Bringing Botnets Out of the Shadows
Online Volunteers Monitor Illegal Computer Networks
Brian Krebs
Nicholas Albright's first foray into some of the darkest alleys of the Internet came in November 2004, shortly after his father committed suicide. About a month following his father's death, Albright discovered that online criminals had broken into his dad's personal computer and programmed it to serve as part of a worldwide, distributed network for storing pirated software and movies.
Albright managed to get the network shuttered with a call to the company providing the Internet access the criminals were using to control it. From that day forward, Albright poured all of his free time and pent-up anger over his father's death into assembling "Shadowserver," a group of individuals dedicated to battling large, remote-controlled herds of hacked personal PCs, also known as "botnets."
Now 27, Albright supports his wife and two children as a dispatcher for a health care company just outside of Boulder, Colo. When he is not busy fielding calls, Albright is chatting online with fellow Shadowserver members, trading intelligence on the most active and elusive botnets. Each "bot" is a computer on which the controlling hacker has installed specialized software that allows him to commandeer many of its functions. Hackers use bots to further their online schemes or as collection points for users' personal and financial information.
"I take my [handheld computer] everywhere so I can keep tabs on the botnets when I'm not at home," Albright said in a recent online chat with a washingtonpost.com reporter. "I spend at least 16 hours a day monitoring and updating."
On a Sunday afternoon in late February, Albright was lurking in an online channel that a bot herder uses to control a network of more than 1,400 hacked computers running Microsoft Windows software. The hacker controlling this botnet was seeding infected machines with "keyloggers," programs that can record whatever the victim types into online login screens or other data-entry forms.
Albright had already intercepted and dissected a copy of the computer worm that the attacker uses to seize control of computers -- an operation that yielded the user name and password the hacker uses to run the control channel. By pretending to be just another freshly hacked bot reporting for duty, Albright passively monitors what the hackers are doing with their botnets and collects information that an Internet service provider would need to get the channel shut down.
Albright spied one infected PC reporting data about the online activities of its oblivious owner -- from the detailed information flowing across the wire, it was clear that one of the infected computers belongs to a physician in Michigan.
"The botnet is running a keylogger, and I see patient data," Albright said. The mere fact that the doctor's PC was infected with a keylogger is a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires physicians to take specific security precautions to protect the integrity and confidentiality of patient data. "The police need to be notified ASAP to get that machine off the network."
A little more than an hour and a few phone calls later, the doctor's Internet service provider had disconnected the infected PC from its network and alerted the physician. Albright sent an e-mail to the FBI including all the evidence he collected about the attack, but he wasn't terribly sanguine that the feds would do anything with it.
"Anything you submit to law enforcement may help later if an investigation occurs," he said. "Chances are, though, it will just be filed away in a database."
A Spreading Menace
Botnets are the workhorses of most online criminal enterprises today, allowing hackers to ply their trade anonymously -- sending spam, sowing infected PCs with adware
from companies that pay for each installation, or hosting fraudulent e-commerce and banking Web sites.
As the profit motive for creating botnets has grown, so has the number of bot-infected PCs. David Dagon, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech who has spent several years charting the global spread of botnets, estimates that in the 13-month period ending in January, more than 13 million PCs around the world were infected with malicious code that turned them into bots.
Botnets typically consist of Microsoft Windows machines that belong to small-business or home-computer users who failed to secure their PCs against hackers and viruses. Their machines are typically infected when the user opens an infected e-mail attachment. While firewall and anti-virus programs can help block such attacks, online criminals are increasingly developing programs that evade detection or even disable security software.
"What I've seen from my work with Shadowserver has blown me away," said André M. Di Mino, 40, a private technology consultant from Bergen County, N.J. Di Mino teamed up with the group in October after he left a job as a chief information officer at a business-services company.
"I know many users within my former organization who felt that anti-virus and spyware scanning would save them," Di Mino said. "However, now I see how many malicious files tied to major botnets remain undetected" by the most popular anti-virus programs.
Catching Viruses With Honey
When he's not manning the deli counter at a supermarket in Liverpool, England, 20-year-old Shadowserver member Dave Andrews is usually poring over new computer
virus specimens. (Unlike Andrews, the vast majority of the volunteers are located in the United States.) Like most other members, he began fiddling with computers and programming at an early age.
Four months ago, Andrews was on track to become a computer-systems engineer in the British military, but he said he was honorably discharged on account of a recurring physical injury. Most of the Shadowserver crew have backgrounds in computer security, and they are all volunteers who spend most of their free time on the project.
Andrews's virus specimens were collected by an automated software tool designed to catch new pieces of computer code that criminals use to infect PCs and turn them into bots. Shadowserver locates bot networks by deploying a series of "honeynets" -- sensors that mimic computers with known security flaws -- in an effort to lure attackers, allowing the group to capture samples of new bot programs.
Most bots spread by instructing new victims to download the attacker's control program from a specific set of Web sites. By stripping out those links, Shadowserver members can begin to build a map of the attacker's network, information which is then shared with several other botnet hunting groups, security volunteer groups, federal law enforcement, and any affected ISPs or Web site hosts.
Each unique piece of intercepted bot code is run through nearly two dozen anti-virus programs to determine if the code has already been identified by security vendors. Shadowserver submits any new or undetected specimens to the major anti-virus companies. Andrews said he is constantly surprised by the sheer number of bot programs that do not get flagged as malicious by any of the programs.
"Generally, one or two [correct identifications] is considered good, but there are hundreds of bot programs that each anti-virus program doesn't catch on their own," Andrews said.
In Andrews's experience, by far the most common reason criminals create botnets these days -- other than perhaps to sell or rent them to other criminals -- is to install online ad-serving software that earns the attacker a few pennies per install.
"The majority of these [botmasters] are hardcore users who repeat over and over, because it can earn them money by the installation of adware," he said.
A Thankless Job
Even after the Shadowserver crew has convinced an ISP to shut down a botmaster's command-and-control channel, most of the bots will remain infected. Like lost
sheep without a shepherd, the drones will continually try to reconnect to the hacker's control server, unaware that it no longer exists. In some cases, Albright said, a botmaster who has been cut off from his command-and-control center will simply wait a few days or weeks, then re-register the domain and reclaim stranded bots.
"The botnets we've already shut down have a real possibility of popping back up again tomorrow," Albright said.
Such constant attacks and setbacks can take an emotional toll on volunteers who spend countless hours not only hunting down bot herders but in many cases notifying the individuals or institutions whose networks and systems the hackers have commandeered. This is largely a thankless job, because in most cases the victims never even respond.
