[JackSpratts]

Cracking Down On University File-Sharing
Colleen Honigsberg

A central computer hub, like the systems in the dorms, monitors multiple computer networks.

The increasing connectivity capabilities of the Internet have created a breeding ground for illegal file-sharing and potential copyright infringement.

This is especially the case in college dorms that utilize the fastest local area network connections.

"With the Internet, there are just so many information and transfer possibilities," said first-year computer science student Angie Yen. "There's nothing stopping people from doing it."

In response to the growing number of online copyright infringements, the UCLA residence halls have reformed their approach to alleged file-sharing violations.

Previously, all potential copyright infringement cases were monitored by an individual from UCLA information technology. The new system is now partially automated.

When UCLA receives a complaint from an outside party, such as the Universal Music Group or the Motion Picture Association of America, an e-mail is automatically sent to the violating computer. Internet access to non-UCLA Web sites is then cut off faster than with the manual response.

"For an institute of higher education to overlook copyright infringement would not be a proper standpoint and would not be appropriate," said Christine Coons, the Office of Residential Life judicial affairs coordinator and Assistant Dean of Students.

"The restricted access policy was a response to try to remain within the law and to preserve students' academic ability online," Coon added.

From July 2003 to March 2004, there were 300 alleged violations, said Jim Davis, the associate vice chancellor of information technology. Six of these violators were repeat offenders.

Most of the violations were for movies, music or software, and involved the perpetrator sharing a copyrighted file without the copyright owner's permission.

UCLA's new response to infringement complaints comes on the heels of a March 23 infringement lawsuit in which the Recording Industry Association of America sued 532 individuals, 89 of whom were from universities -- including the University of California Berkeley and California State University Northridge. Settlements ranged from $12,000 to $17,000.

If a violator at UCLA removes the infringing material within one business day of notification, the only punishment is a day's loss of unregulated Internet access. During this time, the individual still has access to UCLA Web sites such as MyUCLA.

The key aspect of the response is to quarantine the machine to stop the infringement, Davis said.

Students who receive more than one violation face more severe consequences.

Serial violators could potentially be dismissed from the university, but Coon said most usually receive disciplinary probation or suspended suspension. She stressed that each violation is treated on a case by case basis.

The new response also involves a strong educational component.

"We're really hoping that it is an awareness program as much as anything," Davis said. "From talking to students, it seems a number are unaware that they can be caught," he added.

Despite notices on UCLAtv, fliers and various memorandums from UCLA IT, some dorm residents feel the implications and terms of the policy still remain ambiguous.

"We don't know what the new policies are," said Yen.

"Everyone knows (file-sharing) is not something legal to do ... but no one really knows what the consequences are."

Yen was surprised to receive an e-mail infringement notification for downloading a single episode of a television show. The complaint had been from MPAA, which has recently joined the music industry's long battle against illegal file-sharing.

"I felt so confident that I knew what was going on, and I was keeping up with everything," she said.

"MPAA hasn't said anything about cracking down. Everyone thinks it's still just music."
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/...s.asp?id=29061


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An apple a day won’t keep a virus away

Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts
Charles Arthur

Anyone would have thought it a fantastic marketing coup: you release a film about how accepting gifts of unknown content leads to the downfall of your city, and also - major tie-in! - why not do a computer program, too, that does exactly the same thing?

But in fact, the announcement of the first real Trojan Horse program discovered that affects the Mac OS X operating system is not a brilliant piece of publicity for that film with Brad Pitt and his skirt. In case you haven't heard (though schadenfreude will have spread the tale far and wide), a Mac user downloaded a file from a file-sharing network that bore the name "Microsoft Office 2004" - an unreleased piece of software, the latest office suite from the boys in Seattle.

He unzipped the file, he told the Macworld site, "in the hope that perhaps Microsoft had released some sort of public beta", and found a Microsoft icon that "looked genuine and trustworthy". I'm sure that, on the walls of Troy, people were looking down that day, saying: "That horse looks horsey, and certainly a genuine and trustworthy gift."

So, anyway, he double-clicked the file, and at once all of his home directory was deleted. Who'd done this? He had - the "Microsoft" program he thought he was running was instead a rather simple Unix command (it fits on one line) that could have wiped his entire machine had its unknown author so wished. (The Unix command worked because Mac OS X is Unix underneath its pretty face.) So the program wasn't an innocent Microsoft tryout; instead, someone had written a program with that Unix command, stuck a Microsoft-like icon on it, and released it into the world to let someone ruin their own day.

So: it turns out that software with bad intentions - "malware" - isn't the province of Windows alone. Not that it ever has been, but it hadn't been demonstrated before on the OS X platform, which has been around since September 2000.

Apple reacted quickly to the news, saying: "This is not a virus, does not propagate itself and has only been found on a peer-to-peer network. This is an example of the perils of seeking illegal software." That's true enough, although a malware author aiming to go that one step further to something that could propagate itself would only have to take advantage of a bit of user belief. Since one could turn on the in-built mail server in OS X using the administrator password, a Trojan that also asked for a password could mail itself out all over the place. It's not quite Blaster or Sasser, but then malware authors (the more correct term, rather than "hackers") are only just warming up here.

