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Old 12-06-03, 10:03 PM   #2
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Internet-Savvy Fans Steal Thunder Of Radiohead Release
Ashlea Deahl

When Radiohead played New York City's Beacon Theatre last week to promote its new CD, ''Hail to the Thief,'' the band members seemed surprised that the audience knew all the words to the new songs. The album goes on sale today, yet fans sang along to ''Scatterbrain'' as if it were a top- 10 hit already.

It's no secret that an early version of the album has been widely available via the Internet for more than two months. Anecdotal evidence suggests that listeners have been downloading it at an extraordinary rate, making it not only the latest but one of the most egregious examples of people snagging electronic copies of a record before its release date.

What critics and fans haven't been able to predict is whether any of this matters. Will fans still buy ''Hail to the Thief,'' or is the release painfully anticlimatic?

''I'll still buy the album to reward the artist,'' says Cyrus Chowdhury, 23, of Boston, a longtime fan who downloaded the album a month ago from Kazaa.

Record store managers hope others feel the same way. ''Of course we're worried that people have had the album for so long,'' says Natalie Waleik, senior music buyer at Newbury Comics. ''We're also confident that the diehard fans will still want the CD.''

Virgin Megastores hopes that people who have the album will spread the word. Because of ''extensive media coverage and online activity,'' the album is ''one of the most eagerly awaited new releases of the year,'' says Dave Alder, senior vice president of Virgin Entertainment Group.

How the album got to the Internet has not been established, but the files are copies of stolen unfinished versions of songs, according to Billboard.com.

There have been conflicting reports about whether Radiohead is upset about the downloading. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood reportedly said the album was not finished before it was posted online. ''The leaked music is a stolen copy of early, unmixed edits and roughs,'' he is quoted as saying on several websites. ''We're kind of [angry] about it.'' But '' `upset' is too strong a word,'' says David Fricke, who interviewed lead singer Thom Yorke for the current issue of Rolling Stone. ''This is not the first time they've had to deal with this situation. `Kid A' and `Amnesiac' both got out ahead of schedule, so [Yorke] wasn't particularly surprised by it.''

Jeff Matte, a 21-year-old history student at Northeastern University, says Radiohead probably doesn't mind the illegal copying because of its interest in digital music and intolerance of corporate control. ''They're all about not being a slave to rules,'' he says.

Matte got an advance copy of the album from a friend, but he still planned to attend a midnight sale last night. The idea that the CD could vary from the downloaded tracks and the artwork on Radiohead's album covers were enough to drive him to the store.

The title ''Hail to the Thief,'' which alludes in part to President Bush's controversial 2000 election win, ironically prophesied the album's own fate. But Fricke says its message will not be compromised.

''The record is as relevant now as when [Yorke] made it,'' he says. ''The scare is more about record sales, but that doesn't mean the music is irrelevant.''
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/16...lease+.shtm l


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"He's Back..." SyncCast And Digital Envoy Partner To Prevent Piracy Of New "Terminator 2" Extreme DVD
Press Release

Digital Envoy, the leading provider of territorial rights management technology, and SyncCast, a leading Internet Streaming Hosting Provider and digital media technology company, today announced that Artisan Home Entertainment is using Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series Digital Rights Management (DRM) to secure the online distribution of the cutting-edge, high-definition content on the "Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Extreme Edition)" bonus DVD. This is the first ever use of the technology for a high-definition product.

Theft and unauthorized replication of digital content has prevented many media companies from issuing high-quality digital goods to consumers via the Internet. In the case of Artisan's Hi-Definition Bonus DVD-ROM release of "Terminator 2," -- providing movie buffs with 5.1 surround sound and rich, quality video that is nearly three and a half times better resolution than standard DVDs -- the content is only licensed for distribution in North America, making it critical that territorial rights management be a part of the distribution solution. "Terminator 2" was released in the U.S. and Canada on June 3, 2003 for a suggested retail price of $29.98.

"It is great to see SyncCast and Digital Envoy working on innovative ways to provide media companies and their customers with rich content-protection solutions built on the Windows Media Digital Rights Management platform," said Jason Reindorp, Group Manager, Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft Corp.

"Protecting DVD-ROM content represents a new opportunity for media companies looking to distribute their content on the Internet, and our success in winning some early adopters such as Artisan speaks volumes about the Internet's future as a viable means of secure content distribution for entertainment companies," said Ezra Davidson, vice president, business development, SyncCast. "Our service is user friendly, and works transparently. As long as users have a valid disc and a North American IP address, they will be issued a license to access the content."

The joint solution from SyncCast and Digital Envoy offers media and entertainment companies a first-of-a-kind DRM solution incorporating territorial rights management technology to address licensing issues and to control content downloads in restricted areas.

SyncCast used Microsoft Windows Media Rights Manager to build its DRM Solution technology to protect copyrighted materials online and other traditional media (DVD-ROMs/CD-ROMs). SyncCast's DRM Solution provides real-time reporting of content licensing and consumption, including when content was licensed (time and date); where content was licensed (country, state, city); and what was licensed (file names, byte size, version, server-side end user licensing agreements). Furthermore, SyncCast's DISCryption technology combines its DRM Solution with ground- breaking disc-identification technology that relies on a unique serial ID burned into every disc for maximum anti-theft protection.

SyncCast's DRM Solution is powered by Digital Envoy's NetAcuity technology, which utilizes IP addresses to non-invasively identify the location of Web site visitors down to the city level worldwide -- in real time. This technology is the most accurate and reliable technology on the market for providing secure territorial rights management and is in use by leading networks, enterprises and solutions providers including Google, AOL Time Warner, Network Associates, Cable and Wireless, AT&T, Walt Disney Internet Group and CinemaNow.

"We selected Digital Envoy as our exclusive partner for territorial rights management because it is the leader in geo-intelligence technology, as demonstrated by an A-list of clients," said Davidson. "Also, integrating their technology with our DRM Solution took less than two days and provides better content controls than the technology utilized by most DVD players."
http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=52851


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Awestruck Teens Remake Raiders of the Lost Ark, Violate Copyright Law
Posted by James Grimmelmann

In 1981, a trio of 10-year-olds saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and were awestruck. Awestruck enough to make film their own shot-for-shot remake over the next seven years. After spending years as the stuff of urban legend, the film reemerged last year, wowing Raiders director Steven Spielberg and other fans. The tribute film has even recently been shown on the big screen.

Of course, what they did was quite possibly illegal…

(All references are to the Copyright Act, codified at 17 U.S.C.)

There's no doubt that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a work still under copyright. Even under the original Copyright Act, Raiders would still be under copyright, since 1981 was 22 years ago, and 22 is less than 28 (one 14-year term plus one renewal 14-year term).

Since Raiders is a copyrighted work, § 106 makes it an infringement of copyright to "reproduce [it]," "to prepare derivative works based on [it]", to "distribute" it, or "to perform [it] . . . publicly." The tribute film is definitely a derivative work; it's probably a reproduction, too. By their own admission, the boys worked from Raiders; as long as the resulting film shows "substantial similarity" to the original, it counts as a copy for copyright infringement purposes. It would be hard to argue that a (quite faithful) shot-for-shot remake is not sufficiently similar to the original. Since the tribute film is a "copy," it also counts as infringement to distribute it (which someone did, to get a copy into Harry Knowles's hands) and to display it (which they did at the recent screening in Austin). There's probably also a good argument that their 602-frame storyboarding is itself a derivative work.

Their first line of defense is to claim fair use under § 107. The analysis here is mixed; two of the four fair use factors cut in their favor, and two against them.

The "purpose and character of the use" comes out fairly well for them, since the film was a private project made for their own enjoyment, and never widely distributed. On the other hand, the recent screening, to which admission was charged, undercuts a potential claim of "non-commercial" use.
The "nature of the copyrighted work" could hardly be worse for our heroes. Raiders is one of the highest-grossing motion pictures of all time.
They also don't look so good in terms of "the amount and substantiality" of Raiders that they borrowed. They remade the whole damn thing, after all.
Fortunately, though, the "effect of the use on the potential market for" Raiders has been basically nil. Such are the benefits of never revealing its existence to the public at large. (One could even argue that this fan flick increases audience enthusiasm for Raiders and thereby increases its market, although such an argument might not get any further here than it has for file-traders.)

All in all, I'd expect a court or jury to look pretty sympathetically on them, but then again, these have been some pretty dark years for fair use defendants.

Their next possible defense is to point to the three-year statute of limitations for civil copyright infringement. § 507(b) states that the statute of limitations runs for three years from when "the claim accrued," not from when the infringement was discovered. That means that their 22-year-old derivative work is shielded from suit, along with any copies of it that they made before mid-2000. They're not out of the woods yet, though, because their remake is (probably) still a copy, so it's infringement to make fresh prints of it, and to screen it, both of which seem to have taken place in the last couple of months. (Kind of an interesting loophole here, no? If you make a derivative work sufficiently different for it not to be a "copy" and then keep the derivative work secret for three years, you'd appear to be in the clear).

Remedies (§§502-05) are largely in the discretion of a court, but it is at least possible to list the range of things that could happen to these three "kids" (now in their early 30s). They could be enjoined from copying or showing their film; all extant copies could be seized and destroyed. They could be forced to turn over the proceeds from recent screenings; they could be forced to pay for lost profits, but it seems unlikely that plaintiffs would be able to prove that the market value of Raiders had dropped appreciably because of the adaptation.

That leaves statutory damages, under § 504(c)(1), of $750 to $30,000 "as the court considers just." (Since there's only one copyrighted work in question here, there'd be none of those multi-billion claims that brought MP3.com to its knees.) Further, under § 504(c)(2), if the court finds that the "infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe" that he was infringing, it can reduce the damages to $200, a mere $66.67 per defendant. They were, of course, 10 years old when they started infringing. (On the other hand, they're now adults who ought to know better). So they're probably not out of pocket for too much, but if a court decided that the infringement was "willful" it could pump the damages up to $150,000, (plus possibly the other side's legal fees), which is not to be sneezed at.

Willfulness would also expose them to criminal penalties under § 506. Unfortunately, the legal standard for "willful" infringement is not entirely clear, since the question is one for the jury. (MP3.com was considered a "willful" infringer even though it maintained that it had always thought its actions didn't constitute infringement at all.) If our trio had any idea that their work might be a copyright infringement, it is possible that they might be found to be willful infringers. Again, they seem in more danger for their recent actions than for the things they did as teenagers.

The remaining triggers for criminal infringement aren't hard to satisfy. The recent screening was probably for "commercial advantage, but more importantly, their version of Raiders may well have a total retail value of more than $1,000 (just think about how much it would go for on eBay). Criminal penalties for copyright infringement are not to be sneezed at. 18 U.S.C. § 2319 provides for jail terms of up to a year (for a first offense involving fewer than 10 infringing works) and fines. Fines of what size? Well, copyright infringement starts at level 6 on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which works out to a fine of $500-5000, But the level goes up as the value of the infringing works rises. If we say that the new film has a value of $10,000, the infringement is a level-9 offense, with a fine of $1000-$10,000.