David Taylor, a senior information security specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, knows all too well what botnet-hunting burnout feels like. Taylor was invited to join Albright and the Shadowserver crew following a story at washingtonpost.com detailing his conversations with a botmaster named "Diabl0." The hacker bragged about making money with his botnet through adware installations. (Diabl0 -- an 18-year-old Moroccan national named Farid Essebar -- was eventually arrested on suspicion of authoring the "Zotob" worm that infected hundreds of companies in a high-profile attack last fall.)
A few months ago, Taylor became obsessed with tracking a rather unusual botnet consisting of computers running Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Working a week straight, Taylor located nearly all of the infected machines and had some success notifying the owners of those systems, but the Taiwanese ISP the hackers used to host their control center repeatedly ignored his requests to shutter the site.
Since that incident, Taylor has distanced himself from bot hunting -- if only, he says, to make time for other interests. These days he spends most of his spare hours doing something far less stressful -- painting.
"Bot hunting can really take over your personal life, because to do this right you really have to stay on top of it -- it can't just be something you do on the weekends," he said. "I guess it takes a special type of person to be able to sustain botnet hunting. ... I don't know anyone who pays people to do this kind of work."
Recent media attention to the Shadowserver project has generated interest among a new crop of volunteers eager to deploy honeynet sensors and contribute to the effort. Albright says he'll take all the help he can get, but he worries that the next few years will bring even more numerous and stealthy botnets.
"Even with all the sensors we have in place now, we're still catching around 20 new unknown [bot programs] per week," he said. "Once we get more sensors that number will probably double."
Albright said that while federal law enforcement has recently made concerted efforts to reach out to groups like Shadowserver in hopes of building a more effective partnership, they don't have the bodies, the technology, or the legal leeway to act directly on the information the groups provide.
"Our data can't be used to gather a warrant," Albright said. "Law enforcement has to view the traffic first hand, and they are limited on what and when they can view."
"It's going to get a lot worse in the next two years. We need a taskforce or law enforcement agency to handle these types of intrusions ... and that needs to be all they do," Albright said. "Sadly, without more law enforcement support this will remain a chase-your-tail type game, because we won't ever really shut these networks down until the bot master goes to jail, and his drones are cleaned."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032100279.html
Pioneering US Computer Game Designer Proclaims Industry "Brain Dead"
AFP
The electronic game industry is dead, veteran computer software designers lamented in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Chris Crawford, whose experience creating electronic games dated back to when he went to work for Atari in 1979, sounded a death knell for the industry during a gripe session at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose.
"Nothing better can be done about the game industry, because it is dead," Crawford groused. "It is a body that has a beating heart, but is essentially brain dead."
Interactive story telling was the future, Crawford said.
"Games are about things, while story telling is about people," the game designer and author told an audience of 500 people during a session titled "Burn baby burn - Game developers rant."
Many in the audience of game designers and enthusiasts challenged Crawford, while others agreed and suggested ways the industry might be resurrected.
"People are things," someone shouted.
Crawford was backed by rants from five other game developers who, in a panel discussion, pointed out why the game industry seemed lifeless.
Seamus Blackley, a game developer with Creative Artist Agency, contended a lack of business sense by game developers was killing creativity because it left them relying on corporate publishers to market their ideas.
"We have great ideas," Blackley said. "What's happening is that we don't make a good business around the ideas. Think about money and consider how the audience is going to purchase independent games."
The game industry should be more like the movie industry where daring independent films such as "Brokeback Mountain" have a chance of being made, Blackley said.
Other panelists blamed a lack of innovation for the dying game industry. Jonathan Blow, an independent game designer, argued that most new games are just old games but with different graphics.
Games also need to capture people emotionally, Blow said.
"We need to make games that people care about so much that they can't not play them," Blow said. "We need to put feelings in games."
The ranting session, a tradition at the annual conference, was intended as a chance for game developers to address problems of the industry.
"No more ranting," chimed Robin Hunicke, who helped design the popular Sims series of games for Electronic Arts. "Lets go out there and do stuff."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060324...NlYwN5bmNhdA--
Starforce Enforces DRM By Instant Reboot (Without Warning)
Seán Byrne
Despite all the problems DRM has been causing lately, it seems like companies involved in copy protection just keep trying to create more dangerous copy protections. Originally, they were more of a nuisance causing compatibility issues, installing wanted software, etc. Next came Sony Rootkits which used cloaking to hide its DRM processes and files, but with the side affect of being able to cloak spyware & viruses, thus causing a serious security risk. More recently, the Settec Alpha-DVD protection has been reported to cause DVD writers to malfunction.
Now, Futuremark* has uncovered a very dangerous anti-piracy system Starforce is now using. This copy protection system installs a driver that runs at the highest level of access on the system, which gives it low level access to the PCs hardware and any drivers and processes. This driver runs regardless of whether the game runs; keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity such as attempting to copy a protected disc. If something suspicious is detected, it forces the PC to make an immediate reboot, regardless of any other applications running and whether or not the user has any unsaved work.
To make matters worse, this copy protection interferes with DPM readings from software that is designed to allow the playback of copied game discs, which means that any game backups that rely on this Data Protection Manager will no longer play with the Starforce protection driver in place. Finally, as the Starforce protection has been found to interfere with certain device drivers, some drivers will run in legacy PIO mode instead of DMA, which not only slows down the PC by hogging CPU resources, but also slows down the data transfer to the affected hardware.
This latest identified threat by Futuremark* is one that relates to a driver being installed on your computer that gains RING0 access (the highest level of access to your computer). The installation requires Administrator level access to install the driver, which runs all of the time regardless of whether or not you're playing a game with Starforce DRM.
With such a high level of processor access (sharing the same levels the operating system enjoys), the Starforce driver can do anything to your computer at any time. This very ability is demonstrated, since the Starforce driver will force a reboot (not a shutdown) when it thinks it has discovered suspicious activity related to copying. The reboot occurs instantly, and any and all unsaved data could be lost.
With the reported side effects of this copy protection system, this is one thing I would not trust on any system. For example, if one wanted to make a copy of a disc and didn’t realise they had a Starforce protected game in their DVD-ROM drive, their PC is rebooted without even being given a chance to save any work! Worse still, this is likely to give some people a major headache trying to figure out why one or more of their device drivers are acting up, certain hardware cause the PC to run sluggish when used and so on. However, for those who get affected or lose several hours of unsaved work due to an unexpected reboot, chances are that they are not going to get any compensation or sympathy from Starforce or the game publishers using the copy protection.
* Update: According to a news post by Futuremark, apparently they have not carried out any research or uncovered anything relating to StarForce, however this discovery was made by users who posted about this on their public discussion boards.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13212
China Forces Online Gamers To Disclose Identities
Xinhua
Chinese gamers will soon be forced to reveal their true identities in a bid to stop young players from spending too much time online, the official Xinhua news agenc reported.