What can Apple do to prevent such Trojans in future? Not a lot. And as the editor of macosxhints.com (a site that seeks Unix workarounds for some of the graphical interface's shortcomings) noted, who's to say that the next Trojan program wouldn't disguise itself as something useful until suddenly, on the 50th run, it just wipes out your hard drive, or begins writing random data into files. Apple can't stop that either. Remember the lesson of the film of the book of the poem: Trojan horses succeed because people trust them. Without trust, they fail. But gullibility is not in short supply today, and never has been.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=522562


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Upgrade

LimeWire 4.0
Press Release

Lime Wire LLC, (http://www.limewire.com), the leading designer and developer of advanced P2P file sharing software, today released LimeWire 4.0, a superior new file sharing application that offers users faster and more successful downloads, improved searches for rare content, and a sleek new interface. LimeWire 4.0 includes a guarantee that users will get no bundled software when they download this new version, and as always, Lime Wire continues its tradition of not utilizing spyware (software which collect personal information that can be used in market research). LimeWire 4.0 is available to Pro customers and available for free download from http://www.limewire.com.

"One of the biggest challenges in a file sharing network is in the ability to locate rare content when a user searches for it," said Chief Operating Officer Greg Bildson. "LimeWire 4.0 does a great job of this with a powerful search engine under the hood. If it's out there, LimeWire 4.0 will find it and with download innovations a user will get the file faster than anywhere else." Bildson adds, "Users have asked for a guarantee that when they download software, it will not be bundled with anything they haven't asked for. We have responded to this request. LimeWire 4.0 is completely free of bundling or spyware."

LimeWire 4.0 runs on the world's most popular operating systems including Windows, Mac and Linux and can be utilized by the entire Internet community. In addition to the features available in the popular version 3.6.15, LimeWire 4.0 also offers users the following:

1) Better search results. Each search shows at least five times as many results as previously.

2) "What's New?" feature. Users can browse the network for the most recent content additions.

3) Search drill down results. Searches in LimeWire now immediately display the artists, albums and other information that fully describes files.

4) Faster connections on start up.

5) Proxy support. Users can now use web proxies to route their downloads to protect their identity.

6) A new search progress bar in each search tab that indicates the percentage of completion of a search.

7) Detection. When the Internet connection is down or a firewall is blocking access to the Internet, Lime Wire will inform the user.

8) Support for International searches and International groups. Users can now search in any language, and LimeWire ensures that a user will be connected to other users with their own language to aide international users to receive search results in their native language and to find content from sources that are close to home.

9) Improved downloads. By excluding the bad file sources, we rapidly make use of all the good sources for faster and more reliable downloads.

10) Many additional changes and improvements offer users the most powerful, enjoyable file sharing experience available.

"LimeWire is the most up to date file sharing technology available today," says Bildson. "Rather than doing a mediocre job of implementing everything, we focused on doing a great job with our network. I challenge file sharers to try us for themselves and see why we're better."
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2004,+08:04+AM


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At the Ready, Sheet Music Minus the Sheets


Photo: Kalim A. Bhatti for The New York Times

Mike Garson, a pianist in David Bowie's band, on tour with his MusicPad, which stores all his music and
allows him to edit it on a touchscreen.

Adam Baer

MIKE GARSON can finally travel light.

A pianist and composer who has played in David Bowie's band since 1972, he fretted for decades over his ever expanding collection of sheet music, stored in dozens of heavy manila folders overflowing with heavily annotated sheets, many of them torn. But on one recent weekday morning, while fighting Los Angeles traffic on his way to an early "Tonight'' show rehearsal, he actually had clean copies of nearly all of his hundreds of works in his car with him - in a thin, lightweight box about the size of a conductor's score.

Mr. Garson was carrying his music in digital form, scanned into his MusicPad Pro Plus, a five-pound tablet computer made by a company called Freehand Systems. The $1,200 device, with a 12-inch liquid-crystal-display touchscreen, is the first of a class of computers that enable musicians to store music and edit it onscreen. Soon it will also allow them to communicate with one another over wireless networks.

In much the way that portable digital audio players have changed the way people consume tunes, tablets like the MusicPad are changing the way musicians use sheet music, which is so compact that it can be digitally stockpiled far more cost-effectively than MP3 audio files.

"It's something I always wanted, and was trying to work out with a computer,'' said Mr. Garson, 58, who has volunteered suggestions to Freehand Systems on how to improve the MusicPad. "But it became so unwieldy.''

Kurt Bester, 48, a pianist and composer who also tested the device, said it had freed him from fumbling with paper when he plays since he can turn the page by tapping the screen or pressing a foot pedal. The bright screen helps him read music in dark rooms, take notes and even archive music he writes before it has been printed.

"This is my sheet-music iPod," he said.

Beyond its usefulness for professional musicians, the MusicPad could help restore sheet music's luster as a tool for amateur entertainment as Freehand Systems seeks to expand the amount of sheet music available online. Through the company's newly purchased Web music store, sunhawk.com, MusicPad users can download and edit 35,000 newly digitized scores.

An average-size music store today carries sheet music for about 2,000 individual works, according to Fred Anton, chief executive of Warner Brothers Publications, and customers generally must order others through the mail unless they live in a metropolitan area with a professional-level sheet-music store. Freehand Systems hopes to use Sunhawk to change that.