The one remaining question is whether what these boys did was authorized--if so, there's no case of infringement at all. Since no one even knew about the project until the last few years, everything they did in the 1980s was ipso facto unauthorized. On the other hand, it's quite possible that once Steven Spielberg found out about the film, he (and Lucasfilm and Paramount) signed off on the recent screening, which would more or less rule out infringement claims for anything recent enough to fall within the statute of limitations.

Harry Knowles has been saying that the remake should be a special DVD extra on the Indiana Jones DVD box set. That sounds like a good idea.

At the same time, don't you find it just a little incongruous that, according to the Copyright Act, these fellows could be ordered to pay out $50,000 each and report for a year in prison?

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Re: Awestruck Teens Remake Raiders of the Lost Ark, Violate Copyright Law (Score: 0)
Anonymous

LOL

Hear we go. Someone imiatates soneone and it is a criminal offence. I think the hard @sses should let them be AS LONG AS it is NOT done for monitary gains. Hell, even Speilberg was inpressed. Why not give these guys a job INSTEAD of punishing them for having a creative thought. Oh, I sorry, independant thought isn't allowed in the Orwellian society. We'll tell you what to think. My fault
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/mod...ticle&sid=1150


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The Record Industry - The Newest Bastion Of Ludditism
Neil McEvoy, director of Consult Hyperion, watches as the record labels fight an old and doomed battle.

Digitisation, the ability to represent the products of human imagination as 'bitstreams' is a profound advance for human society. As with all technical advances, it promises widespread and long-lasting benefits, but threatens economic doom to narrow sections of society that earn a living from exploiting older technologies that are rendered obsolete. Not unnaturally, these groups will attempt to resist progress by any means at their disposal. Thus, during the Luddite disturbances, a few hundred Lancastrian hand loom weavers destroyed any power loom they could lay their hands on - machines that would make cotton clothing affordable for the first time to the masses throughout the world, and thereby greatly increase the wealth of their own region. A few were shot out of hand by the militia and some others were executed after due process for their futile vandalism in the face of the march of progress. Though the penalties were severe, it was surely right that a small minority was not allowed to deny the fruits of human ingenuity to the world at large.

Today, similar skirmishes are being fought over digitisation, so far with less fatal consequences, but this time on a global scale. In this battle, the mass media seems to have sided, wrong-headedly, with the neo-Luddites - perhaps because the mass media itself feels threatened by digitisation. But this neo-Luddism for the digital age is as futile as the original.

Digitisation is a single technique by which absolutely any idea can be represented. In the old- analogue-world, the written word was stored on paper, music on vinyl discs, film on celluloid, and so on. Products rendered in each of these media required specialist equipment and needed people trained in specialist trades to record, copy, distribute, project, etc. Digitised products, on the other hand, rely on the general purpose digital technologies of computers and digital networks. Because they are general purpose, all the necessary components are manufactured in quantity, and are therefore cheap. Because they are general purpose, investment in their improvement provides large returns, which has driven the spectacular improvements in cost-performance ratios of computers. Because they are general purpose, expensively trained specialists are not required to 'drive' them.

In fact, digital technology has advanced to the point where absolutely anyone with a few hundred pounds to invest in a personal computer, and say twenty-something pounds a month for broadband internet connection, can copy and distribute digital works on an industrial scale. What is more, they can do so at a quality-perfection not available at any price to, say, record companies in the analogue days. The creation of abundance where once there was scarcity is usually taken to be a good thing the recording industry claims otherwise. It proclaims loudly that 'copyright violation is theft'. It isn't. It's copyright violation. Copiers of copyrighted music are labelled as 'pirates'. They are not - they are copyright violators.

A good idea (really, the only idea) for any business in any circumstance is to do what its customers want. At the moment, they are doing exactly the opposite. Firstly, by attempting to deny music lovers what others would give them: cheap or free music. Secondly, by abusing customers: who would willingly buy from a company that routinely, and wrongly, accused them of thievery? Thirdly, by refusing to innovate for the customers benefit.

Since the CD was launched in the early eighties, improvements in disk manufacture and digital compression mean than about 100 times as much music can be stored on the same sized disk, and played on a standard PC. In any case, there is no need for a fixed association between the music (bits) and the physical object (disk), so that users can copy music onto media of their choice, to suit different environments (for example CD in car and solid state memory MP3 player in the gym) and to extend the life of their purchase (the music) beyond the limitations of its packaging.

The value that record companies provide to producers and consumers is in their roles as studio, promoter, and distributor. In the analogue world, there was no alternative to their role as distributor, and this enabled them to control the recording and promotion functions and derive huge profits from all three. As a bi-product, this mechanism raised a small handful of musicians to colossal wealth. Digitisation breaks the strangle hold on distribution.

The record companies can still make better recordings than anyone else (though digitisation has somewhat eroded this advantage as well). And they still know how to promote artists in particular genres. This is where they should concentrate. Because they will no longer be distributors, they won't derive income from consumers for these activities. Rather, some musicians will decide to invest in professional recording assistance or engage a promotional agency to increase their fame.

In these ways, they will respectively be more like professional photographers and specialised advertising agencies (and indeed may splinter to undertake these very different activities). There will be a living to be made, but their golden age is probably already over. Those that limit themselves to hiring cohorts of lawyers to lobby legislators and pick off internet start-ups, and to hiring engineers to turn technology against consumers, may put off the day of reckoning for a while, but are doomed to diminishing returns leading quickly to oblivion.
http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/vie...ure_0000053641


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U.S. Senator Prepares Digital-Copyright Bill
Andy Sullivan

Sen. Sam Brownback is preparing a bill that would limit digital copy-protection efforts, a move that could shatter the shaky congressional truce between the entertainment and technology industries.

The Kansas Republican's bill, which could be introduced this week, would limit some of the devices movie studios and recording companies use to prevent rampant copying of their products. It would also make it more difficult to track down those who trade songs and movies online.

The bill promises to revive a copyright debate that has remained largely dormant on Capitol Hill this year, after a series of high- profile hearings last year that pitted Hollywood executives pleading for stronger laws against Silicon Valley engineers who said they could stifle innovation.

While prospects for the bill remain far from clear, it is likely to bring the issue to the fore just as other unsuccessful bills have done in the past, observers say.

"I think they're taking great pains to move the debate forward," said Mike Godwin, senior technology counsel at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group.

Brownback's bill requires copy-protected media to be clearly labeled and allows consumers to sell or donate digital media as long as they destroy their own copy.

Efforts to develop a copy-protection scheme for digital-TV broadcasts could be complicated by a section that prevents the Federal Communications Commission from mandating specific copy-control technologies.

Another section would require recording companies and other copyright investigators to clear an additional legal hurdle before forcing Internet providers to reveal the names of customers suspected of trading songs online. That would reverse a recent court ruling that requires Verizon Communications and other Internet providers to hand over customer names when investigators ask them to do so.

"We would like Congress at this point to step in and try to negotiate a legislative solution, so we're very pleased that Senator Brownback is interested in our issue," said Sarah Deutsch, a Verizon vice president.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents large record labels, said any effort to change existing digital- copyright laws would fail.

"This draft legislation is weighted down with a variety of bad public policy judgments hostile to all property owners," the RIAA said in a statement.

A Brownback aide said the bill would probably be introduced before the Commerce Committee holds a hearing on the issue.

A Commerce Committee spokeswoman said no hearing has been scheduled but that Sen. John McCain, the committee chairman, is open to the idea.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2901981


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I'm Tired of the RIAA. I Want to Hear from the Musicians
Derrick Story

Dateline: Sam's Newsstand, NYC: It has just been reported that six Butterfinger candy bars were illegally downloaded into a college student's backpack from Sam's newsstand in New
York City. The candy was then distributed to friends who are know to have a craving for this chocolate-covered peanut butter confection.

Candy Makers Association spokesperson Rillary Hosen quickly responded by saying, "I thought Sam's had adequately secured his newsstand. Apparently, offering single purchases of our candy for 99 cents just isn't good enough for some people. We're looking into once again, only offering case purchases, and from more responsible retail outlets."

Crack industry reporter, Frankly Speaking, has published an article quoting Sam as saying, "Yeah, I lost a few bucks cause of those punks. But that happens sometimes. Overall, I had a very good day and sold nearly two cases of candy bars. I'll try to keep a better eye on things, but I don't want to inconvenience my good customers."

While lawyers argue over the constitutionality of only offering case purchases of candy bars, no comment was available from the talented people who actually make the desired commodity.

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I think the news flash above, and the article I read this morning, Hackers bite Apple in its iTunes by David Zeiler, is typical of the press I've seen about music sharing, the Apple Music Store, downloading music, etc.

I see quotes from industry analysts, RIAA, and the EFF. But once again, I don't know what the actual artists are thinking. They are the ones who create the content that everyone else is arguing about. I'm tired of listening to the RIAA. I want to hear from the musicians.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3221


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A Musician's Take on File Sharing, DRM, and Copyleft Licensing
Miriam Rainsford

In a recent weblog, Derrick Story wrote "I'm tired of listening to the RIAA. I want to hear from the musicians."

We hear so much in the press about the RIAA's stance against "music piracy" and the attempts of major labels to provide legitimate music download services, while making a determined effort to deter those who wish to share music on peer-to-peer networks. Story is all too familiar with the current stalemate between consumers and the RIAA, but raises the point that "I don't know what the actual artists are thinking. They are the ones who create the content that everyone else is arguing about."

Musicians are often unwilling to speak out against the tight constraints of their record labels, afraid of biting the hand that feeds. But an increasing number of artists are embracing the changes in digital technology as a potential revolution which may free them from the shackles of the commercial record industry. As an independent, computer-based composer whose work deals directly with fair use rights in an interactive world, I will dare to venture an answer.

Yes, we have indeed heard enough from the RIAA, a conglomerate of the five major record labels which claim to speak on behalf of their artists, yet are out of touch with musicians' need and interests. I would suggest that instead, financial interests and a fear of adapting to changes in technology are the primary motivation behind their impassioned speeches against "piracy" and their pursuit of multi-million dollar lawsuits against students running private, non-profit file sharing networks.

The issue of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and music downloads gives rise to strong and differing opinions from record company executives, musicians, and the listening public. A conclusive study of the impact of P2P on the record industry proves difficult to obtain, and each side has manipulated sales figures to their advantage: while the RIAA present a worst-case scenario, others demonstrate that P2P does in fact encourage sales by introducing listeners to new material which is then purchased in CD format.

The economist Stan Liebowitz, hitherto supportive of the notion that P2P has no impact on the record industry, released a controversial paper (.pdf download) last week demonstrating that there is some negative effect, although difficult to establish due to the multitude of other factors.

These include changes in musical taste, the death of the CD single, the introduction of new formats (including authorised MP3 sales), and lower numbers of CD releases due to the current economic recession. Liebowitz's study should also be viewed as somewhat inconclusive as it relies purely on sales figures. It is noteworthy that he has neglected to survey actual public opinion as to why their purchasing habits may have changed.

However, regardless of one's position either for or against P2P, it's clear that file sharing has indeed proved a direct threat to the establishment, as it decentralizes control. Peter Drahos, in his book Information Feudalism supports these assertions: "the threat was not so much to entire industries as to individual players who did not want to lose their position of dominance. These players turned to copyright law in the hope of finding immunity from competition and the uncertainties of technological change."