Beginning in June, all Chinese Internet game manufacturers will be required to install technology in their games requiring players to reveal their real names and identification numbers, Xinhua said.
Seven companies participated in a pilot project last year that has helped make more than 100 domestically-produced games inaccessible to players unless they register, Xinhua said.
The companies work with the police to ensure the name and identification number given by players are genuine.
Currently, many players simply register fake IDs.
The new system is aimed at helping parents track how many hours teenagers have played and which games they play, Xinhua said.
Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center show that China had 111 mln Internet users by the end of 2005, more than 20 mln of whom were online game players.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/fee...fx2611920.html
China Gives Skype Two Year Sentence For Reckless Telco Endangerment
Ryan Block
China's got some businesses to protect -- landline phone businesses, that is -- and it sounds like no Skype VoIP licenses (enabling, for example, SkypeOut calling) are to be issued for another two years over there per government intervention. That's bad, but what's worse is apparently China Telecom's declared the software "illegal" (we assume that claim carries over to other VoIP software, too -- and isn't law) and the government's experimenting with ways to entirely restrict Skype usage as they see fit (which is a little more difficult than flipping a switch on the Great Firewall, being that Skype runs on standard HTTP / HTTPS ports). Sure, VoIP is disruptive, and we all know it'd be best to let the carriers sort it out in the marketplace, but damned if this isn't one of the more visible hands, so to speak, that we've seen in a while.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/21/c...lco-endangerm/
Microsoft Takes Another Shot At Handheld Market
Dean Takahashi
In a bid to capture the huge audience for handheld entertainment gadgets, Microsoft is designing a product that combines games, music and video in one handheld device, according to sources familiar with the project.
The Microsoft product would compete with Sony, Nintendo and Apple Computer products, including the iPod. And Microsoft has some of its most seasoned talent from the division that created its popular Xbox 360 working on it.
Game executive J Allard leads the project, and its director is Greg Gibson, who was the system designer on the Xbox 360 video game console, sources said. Bryan Lee, the finance chief on the Xbox business, is leading the business side of the project.
By anchoring its entertainment device as a handheld game player, Microsoft is starting from its position of strength in the entertainment business that it hopes Apple cannot match, even with its iPod. Game industry publications, circulating rumors of this development, have dubbed it an ``iPod killer,'' but its functions would probably more closely resemble Sony's PlayStation Portable multimedia gaming device, sources say.
The product might not be ready for market for at least a year, and maybe two. While details are sketchy, the pedigree of the people in charge of the business show how strategic it is to Microsoft's future.
``That would certainly be an interesting development in the market,'' said Anita Frazier, a game industry analyst at the NPD Group.
The other competitors have huge leads on Microsoft. But the Xbox veterans have been underdogs for a while. Gibson, 35, is an electrical engineer who joined Microsoft in 1997 to help design computer mice and other hardware. He shifted to the Xbox division in 1999 to help design the innards of the original Xbox. In 2002, he became the system designer in charge of the overall design of the Xbox 360.
Allard, a 36-year-old programmer who became famous for prompting Bill Gates to take the Internet seriously, commanded much of the hardware and software teams who put together the Xbox 360. Lee, a longtime entertainment executive, joined Microsoft as finance chief for the Xbox a few years ago.
The approval of the project spurred the reorganization of the leadership team in the Home and Entertainment Division in December, sources said. In September, Robbie Bach, formerly the chief Xbox officer, was promoted to lead the Entertainment and Devices Group, which combined the Xbox with other mobile and entertainment businesses in one of four major product groups.
Then in December, the jobs of the top Xbox executives were broadened so that they could manage all of the businesses related to the broader Entertainment and Devices Group, which included the Xbox business, mobile devices, MSN, music and home productivity software. Allard, whose group designed the Xbox 360, was named to head ``experience and design'' for the entire group.
Sources said the reason for the reorganization was to bring Allard, Lee, Gibson and all of the relevant businesses into a single group, which is supervised by Bach. The participation of these highly regarded Xbox veterans suggests that Microsoft is very serious about catching up with Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld game player, Apple's iPod music players, and Nintendo's handheld GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS game players.
In the past, all of Microsoft's efforts to compete have fallen short. The company considered making an ``Xboy'' game player a few years ago but shelved the idea. It considered making a handheld at the same time it devised plans for the Xbox 360 in 2002 and 2003, but it again decided to delay its entry.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's efforts in PocketPC handhelds and Portable Media Players have fallen short in competition with the iPod. Last week, Microsoft unveiled Project Origami, a handheld Windows computer. But that device isn't targeted on pure entertainment as Microsoft's new product would be. The existence of these other projects suggests that there is still some infighting within Microsoft about its best approach to portable gadgets.
The handheld project is still in its early stages. Microsoft is still figuring out which strategy to pursue in music technology, according to sources familiar with the matter. The code name for its music service, which would be the equivalent of Apple's iTunes, is ``Alexandria.''
One benefit of waiting longer is that the handheld will probably have sufficient technology in it to run a lot of original Xbox games from a few years ago. Hence, it wouldn't be hard to create a new library of games for the handheld.
Signs of activity have surfaced. Transmeta, a maker of low-power chip technology, said last year that it had assigned 30 engineers to work with Microsoft on a secret project. Transmeta's engineers work on ways to take the power out of computing chips so that they can be used in handheld devices with long battery lives.
In an interview with Business Week in January, Xbox corporate vice president Peter Moore referred to a new product under development and said, ``It can't just be our version of the iPod.'' He said the Xbox brand ``is an opportunity'' if Microsoft decides to enter the mobile entertainment competition.
Moore declined to comment further recently on the rumor about the handheld. But sources familiar with the project confirmed its existence within the Xbox organization.
What remains to be seen is when Microsoft will launch the device. Gibson's group of hardware engineers only became free last fall, when most work on the Xbox 360 was completed.
It could be 2007 or 2008 before the device hits store shelves, sources said. That would give rivals such as Sony, Nintendo and Apple considerable time to consolidate their position and come up with their own new gadgets in the meantime.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/14141766.htm
OSx86 Project Offer $1 Bounty For A Vista Boot
Evan Blass
The ink is barely dry on narf/blanka's checks, and already the OSx86 project has launched a new contest for getting Microsoft Vista to dual-boot on an Intel Mac (although it seems copies of that particular OS may be rather scarce for awhile), but this time the prize will be a bit smaller- thousands of dollars smaller, actually. In order to prevent a large reward from "holding us back from sharing what we learn," the project coordinators have decided to forgo the donation pot from the XP contest in favor of a flat $1 bounty. "Plus, it's fun," they add sadistically. Clearly they were also having fun when codifying the rules of the contest, as the very lax restrictions only require that entrants have a computer, be carbon-based life forms, and prove a hatred of Nancy Sinatra for eligibility.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/21/o...-a-vista-boot/
Patents as Thought Control
Nate Anderson
Can basic scientific research be patented? If the answer is no (and it generally is), then can a correlation between two scientific facts be patented? That second question has stirred up a legal battle that will be heard today by the US Supreme Court and could have broad implications for patent policy in this country.