It already offers about 20,000 works from the complete 40,000-work Warner Brothers Publications catalog at the Web site (the rest will make it online in a couple of months). And it is working on similar arrangements with other top publishers that could double the amount of music available through Sunhawk. (Of the two other leading online sheet-music stores, musicnotes.com provides nearly 20,000 individual works and Hal Leonard's sheetmusicdirect.com, over 10,000.)

Sunhawk customers can preview songs, transpose them into different keys and hear them in MIDI format. The sheet-music files are encrypted to limit the transfer of a work to the number of MusicPads for which it was purchased; encryption also allows Sunhawk to rent instrumental parts of a composition for limited periods.

Mr. Anton said that the MusicPad and Sunhawk could help resolve two problems that have crippled sales of sheet music online: the limited portability of paper and the fact that the official versions of many pieces are sold only by the publishers.

Mr. Anton dismissed worries about the potential for trading illegal copies of music sold online.

"The Xerox machine has always been the arch enemy of the printed music world, and copying is impossible to police," he said.

Not unexpectedly, Freehand Systems faces competition in the race to take the slow-growing sheet-music industry digital. David Sitrick, a patent attorney and engineer in Chicago, has developed a system called the eStand, which involves proprietary software installed on pairs of Wi-Fi-enabled touchscreen tablet computers. Mr. Sitrick received patents for the concepts behind the eStand in 1998 and 2000, two years before Freehand Systems patented the "music annotation system for performance and composition of musical scores" that led to the MusicPad.

In fact, Mr. Sitrick, 53, has sued Freehand Systems for patent infringement. He has also filed an "interference proceeding" against the musician Harry Connick Jr. over a patent he received two years ago for "a system and method for coordinating music display among players in an orchestra." Mr. Connick, whose system is said to provide for digital conversion of handwriting into musical notation and to distribute electronic scores over a network, declined to comment.

Kim Lorz, the chief executive of Freehand Systems, said his company had not infringed on Mr. Sitrick's patents, although Freehand Systems does plan to release a double-screen model for conductors.

This fall Mr. Sitrick expects to begin selling the eStand, which he says will have more memory and more computing power than the MusicPad - which has 64 megabytes of RAM and 96 megabytes of flash memory, enough for roughly 5,000 pages of sheet music - and will cost considerably more. He also plans to introduce a digital-sheet-music Web site, he said, and is considering selling his music-reading and editing software separately.

Mr. Sitrick has shown the eStand, which mimics the look and feel of an open score, mainly to professional musicians, and he has already won over some prominent artists, including the violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Two years ago Mr. Perlman tested a version of the eStand while conducting the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival. He liked it so much, he said, that he plans to purchase one.

Page turning "is a pain," he said. "Just the fact that you could touch a screen and get to the next page is weird and wonderful."

One of the few people who have assessed both products is Mike Albaugh, director of music at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Mr. Albaugh, who recently bought 25 MusicPads for school use, said he found them more durable than the eStand and that he liked the pledge from Freehand Systems to fix anything that goes wrong.

He said the availability of music to load onto the machines was crucial.

"Freehand has purchased the rights to a lot of works within the general archives of music, and with us, it's about the standard works," Mr. Albaugh said. He said the digital tablets would save paper and serve as a time-efficient teaching tool. What's more, he said, the backlighted screens, which can be used in landscape or portrait orientation, can help ensure that a pit ensemble's sound does not thin out because half the violinists need to turn a page.

Whether the machines will be warmly received by Interlochen students remains to be seen. Liz Koch, 18, an oboist, said she found the MusicPad easy to use but that she didn't appreciate its high price. "It would also be inconvenient to carry," she said.

Travis Dierolf, 17, who plays trombone, said the idea was good but that he would not trust the MusicPad in a performance. "While the marking functions seemed promising, I think that whenever you have you more technology you have more things that can go wrong," he said.

As for David Bowie, Mr. Garson said that all his boss cared about is "making sure you play the right stuff when it matters," and that like most rock stars he never uses sheet music.

"Still, I think I'm going to get him a MusicPad for his birthday with all his thousands of lyrics entered onto it," he said. "I think it would be a really nice thing for someone so prolific to have."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/te...usi.html?8hpib


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Digging Up the Past at 45 R.P.M.
James Gorman

I'VE started buying music online, one song at time. I wanted to catch up to the present, and to have a chance of reaching the future - in music delivery technology, that is. What I didn't expect was that I'd be traveling back in time, revisiting my memories at a dollar a download.

This sort of plunge backward used to happen by accident. I'd be driving on the New Jersey Turnpike and hear the Beach Boys singing "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Suddenly I was 17 again, singing along with my girlfriend, at least until the children in the back seat yelled, "Daaaad!"

Or I'd put on Phil Ochs while I was paying bills and figuring out the best way to refinance my mortgage. He would start singing "The War Is Over" and I'd be singing along again, this time with my college roommates, speakers pointed out the windows of the dorm, letting the rest of the world know what we thought and where we stood, as long as the beer lasted.

These are personal memories, of course. Some remembered songs are so popular they are shared by everyone of a certain age. Others just make the rest of the world shake their head and wonder. But the principle works for most people.