And if the major players get their way, their reassertion of control would take the form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology embedded in every computer, CD or DVD player, car radio or mobile device, providing an extreme means of control over any attempt to share music. DRM, whether in software or hardware form, is impossible to employ without some level of infringement of the user's civil liberties. Whether this is simply a matter of denying fair use rights, or delving deeper into setups such as TCPA/Palladium which entertain the possibility of remote data-mining, the risks to privacy are very real. When combined with anti-circumvention legislation, this results in a situation where the terms of copyright law are no longer defined by the government but by the publisher.

As a musician I find the notion of using DRM technology abhorrent--not only because of the risk that my works could be locked up indefinitely by technological means, despite my signing a non-exclusive distribution contract. Under anti-circumvention laws such as the DMCA and the forthcoming EUCD, it could well prove impossible for me to share my own work with my friends, or to distribute DRM-controlled content to another publisher.

But aside from the legal and practical aspects, I believe DRM to be against the spirit of music-making. Music is made for enjoyment, and it is very difficult to create music without an atmosphere of freedom. Musicians just want to be free to create, without being concerned over having their music-- or the tools they use to make music--tied down or controlled by devices which may well have detrimental effects on audio quality. Perhaps the reason Apple has been so notoriously silent on the topic of DRM is that the Mac OS dominates the creative market. To implement DRM on a Mac platform would risk alienating their primary customers in the pro audio sector.

I believe there exists a better alternative to DRM and technological methods of control, in the form of copyleft licensing. Copyleft is the permission to redistribute which forms the essence of the Free Software and Open Source movements. By adapting this principle to suit creative works, musicians have a means to license the sharing of their works without unnecessary technical constraint. The EFF's Open Audio License and Larry Lessig's Creative Commons project are examples of the practical application of copyleft principles in the arts, which musicians may easily utilise without the need for specialist legal knowledge.

More:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/p2p/...ician_pov.html


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Should Web Be a Copyright-Free Zone?
Conference debates new laws or no laws for Internet.
Grant Gross

Hollywood won't get a hand from the head of a Congressional subcommittee on the Internet and intellectual property, who says he is wary of passing new laws to protect copyrights online.

But Representative Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, is also critical of users who swap music files online. He also accused university officials of being slow to punish students who download music from file-sharing services. But music downloaders should be subject to existing laws, instead of Congress creating new ones, he says.

"It believe existing copyright law is adequate," Smith said Tuesday at a conference, Promoting Markets in Creativity: Copyright in the Internet Age. "It simply needs to be enforced."

New Laws for Net?

The day-long event was sponsored by conservative think tank The Progress and Freedom Foundation. At it, Smith said music downloaders should be punished for their actions, but that he is skeptical of the usefulness of more laws.

"This process begins with education and ends with disciplinary action," said Smith, a Texas Republican. New laws "are hard to write, easy to ignore, and hard to repeal if unintended consequences harm the marketplace."

As recently as late 2002, Congress was considering a bill that would let groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) disable PCs used for unauthorized file-trading. The RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America applauded this way to fight piracy. That bill stalled, and Smith didn't mention any legislation by name in his speech.

Earlier in the conference, a panel of lawyers and economists debated whether the Internet warrants new copyright law.

Copyrighted works should have the same protections on the Internet as they have elsewhere, despite arguments from some Netizens and academics that copyright shouldn't apply online, said Edmund Kitch, a law professor at the University of Virginia.

Kitch noted that the 1976 Copyright Act anticipated future technologies that could distribute copyrighted materials and built-in copyright protections under any new technologies. He argued against file-traders and others who suggest works released online are in the public domain.

"Works on the Internet are subject to copyright," Kitch said. "This means that today in America that those who advocate an absence of copyright ... are the ones who must go to Congress and get a revision of the statute."

Kitch said current copyright law has problems being enforced, but predicted copyright-holders will find a way to control the Internet.

"The idea, articulated in various ways is ... the Internet is this wild zone of freedom and autonomy where anarchy reigns," he said. "The Internet, it seems to me, is one of the most natural environments for enforcement of law that ever existed. It's a centralized electronic system which has its own systems of keeping a historic record."

But Michael Einhorn, author of a forthcoming book on copyright and senior advisor to intellectual property consultant InteCap, disagrees with Kitch. He says the Internet should be treated differently in copyright law because it has given rise to new ways of using copyright, such as the open source approach of sharing computer code.

"The Internet has changed everything," he said at Tuesday's conference. "We have a new way of making contributions, the Internet enables, and copyright law is part of it."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the reigning Internet copyright law, goes too far, Einhorn suggested. He said it should not outlaw all technologies that circumvent copy controls.

"In the past what we basically did was say, 'Look, there are some technologies that can be used for copying, but we understand there are some good reasons for it, and we generally will side with the new technology,'" he said. "For the first time, the DMCA says, 'We understand there are technologies out there that can be used for very good purposes, but we still must keep them illegal to make sure they're not used for the worse purposes.'"

Einhorn didn't defend online music-swapping, saying he supports the courts that shut down Napster in 2000. But the DMCA's passage means "there's no checks and balances on the system," he said.

Society may have to draw new lines, and decide whether actions like posting one copyrighted newspaper article for reader comment is a copyright violation, Einhorn said. "In our appreciation and understanding of the capacity of the Internet ... to increase the possibility of cultural interaction, we have a whole new way of thinking," he said.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111089,00.asp


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Privacy vs. Internet Piracy
Jefferson Graham

Verizon and Earthlink have informed five Internet service customers that they can expect to be hearing from the record industry very, very soon.

But the Recording Industry Association of America says it hasn't decided what to do with the names it won last week in a bitter court battle over Internet piracy.

Verizon challenged a subpoena requested by the RIAA, refusing to turn over the identities of subscribers accused of trading copyrighted music online. An appeals court last week gave the company two weeks to comply. Verizon turned over the names of four subscribers, traced by the music industry through their numerical Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Internet provider Earthlink, also under subpoena, agreed to reveal a customer's identity after last week's ruling. Verizon is continuing to appeal the case.

Despite the victory after months of legal wrangling, the RIAA has done nothing with the information and will not say what it plans to do. As of Tuesday, the trade group had yet to send out cease-and-desist letters, file suit against the subscribers or forward the information to the government for prosecution, among other options.

"They've been very cagey," says Verizon's Sarah Deutsch, who predicts the RIAA will send letters shortly. She worries that hundreds, if not thousands, of similar requests for users' identities will come over the summer. "We're concerned there will be an avalanche, and our subscribers' privacy rights will be violated."

The RIAA's Matt Oppenheim won't address the charges but says, "I'm not sure how they have any idea what we're going to do."

Verizon advised its subscribers to obtain legal assistance. The company isn't sharing their names with the media.

Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright holders can send cease-and-desist letters to Internet providers when subscribers are discovered sharing unauthorized material. The RIAA says the law also allows access to infringers' identities by filing a subpoena, without first obtaining a judge's order. Verizon disagrees.

According to Ohio State law professor Peter Swire, Verizon's loss "will be a terrible blow for privacy. ISPs will be flooded with legitimate and illegimate claims, and there's no due process."

But the record labels, beset by slumping sales and frustrated in their attempts to close down online swap services such as Kazaa, with tens of millions of users, have begun chasing individuals aggressively. The RIAA recently settled lawsuits against four college students for $12,500 to $17,500 each.

"If all we do is send out anonymous letters, the message is, 'Go infringe until you're caught,' " Oppenheim says.

"The decision gives us another tool to deal with the piracy problem," he says. "We've been engaged in an education campaign to communicate that downloading unauthorized music is illegal — and that we know who you are."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2...privacy_x.htm#


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Notebook From The National Show
Caroline Wilbert

Some goings-on from the National Show in Chicago. The annual trade show is sponsored by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association:

Dick Parsons, chief executive of AOL Time Warner, and other executives on a Monday panel said they would like to see copyright regulations bolstered.

"Without a robust digital rights management structure, we could all be losers," Parsons said.

Also on the panel: Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft; Mel Karmazin, president of Viacom; and Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast.

Cable companies, having spent billions upgrading their cable networks, are eager to roll out new revenue-generating services, such as video on demand, which gives viewers the option of ordering movies or other programming at any time.

The concern in rolling out some of these new features is the potential for piracy.

The executives pointed to the music industry's experience as a cautionary tale.

The music companies didn't start working together "until the wave broke on the shore and almost drowned everyone," Parsons said.

Slow to offer consumers the option of buying their music in digitized form, the industry was soon overwhelmed by customers downloading music clips without paying.

MBC, a young network from Atlanta that targets blacks with family programming, attracted more attention than its much bigger rivals Monday.

The reason? Pop singer Michael Jackson paid a visit for MBC's booth.

Jackson's brother, Marlon Jackson, is an investor in MBC.

Though Jackson was a couple of hours later than promised, the crowd was entertained by baseball great Cecil Fielder, also an investor, who posed for Polaroids and then autographed the pictures.

As for today, MBC is following up the Jackson coup with boxer Evander Holyfield.

Networks on the trade show floor set up elaborate booths and employ other gimmicks to attract attention.

The Weather Channel, based in Atlanta, is inviting passers-by to pose in front of a plain green sheet. When the pictures develop, it looks like a hurricane is behind the model.

Across the room at Atlanta's Turner Broadcasting booth, NASCAR champions signed autographs Monday.

At Biography, there are wax statues of celebrities such as John Travolta.

The Outdoor Channel set up a lush setting, complete with trees and a stuffed bear.

And just in case any conventioneers were feeling frumpy, Lifetime was doing makeovers Monday.

On tap for today

FCC Chairman Michael Powell will talk about media ownership rules, a week after controversial changes passed. Also, network CEOs will be on a panel to discuss "the changing landscape of television programming."
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/...0shownote.html


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Who Manages Your Rights?
Michael J. Miller

Digital Rights Management may be the most important computing issue of the decade; it's one that is stirring
up no shortage of controversy. DRM is defined as software that lets a content owner set specific policies for determining how the content is used, by whom, and for how long. Microsoft recently debuted its strategy called Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), a framework for enabling online music and movie sales and document protection. But it could limit you to using only the software or data to which someone has given you the rights.

Formerly known as Palladium, NGSCB will divide your operating system into left and right sides. Everyday applications will run on the left side, while applications on the right side will be locked down and accessible only by trusted programs and users.

The right side will include a module that Microsoft calls a nexus. You'll log on to the system with a smart card, and the nexus will authenticate you, communicating with a special chip. Many apps will run as they do now, but those that require rights management will be encrypted. Such a program will be run only with the correct combination of a unique user and the nexus. NGSCB will require a new generation of CPUs and chipsets. Both Intel, with its LaGrange project, and AMD are on board.

Microsoft's rights management technology will emerge in other forms well before NGSCB is ready for prime time. Later this year, the company will release its Windows Rights Management Server, an add-on to Microsoft Windows Server 2003. And it is working on add-ons to Internet Explorer and the next release of Microsoft Office.