The patent in question is No. 4,940,658, granted in 1990 and now owned by a company called Metabolite. The patent covers a specific test that looks for elevated homocysteine levels in humans—a legitimate and non-controversial invention. But the patent goes on to argue that it covers the correlation between two facts: elevated homocysteine levels and a vitamin B deficiency. Patenting this correlation means that doctors who test for elevated homocysteine levels and find them cannot use this information to infer that their patient needs more B vitamins unless they pay royalties to Metabolite. It's not a patent on basic facts, but it comes close.
Everyone knows that the American patent system needs help and that far too many dubious patents are granted that later cause all sorts of headaches before finally being overturned. Most of our coverage has focused on technology, but science is facing the same complex problems. Where's the line to be drawn between a fact and an invention? Discovering certain facts, after all, can sometimes require incredible ingenuity and new scientific techniques. Michael Crichton points out that this uncertainty has lead to a situation where the human genome (among other things) can now be owned.
"For example, the human genome exists in every one of us, and is therefore our shared heritage and an undoubted fact of nature. Nevertheless 20 percent of the genome is now privately owned. The gene for diabetes is owned, and its owner has something to say about any research you do, and what it will cost you. The entire genome of the hepatitis C virus is owned by a biotech company. Royalty costs now influence the direction of research in basic diseases, and often even the testing for diseases."
Crichton is not a fan of such patents, arguing that "we grant patents at a level of abstraction that is unwise," and he's particularly concerned with the Metabolite claims. The Supreme Court's apparent interest in the case may signal the Court's willingness to step into the debate and clarify the rules on the scope of patents. Correlation patents, in particular, will come under scrutiny.
"If someone observes a correlation between X and Y and then announces he is going to use that correlation in a lab test, is that a patentable process? I think the court is troubled that that sort of correlation would be possible," said attorney Jack Bierig, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Lab Corp. for medical groups including the American Medical Association.
Any decision could have broad ramifications for companies with strong patent portfolios, and some reduction in the scope of patents would seem to be helpful. Yet it's not clear that the Court is the best body to set the rules in this area. On the other hand, if left up to Congress, many meaningful reforms would no doubt be gutted by lobbyists. We'll keep an eye on this one as it develops.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060321-6423.html
Estrada: US Officials Bugged Phone Talks With Ex-FBI Analyst
OUSTED President Joseph Estrada said Tuesday he was notified by an American court that US authorities bugged his telephone conversations with a former FBI analyst who was charged with illegally revealing US government secrets.
Estrada has previously acknowledged receiving American government assessments of Philippine political events from Leandro Aragoncillo, who has been accused of illegally downloading confidential US information and passing them to other people while working as an FBI intelligence analyst.
Estrada told The Associated Press that he received a notice from a New Jersey court, which informed him that some of his telephone conversations with Aragoncillo were wiretapped by US authorities.
The notice indicated that the wiretapping, done in the course of investigating Aragoncillo, was authorized by the New Jersey court, Estrada said.
Estrada said there was no indication that he was being investigated by US authorities.
"The notice said that my telephone calls with Aragoncillo were wiretapped," Estrada told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The wiretapping was authorized by the court."
Aragoncillo, a 21-year Marine veteran who became an FBI intelligence analyst in 2004, was arrested in the US last year.
He has been charged with conspiring to reveal government secrets, acting as a foreign agent and improperly using FBI computers. Those charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years.
He has not been charged with espionage, which carries a maximum penalty of capital punishment. (AP)
http://www.asianjournal.com/?c=123&a...25e546f2655507
Judge Agrees: Just Because You Dislike Open Source, Doesn't Make It Illegal
from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept
About a year ago, we noted a bizarre lawsuit by someone claiming that the concept of the GPL (General Public License) was a violation of anti-trust law as it was illegal price fixing that made it impossible to compete. It seemed laughable at the time, and it appears that a judge has agreed, throwing out the case and making the guy pay the legal fees of the Free Software Foundation for its troubles (found via Digg). The judge dismissed the case because the plaintiff completely failed to show specific anti-trust related injury as resulting from the GPL -- which suggests others could still go after the GPL under the same argument if they could present a better case. However, it still seems fairly ridiculous, since the GPL is simply a license choice. In fact, the judge even noted: "the GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation." Just because something is given away free, it doesn't automatically make it anti-competitive. In many cases, it's actually much more competitive. It just means that the business model may be different or non-existent.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060321/1256245.shtml
No Copying From First High-Def Players
The first HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players will ship soon--without any support for consumer copying.
Melissa J. Perenson
Imagine Olympic skaters lined up at the starting line, but the ice ahead of them isn't ready for the race--not a pretty sight. Yet backers of Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, the two high-definition optical disc formats poised to succeed DVD, are in a similar situation. And consumers are in even worse shape. If they want to enjoy any of the cool, futuristic copying and sharing features that the next-generation formats were expected to support, they still have to wait.
Vendors have been chomping at the bit to release players for prerecorded high-definition content in both formats. But they've been forced to change their product launch plans because of delays in finalizing the content protection specification that both formats will use--and which neither format's proponents control.
Welcome to the world of next-generation DVD. PR wars, misinformation (no, these players won't track what you're watching via an Internet connection), and repeated delays (some in the industry recall when AACS was supposed to be finished by December 2004) have created a messy state of affairs that's only going to get more complicated when products arrive this spring.
AACS: The Interim Solution
After the apparent ease with which the Content Scrambling System copy protection on standard-definition DVD was broken years back, it's not at all surprising that Hollywood and the technology community would want to take their time to work out the details on the Advanced Access Content System and get it right from the get- go.
However, some of those details just weren't ready in time for consumer electronic companies' product release schedules. In fact, Toshiba--which later this month expects its first HD-DVD players to be the first next-generation products on store shelves--was manufacturing the players before the interim AACS spec was reached. (The company expected to add whatever updates were necessary via firmware before the products shipped.)