Since I've started downloading songs, I've found I can browse the past. For Proust, sensation - the taste of a madeleine - prompted remembrance. I am the anti- Proust. I have the memory first, and then I look for the song, buy it and listen to it. The immediacy is gratifying. It is as if Proust remembered Combray and then ordered a madeleine online, only to have it pop out of the CD drive a few minutes later.

I have also found that my memories are not just of the melody and the message, but the medium as well. I may be buying and listening to a song in a proprietary digital format, with copyright protection, transferable to other devices, but I'm remembering an old car radio, or the light reflected on the unscratched vinyl of a new 45 as it slides out of its sleeve.

The first song I remember fixing on is "El Paso," a ballad by the country singer Marty Robbins. I listened to it on the car radio while riding with my father (in the front seat without a seat belt, of course). I must have been about 10. Whenever the scene comes to mind I recall the radio's mechanical push buttons for preset stations. I can feel the satisfying chunk when I pushed them in.

The first record I remember buying was a 45 of Elvis singing "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame." I memorized it by listening to it over and over on my record player, a portable enclosed in a case with a handle. It was a box, but it certainly didn't boom.

"Runaround Sue" (Dion and the Belmonts) entered my consciousness a few years later, through my brand new miniature transistor radio (a Hitachi I believe) held next to my ear as I bopped along.

Then of course came the long and winding LP road. For me it began in the early 60's. I suppose it never ended, since I still have my albums: Joan Baez; the Kingston Trio; Gordon Lightfoot; James Taylor; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Linda Ronstadt and the less well-known groups like Ten Wheel Drive and Iron Butterfly. I remember listening to the Beatles' White Album on a roommate's KLH stereo system.

By the time CD's took over the world, my youth was gone. Music stayed important, but songs did not become milestones as they did when every year brought major change. And at some point I fell behind the technological curve. Up until a few weeks ago, when I needed music I got it the old-fashioned way: by shopping online for a CD.

Then I started downloading songs, purchasing them from the iTunes store (www.itunes.com) and the new, non-outlaw version of Napster (www.napster.com). I discovered that, with some gaps because of my taste in music, I now have my whole life in song online, searchable, for sale, accessible within minutes.

By and large the process has been extremely satisfying. The software is easy enough to use, the purchasing quick. The listening, although it would probably revolt an audiophile, is just fine for someone who wants to call up memories of the summer of 1966 by playing "Wild Thing."

I have spent more than I realized. The online music stores use the popcorn principle: one piece of popcorn is insignificant, so you keep eating. Before you know it you have devoured an entire bag, or perhaps a Jumbo Extravaganza Double Feature bucket, and must pay with financial indigestion.

Ninety-nine cents, the basic price for a song at most download sites, is insignificant. But in a matter of weeks I spent about $60 buying songs, much more than I would think of spending on CD's.

The differences in available songs, at least for iTunes and Napster, were small, and odd. For Marty Robbins, iTunes has 62 downloadable entries, a number of them multiple copies of the same song from different albums.

The selection includes the obscure "Running Gun," but not the far more popular "Big Iron." Napster had 51 entries, and no "Big Iron."

There are numerous other legal sources of music online, and change is rapid, so it makes sense to try a few. Several of them are able to use Windows Media player and can live together happily. For instance, Napster and Best Buy seemed to coexist without conflict.

Switching back and forth between iTunes and other services caused me some conflicts and confusion, however. That was a problem, because I liked the look and feel of iTunes, but memory and music are infinite, and you hate to be tied to one time machine.

My guess is that most people are buying new music. But for me the great value of 99-cent songs is that the hundreds of thousands of them on the Web serve as a universal library of quickly accessible information.

It's the kind of information that is a surprise. I expect to find data on the Web and to be able to shop. I never expected to find my emotional autobiography, or at least the musical keys to it, stored for ready access at a small fee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/te...ts/20shop.html


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New iTunes Tools Spur Windows Developers
John Borland

Independent software programmers are using new tools provided by Apple Computer to write add-on applications for the company's iTunes music software, potentially expanding the software's appeal.

Early in the month, the company quietly released a Windows-based software development kit for its media player. The tools provide instructions on how to let other programs talk to iTunes. A similar set of instructions for Macintosh computers had long been available.

The tools do not go so far as to allow other media players to play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, but they do allow a variety of applications to extend iTunes use. For instance, using the tools, a developer could write new software that launches and controls iTunes remotely.

"It looks like it's exactly what I was hoping for," said Andrew Carlson, a Chicago-based developer who is using the tools to create a continuously updated list of recently played songs on his Web log. "Until this release, we haven't had a Windows equivalent to what iTunes users could do with AppleScript on a Mac."

While commercial programs have yet to be released taking advantage of the information in the new development kit, a handful of programmers, including Carlson, have begun swapping ideas for small applications, in some cases posting code on their blogs.

iTunes has been the subject of occasionally intense interest from independent programmers during the past year, particularly since the release of the iTunes software for Windows in October.

Some of this activity followed the release of an earlier software development kit that focused on visual applications.

Additionally, interest has been piqued by unauthorized projects that have sought to evade some of the content-protection rules of iTunes and of Apple's FairPlay digital rights management software.