Digital rights management for protecting the confidentiality of medical and legal records is absolutely necessary, but lots of people worry that it could go too far. The arguments fall into one of two camps.

Those who believe that information should be free are opposed to rights management in all forms. But that kind of idealism doesn't work in the real world, where people who create information (including me and the company I work for) want to get paid.

At the other extreme are people who think everything should be copy-protected. But this doesn't work, either, as restrictive policies inconvenience paying customers more than they stop the real pirates.

I propose a middle ground. The biggest problem is stopping the redistribution of data, not the use of data on an individual basis. I'm all for Microsoft's efforts to put a stop to redistribution, but it also needs to take into account the right of fair use and people's ability to access content on multiple machines in different locations. That's a tall order—one that will take several years, but it just may work.

Wi-Fi Watch

I'm a huge fan of wireless networks: I've had one in the office since 1997 and one at home for a couple of years. These products have really taken off recently, and improvements are on the way. But I see some bumps in the road ahead.

In this issue, you can read our reviews and extensive test results for 18 new wireless access points and PC cards. We are still the only magazine that conducts comprehensive tests of speed and distance, and we now test devices spinning atop a special turntable to derive average throughput results across the various connection angles. For this story alone, our labs testing staff for networking, Oliver Kaven and Cisco Cheng, performed over 800 individual test runs.

The 802.11g protocol will be the standard for home networks, partly because the equipment prices are only slightly higher than those of 802.11b products. Draft- standard "g" products are selling well now, but be prepared to upgrade the firmware once the standard is completed this summer.

After the standard is approved, 802.11g will move into businesses, but it won't be alone. Most of the major wireless-chip manufacturers are moving quickly to make "a/ b/g" products. That's good, because each has its uses: "b" for compatibility, "g" for speed over a distance, and "a" for speed and quality of service. These combo chips won't cost much more than the chips that are available now.

But trouble may be brewing: Chip makers are competing, adding turbo modes and other schemes to increase speed. The end result may be products that don't work together. Using a card from one vendor with an access point from another may slow everything down to the lowest common denominator. If the industry can't maintain compatibility, I would not be surprised to see the standard change from Wi-Fi to Centrino- compatible. That's good for Intel, but I doubt the rest of the wireless industry will be happy about it.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1118616,00.asp


Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne


“I hate to say this, but the game is over. The music industry, as it now exists, cannot continue.”

RIAA Declares War: Change Needed
John C. Dvorak

Recent revelations predict that the music industry is going to resort to dirty tricks to halt music piracy. These
include but are not limited to (do I sound like a license agreement?) planting Trojan horses, disabling individual computers, causing Internet slowdowns through hacking, sending out bogus files posing as real files, and going into your PC to erase files. You can read about this in a recent exposé in The New York Times as well as on many Web sites.

Madonna has already taken action by sending a recording to MP3 sites purporting to be her new song but actually containing a mean message. Hackers immediately targeted her site. And with the RIAA gauntlet tossed to the ground, the wrath of hackerdom will certainly be focused on music industry Web sites and servers until they beg for mercy. Although the record companies can probably hire a few good hackers to thwart college kids who want to swap music, the companies should also do a cost/benefit analysis of a potential broad-based retaliatory attack.

The music industry has had plenty of time to change its business model since the MP3 format first appeared in the mid-1990s. And the industry must have had a clue by 1998, when it began to track down pirated albums on CD-R. By the time Napster came along and tried to cajole the industry into adopting it for distribution, everyone but the RIAA knew that the game was altered.

Years later, the music business still clings to its hopes for foolproof digital rights management and for some way to keep profits coming in. Every time someone suggests a low-price compromise, we hear from sincere and struggling artists who are trying to survive by selling copies of albums directly. They argue that for them, prices must remain where they are. The fear is that fringe, avant garde, and niche acts cannot survive the way things are going. What to do?

I hate to say this, but the game is over. The music industry, as it now exists, cannot continue. Small artists are toast, and big artists will not be as big as before. Madonna's album slid fast after her exercise in guilt- tripping her fans. Musicians will have to make money the way they did before there was a recording business —by performing. The digital mechanism for copying freely is simply too compelling to be resisted, period. Gosh, the music industry itself has no concern for the artists. Why should the public?

As for the argument that music will die, who are we kidding? Even if music creation stopped tomorrow, we'd need ten lifetimes to go through all the material that is currently on the market, not to mention backlists and archives.

Is there a way around this grim situation? I think it's too late for electronic distribution, too. Sure, Apple's new online music store quickly sold a million dollars' worth of quasi-copy-protected songs for a dollar each. That price is too high, and somehow, the songs will be traded.

The only thing that can possibly save the music industry is to remove music from the digital merry-go-round— keep it off computers or make it very difficult to transfer. The only way to do this is via a massive format change that both improves the music and offers better value. This means putting songs on the latest DVDs, in improved high-quality massive-bit-rate formats that require multiple disc layers.

I envision each instrument recorded on its own track, then mixed by a master program to create the song and variations or remixes from the same source material. Essentially, you would have up to 40GB of raw music, which would be impractical to copy to a computer. Producing such a recording would take more thought, but putting it on a Blu-ray disc would cost no more than putting it on a CD. If it sold for the same $15 needed to keep young musicians going, everyone would win with such a scheme—and the music would sound phenomenal.

Digital distribution is flawed, no matter how much potential it seemed to have at first. The music industry is generally having no part of it, anyway. And DRM is a hoax and a waste of time. It may keep Sony from stealing from Vivendi Universal, but that's about all.

This is the revolution the music industry must undergo. Arm waving and suing kids only stall the inevitable. And digital distribution only stalls the inevitable, as do legislation and copyright laws. A massive format change—beyond superdiscs—that takes recording into a new dimension of reality is the only solution. Start yesterday.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1118686,00.asp


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Sun Plans Digital Rights Product For Cell Phones, Desktops
Rick Merritt

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to roll out a digital rights management product this year that will span cell phones, desktops and smart cards. The technology is believed to be initially targeted at protecting content such as Java-based games and could be based on emerging work in the Open Multimedia Alliance.

"You will see us very shortly announce product plans for digital rights management," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of Sun's software group, speaking at the JavaOne conference here Tuesday (June 10).

Schwartz suggested the Sun approach could use smart cards or something similar to the SIM identity cards built into many European cellular phones today. The cards could also be used in smart card readers for desktop PCs to provide copy-protected content provided through service providers to PC users, he said.

Guy Laurence, chief executive officer for content services at cellular provider Vodafone (London), said the DRM could be based on enabling technology emerging from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), an ad hoc organization of cellular vendors led by Nokia. The group is expected to formally release a DRM technology that specifies how to encrypt content and different ways to send keys either with the protected content or separate from it.

A Nokia spokesman at JavaOne said the company already has several phones on the market that use the OMA's initial specification for "forward locking" content. The company will have at least one handset on the market this year that uses the full OMA DRM spec, he added.

An OMA spokeswoman said the group expects to detail its progress in several areas including DRM later this year but was not able to provide details about the DRM technology now."The DRM industry is overly muddled. Media companies want everything now, and technology companies want a single solution for everything, but no one size fits all here," said Sun's Schwartz.

In a presentation here, Tim Lindholm, chief technology officer for Sun's consumer mobile systems group, described a technique—now in use by Sprint's cellular division—that would allow a server to handle digital rights management for a cell phone. The cell phone could delete the protected content as needed to preserve limited memory on the handset and later download copies of the content as desired as long as the server acknowledged the user still had rights to that content.

Such a solution would play into Sun's strategy for using Java to drive demand for its servers.

"We are a $12 billion company. The way we get to be a $20 billion company is by getting more people to use Java devices. This drives demand for infrastructure and is absolutely tied to demand for new Sun servers," Schwartz said.

In an interview, Lindholm said it's still unclear what parts of the DRM technology for cell phones will be defined by OMA, Java standards and products from companies like Sun. "It's still a confused situation," he said.
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030611S0027


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Will ‘Waste’ Push File-Sharing Further Underground?
Justin Frankel, the programming ace who created WinAmp and Gnutella, has done it again—coding a piece of software that delights some and threatens others.
Eric Hellweg

Late last month, almost four years to the day after his company, Nullsoft, was acquired by America Online, star programmer Justin Frankel quietly posted the code to a program called Waste on Nullsoft’s Web site. It seemed innocuous enough: a program for setting up small, encrypted networks. But within hours, higher ups at AOL pulled the code from the site and replaced it with a terse notice, scripted in legalese, that warned anyone who downloaded the program that they had “no lawful rights” to the software and that “any and all” copies of it must be destroyed.

It wasn’t the first time this happened. In 2000, during the height of the Napster craze, Frankel posted the program to Gnutella on Nullsoft.com, only to find the code yanked a few hours later. Those few hours were enough for the code—a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) program—to be downloaded by enough key people to turn Gnutella into a major force in the P2P world. Today, Gnutella-based programs have been downloaded more than 35 million times.

Does the same future await Waste? Perhaps. The program has already been downloaded more than 1,600 times, according to several people who put up “mirror sites” featuring the code. Though 1,600 downloads might not sound impressive compared to the Gnutella's 35 million, it shows strong interest in the program—especially since it was only available on the official site for a couple of hours. Despite AOL’s warning, more than 20 mirror sites are still running. AOL apparently has thus far chosen not to crack down too strongly on the mirrors, though it’s difficult to say how long that will last. A Yahoo! discussion group about Waste has already formed. But before analyzing Waste’s future, it’s important to understand what is it—and isn’t—today.

Whenever Frankel releases code, legitimately or not, it’s news. He’s a programmer of remarkable pedigree, having created WinAmp (the most popular MP3 software player) and Shoutcast (streaming radio), as well as Gnutella. But perhaps hoping to stoke another Gnutella-sized frenzy, the first news stories erroneously pegged Waste as a file- trading application. File-trading is certainly a component of Waste, but it doesn’t appear to be its primary function.

Since the code is in a “1.0 beta” stage, it’s hard to tell exactly what it wants to be; Frankel didn’t respond to repeated requests for information and AOL had no comment on Waste. But after spending some time with Waste and speaking with coders who are already at work improving it, a clearer picture emerges. “Given the amount of effort Justin put in, which clearly wasn’t huge, it’s off to a great start,” says Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove Networks and creator of Lotus Notes, who has played around with the software.

Waste is basically a program for setting up relatively small, private, encrypted networks, where chatting is the main method of communication. Although Waste's interface and initial applications are straightforward, the program’s promise has many coders excited. Currently, all major chat programs, such as Yahoo Messenger, AOL’s AIM, and Microsoft’s MSN Messenger, are centralized. Using these companies’ products means you understand and accept that all your instant messaging is running through a central server and can be monitored if need be. Waste, on the other hand, is completely decentralized. This architecture, coupled with its use of encryption, means users can feel completely confident that what they’re chatting about won’t be monitored by the likes of AOL or Microsoft. “That freedom is addictive,” says Lucas Gonze, a programmer who runs a Waste mirror site. “You wouldn’t accept someone in your living room checking out your conversation with your wife, and there’s no reason you should have to accept that with IM.”

