $19.95 from www.music- amnesty.com, will detect the settings of the P2P programs and also locate MP3 files.

The software allows parents, school administrators and others who are worried about being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America to police themselves to stay safe.

``Users decide if they want to delete these programs, turn sharing on or off, delete or keep music files,'' said Mark Andrews, co-founder of Music-Amnesty.com.

-- Sam Diaz

Pricing Remains A Stumbling Block

Prices have to fall if the online music business is going to go mainstream and be profitable, according to comments at IHollywood Forum's Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles. Music companies, however, say they can't afford to drop prices.

Ipsos-Insight www.ipsos-insight.com/news/, a research firm, reported consumers thought $7.99 was the most attractive price for a digital-music album. Current pricing is generally $9.99. One student said at 99 cents a song for online music, she would be more likely to buy a CD. Several other students on the panel agreed with the sentiment, one adding, ``If it's 30 cents I would buy it.''

-- CBS Marketwatch

ENTERTAINMENT

Group Seeks Playback Standards

A new group that includes Microsoft and Universal Music is hoping to make it easier to play music and videos across competing technologies.

The Content Reference Forum aims to publish standards to allow consumers to play music or other digital content encoded in one format to play easily on any device and in any country while also obeying contractual obligations, such as paying licensing fees and enforcing copyright protections.

The group has published its first set of standards that would use Internet-based references to identify content and the business agreements attached to them.

- Associated Press

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryne...gy/7466281.htm


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Only In LA - Police Captain Accused of Bootleg DVD Sales
Richard Winton and Monte Morin

Just days after Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton pledged a crackdown on motion picture piracy, department investigators on Tuesday helped arrest an LAPD captain suspected of selling bootleg DVDs.

Julie D. Nelson, a decorated patrol captain and a 28-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, was arrested at the Hollywood station following a sting operation in which she allegedly sold counterfeit film titles such as "The Cat in the Hat" to undercover officers.

Authorities said they recovered hundreds of suspected bootleg DVDs from her home in Orange County and from a friend's home in Torrance. Officials said they also recovered recording equipment at the home in Torrance.

"The message here is, it does not matter what rank you are. If you break the law, we will come after you," said Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell at a news conference after the arrest.

Nelson, who commanded the department's Harbor Division until early this year, was booked on suspicion of possessing and selling counterfeit merchandise and for failing to disclose the origins of a recording, both felonies. Nelson, 52, has been suspended with pay pending further investigation, McDonnell said.

Although LAPD internal affairs officers arranged the sting operation, Nelson was arrested by police officers from La Palma, where she lives. McDonnell said Nelson would be prosecuted by the district attorney of Orange County.

Officers began investigating Nelson after receiving a tip. They arranged to purchase DVDs from her at an Orange County business Saturday, before Nelson attended the Hollywood station's annual Christmas party, McDonnell said. He said it does not appear that Nelson sold DVDs at the Hollywood station, and it was unclear how long she might have been selling DVDs.

"She sold to people with whom she had personal relationships and people she knew," McDonnell said. Another police source described the movies recovered at her home as recent blockbusters. "You name it, she had it, whatever was hot," the source said.

The DVDs that were seized will be examined by the Encino-based Motion Picture Assn. of America, which has called for heightened enforcement of anti-piracy laws and launched a campaign to discourage the theft of movies.

Earlier this year, Nelson was shifted from the head of the Harbor Division to the No. 2 slot in Hollywood. Her new duty as a patrol captain was widely viewed as a reduction in authority.

A graduate of Cal State Fullerton, Nelson spent much of her career as an investigator, particularly of rapes and domestic violence.

She has been considered a pioneer in investigative methods. In 1994, she established one of the first emergency response programs for victims of domestic violence and served as the head of Robbery Homicide Division's rape unit.

At a news conference Friday, Bratton joined Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and movie industry executives on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to announce efforts to combat movie piracy.

Among other initiatives, Bratton told reporters then that he personally would keep an eye out for movie pirates and that his department would instruct movie theater employees on how to make a citizen's arrest if they found someone illegally taping a film with a camcorder.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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Canada Deems P2P Downloading Legal
John Borland

Downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks is legal in Canada, although uploading files is not, Canadian copyright regulators said in a ruling released Friday.

In the same decision, the Copyright Board of Canada imposed a government fee of as much as $25 on iPod-like MP3 players, putting the devices in the same category as audio tapes and blank CDs. The money collected from levies on "recording mediums" goes into a fund to pay musicians and songwriters for revenues lost from consumers' personal copying. Manufacturers are responsible for paying the fees and often pass the cost on to consumers.