The latest version of the iTunes disables some of those unauthorized tools, including "MyTunes," an application that, for a time, allowed users to download MP3s from other iTunes users.

An Apple representative said that the development kit was simply intended to give programmers the same tools they are available for the Macintosh.

"There's nothing new here except that it's for Windows," said spokesman Chris Bell, Apple's director of product marketing for the iTunes line of software.
http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5216264.html


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Apple Creates Division For iPod
Ina Fried

Apple Computer late Wednesday confirmed that it is splitting its product development into two divisions--one focused on the Mac and the other focused on iPod digital music player.

An Apple representative confirmed the move, which was first reported Wednesday in The New York Times. Jon Rubinstein, the senior vice president who currently heads all hardware development, will lead the new iPod division. Tim Cook, currently executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations, will be in charge of the new Mac division. Also, Tim Bucher, who currently heads Macintosh system development, was tapped to head Mac hardware engineering.

The move comes as Apple's business is increasingly focused on iPod and more generally on music. Last quarter, Apple said it sold more iPods than Macs--the first time that occurred.

"This organizational refinement will focus our talent and resources even more precisely on our industry-leading Macintosh computers and the wildly successfully iPod," Apple said in a statement.

Apple has sold more than 3 million iPods since its launch in October 2001.

The iPod was followed in April 2003 with the launch of Apple iTunes music store--the most popular legal downloading service with more than 70 million downloads.
http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5216647.html


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Judge Lets Eminem Suit Against Apple, MTV Continue
AP

A federal judge says rapper Eminem's copyright infringement claims over use of his song ``Lose Yourself'' in a commercial for Apple Computer Inc.
can go forward.

Apple featured a 10-year-old boy singing the Oscar-winning theme song to the rapper's movie ``8 Mile'' in an ad on MTV for the computer company's iPod music player and iTunes music service.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the suit brought by Eminem's publishing company can proceed against several companies, including MTV parent company Viacom and advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day.

Taylor threw out two state law-based claims of unfair competition and unjust enrichment.

The television ad appeared many times during three months beginning in July 2003 and on Apple's Web site, despite the fact that the computer company had unsuccessfully sought Eminem's permission for the campaign.

Herschel Fink, a Detroit lawyer for the defendants, said no viewer would think Eminem was endorsing the iTunes service.

Eminem's lawyers say he has never nationally endorsed any product. ------
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8694772.htm


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Q ‘n’ A

Overcoming Obstacles to Sharing Your Files
J.D. Biersdorfer

Q. I tried to send a file to a friend using America Online's stand-alone Instant Messenger program, but it wouldn't work. Why not?

A. In addition to real-time text messaging, AOL Instant Messenger software can transfer files directly between two connected users, including documents that might be too large to e-mail.

Firewall protection on either user's computer is one of several factors that can hamper file-sharing. If you suspect that a firewall might be blocking the transfer, select a different port in the AOL Instant Messenger connection preferences or adjust your firewall software settings to allow transfers. If you are trying to transfer files in an office that uses a corporate firewall, you should ask your network administrator which port to use.

Next, be sure that you and your friend have configured the A.I.M. program correctly so that you both are set up to receive files. You and your buddy should be using the same version of the A.I.M. software, preferably the most current edition. If your transfer is between a Windows-based PC and a Macintosh, check the program settings on the Mac version to make sure the file-sharing feature is enabled.

When exchanging files, even with people you know, it is a good idea to have your antivirus program set up to scan incoming files. Spyware that uses the social aspects of instant-message programs to persuade people to download and install an intrusive program should be avoided.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/te...ts/20askk.html


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2 Slow for big jobs but it’s the right idea

Calling All Drive Swappers!!!

Delkin announces USB Bridge
Rob Galbraith

Delkin this week has announced the US $70 USB Bridge, a device that takes the place of a host computer and, as the name implies, acts as a bridge between two USB devices.

The AA-battery powered device supports multiple USB device protocols, include Mass Storage and PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol), which means it can communicate with, and transfer data to and from, a range of digital SLR cameras, card readers, CD- writers and portable digital music players (including Apple's iPod).

We've been working with a prototype unit of the USB Bridge this week, and while we're not sure yet of the utility of the device, we can absolutely attest to its coolness. It's a great idea, now we just have to figure out exactly if or how it can be deployed in our digital photography workflow.

Here's what we've been able to make the USB Bridge do so far:

Transfer photos from a CompactFlash card in a Nikon D70 (set to Mass Storage in its USB menu) via its USB port to a FAT32-formatted 40GB drive inside an OWC Mercury On-The-Go FireWire/USB enclosure. We've also been able to transfer photos from the same camera, as well as the D2H, to a Secure Digital card in the Delkin Reader-29 card reader (though of course there isn't much practical application for this!).

Write photos from a CompactFlash card in a Nikon D2H (set to Mass Storage in its USB menu) to a CD-RW disc inside an aging QPS Que 16x CD writer. CD's written through the USB Bridge are in ISO 9660 format, which is readable across both Mac and PC platforms. Multiple writing sessions on a single disc are said to be possible, though we haven't attempted this, up to the limit of the capacity of the disc.

Transfer photos from one CompactFlash card to another, with various brands and models of card readers on either side of the USB Bridge. We've encountered only one incompatible reader so far: a Lexar USB 2.0 Multi-Card reader (running an older version of firmware in the reader).