According to the sparse documentation that accompanies the program, the suggested maximum number of users is 50. Downloading and installing the 169-kilobyte program allows you to connect with other Waste users, but only after obtaining those users’ public encryption keys. Since people don’t typically make their encryption keys readily available to anyone on the Internet, Waste is primarily for people who already know each other or share common interests. As such, unless major modifications are made to the Waste source code, it's doubtful that the program will facilitate large-scale encrypted chat. However, the software was released under the open source Gnu General Public License, which allows people to freely distribute a program, making modifications along the way. This is still very much a program in flux.

Once you’ve exchanged keys and IP addresses with other users, you’re connected as a Waste network. Users can set up separate Waste networks for different groups of friends or colleagues. Like various file-sharing programs, users delegate a folder on their hard drives for sharing. Other users can search the folder for files and swap anything in that folder. Users can also search for a particular file in an individual’s folder or on the entire Waste network. If, for example, you were looking for a file called “recipes.doc”, you could search the user whose folder you think contains the file—say, your friend who is known for his cooking—or if you weren’t sure who had it, the entire network.

Given the program’s open source foundation and the respect Frankel commands in the coding community, it’s hard to tell what shape Waste will eventually take. Could it morph into a program that allows for larger networks than 50? Yes, according to two programmers I spoke with. Could the file-trading feature become stronger and usurp chat as Waste’s primary purpose? Yes, again. The possibility exists for Waste to take file-sharing even further into the underground, and make it even harder to detect. And anyone wanting a glimpse into the future of the Internet could do worse than to follow Justin Frankel’s code prints.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...lweg061103.asp


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Online NewsHour
Special Report:
Copyrighting in the Digital Age

Is downloading copyrighted music tantamount to stealing? Lawrence Lessig, an expert on Internet law from Stanford University's Law School, and Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America, answer your questions about this heated debate.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued four students on April 3 for allegedly operating music- sharing Web sites, accusing them of enabling large-scale copyright theft. Although the RIAA initially asked for $98 billion in damages, it settled the case on May 1, with the four students paying fines ranging from $12,000 to $17,500.

Marking another victory for the recording industry, a federal judge on April 24 ordered Verizon Communications to reveal the names of two Internet subscribers accused of illegally trading music online. Since that decision, Verizon received subpoenas for information on two more Internet subscribers.

Verizon turned over the names of its four Internet subscribers on June 5 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. rejected the telecom company's request for a stay while it appeals the lower court decision. Verizon plans to appeal that ruling.


Meanwhile, on April 25, a federal judge in Los Angeles delivered a setback to the entertainment industry by dismissing lawsuits against two file-swapping services, Streamcast Networks and Grokster. Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the two services were not liable for copyright violations that may have occurred while people were using their software.

Although the ruling does not legalize the downloading of copyrighted media online, it shields companies that provide peer-to-peer software from liability for the actions of their users.

Does the entertainment industry has the right to prevent the "sharing" and downloading of digital copyrighted media? What methods should it employ to deter, or stop, the downloading?

Is music sharing tantamount to online theft? Or is it the consumer's right to have unfettered access to online materials, including copyrighted media? Should online music, film and other media be available for public use?

Two leading experts representing the two sides of the debate answer your questions about consumer rights and media copyrights in the digital age.



Forty-six professors of intellectual-property law argued that the DMCA's [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] anti- circumvention device provision creates a modern Stationer's Guild. It allows copyright holders to control technology, much like the Stationer's Guild controlled the printing press.

Without anti-copyright devices, wouldn't that extend copyright terms for eternity?


Lawrence Lessig from Stanford Law School responds:

Yes, and in some cases, it already has. Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive, for example, recently testified before the Copyright Office, about the effect of the DMCA on the ability of archives -- like his -- to make archive copies of old software. He had a bunch of great titles from the 1980s -- the original Tetris, the original Visicalc, and an early version of 123 -- all of which were protected by copyright protection systems.

Under the DMCA, those protections can't be circumvented, even for the purpose of archiving those works. And as absolutely no one -- including the copyright owners for that software -- has the technology to unlock those digital locks, the effective term of protection for that software is effectively perpetual.

Again, the DMCA is extremism. It is time Congress did something to restore balance.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright.html


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Cracking Down on Cyberspace Land Grabs

The people who keep the Internet running are coming to terms with address space hijacking, an old scam that's turned suddenly nasty.
Kevin Poulsen

Earlier this year an expanse of Internet address space belonging to the County of Los Angeles was put to some uses that had little to do with effective municipal governance. Some county addresses inexplicably began hosting porn websites, while others generated suspicious scanning activity that tripped intrusion detection systems around the net. And then there was the spam, suddenly oozing from the county's cyberspace like sludge moving down the Los Angeles river after a rain -- low-interest mortgages, bargain ink jet cartridges, an abundance of "sizzling teens" in adult situations.

It turns out the official records of the address block had been doctored, and L.A. County no longer owned the space -- at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned. All 65,534 addresses now belonged to one Emil Kacperski, the 20-something owner of a small unincorporated hosting company in Northern California. No one was more surprised than county officials, who'd been using the space on an internal county- wide network since 1995. "We found out when we got a call from some outfit overseas, saying they were being hacked and they investigated the IP address and it was one of ours," says Dennis Shelley, associate CIO for the county. "We followed up on it, and we found out that it had been hijacked."

Los Angeles County had been hit by a growing type of hi-tech fraud, in which large, and usually dormant, segments of the Internet's address space are taken away from their registered users through an elaborate shell game of forged letters, ephemeral domain names and anonymous corporate fronts. The patsies in the scheme are the four non-profit registries that parcel out address space around the world and keep track of who's using it. The prizes are the coveted "Class B" or "/16" (read "slash-sixteen") address blocks that Internet authorities passed out like candy in the days when address space was bountiful, but are harder to get legitimately now.

And until spammers discovered the technique, IP hijacking was largely considered a dishonest but forgivable path to acquiring old, unused address space belonging to defunct companies. The perpetrators were what the Spamhaus Project describes as "a few crufty geeks" in search of "cheap digs." The scam is victimless in that it normally targets dormant allocations that are otherwise going to waste, in many cases taking blocks of space that belong to defunct companies, or, like the Trafalgar House space, have long faded from corporate memory.

But like the mob moving in on a neighborhood poker game, spammers have turned a once-harmless misdemeanor into an organized and well- funded scheme. Internet defenders shudder at the thought of large portions of the net's real-estate under the control of anonymous rogue entities. "There's no accountability. You don't know who really owns this particular address space. You have no way of finding out," says Schlichting." Some even worry that malefactors will go a step further, and begin hijacking address space that's already in active use. "This whole episode has identified huge weaknesses in the Internet's own infrastructure," says Cox. "What we've seen happen is trivial compared to what we've seen possible."
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/5654


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Digital Music Hits the Road
J.D. Biersdorfer

ANYONE who has ever made a mix tape to play on a long drive knows the hypnotic effect of combining cars, motion and music: it's just you and the road and Steve Earle cranked up all the way as the mile markers fly by and stress melts away. Even when stuck at a traffic light, you can car dance by wiggling around in your seat and singing the background vocals on "Stop! In the Name of Love."

People have been piping tunes into the dashboard for decades. Radio became popular in cars in the 1930's; later came a rush of tape decks and CD players. It occurred to me not long after I got immersed in the world of MP3 music that this was a perfect format for the car.

Even the smallest flash-memory MP3 players can hold an hour or two of music, and hard-drive-based players like the Archos Jukebox or the Apple iPod can hold thousands of songs. A couple of roadworthy playlists could save me the frustration (and bad habit) of fiddling with the radio or fishing around for the right Talking Heads album while driving. I thought it would be great to hook up my portable MP3 jukebox player to a car stereo on my next long trip.

Looking for options, I found plenty. There are all kinds of devices, including cassette adapters that connect the MP3 player to (and allow it to play through) the car's tape deck, and new CD players that can spin a disc with several hours of MP3's as you drive along. The low and the high end of the spectrum caught my eye, however.

On the low end, I discovered an array of inexpensive wireless FM transmitters being marketed to the iPod/Rio/Nomad crowd as a way to play MP3 files through a car radio without having to bother with clumsy wiring or ill-fitting cassette adapters. On the high end, I discovered the PhatNoise Digital Car Audio System, a full-blown MP3 jukebox (the PhatBox) that uses a 20-gigabyte hard drive stored in the trunk to let you tow 500 CD's worth of tunes wherever you go.

I started with the FM transmitters: a SoundFeeder SF121 from Arkon Resources ($25; www.arkon.com), the iRock 300W by First International Digital ($30; www.myirock.com), and the iTrip by Griffin Technology ($35; www.griffintechnology.com).

All three of them worked basically the same way: you connect the FM transmitter's plug to the portable MP3 player's headphones port, find an unoccupied radio frequency on the FM dial for the transmitter to borrow, and push the Play button to broadcast your MP3 playlists through the car radio, the home stereo or even a portable radio.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/te...ts/12stat.html


QnA

Q. Is there a way to capture streaming radio music on the hard drive or on a CD?

A. There are several ways to capture live sound streaming from Internet servers onto your computer. Perhaps the easiest is to find a program designed to record live audio streams.

First, check to see whether your preferred MP3 software has a recording function or optional plug-in component that can record from an Internet stream.

If not, you can choose from a wide assortment of freeware, shareware and commercial programs. A quick browse through your favorite shareware Web site will turn up a few audio- stream recorders. Sites like www.hitsquad.com and www.mp3-recorder.net specialize in audio- related shareware.

Super MP3 Recorder ($30; www.supermp3recorder.com) and AudioStreamer ($40; www.rmbsoft.com/as.asp) are programs that can record live audio streams on Windows systems. If you want to record a show when you are away from the computer, you can program software like Blaze Audio Power Record ($20; www.blazeaudio.com/products/ powerrecord.html) or Replay Radio ($30; www.replay-radio.com) to record at a specified time.

Macintosh users can try INet Stream Archiver (www.xample.ch), Radio Lover for Mac OS X 10.2 (www.bitcartel.com/radiolover) or StreamRipperX for Mac OS X (streamripperx.sourceforge.net).

If you are recording copyrighted material, look into the local laws on personal use of protected works.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/te...ts/12askk.html

(I happen to be fond of Streamripper – Ed.)


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Bring On the Fat Files: a Hard Drive With Room to Spare
Sarah Milstein

They say you can't be too rich or too thin, and if they were talking about hard drives they might say you can't be too big. For those who work with digital video, music or photo files, it can seem as though no hard drive is capacious enough. Googie, a Danish company, makes external hard drives with a hefty measure of data storage space.

The company's Orbit model, now sold in sizes from 720 to 2,000 gigabytes, will be available next month in a 3,000-gigabyte version for $6,698 that can be ordered now at www.googiestore.com.

For a drive that's, well, thinner and less expensive, Googie's Sandwich is about 7 by 7 inches square and 1.4 inches tall. It comes in models ranging from 80 to 250 gigabytes ($270 to $598).
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/te...ts/12driv.html


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Web Crawler Ups Ante In Asia Software Piracy Battle
Reuters

Prowling through cyberspace, sniffing out sites that offer illegal downloads, the Web crawler -- the latest weapon in the software industry's war on copyright pirates -- is now on the case in Asia.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), which has deployed the Web Crawler, represents some of the top software names, including Microsoft Corp and Apple Computer.