To accommodate Toshiba and other companies that wanted to start shipping their high-def products, the AACS Licensing Association came up with a somewhat bizarre solution: It released an interim spec that enables Hollywood studios to securely encode and distribute their content and supports playback of that content on players. But the interim version of AACS has limitations, most conspicuously the lack of support for managed copy. "Managed copy" is industry jargon for the technology that lets content providers offer legal free or fee-based ways for you to move content around on a home server, make a physical copy of content for backup purposes, or transfer it to another device such as a portable media player.
"A player that's licensed under the interim agreement will not be able to do managed copy," states Richard Doherty, spokesperson for the AACS Licensing Association. Although Doherty declined to go into detail about the outstanding issues, he did say that they concern how managed copy will be implemented (and what it will, and will not, allow), and not the actual technology. Technologically speaking, the spec is done, which means it is plausible that "a manufacturer can implement managed copy [but not turn it on], and then enable it in any number of ways down the road," says Doherty.
However, copy support won't be forthcoming for the first round of players. Neither Toshiba's $499 HD-A1 nor its $799 HD-XA1 are firmware upgradeable to support managed copy--in spite of the fact that these units have front-mounted USB ports for some undefined future expansion. Ditto for Pioneer's $1800 Elite BDP-HD1 and Samsung's $1000 BD-1000, due out in June and May, respectively.
No Problem With Media
Strangely enough, the interim AACS spec won't cripple first-generation prerecorded HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc media. Says Doherty: "It is our intent to avoid any kind of legacy problem with discs. There are no issues on the content side. Prepping a disc to offer managed copy is ready to go now."
What will consumers experience when they play a disc that offers managed copy options in a device that doesn't support them? Those options could be grayed out or hidden when the disc is placed into the device.
"One of the challenges in AACS is in coming to an agreement among all of the participating bodies and organizations," admits Doherty. "We expect AACS to carry an obligation for managed copy under the final agreement. But we are still working out the policies for that."
The AACS Licensing Association has a lot of heavy hitters to please: Its founding members are IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Brothers.
The "obligation" Doherty mentions refers to ongoing statements by HD-DVD backers that the format would require managed copy features, implying at least some minimum support for consumer copying. The Blu-ray Disc Association has indicated that its format will support managed copy as well.
In both formats, the basic managed copy policies will be handled by AACS. Blu-ray Disc has two added layers of copy protection--BD Plus and ROM Mark--but neither should directly affect the format's ability to support managed copy, says Blu-ray Disc Association representative Andy Parsons.
Early Buyers Beware
The AACS Licensing Association's logic in releasing the interim license is simple. "We expected the first early players to be basic players," explains Doherty. "And we didn't want to slow down the roll out of those devices."
But since the first players won't support managed copying, the full promise of the AACS security standard won't be available to early adopters who buy one of these devices to complement a high-definition TV.
Perhaps none of this will matter to some prospective buyers of high-def players. If you've never contemplated moving content via USB to a portable device or using your home network to transfer a movie to a server so you can play it on any networked set in your home, the lack of managed content support probably won't affect you.
More to the point, while both of the Toshiba players as well as the Pioneer will have Ethernet ports, the networking in these devices wouldn't allow you to transfer content over a network even if the copy protection technology did. The Toshiba unit's Ethernet is designed for accessing the Internet to download content, while the Pioneer's network support is strictly for streaming content from a home network to the device, not vice-versa.
The Player's the Thing
Maybe the simple ability to play high-def content will be enough--especially if you own a huge display, or plan to. I saw a preview of high-definition content during Toshiba's recent HD-DVD road show stop in Sunnyvale, California, which highlighted the HD-XA1. The content certainly looked impressive--particularly on the $5000 72-inch Toshiba DLP rear-projection set used in the demonstration.
No full-length movies were available, but we saw trailers for Universal's King Kong and Warner's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, among others; the images, not surprisingly, had depth and looked quite vibrant. I was even more impressed by the non-studio-supplied example of high-def MPEG-4-AVC-encoded content: Its image quality was distinctly sharper and more detailed than that of standard-definition content. Tina Tuccillo, vice president of marketing communications for Toshiba, says the company expects to sell 30,000 HD-DVD players in the first three months after they ship. For comparison, note that by the end of 1997 (the year that DVD first appeared) an estimated 200,000 players were sold-- but there wasn't a format war back then.
If you're ready to take the plunge into the coming world of prepackaged high-definition entertainment, you'll be able to do so soon. "By the end of March, we will have both hardware and software on the streets and ready to go," promises HD-DVD promotion group representative Mark Knox.
Just don't count on buying the Star Wars movies, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and all three installments of The Terminator to play on either an HD-DVD or a Blu-ray device. Thanks to the ongoing format war, these blockbusters will not all be available in either of the two formats.
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/arti...RSS,RSS,00.asp
F BluRay
Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD
The movie industry loves your money, but when it comes to letting you enjoy it's works of art in the comfort of your home, the love all but disappears. This page details all the things that are wrong with the next generation DVD players, and why you don't want any part of it. If you purchase a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player to watch high definition movies, you are essentially saying that you are perfectly ok with everything on this page, and that's depressing. Therefore, I ask you to vote with your wallet and boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
If you've ever watched HDTV, you know what a treat it is. At 5 times the resolution of normal television, it looks fantastic. I would love to be able to purchase or rent HD movies to watch at home. But I just can't bring myself to do it, for the reasons listed. This is all very unfortunate. They have lost me as a customer. I hope to persuade you as well.
Why the MPAA hates you
· If your HDTV was bought more than a year ago, chances are you won't be able to watch HD movies in HD. This is because your TV probably does not have an HDMI interface, a new type of digital connection that the MPAA is requiring for HD movies to play in full high definition. If you connect your player with component cables (the current analog standard), HD movies will be downsampled to barely-better-than standard DVD quality. Only one movie studio (Sony) has stated they won't enforce this. Otherwise, you are going to have to buy a brand new TV and and a new HDMI cable (not cheap) to ensure all movies play at full resolution.
· On a similar note, you will also have problems playing these movies on your computer with an internal Blu-ray or HD-DVD drive. If you don't upgrade to an HDCP compliant video card and monitor, you're screwed.
· The MPAA and RIAA think that DRM is more important than human life. Wow.
· Mandatory Managed Copy (MMC) theoretically allows things such as making legal backups and streaming content from one part of your house to another, but the studios have the option of charging you money to do that, and you just know that the costs won't be reasonable. All aspects of MMC will also require your player to be connected to the internet. Unfortunately the first batch of HD players won't even support MMC. More details re: MMC can be had in this interview with someone from the HD-DVD camp.
· It's amazing that a thing like MMC even exists, considering that the MPAA and RIAA, among others, would like to restrict your fair use rights even further when it comes to what you can do with the things you buy. Choice quote: "Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices". In other words, please purchase another copy of content you have already paid for, thank you.