Delkin USB Bridge

We managed the above feats with nothing more than a few presses of the power, transfer and verify buttons on the unit. The twin LEDs on top of the USB Bridge appear to provide a reliable method of interpreting its status, while most of the USB devices we've connected to it give a visual indication of a working connection (ie the D2H's card access light blinks while the top LCD displays PC). We've prepped a quick video showing a prototype USB Bridge in action.

The only limitation we've encountered so far in the design of the USB Bridge is its use of Full Speed USB 1.1 instead of the much-faster High Speed USB 2.0. This shouldn't hamper compatibility of USB 2.0 devices with the USB Bridge, but it will limit the speed at which data travels through it. For example, transferring about 345MB of RAW+JPEG photos from a Sandisk Extreme 512MB CompactFlash card inside a Nikon D2H to a Sandisk Extreme 512MB SD card inside a Delkin Reader-29 takes just over 10 minutes, or 575K/sec. The same transfer to a Mac G5/Dual 2.0 GHz (via one of its USB 2.0 ports) running OS X 10.3.3 takes 2 minutes and 13 seconds, or 2659K/sec.

What we haven't yet had an opportunity to evaluate is the transfer of photos from a USB digital SLR or card reader to Apple's iPod. With the use of the iPod's FireWire + USB 2.0 accessory cable (the same cable required to use the iPod with a Windows computer that lacks a FireWire port), the USB Bridge is promised to be able to act as a conduit. This would, in effect, turn the iPod into a digital wallet-type device.

The Belkin iPod Media Reader provides this functionality already, but is hampered by slow transfer rates that gobble up iPod battery life. The USB Bridge and iPod connector cable allows for the iPod to be powered by its external charger if desired. Plus, being able to transfer photos directly from a range of USB cameras or card readers certainly provides greater flexibility. We have our fingers crossed that transfer rates will be somewhat faster as well, though based on testing with other devices it's likely that any speed advantage the USB Bridge- iPod combo might have over the Belkin reader will be slight at best.

No USB 2.0 or FireWire version of the USB Bridge is planned at this time, says Delkin's CEO Martin Wood. The USB Bridge will ship in early June 2004 through Delkin photo retailers, and is available for purchase direct from Delkin for US$70.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/con...id=7-6455-6965

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Tunes, Films and, Now, XP: A Remote Extends Its Domain
J. D. Biersdorfer

onsumers now have another clicker to add to their blooming bouquets of remote controls. SnapStream Media has just released the FireFly PC Remote, which can manipulate not only computers running Microsoft's Windows Media Center operating system, but standard PC's using Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional as well.

The FireFly package comes with a standard-size remote control and a transceiver that plugs into a U.S.B. port on the computer. It comes with SnapStream's Beyond Media Basic program for browsing the computer's content. Once set up, the FireFly can play, pause and maneuver through tracks in the computer's digital audio collection, play CD's and videos, and zip through photo slide shows on the PC's monitor. The remote can start programs with one button and includes a Mouse mode for navigating around the screen by cursor.

The remote can be used to control more than 80 existing multimedia programs, including RealPlayer, QuickTime, MusicMatch Jukebox, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, InterVideo WinDVR and iTunes; a full list and other technical details can be found at www.snapstream.com/products/firefly/.

The FireFly PC Remote sells for $50 and is available from the site and at major electronics stores.

Although fewer calories will be burned once you can manage your MP3 playlists from the couch, the missed exercise will probably be replaced by frantic searches when the remote, inevitably, goes into hiding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/te...ts/20remo.html


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ILN News Letter

Cippic Granted Leave To Intervene In File Sharing Case

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic has been granted leave to intervene in the Canadian Recording Industry Association file sharing lawsuit appeal. CIPPIC raised copyright and privacy issues in its intervetion at the trial level.
Order at
http://www.cippic.ca/uploads/images/...tion_Order.pdf


Study Finds UK ISPs Remove Lawful Content Too Easily

A new study from researchers at Oxford University finds that UK ISPs may be too willing to remove lawful content from the Internet. The study requested removal of perfectly lawful public domain content. While U.S. ISPs refused, the UK ISPs quickly complied with the request.
Study at
http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/liberty.pdf


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EU Ministers Scrap Quest For Single European Patent, Agree On Software Protections

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Done in by disputes over language and liability, European Union governments on Tuesday killed a proposal for an EU-wide patent that
was a key part of their drive to make European businesses more competitive.

Ministers from the 25 EU countries did, however, reach an initial agreement on a directive backed by big European high-tech companies that would allow software that is part of a mechanical device -- such as a mobile phone -- to be patented.

Their agreement omits amendments added last year by the European Parliament, largely supported by smaller businesses and advocates of ``open source'' software, setting the stage for a showdown in conciliation this fall.

On the EU-wide patent, diplomats said Germany, Spain, France and Portugal voted against a compromise put forward by Ireland, which holds the EU presidency. Italy abstained. Unanimity was required for passage.

It was not immediately clear what would happen now. An Irish spokeswoman said it would be up to the EU's executive Commission to decide whether to draft a new proposal. A Commission spokesman said no decision had been made.