The group is battling to end an estimated $5.5 billion a year in software copyright theft in the Asia Pacific.

So far, the Web crawler has found in Asia over 22,000 violations of copyright through file sharing, downloading or purchases through the Internet, the alliance said.

"Internet software piracy is the fastest-growing form of piracy worldwide, and we expect the search engine to uncover between 2,000 and 3,000 infringements every month in Asia Pacific alone," BSA Asia Pacific regional director, Jeffrey Hardee said.

The snooping software targets sites carrying pirate versions of business software programs belonging to BSA members. The alliance then asks Internet Service Providers (ISPs) hosting the sites to shut them down.

The Web crawler was first launched in the United States last year and then in Europe earlier this year. In 2002, it uncovered 1.48 million software infringements in the United States, including multiple infringements on many Web sites.

So far in 2003, over 71,000 notices have been sent to ISPs hosting pirate Web sites, compared with over 73,000 for 2002.

The biggest headache for software firms was unauthorised file sharing, often involving the peer-to-peer (P2P) programmes that have plagued the music industry, which the BSA said made up 87 per cent of Internet software piracy.

"As bandwidth increases in the region, P2P file downloads will increase and become a larger problem," Hardee said.

The BSA said business software piracy hit a six-year high in the Asia Pacific region last year, with an estimated 55 per cent of software in use obtained from illicit sources.

In China, 92 per cent of all business software in use in both 2001 and 2002 was pirated. This was the world's second-highest level after Vietnam, it said.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/1...6,00030010.htm


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Not all DVD players will play SVCD's, and converting SVCD to VCD is a hassel, takes awhile, and cuts the quality of the video. Here is a way to put a VCD header on your SVCD to make you DVD player think it's playing a VCD.

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Western Europe


Dutch Snap Up Digital Cameras
Joe Figueiredo

The Dutch are increasingly turning digital, according to a recent survey of the camera market in the Netherlands conducted by GfK Benelux Marketing Services.

According to survey respondents (which include department stores, and camera, electronic, telecom and computer shops, representing 80 per cent of the market), some 485,000 digital cameras - a 100 per cent increase on 2001 - worth E248m were sold last year, a year-on-year increase of over 66 per cent.

In sharp contrast, digital cameras built into mobile handsets are not selling well. Survey respondents reported that, of the 767,000 mobile handsets sold to businesses in 2002, only a tiny three per cent were equipped with a digital camera, and five per cent had the option of connecting to one.

Digital cameras function electronically, deploying a memory chip (which can be erased and reused), instead of film, to capture an image, and offer instant viewing.

Furthermore, images from digital cameras can be downloaded onto a computer for printing, distribution (via e- mail, for example), editing, or storage on the computer’s hard disk or burnt to CD.

The average price a Dutch consumer paid for a digital camera fell from E443 in 2001 to E417 last year. In April 2003, however, this price rose to E421. According to GfK’s project manager, Laurens van den Oever, the price rise had to do with improved quality.

Although traditional-camera business fell by 30 per cent in 2002 to 458,000 units, a drop in sales from E112m in 2001 to E82m last year, traditional film-based cameras provided camera retailers with two-thirds of their total sales turnover in 2002.
Hot-spots are rapidly becoming the focal point in today's challenged wireless industry, and what will continue the momentum is the rise of wi-fi enabled laptop users. The number of WLAN-enabled notebook users is ramping up, with an expected CAAG of 79 per cent, reaching a potential 58m users by 2008, according to a new report from research firm Allied Business Intelligence (ABI), Wi-Fi Networking Equipment: Worldwide Deployments, Drivers, Players and Forecasts for 802.11x. With the success of Intel's Centrino largely unknown, yet with its marketing efforts providing widespread awareness to the industry, these numbers may grow even larger than current projections. This will have a serious effect in siphoning away data traffic from 3G networks.

"By offering consumers the ability to retrieve data from their laptop wirelessly at top-rate speeds, mobile operators are going to bring more data users to the table," explains ABI Senior Analyst Tim Shelton. "There may be more then one winner here in the long run, with Wi-Fi's success being the driving force that pulls consumers towards data driven services."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16697


EU Directive Imposes Vat For Foreign Dot-Coms
Leigh Phillips

From the first of next month, a new EU directive will be enacted, forcing all internet companies to impose VAT (value-added tax) on all digital sales. This amounts to a tariff of between 15 and 25 per cent on items such as software or music downloads, any transactions as part of online auctions and subscriptions to internet service providers, sold over the internet anywhere within the European Union.

European companies have always added the tax to services and products they sell, but foreign companies had, until now, been exempt, leading to an advantage for non-European firms that European dot-coms lobbied the EU to have removed.

While European companies are quite happy with the move, foreign e-commerce companies are having to make adjustments. AOL is moving its European offices to Luxembourg, which has a less rigorous tax system, and Amazon will now be charging VAT on downloads and e-books, while online auction house Ebay will pay the VAT itself in its smaller operations in Europe like France or Italy, but will make customers pay in the UK and Germany through higher fees.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16650


BT Signs Up Millionth Wholesale Broadband Customer

UK incumbent telco BT has announced that it has passed its initial target of 1m wholesale broadband connections by summer 2003. The target was set in February last year, when BT had only 145,000 connections.

To mark the achievement, BT is giving a boost to parts of the UK that do not yet have access to ADSL broadband. Every "trigger level" across the UK will be reduced by 50 registrations, a reduction of up to 25 per cent.

Trigger levels reflect the number of people who need to register their demand for broadband before BT upgrades an exchange with ADSL technology. The news means that 69 exchanges will immediately hit their triggers and work will begin to upgrade them with broadband technology.

The exchanges stretch from Cowes in the Isle of Wight to Cookstown in Northern Ireland and serve more than 375,000 households. More than 71 per cent of UK households are currently connected to broadband enabled exchanges and BT estimates this figure will increase to more than 80 per cent by the end of 2003.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16657


Differentiation Drives Broadband Adoption In Europe – report

2002 was a catalyst year for the European broadband market, according to a new study by market analysts IDC,
European Broadband Access Services Market Analysis, 2002-2007. The number of connections catapulted to 13.4m in Europe, which is more than twice the figure of the previous year, and revenues for broadband internet access reached E3.4bn.

An increasingly widespread availability of broadband services, greater customer choice, more affordable packages, and increasing internet usage were the building blocks of last year's growth, say the analysts. As the market is maturing, an increasing number of operators will have to differentiate their product portfolios, to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

In the near term, this increasing choice will prove to be a key driver for the market, while in the longer term, the development of broadband specific content and applications will ensure further growth. Fuelled by these factors, the number of connections will grow to almost 62m in 2007, representing E23bn in revenues.

DSL was the preferred technology, as it accounted for more than 70 per cent of all European connections and it will remain the dominant broadband access method throughout the forecast period. As a result of this, incumbents will remain important players in the broadband landscape, not only as the provider of wholesale DSL network connections, but also on the retail level through their ISP activities.

Although sustained regulatory efforts to stimulate competition will have some effect, the current position, size, and marketing power of incumbent operators will ensure their leading status.

Furthermore, although the five major countries account for almost two out of every three broadband connections in Western Europe, they are only in the middle when it comes to penetration. At the end of 2002 Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden were Europe's leading countries in terms of uptake.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16658


France Telecom to Make Broadband Access Available to All Who Want It

Speaking at a press conference, France Telecom Chairman Thierry Breton announced a series of initiatives designed to make broadband internet available to all users in France who want the service.

All central offices, i.e., local telephone exchanges with over 1,000 lines will be equipped with DSL modems (DSLAMs) by the end of 2005. This network extension corresponds to France Telecom's initial coverage plans.

The number of ADSL units (DSLAMs) installed in local telephone exchanges will be multiplied by a factor of more than 2.5 (8,000 DSLAMs in 2005, compared with 3,000 today), and an additional 7,500 km of fiberoptic links will be installed.
To carry out this programme, France Telecom will invest E600m over three years to deploy ADSL technology on the French telephone network.

The programme will be extended and adjusted to meet demand from all customers who want broadband internet service and who are connected to central offices with at least 1,000 lines. Whenever at least 100 customers in the same local service area request the service, France Telecom will make ADSL service available.

Potential user demand will be evaluated in liaison with municipal authorities, and followed by pre-reservation of connections by ISPs. When the number of confirmed requests reaches the threshold, France Telecom will make a commitment to municipalities, users and ISPs to deploy ADSL service within a timeframe determined after a technical assessment by France Telecom regional offices.

France Telecom will very shortly begin discussions with other operators and ISPs to determine the details of nationwide deployment for this programme. The timetable and terms of network build-out will be finalised in direct cooperation with local and regional authorities.
In September 2003, France Telecom will also begin marketing three bi-directional satellite broadband internet solutions designed for consumers and businesses in areas with partial or no ADSL service coverage.

The first, Pack Surf Satellite, is a customised solution that lets users select their ISP while benefiting from superior quality broadband service. Four data rates will be proposed, offering from 128 kbps to 2048 kbps for downstream traffic (i.e. from the network to the user premises) and from 64 kbps to 512 kbps for upstream traffic (from user premises to the network).

The second, Oléane SAT, covers both internet access solutions and Intranets. Here too, customers have a choice of data rates, from 128 or 512 kbps to 2048 kbps downstream, and from 64 or 128 kbps to 512 kbps upstream.

The third, Wanadoo Pro Sat, will provide the same services as Wanadoo Pro ADSL offers, but without geographic restrictions. This service will provide data rates of 128 kbps downstream and 64 kbps upstream.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16704


Telecommunications Amendments Anger Industry, Help Consumers

After a second reading, the Russian State Duma has passed a series of amendments to the country’s telecommunications law, but industry representatives feel that the new legislation has favoured the interests of consumers at the expense of making the market more equitable for the different carriers and operators, according to the Moscow Times.

Telco representatives are most upset about the veto by lawmakers of provisions that were supposed to permit per-minute billing. Currently, fixed-line carriers can only charge a flat fee per month, which, they say, is not profitable in some regions. Sector commentators feel that the veto of per-minute billing is a sop to voters in an election year and will do nothing to aid expansion of the telecommunications sector in the country.

A second aspect of the telecommunications law that is frustrating telcos is the issue of tariffs. Currently, carriers are allowed to increase prices by around a third each year, which, say the owners of the companies, does not raise enough money to modernise the aging equipment and discourages investment.

And finally, alternative carriers were hoping that the new law would set the terms by which they could connect to the national fixed-line monopoly, Svyazinvest. However, the law only says they have the right to so, and contains no regulation in this regard.

After a third reading, passage by the Federation Council and then being signed by the president, the new law will replace the 1995 communications law. The Association of Telecommunications Operators, an industry lobby group, has said that it will try to convince the Federation Council and the Kremlin not to pass the bill.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16677


50m internet users in the new EU countries by 2007
Aqute Research

The latest findings from Aqute Research show that 15 per cent of the total population in the thirteen EU accession countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey) will access the internet by the end of 2003. This is set to grow to 28 per cent by 2007. Overall, the online population of accession countries will grow from 25m in 2003 to 50 m in 2007. Estonia, Slovenia and Malta will achieve the highest online penetration rates with 58 per cent, 43 per cent and 42 per cent of people online by 2007, respectively.