· "Hacking" your player for example to remove the region coding, or playing a pirated disc, may lead your player to self destruct. This only applies to Blu-ray and BD+ (from what I can tell anyways).
· More about internet connections: the MPAA originally wanted that to be a requirement just to play these movies. They have since changed their mind, I guess.
· They also originally thought about having each disc being playable by only one player, meaning after you played a movie in your player, your friend couldn't watch the same disc in his player. They removed this requirement, but that it was even considered is pretty shocking. Sony patented the idea.
Other reasons you don't need HD-DVD or Blu-ray
· The jump from VHS to DVD was dramatic and obvious - superior video quality, digital surround sound, non-degrading storage format, multiple audio tracks, bonus features, etc. The jump from DVD to the next generation does not provide any benefits other than higher resolution, but DVD's still look damn good. Don't fall for the "better sound" hype either. 5.1 channel Dolby or DTS is pretty much the best it's going to get. Do you really want more speakers behind you than in front of you?
· The players and the media are going to be extremely expensive. HD-DVD players will run $500, Blu-ray will be $1,000, and those are minimum prices. Most of the movies will retail for over $30. For computer storage, blank media will also cost around $30 minimum. Obviously these costs will drop over time, but that combined with the format war (see next point) makes it obvious that you should wait.
· Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD will be a format war, leaving both consumers and retailers very frustrated. Do you want to gamble with investing thousands of dollars in a technology that may not be around in a few years? Some studios will only release their movies on one or the other format (Sony Pictures obviously will only do Blu-ray), which means if you want access to all possible movies, you will either have to buy both players or get a dual-format player. Chances are both formats will not be very successful, because of the insane costs and the fact that most people do not own HDTV's. Besides, the future is probably video on demand, not on disc. Even Bill Gates agrees (scroll to the bottom of that page).
· The public is not ready for a new format already. A lot of people have spent a lot of money building their DVD collections, a format that just became mainstream ~5 years ago. Do you really want to go out and replace all of those movies?
http://fuckbluray.com/boycott
Kazaa's Contempt Setback
RECORD companies yesterday won a key battle in their legal fight against music pirates, securing approval from the Federal Court to pursue contempt of court proceedings against the operators of file-sharing technology company Kazaa.
The music companies allege Kazaa's Sydney-based developer and distributor, Sharman Networks, failed to comply with a court order to stop authorising Kazaa users to breach copyright.
Thirty record companies, including major labels Universal, EMI, Sony BMG and Warner had sued Sharman Networks for copyright infringement in the Federal Court last year.
In a landmark judgment last September, Justice Murray Wilcox found Sharman Networks had breached artists' copyright. He ordered Kazaa's operators to stop authorising music copyright infringement, giving them two months to comply.
The music companies launched contempt proceedings last December but Sharman Networks and others named in the proceedings argued that Justice Wilcox's order was ambiguous and could not give rise to a contempt charge.
However, in an expedited decision, the full bench of the Federal Court disagreed. Justice Catherine Branson said the evidence might establish, for example, that Kazaa's operators "jointly decided that neither they, nor any of them, would accord any respect to the orders made by (Justice Wilcox)".
"Rather, both individually and together, they would encourage existing Kazaa users to continue copying the sound recordings ... and recruit new Kazaa users to do the same.
"I cannot see how it could be argued that (the order) had an uncertain application in the context of evidence of that character."
Justices Kevin Lindgren and Ray Finkelstein concurred.
A spokeswoman for Music Industry Piracy Investigations, an arm of the record industry body ARIA, said the labels were "pleased" with the decision and would continue to pursue their contempt case. If successful they will be able to make submissions to the court on punishment of Sharman, which could include fines and jail time.
A spokeswoman for Sharman Networks welcomed the court's "useful" clarification. "We look forward to the opportunity to test the record companies' allegations," she said.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html
Inside Media
Bertelsmann Weighs End to Its Privacy
Mark Landler
Bertelsmann, the global media empire, reported upbeat financial results on Wednesday, propelled by pop-culture sensations like the singer Kelly Clarkson and Dan Brown's thriller "The Da Vinci Code." But the company's most talked-about suspense story continues to be its own.
Senior executives of Bertelsmann, a family-controlled German company, turned away a barrage of questions at a news conference here about how it would respond to a plan by a minority shareholder, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, to push for an initial public offering, possibly later this year.
"I can only say that we are prepared and we haven't any problem with it at all," said Bertelsmann's chief executive, Gunter Thielen. "Whether we are publicly listed or not, what determines our work on the executive board is that we define the right long-term strategy for Bertelsmann."
Behind the claim of business-as-usual is a flurry of activity, according to current and former executives, as Bertelsmann weighs whether to avoid selling shares by buying back Bruxelles Lambert's stake. To do that, the executives said, Bertelsmann, a company that has always struggled to balance global ambitions with a penchant for privacy, may consider selling one of its six divisions.
The family of Bertelsmann's 84-year-old patriarch, Reinhard Mohn, which controls the company through a 75 percent voting stake, is reluctant to sell shares, these executives said, even though it would retain control.
Bertelsmann took on the Brussels-based Bruxelles Lambert as an outside shareholder in 2001 as part of a complex swap in which it acquired the investment firm's 30 percent holding in the RTL Group, Europe's largest television broadcaster.
The deal transformed Bertelsmann, a 170-year-old company that had concentrated on publishing and book clubs, into a multimedia powerhouse. RTL, which is now 90 percent owned by Bertelsmann, generates more profit than the combined earnings of four other Bertelsmann's units: Random House, BMG music, the Gruner & Jahr magazine group, and book clubs.
But the RTL deal also put a very private empire on an uncomfortable course to the public market. Disagreements over whether Bertelsmann should sell shares to the public contributed to the Mohn family's ouster of Mr. Thielen's predecessor, Thomas Middelhoff, who negotiated the deal with Bruxelles Lambert.
Buying back the shares would be expensive. In a recent research report, Goldman Sachs estimated that Bruxelles Lambert's 25.1 percent stake in Bertelsmann was worth about 3.5 billion euros ($4.26 billion) — a valuation that includes a 15 percent discount because the shares cannot currently be publicly traded.
To raise cash for a buyback, Bertelsmann may have to sell major assets, according to the executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. One possible candidate, they said, would be its stake in BMG music, which is now part of a joint venture with Sony.
In its report, Goldman values Bertelsmann's half-share in Sony BMG, as well as its wholly owned music publishing unit, at 1.6 billion euros ($1.93 billion). That still leaves a substantial shortfall, but these people said that Bertelsmann, with a sturdy balance sheet, could line up additional bank loans.