EU leaders made the patent issue a ``top priority'' in 2000 as part of a program to make their economy the world's most dynamic by 2010. They have missed several deadlines.

The EU-wide patent was intended to drive down costs. The European patent now available, which covers five EU countries, is about five times as expensive as patents in the United States or Japan.

The commission says an EU-wide patent would cut the average EU cost in half and cover all 25 EU countries. Yet, language has proved the major holdup.

Last year, governments agreed that patents would be submitted only in English, French and German instead of all official EU languages. But the deal required the part of the patent that describes the invention -- known as the claim -- to be translated into all 20 official languages.

Spain demanded all translations be considered legally binding. Germany objected, backed by business groups that warned it would increase costs and uncertainty to such an extent that no one would use it.

A compromise would have left the issue to courts to decide, but both sides refused to budge.

Germany also is seen as especially reluctant to give up its regional patent courts -- a lucrative source of jobs and revenue. About half of all discoveries in the EU are registered now in Germany, where some 70 percent of disputes are adjudicated.

On software, the EU aims to harmonize how national patent laws deal with so-called ``computer-implemented inventions,'' while avoiding any ``drift'' toward the U.S. system that allows patenting of business methods or computer programs such as Amazon's ``one-click'' shopping technique.

Opponents of software patents argued it would stifle innovation and restrict research, and persuaded lawmakers to broaden the exemptions from patentability.

But big firms like Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Philips and Alcatel warned last November that billions in research and development spending would be wasted if they were denied access to patent protection.

EU Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said Parliament's version went ``beyond what was required to set the right balance between rewarding inventors for their efforts and allowing competitors to build on these inventions, and could ultimately harm EU competitiveness.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8695760.htm


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Sharman Presses for Evidence
Patrick Gray

Lawyers representing the makers of the Kazaa file-sharing software, Sharman Networks, told the Australian Federal Court on Friday that their client has in no way infringed copyright.

The counsel for Sharman Networks, Robert Ellicott, said the software maker is not the uploader of music files, and therefore isn't liable for file trading on its network. Furthermore, because the courts have yet to show anyone has violated copyright by using Kazaa, an infringement case against Sharman has no merit in law, the company argued.

"There aren't any allegations of actual infringement," Ellicott told the court. "The law is clear that to attack somebody for authorizing an infringement, some infringement has to be proved. Now, they have neither given particulars nor alleged facts which would establish an infringement and it has to be an infringement, of course, in Australia."

The software company has asked the music industry to provide it with the names and addresses of the Kazaa users it alleges have traded copyrighted works.

"Our evidence contains dozens of incidents of downloading," said Richard Cobden, the lawyer acting for the music industry, during the proceedings. "Why should we be asked now for the names and addresses of these people who operate by pseudonyms? We could not possibly do it, your honor, but we are going to suggest that the evidence is perfectly clear that the recordings are made available."

In another development, the judge presiding over the case, Justice Murray Wilcox, warned both sides to refrain from speaking to the media about the case.

Speculation in the media would lead to in-court matches over statements made to the media, he said. "It may be that in America that is regarded as being part of being a witness, but it is rather foreign to our culture."

Ellicott presented the court with a copy of the May issue of Australian Personal Computer magazine, which contained an article on the March raids. The article featured photographs of the raids.

"Somebody has, we would submit, used the proceedings for the purpose of embarrassing, demeaning, however you like to describe it, our clients," he said.

Since the judge issued his warning, both the music industry and Sharman have refused to make any comment on the proceedings.

Sharman hasn't yet filed a defense against the allegations brought by the music industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,63509,00.html


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Sharman Pleas 100-Year-Old Defence
Abby Dinham

Sharman License Holdings may be resting its defence on a precedent set over one hundred years ago, according to statements made by its lawyers in court last Friday, as the company prepares to face alleged music copyright infringement charges relating to its file sharing software Kazaa.

Sharman lawyer JR Ellicot referred to the 1899 case of Boosey v. Whight in addressing the courts concerns over the defence's lack of cross-claim, he stated "It will be our submission in this case that we are exactly in that position now in relation to sound recordings."

Boosey v. Whight (1899) involved copyright charges arising over the production of pianola rolls, in which the court found that the reproduction of the perforated pianola rolls did not infringe the English copyright act protecting sheets of music.

Lawyers in the 1899 case forged their defence on the argument that "to play an instrument from a sheet of music which appears to the eye is one thing; to play an instrument with a perforated sheet which itself forms part of the mechanism which produces the music is quite another thing."

Sharman lawyers indicated that they are planning to present a similar defence against the accusation made by Universal Music Australia and its affiliates.

"However you describe it on a computer hard drive, it is not a copy of a sound recording, and it also has the implication that even if you take from a CD and put it on a computer what is on the computer it not a copy," Ellicot said in court last Friday.

Ellicot maintained that an "infringing copy has to be a sound recording", and said his clients are further removed from liability by the fact that they are not responsible for uploading the songs.

"My client's not the uploader. We don’t have anything to do with it and that uploader on a worldwide Web could be in Bolivia, could be in South Africa," said Ellicot. He added that the uploader of the music files that was shared on the Kazaa network must "be in Australia for it to be an infringement".