"The EU accession countries start off with low credit card penetration, low home PC penetration, and a high fear level about fraud and limited online tenure," says Michele Poliziani, analyst with Aqute Research. "It will take these countries some years to get close to the levels of online activity we see among current EU members." On top of this, the social and cultural aspects of shopping make the internet less appealing, adds Poliziani.

Aqute Research’s findings show that the number of internet users actually buying online will remain low. By the end of 2003, the number of online buyers in the accession countries will grow to 1.9m or almost 8 per cent of the total online population. Most shopping will be for low-value items, keeping average spending per buyer low and total online retail at E183m in 2003. Three countries - Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - will account for 61 per cent of this spending. By 2007, 16 per cent of internet users in the thirteen accession countries will shop online and total online retail spending will reach almost E1bn.

Poliziani: "Most users have limited online experience so will be less likely to shop, since shoppers tend to be mature users. And with income levels far below those of many EU members, online spending is set to remain low. However, the group of accession countries as a whole will still become a E1bn market online by 2007."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16662


Latvia Lags Behind Neighbours In Software Piracy Stakes
Baltic News Service

Lativia's software piracy rate in Latvia dropped just 1 per cent over the last year to 58 per cent, leaving it the most pirate-ridden nation of the Baltic states, according to the annual study by Business Software Alliance (BSA), the software writer copyright protection body.

The software piracy rate in Lithuania declined from 58 per cent at the end of 2001 to 53 per cent as of late 2002. Estonia’s software piracy rate remained unchanged during 2002, and stood at the same level as in Lithuania at the end of the year.

According to the BSA study, Latvia has lost E8m through software piracy in retail alone, significantly more than the E4.6m loss to Estonia and the E4.9m loss to Lithuania.

BSA Latvian committee board chairman Valdis Birkavs admitted to the Baltic News Service that, “considering the present software piracy level, Latvia is currently at the point where Western countries were eight years ago”. In Western countries software piracy was above 50 per cent in the early 90s, but to date the figure has dropped to an average of 35 per cent.

The situation in Lithuania is gradually improving, said Ervinas Leontjevas, president of BSA Lietuva, noting the public’s increasingly negative attitude toward pirated software.

Jolanta Pranckeviciene, a lawyer representing the BSA members, said that, “the biggest problem is the use of pirated software in municipalities and other public institutions”.

The piracy rate is also high among home users, she said.

The BSA said the lowest piracy rates in Eastern Europe were recorded in the Czech Republic (40 per cent), Hungary and Slovenia (45 per cent each).

Russia and Ukraine continued to have the highest piracy levels last year, with 89 per cent of all programs installed on computers being illegal copies.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16645


ADSL lines in Spain reach 1.25m
WMT

Asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL) in Spain at the end of May 2003 totalled 1.25m, according to the country's Association of Internet Users.

At the end of April 2003, Spain had 1.19m ADSL subscribers.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16688


Radiohead Plug In TV Over The Web
David Minto

Whether you consider them bitter-sweet musers on the human condition or down-in-the-dumps whingers, Radiohead are certainly a rock group given to innovation more than most, and have thus marked the release of their new album with the simultaneous launch of their own TV station, broadcasting over the web.

Radiohead Television will show music videos, live concert webcasts and streaming broadcasts from their recording studios, with programming beginning on the hour. In true Radiohead style, those turning up early will be treated to a test card and 1970s style intermission music, whilst programmes featured include the enigmatically titled, ‘The Most Gigantic Lying Moutn of All Time, Episode 1.

Radiohead’s new album, Hail to the Thief, is widely tipped to enter at the top of this week’s UK music chart.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16656


Digital Preview Service For Pre-Order CDs Launched

A new online music preview service has been launched by home entertainment product distributor Entertainment UK, allowing fans who have purchased albums in advance of offcial release dates to listen to the tracks.

The venture follows a research study into the digital music habits of 10,000 consumers. According to Entertainment UK, the service has already led to a ‘significant’ jump in pre-order album sales.

The system works by making available to consumers digital tracks that expire on the day that the album is released, when the purchaser will receive their hard copy of the CD.

Digital service provider DX3 has teamed up with Entertainment UK to provide the service, along with retail partners that include Woolworths, StreetsOnline and MVC.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16678


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Home-Brew DVR Projects Fermenting Nicely
David Minto

Concealed within the shadows of much-hyped, brand digital video recorders (DVR), such as TiVo and ReplayTV, the more silent undertaking of do-it-yourself DVRs is a phenomenon apparently growing in momentum.

According to Wired News, about a dozen open source, collaborative software projects are moving forward in a bid to create the software behind uber-DVRs capable of recording hundreds of hours of programming and multiple programmes simultaneously. With the high-end functions of brand DVRs requiring supplementary subscription costs, a lot of whizz-kid Linux programmers have become hooked on seeing how far the technology can be pushed without furnishing the pockets of the major players.

Not to say that assembling a custom-made DVR is a particularly cheap occupation. For example, Raffi Krikorian, author of book-in- the-works ‘TiVo Hacks’, estimates that the parts for a 250 hour DVR colossus with download, archive, editing and multiple record capabilities are likely to add up to around three times the price of a top-end TiVo – that is, about E1000. Assembling the beast is also, according to insider consensus, one of the more time-consuming and difficult activities for a technologist to engage in, often requiring hundreds of hours of trouble-shooting fixes in order to get things just right.

Nevertheless, as long as DVR functionality can be pushed further, you can be sure there’ll be programmers out there trying to do just that. And with brand DVRs underplaying the ad-skipping capabilities of their machines and only circumspectly ruffling some high-profile broadcasting feathers, DIY DVR makers are likely to be alittle more brazen about their occupation.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16652


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MusicNet To Adopt Microsoft's Format
Reuters

In the latest deal in the rapidly expanding online music business, MusicNet said Thursday that it would offer more than 350,000 songs to subscribers in Microsoft's Windows Media format.

Since Apple Computer launched its iTunes Music Store in late April, and proved its potential by selling more than 2 million downloads at 99 cents each, major online players such as America Online, MSN and Amazon.com have said they were more actively exploring their own online music services.

MusicNet's current distribution is through the AOL service of AOL Time Warner. Late last month, AOL and Microsoft settled a long-running legal dispute by agreeing in part to closer collaboration on the development of online digital media.

A MusicNet representative said the conversion of the company's music products into the Windows Media format has been an ongoing initiative and predated that settlement.

MusicNet, with more than 100,000 subscribers to its service, received a new round of funding last month from its major shareholders, including Microsoft competitor RealNetworks.

Though an investor, RealNetworks is phasing out the distribution of MusicNet in favor of Rhapsody, the online music system it picked up when it acquired Listen.com earlier this year. MusicNet's main rival, Pressplay, was acquired in May by digital media company Roxio, which plans to use it to revive a legal form of the Napster online music service.
http://news.com.com/2100-12_3-1016154.html


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In a Trademark Case, The Supreme Court Recognizes That Art Flows From Multiple Sources
Madhavi Sunder

Last week, in Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, the Supreme Court held that once a work's copyright terminates, it passes into the public domain, and trademark law does not prevent its use without attribution to the original author. The decision was 8-0. (Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself because his brother, also a federal judge, had heard the case in the lower courts.)

Along the way, the Court recognized what might be termed the river of creation: A piece of art, the Court observed, stems from multiple sources, like the "Nile and all its tributaries."

The Dastar Decision's Significance: The Idea of Multiple Creators

The Dastar decision is significant in several different ways.

First, the Court recognized that creativity often does not flow from a single source. Fox claimed to be the true "origin" of the videos Dastar sold, but the Court made clear it was not as easy as that: "(i)n many cases, figuring out who is in the line of 'origin' would be no simple task."

Indeed, because Fox's own "involvement with the creation of the television series was limited at best," the Court suggested that Time, Inc. "was the principal if not the exclusive creator." Moreover, there were also other contributors: Eisenhower, who wrote the book; and the United States Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, which provided much of the film footage.

The Court noted that, "If anyone has a claim to be the original creator of the material used in both the Crusade television series and the Campaigns videotapes, it would be those groups, rather than Fox." However, it declined to adjudicate who the original creator actually was, for "[w]e do not think the Lanham Act requires this search for the source of the Nile and all its tributaries."

In endorsing this idea of multiple originators, the Court may have cast a shadow on the myth of the "romantic author." Popular in copyright jurisprudence, the myth holds that a creative work is typically the result of spontaneous, individual genius.

Dastar's Embrace of the Public Domain

Second, Dastar is significant because it stressed that the public domain is essential for creativity. The public domain allowed Fox to obtain the war footage for "Crusades" in the first place. Fifty years later, at a historic moment, the public domain allowed Dastar to share this and other footage with a wider audience at a reasonable cost.

In the past, as noted above, property holders had to take affirmative steps to renew copyright -as Fox failed to do. Now, however, the copyright term is automatic; copyrights need not be renewed.

Predictably, the omission of a renewal requirement has harmed the public domain. For this reason, Stanford law professor Larry Lessig and others have sought to revive the renewal requirement via a petition to Congress. According to the petition, works for which the copyright is not renewed would fall into the public domain after fifty years. Their hope in doing so is to increase the number of works that may accidentally fall into the public domain, as did Fox's series.

As long as the automatic renewal provision is in place, cases with facts like Dastar's will be few and far between. But the Court's opinion in Dastar is very significant nonetheless, for what it says about authorship and the public domain.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/comment...12_sunder.html


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Movie Archivists And Preservationists Urge Congress To Save Orphan Films
Press Release

Durham, North Carolina - A diverse group of movie archivists, preservationists, and creators sent a message to Congress today that without reforms in the copyright system, the majority of the nation's historical motion picture heritage faces destruction as the film on which it's printed crumbles away. They expressed their support for a proposal that would allow 'orphan films' - those that are no longer under active copyright management - to enter the public domain so that they can be copied, archived, and preserved.

"The tragedy of our current system is that to protect the 1 or 2% of movies that are still commercially viable, we lock up the remaining 98%, and often let them crumble into dust," said James Boyle, professor of Law at Duke University Law School. "We need a common sense solution to this problem. This Bill is a very moderate compromise. It allows preservationists and archivists to restore and display the 'orphan films' while respecting the rights of the commercial film companies. There are countless experts and enthusiasts ready and willing to preserve our cultural heritage, and make it available to the world over the Internet - they just need the legal OK to do so."

The letter addresses a basic problem. Most moving images captured in the last century exist on a medium that decays in less time than it takes the copyright on them to expire. The overwhelming majority of these films are not being commercially exploited and have been abandoned by their original owners. However, under current law, to restore these and make them available to the public, one needs to hunt down an elusive copyright owner to get permission. This is costly, and often impossible. Since there would never be a commercial benefit from most of these films, they disintegrate without being preserved.