The peer-to-peer component of the decision was prompted by questions from consumer and entertainment groups about ambiguous elements of Canadian law. Previously, most analysts had said uploading was illegal but that downloading for personal use might be allowed.

"As far as computer hard drives are concerned, we say that for the time being, it is still legal," said Claude Majeau, secretary general of the Copyright Board.

The decision is likely to ruffle feathers on many sides, from consumer-electronics sellers worried about declining sales to international entertainment companies worried about the spread of peer-to-peer networks.

Copyright holder groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had already been critical of Canada's copyright laws, in large part because the country has not instituted provisions similar to those found in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One portion of that law makes it illegal to break, or to distribute tools for breaking, digital copy protection mechanisms, such as the technology used to protect DVDs from piracy.

A lawyer for the Canadian record industry's trade association said the group still believed downloading was illegal, despite the decision.

"Our position is that under Canadian law, downloading is also prohibited," said Richard Pfohl, general counsel for the Canadian Recording Industry Association. "This is the opinion of the Copyright Board, but Canadian courts will decide this issue."

In its decision Friday, the Copyright Board said uploading or distributing copyrighted works online appeared to be prohibited under current Canadian law.

However, the country's copyright law does allow making a copy for personal use and does not address the source of that copy or whether the original has to be an authorized or noninfringing version, the board said.

Under those laws, certain media are designated as appropriate for making personal copies of music, and producers pay a per-unit fee into a pool designed to compensate musicians and songwriters. Most audio tapes and CDs, and now MP3 players, are included in that category. Other mediums, such as DVDs, are not deemed appropriate for personal copying.

Computer hard drives have never been reviewed under that provision, however. In its decision Friday, the board decided to allow personal copies on a hard drive until a fee ruling is made specifically on that medium or until the courts or legislature tell regulators to rule otherwise.

"Until such time, as a decision is made on hard drives, for the time being, (we are ruling) in favor of consumers," Majeau said.

Legal analysts said that courts would likely rule on the file-swapping issue later, despite Friday's opinion.

"I think it is pretty significant," Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said. "It's not that the issue is resolved...I think that sooner or later, courts will sound off on the issue. But one thing they will take into consideration is the Copyright Board ruling."

Friday's decision will also impose a substantial surcharge on hard drive-based music players such as Apple Computer's iPod or the new Samsung Napster player for the first time. MP3 players with up to 10GB of memory will have an added levy of $15 added to their price, while larger players will see $25 added on top of the wholesale price.

MP3 players with less than 1GB of memory will have only a $2 surcharge added to their cost.

With a population of about 31 million people, Canada is approximately one-tenth the size of the United States. But Canadians are relatively heavy users of high-speed Internet connections, which make it easy to download music files. About 4.1 million Canadians were using a broadband connection at home as of the end of June 2003, according to U.K.-based research firm Point Topic. By comparison, U.S. cable and DSL (digital subscriber line) subscribers totaled 22.7 million at the end of September, according to Leichtman Research Group.

Canada has already raised the hackles of some copyright holders through its reluctance to enact measures that significantly expand digital copyright protection, as the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has done in the United States. As a result, Canada could become a model for countries seeking to find a balance between protecting copyright holders' rights and providing consumers with more liberal rights to copyrighted works. For now, it remains unclear how other countries might be influenced by Friday's ruling.

Geist said he believes the tariff decision could be just the tip of the iceberg for hardware makers, as Canadian regulators grapple with the full implications of the policy. Other devices, including PCs, may eventually be brought under the tariff scheme, he predicted.

"Given that they've made a strong stand on (peer-to-peer matters), if the policy remains the same, there's little choice but to move ahead on personal computers," Geist said.

However, a representative of the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), the group of music copyright holders that typically petitions for new media types to be added to the list, said computers were not on its agenda.

"We have never sought a levy on computer hard drives and do not intend to do so in the future," Lucie Beaucheni, vice chair of the CPCC, said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5121479.html












Until next week,

- js.










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Current Week In Review.


Recent WIRs -


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=18087 December 6th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=18030 November 29th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17982 November 22nd
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17925 November 15th




Jack Spratt’s Week In Review is published every Friday. Please submit letters, articles, and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts at lycos.com. Include contact info. Submission deadlines are Wednesdays @ 1700 UTC.