Bertelsmann recently succeeded in replacing the chief executive of Sony BMG, Andrew Lack, with its own representative, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz. But Sony BMG's revenues plummeted 16.5 percent in 2005, reflecting both the turmoil in the recorded music industry and infighting at Sony BMG.
Mr. Thielen said that Mr. Schmidt-Holtz faced a difficult task knitting together the corporate cultures of Sony and BMG. He said the company also needed to do a better job of discovering new talent.
Mr. Thielen did not say whether Bertelsmann was considering a major divestiture. But he said the company regularly studied its portfolio of assets — it recently retained Boston Consulting Group to conduct one such study — and that it was always open to buying or selling properties.
The hiring of a consultant, Mr. Thielen insisted, is not linked to its minority shareholder's plan. "We wanted to see how our view of the assets related to the outside view of the assets," he said.
As scrutiny intensifies, Bertelsmann's executives are responding with a mix of diplomacy and mild frustration. They can say little until they receive formal notice from Bruxelles Lambert, which they expect on May 23, a day after Bertelsmann's shareholders meet.
Groupe Bruxelles Lambert is a canny investment firm. It is run by the Belgian billionaire Albert Frčre, who amassed his fortune through well-timed investments in a variety of European energy and media companies. The firm has left itself plenty of flexibility as to when, or even whether, it will make a move. In a one-paragraph statement last January, it said it would ask for the "possibility that is offered to list Bertelsmann if the market conditions are favorable."
The questions surrounding Bertelsmann's future clouded a generally strong financial performance. The company's operating income rose 13 percent in 2005, to 1.6 billion euros ($1.93 billion), lifted by strong profits at RTL, Gruner & Jahr and Arvato, its huge printing division.
Net profit fell slightly, to 1.04 billion euros ($1.25 billion), largely because Bertelsmann booked some one-time gains, like the sale of its office tower in New York, in the previous year.
Mr. Thielen said Bertelsmann would achieve a 10 percent return on sales, compared with 9 percent last year, by 2007, when he is scheduled to retire as chief executive. The company, he said, will announce his successor in January or February of next year, and the person will probably come from its executive board.
Bertelsmann says it has taken steps to prepare itself to sell shares, which would rank among the largest stock sales in German history. Virtually every major investment bank is angling for a role in a possible future company offering.
But in other ways, Bertelsmann still seems culturally unsuited to the demands of being a public company. It does not disclose the compensation of its top executives, for example, listing only an aggregate number of 39.6 million euros ($47.9 million) for its seven-member executive board.
When asked whether Bertelsmann would reconsider this policy if it went public, as some German companies have done, Mr. Thielen suggested that was unlikely. The Mohn family could still legally limit the disclosure of individual salaries. Besides, he added, "Our shareholders know how much we make."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/bu...s/23place.html
Arts, Briefly
Compiled by Ben Sisario
Chef Returns to 'South Park,' With a Difference
"South Park" lost its Chef last week when Isaac Hayes, who voiced for the character for nine years, quit, saying he could no longer stomach the show's treatment of religion. But the creators of "South Park," Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have acted fast: tomorrow's episode, the first of the 10th season, will feature "the triumphant homecoming of school chef, Jerome McElroy," Comedy Central announced. (Yes, that is Chef's name, as diligent fans know.) Stan, Kenny, Kyle and Cartman are happy to have him back, but "they notice that something about Chef seems different," according to the statement. The episode, titled "The Return of Chef!," will be on at 10 p.m. Eastern time. A spokesman for Comedy Central said there was no word on who would do Chef's voice.
British Police Investigate Pictures of Nude Shoot
British detectives have begun to investigate reports that members of the police have been selling close-up pictures of naked people who took part in a huge group photograph taken last year by an American artist, Reuters reported. About 1,700 volunteers stripped last July in Newcastle, in northeastern England, for Spencer Tunick, who has staged mass nude shoots since 1992, in New York, London, Jerusalem, Vienna and elsewhere. (On Sunday, he gathered more than 1,500 naked Venezuelans in front of a statue of Simón Bolívar in Caracas, The Associated Press reported.) The police said pictures taken of the shoot by closed circuit television cameras were now being offered for sale in the area. "We've spoken to a number of officers and police staff and as a result two (civilian) members of police staff have been suspended," Deputy Chief Constable David Warcup of the Northumbria Police said in a statement.
Justices Reject Photographer's Appeal
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal yesterday from a New York photographer who said that a federal decency law violated her First Amendment rights to post explicit pictures of sadomasochism and bondage on the Web, The Associated Press reported. The justices affirmed a decision by a special three-judge federal panel upholding the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which made it a crime to post obscene materials on the Internet. The appeal was brought by Barbara Nitke, whose work is featured in the book "Kiss of Fire: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism," and by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
Judge Freezes Notorious B.I.G. Album
Jeff Leeds
A federal judge has ordered a halt of sales of the debut album of the rap star Notorious B.I.G., who died in 1997. A jury determined that the title song of the album, "Ready to Die" (1994), included an unauthorized snippet of an Ohio Players tune. The move by Judge Todd J. Campbell of United States District Court in Nashville would freeze sales of one of rap's seminal albums — it has sold about 3.3 million copies since its release — though it was not clear when the ban would take effect. The decision came as a jury on Friday awarded $4.2 million in damages to the two companies that control the Ohio Players' recordings, Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records. The jury found that the Notorious B.I.G.'s label, Bad Boy Entertainment, improperly used a portion of the song "Singing in the Morning." Bridgeport and Westbound, which also control the music of the pioneering funk group Funkadelic, have filed hundreds of lawsuits to collect royalties over unauthorized samples. Bridgeport's effort began five years ago, after it won a dispute with the former Funkadelic leader, George Clinton, over copyright of the group's songs. In a separate case last year, Mr. Clinton won ownership of the master recordings of four of the group's albums from the 1970's and 80's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/arts/21arts.html
Industry Uneasy With YouTube Craze
Richard Gray
Bootleg footage from concerts by top artists such as the Rolling Stones, U2 and Franz Ferdinand are available by the thousands along with recordings of pop videos and band interviews. A simple keyword search can unearth a wealth of classic clips featuring Kate Bush, Jimi Hendrix, The Smiths and Take That.
It is the latest entertainment craze to sweep the Internet. Thousands of amateur video clips, rare footage of music concerts and homemade film spoofs are now being uploaded every day to the video-sharing Web site YouTube for the enjoyment of millions of Web users around the world.
Allowing the public to watch and share clips for free, it has become an unprecedented platform for amateur filmmakers to show off their home movies.
However, music labels, film studios and television bosses are now cracking down on the site, and others like it, amid fears they are becoming a virtual breeding ground for pirated material.