"Orphan films contain fresh and fascinating images of everyday life, culture and industry in America. They are truly our "national home movies." If we're free to preserve these unique and endangered films, our children and grandchildren will have a chance to see the America their ancestors lived in," said Rick Prelinger, President of Prelinger Archives.

Of the tens or hundreds of thousands of movies made before 1950, fully 50% are already irretrievably lost. For films made before 1929, the loss rate is even worse: 80% of films of the 1920's, and 90% of films from the 1910's are gone. The loss is a tragic one. These orphan films paint a fascinating and varied picture of life in America in the 20th century: there are documentaries, newsreels, independent productions, glimpses of the daily life of immigrant communities and racial or ethnic minorities, and commercial works whose owners have abandoned or forgotten them.

"These films make up the majority of our film heritage, and they are literally disintegrating because it is too dangerous for archivists to take the risk that a copyright owner will suddenly appear and object to them being restored and made available to the public." said Professor Boyle. "We need to switch the system around so that we aren't locking up 98% of our cultural history, to benefit 2% of it. Make sure those who wish to maintain their copyrights are fully protected, but allow the rest of the material to enter the public domain."

The letter expressed support for new legislation to allow old movies to enter the public domain so they could be copied, preserved and made available to the world without the threat of liability. As described at http://eldred.cc, the proposal would require American copyright owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty years after a copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the copyright will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. If not, it would enter the public domain.
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=53107


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Australia's great broadband disaster - A decade behind
Robert Clark

"Australia's target is so far down the world ranking it's just not true, and I'd say you were running a decade behind world leaders like Korea," Sutherland says. "So if your target is world-class mediocrity, then Australia seems to have made that target."

Australia's broadband crisis is the result of two decades of failed telecommunications policy.

The first step was the establishment of a dedicated company, Aussat, in 1980, to run the national satellite project. By the end of the 1980s, Aussat had launched two birds, was preparing for a third, and had run up nearly A$1 billion in debts.

The then Labor government, which had resisted the idea of allowing Aussat to compete more broadly with the incumbent, hit on the idea of privatizing Aussat and throwing in a set of licenses.

After an intense debate, it rejected the idea of turning the then international monopoly, OTC, into a competitor, and instead bundled it into the domestic monopoly to create Telstra. Aussat was sold to a consortium that included by Cable & Wireless and BellSouth and became Optus, the second carrier with exclusive fixed network rights for five years.

Thus was born the region's sole telecommunications duopoly, setting a platform for "convergence" - not of technologies, but of competition.

Ironically, the man responsible for ensuring the services and networks converged is the current Telstra chairman, Bob Mansfield who, in his capacity as Optus' first CEO, set the company on course in 1994 to build a "triple play" cable access infrastructure for TV, voice and data.

Optus' determination to built an HFC cable to 3 million of Australia's 6 million households galvanized into Telstra building a rival cable to 3.5 million homes.

One Telstra executive at the time routinely began presentations with the joke that, with two cables being built "either everyone in Australia is going to have access to a cable, or half of Australia will have access to two cables."

Naturally, it is the latter that has eventuated. But worse is that the dominant owner of the copper and trunk networks has been granted control of the largest HFC network and allowed to become the biggest player in pay TV.

The outcome today is an all-powerful carrier and a government squeezed in a mesh of dangerously conflicting interests. Policy-makers must balance between economic efficiency and community fairness, powerful farmer lobbies and consumers demanding low prices, as well as keep satisfied the millions of voters who own Telstra stock.

Just for good measure, they must also play off the tycoons Packer and Murdoch, who between them own the major TV network and newspaper chain; Telstra's intervention into pay TV also ensnares it in the contentious world of media policy.

But these are problems that neither Communications Minister Richard Alston nor Telstra has been willing to publicly confront.
http://telecomasia.net/telecomasia/a...l.jsp?id=53441

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Wi-Fi Spec Approved, Next Under Way
Richard Shim

The cycle of increasing throughput in the wireless-networking industry continued Thursday as a standards-governing body approved a new specification and began work on another spec that promises to lead to even higher data-transmission speeds.

As expected, the Standards Board Review Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) approved the 802.11g specification as a standard. Industry insiders saw the ratification as a rubber stamp because products using pre- standard 802.11g-based components are already in the market and the latest version of the spec was seen as stable.

The standard will now have to pass interoperability tests by the Wi-Fi Alliance in order to be deemed universally compatible in products from all the different chip and product manufacturers. Those tests have been underway for some time and the group is expected to announce certification in the coming months.

Certified interoperability and the establishment of a standard are significant to the wireless-networking industry because they ensure that consumers are likely to get a similar experience whenever they use an approved wireless-networking product. Some have credited standards and interoperability testing as a major factor in the success of the wireless-networking market.

"Standards encourage mass production of devices and chips, which helps to bring prices down," said Allen Nogee, an analyst with research firm In-Stat/MDR. "Proprietary technologies don't usually get that."

The 802.11g standard allows wireless networks to transmit data at 54 Mbps, uses the 2.4 GHz radio band and is meant to be compatible with equipment based on the earlier 802.11b wireless standard. Wi-Fi lets people wirelessly access and share resources on a network.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...ry/Technology/

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AOL Programmer Lays Waste to Employer
Steven M. Cherry

Creator of Gnutella releases new open-source peer-to-peer instant messaging program

12 June 2003–There are two things that Justin Frankel is really good at: biting the hand that feeds him and writing great software. He did both–again–recently, with the 29 May release of Waste, a peer-to-peer instant messaging program that works quite differently from the industry-leading software of his employer, media giant AOL Time Warner Inc. (New York City). More than half of all instant messages, over two billion per day, are made with AOL Instant Messenger. Though it has made no official pronouncements on the subject, AOL apparently saw a dangerous competitor in Waste and quickly ordered it removed from Frankel’s Web site, but not before it had escaped into the wild.

Frankel is the head of AOL’s Nullsoft software unit (San Francisco, Calif.), a separate company until it was purchased in 1999 for US $80 million in AOL stock. In so doing, AOL acquired Nullsoft’s Winamp software, which was the first popular program for playing MP3 music files. Winamp, and other software written by Frankel’s crew at Nullsoft, form the basis for AOL’s streaming music services.

Frankel is a serial hand-biter. On 14 March 2000, he released Gnutella, a file-sharing utility with some of the same features as Napster and some of its potential to undermine commercial on-line music services. AOL withdrew the software the same day, but the damage had been done. A link on the popular Slashdot site had quickly drawn thousands of readers–and downloaders–to the Nullsoft site. The Gnutella software is alive and well today, as one of the two main successors to Napster.

In September 2000, Frankel struck again, with a program called AIMazing, which brought features of the Winamp music utility into AOL’s industry-leading instant messaging software, AIM. Company executives liked the idea of improving AIM’s functionality, but were less enthusiastic about how Frankel did it—the new features used space on the user’s screen that had previously been reserved for advertising.

Waste differs from AOL Instant Messenger in the same way that Gnutella differed from Napster: it doesn’t use a central file server. A Gnutella network is really a network of networks, using an indeterminate number of servers located close to the user (in cyberspace distances), rather than a dedicated machine.

Waste combines this aspect of Gnutella with AIM’s messaging features, but there is a twist. Gnutella builds interlocking networks that span the Internet, while Waste networks are small– ideally 10–20 computers, with a practical limit of about 50. Also, unlike Gnutella or AIM, Waste incorporates publicly available encryption for security, making the software useful for corporate work groups. Indeed, it was used internally at AOL before the public release.

Contrary to many reports in the popular press, Waste is not the threat to commercial on-line music services that Gnutella is thought to be. While there are file-sharing elements to Waste, including the ability to swap music files, they are merely the same capabilities that AIM and other instant messaging programs have.

Waste is, on the other hand, a danger to AOL’s instant messaging service by being a peer-to- peer, and therefore uncontrollable, version of it. Waste users don’t need to log in to a centralized IM server such as AOL’s. Indeed, any two or more Waste users can start messaging one another or form a chat group without any server at all. The program uses a form of multicasting to broadcast each user’s identity and messages to all others in the network (and such multicasting imposes an upper bound on the size of the group since beyond a certain point, there would be too much network traffic).

According to Lucas Gonze, a New York City-based freelance software engineer who has looked at the Waste software code, the program threatens the main market advantage to AOL’s AIM program, its user base. According to one estimate, AOL has about 60 percent of the public IM market, with Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. roughly splitting the remainder. Noting that the different messaging services don’t interoperate with one another, Gonze says, "AOL's strategic leverage is that it has the largest base of users, and hence is the easiest way to reach somebody over instant messaging. Waste is scorched earth for AIM."

Time will tell whether that’s true. At the moment, tech-savvy users are merely playing with the software and fiddling with the code. But based on Frankel’s past successes, and AIM’s key role in differentiating AOL’s service from its competitors, his employer is probably right to be concerned.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY...n03/waste.html

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Philips Unveils Mirror TV

Pricey combo device lets you watch TV, data, or yourself.
Lincoln Spector

Is it a television, a PC monitor, or a mirror? Royal Philips Electronics hopes you'll ask that question of its new product by next year, and that you'll like the answer: It's all three.

Philips has announced its Mirror TV technology, and plans a small-scale roll-out to hotels late this year. The company hopes to get Mirror TVs into people's homes eventually, too, but that will take longer.

A Mirror TV is basically a two-way mirror with an LCD screen behind it. When the LCD is activated, you see the display. When it's turned off, you see your reflection. A special lamination developed by Philips makes all of this possible.

The LCDs will be wide-screen, with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a high 1280 by 768 resolution. Philips plans to offer the mirror/monitors in 17-, 23-, and 30-inch sizes.

But the mirrors themselves can be larger, with the image appearing as a window within an otherwise conventional mirror. Initially, at least, Philips will not market standard mirrors and frames, and will provide only special orders to match a hotel's particular decor.



Mirrors with 17-inch screens will sell for less than $2500, and those with 30-inch screens will probably be priced under $5500, says Gregg Chason, Philips vice president and general manager. But he cautions that it's hard to pin down prices just yet, and he notes that Philips will promote custom mirrors and frames with variable price tags.

For the expensive hotels that the vendor targets as its first customers, Philips is emphasizing the Mirror TV's good looks. Decor is important, as is space, which makes a wall-mounted display a good choice over a conventional television. Needless to say, a mirror hanging on the wall looks better than an LCD, and is more versatile.

Perhaps you'll be able to use your hotel room's Mirror TV to watch cable as well as to straighten your tie or apply makeup. But what else? The hotel could configure it to handle bill payment and other hotel services, or to allow you to plug your notebook into the mirror for easy-on-the-eyes e-mail retrieval, or to display room-filling presentations.

Eventually, of course, Philips hopes that the Mirror TV will enter less pricey hotels, and after that (though probably not until 2005) people's homes. Among the domestic uses that the company proposes are easy- to-view traffic reports, and cartoons that walk kids through proper care of teeth. When connected with other as-yet-unreleased technologies, a Mirror TV will let you start your day by checking your blood pressure and weight (a feature few may actually want).

That's all in the future. For now, Philips is preparing to do small-scale test runs with hotels in the fourth quarter. "Five samples here, six samples there," Chason says.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111100,00.asp











Until next week,

- js.










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