Bootleg Footage
They claim video sharing is being used to dodge regulations designed to stop music and films being distributed over the Internet after sites such as Napster were forced to charge for downloads by the courts.
Bootleg footage from concerts by top artists such as the Rolling Stones, U2 and Franz Ferdinand are available by the thousands along with recordings of pop videos and band interviews. A simple keyword search can unearth a wealth of classic clips featuring Kate Bush, Jimi Hendrix, The Smiths and Take That.
More than 20,000 new video clips are sent in to YouTube every day and it attracts 15 million plays every 24 hours. Some films have attained cult status, spreading around the Internet faster than computer viruses. Long-forgotten footage has re-emerged as hugely popular entertainment after being posted by users.
The British Phonographic Industry insists all these videos breach copyright law and says they will "rigorously" seek to have them removed from Web sites with the threat of legal action against service providers who refuse.
A spokesperson said: "Our policy is to prosecute in cases of file-sharing of music and that would be the case where bootleg videos of concerts were also being illegally distributed. Record companies own the copyright of any filming done at concerts, and it is illegal to post such footage on the Internet.
"Tackling the illegal distribution of music as audio and video on the Internet is a priority at present and we will rigorously try to have the material removed."
Sharing War
The war against Internet sharing has gathered pace as broadband capacity has made it easier to share and download entire films and albums in minutes.
One YouTube favorite is a Rice Krispies advertisement from 1964 featuring an embarrassing jingle written and performed by the Rolling Stones. At the time, the band asked not to be identified as being involved when the ad was aired, but video-sharing has allowed Web users around the world to enjoy the fading footage for themselves.
Hollywood studios are concerned that clips from movies such as the "Harry Potter" films, "Memoirs of a Geisha" and the latest "Scary Movie" installment are all available along with segments from popular TV shows.
Earlier this month, NBC Universal forced YouTube to remove hundreds of clips from the site of a sketch from its "Saturday Night Live" show, and CBS News did the same in relation to a clip that had become popular.
A spokesperson from the Federation Against Copyright Theft said: "We monitor piracy online as well as physical materials, and it is a growing problem as technology advances."
The music industry has been leading the fight against illegal sharing since it took Napster, who produced one of the first file-sharing programs, to court two years ago and forced it to charge for legal downloads, but experts claim the music and film industry may struggle to have other more "creative" films removed.
Fighting Piracy
Filmmakers have dubbed songs over personal footage to create their own music videos while others have spliced sections of different films together to create new plots.
In one example, called "Brokeback to the Future," a pair of college students from Boston have combined scenes from Hollywood hit "Brokeback Mountain" with 1980s favorite "Back to the Future" starring Michael J. Fox.
The parody has attracted worldwide attention and spawned a series of copycat spoofs from films as diverse as "Top Gun" and "The Shawshank Redemption."
Dr. Richard Haynes, from Stirling University's Media Research Institute, said he believes file- sharing will see an increase in this kind of "video jockeying." He added: "These Web sites are designed to provide a platform for people to show off what they are recording, but they are open to abuse.
"The floodgates are open, as it is very problematic for the industry to stop this from happening - - particularly if the clips are being used by people creatively.
"If they have been spliced, dubbed and remixed, then it becomes extremely difficult in terms of ownership. The music industry is already rife with this, as lyrics are often used by other musicians and samples are used by hip-hop artists and DJs."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/...be-Craze.xhtml
Message Delivered
There's no mistaking the political statement in V for Vendetta, in which the hero is also a terrorist.
Steve Persall
V for Vendetta is the boldest political statement against the Bush administration since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Even Michael Moore wouldn't prescribe bombing government facilities as a cure for dubious leadership. A futuristic setting in England doesn't disguise the film's rabid intent.
James McTeigue's movie will be branded as irresponsible, even dangerous, by some viewers, although if the past in any indication, the ones who don't see it will yowl loudest. All those knee-jerk critics need to know is that the film's hero is a terrorist.
V for Vendetta audaciously proposes that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and the difference between good and evil is mostly semantic.
The film is based on a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd; the book was released in 1989 to protest the political atmosphere of the Margaret Thatcher years.
The plot has been reworked to post-9/11 sensibilities by Andy and Larry Wachowski, who wrote their first draft before The Matrix made them famous. Alan Moore has distanced himself from the production; an adapted dud such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen can make an author skittish.
Or perhaps he guessed a firestorm lay ahead and didn't want to answer for other authors' ideas. The Wachowski brothers are notoriously reclusive, making this a cut-and-run protest of sorts. V for Vendetta will reignite those claims of disconnect between the film industry and the real world that George Clooney eloquently doused at the recent Academy Awards.
The movie begins with a flashback to 1605 when Guy Fawkes unsuccessfully conspired to blow up Parliament, and was captured and executed. "Remember, remember, the fifth of November,'' the poem begins. But people have forgotten by 2019 when a mysterious figure wearing a cape and eerie Fawkes mask plots an explosive reminder.
Hugo Weaving "Agent Smith'' in the Matrix trilogy wears the mask throughout the film, yet his elocution of the Wachowskis' rich, rebellious dialogue creates a fuller character than expected.
He calls himself V, explained with delirious alliteration to Evey (Natalie Portman), whom he rescues from a trio of lecherous government goons. V takes Evey to a rooftop to witness his masterpiece, blowing up the Old Bailey courthouse on Nov. 5, 2019, to protest a totalitarian regime. She becomes his accomplice, both pursued by grim inspector Finch (Stephen Rea). V vows to complete Fawkes' mission and blow up Parliament on Nov. 5, 2020.
The screenplay stacks the cards in V's favor, with vaguely familiar polemics about strength, unity and faith in God spouted by blustery Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt) and a TV commentator ranting like Bill O'Reilly. Color-coded curfews keep dissent down; the media is a spin-control tool; and a Ministry of Objectionable Materials hides books, works of art, even a jukebox from citizens. Possessing a copy of the Koran is reason for execution, lumping Muslims into the same undesirable group with homosexuals and anyone who disagrees.
"The security of this nation depends upon complete and total compliance,'' Sutler says, and we're urged to hiss.
Such words speak much louder than violent actions in V for Vendetta. This is a film about ideas, not entirely popular ones, that could topple a government faster than bombs if enough people took them to heart. The finale of McTeigue's movie, when V's vendetta spreads to the masses, is so revolutionary that I wondered how this movie ever got made, much less distributed by a major studio (in this case, Warner Bros.).
Does it endorse terrorism? Not as much as it decries politicians using fear to rule. More semantics. The future, the film loudly declares, is now.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/16/We...elivered.shtml