Following Friday's proceedings, the Universal Music party is under court instructions to issue the Sharman parties with the specific particulars of their allegations of infringement of the Copyright Act, with notification due this Friday.

The Sharman parties then have 14 days to present the applicants with a cross-claim before both parties can submit an application to access the evidence seized in raids from Sharman premises last February.

The evidence is currently being held by an independent solicitor until terms of access can be set.

Parties are due back in court on the 1st of July; the presiding Justice Wilcox said he hopes for a hearing date sometime in this year.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/busines...9148079,00.htm


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Film-Streaming Website Exploits Copyright Loophole

Rotterdam-based website Dvdstream.nl is using the Dutch copyright law that permits the copying of films or music for private consumption, to lawfully provide unlimited film-downloads.

For a monthly subscription of €12.42, Dvdstream.nl will transmit films from its ten servers in Amsterdam over the internet in a special (PaulButler 600) streaming format, and ‘broadcast’ them directly (using complementary software on subscribers’ computers) to subscribers’ television sets.

However, to circumvent copyright and make all of this ‘legal’, subscribers go through the process of ‘buying’ the streamed film from Dvdstream.nl for a fictitious price, and then ‘selling’ it back for the same price - in effect, using Dutch copyright law to gain access to unlimited film downloads for the price of a monthly subscription.

Online film-streaming rentals are not new (Breedbandportal, a subsidiary of Dutch telecom giant KPN, offers such a service), and neither are online DVD rentals. However, combining the two is, claims Eric-Paul Scholten of Dvdstream.nl. "We want to be the digital counterpart of paid television," he says.

And what do the industry’s own watchdogs make of this? "Legally, this service is completely above board," says Bas Vissers of BREIN, the Dutch entertainment industry’s anti-piracy association.

However, NVPI, the Dutch film industry association, has a different opinion: "Which ever way you look at it, they need permission from the film industry. If they don’t get it, they have a problem," says its director, Paul Solleveld.

And there are good reasons for Dvdstream.nl’s decision to go down this particular route. "Buying the rights to stream films costs millions of euros. Furthermore, you will also be required to purchase expensive anti-piracy technology," says Mr Scholten.

He claims the film industry has an ulterior motive for hindering the progress of film-streaming rental sites: "Actual rental shops pay a fixed sum per rental. With streaming rental, these costs are enormous. Film companies just want to prevent others from renting films in this way. They want to save that for themselves to do at some later stage," says Mr Scholten.
http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=1831


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DVD May Go Day-And-Date

Company's eyes closer release dates with U.S.
Pete Hammond

Now that the film biz is embracing day-and-date openings, DVD may start to embrace the trend, panelists at a Variety Cannes Conference Series panel session said Thursday morning.

Participants included Philippe Cardon, Warner Home Video's managing director, Europe/Middle East/Africa; Malik Ducard, VP of worldwide business development & acquisitions at MGM Home Video; Stephen Einhorn, prexy-CEO, New Line Home Entertainment; and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

Event was moderated by Variety home entertainment editor Scott Hettrick, who is also editor-in-chief of sister pubs Video Business and the recently launched DVD Exclusive.

Demonstrating the importance of DVD's relationship to the theatrical release, the execs said they are working closer than ever with their studio counterparts to ensure maximum benefits. In fact, the emerging trend of worldwide day-and-date releases is one Cardon feels is imperative for his division as well.

"It is not only a strategy, but a need to have the closer release between the U.S. and international on theatrical, because then it will also be the starting point for the DVD," he said. Scattered releases in different territories are confusing the consumer on DVD availability, he added.

"We are working a lot on this harmonization and simultaneous release of the DVD, which needs to start with simultaneous release of the theatrical."

Much of the discussion centered around the emergence of Netflix, Flexplay and VOD as consumer alternatives to standard retail operations. With its 2 million subscribers, a 21,000-title library and projected revenue flow of $1 billion by 2006, DVD mail delivery outfit Netflix is offering customers smaller movies they can't find anywhere else, Sarandos said.

"The ability we have to match the audience to the film is really the interesting and valuable component both for studios and consumers that Netflix has been able to address," he said.

"Whale Rider" has done better for Netflix than many so-called blockbuster releases, Sarandos said, because the company's technology can target subscribers most likely to enjoy the film.

Netflix will roll out in the U.K. in October.

Flexplay, the inexpensive DVD product that dissolves after 48 hours and has been endorsed by only thus far, drew a mixed response.

"It's very unfriendly to the consumer," said Sarandos, who cited ecological, psychological and business problems as just a few of its drawbacks.

But Einhorn expressed some enthusiasm: "I tend to like it because it's one more way to satisfy consumer demand." He also chimed in on video-on-demand, saying he thinks it is inevitable but won't be nearly as popular as people seem to think.

The wide-ranging panel also hit on direct-to-video products, a trend MGM's Ducard supported.

"A few years ago, direct-to-video meant failed theatrical, but now, with the acceptance of DVD, there is a new vibrant market for it." He estimated this part of the pie at $4 billion out of the overall $20 billion-$25 billion business.

"It all gets down to shelf space, and if you can't get on the shelf at the WalMarts and sell significant amounts the first week, you will be off that shelf," Einhorn said. He sees the direct-to-video biz, with its higher marketing costs, as a significant risk.
http://www.variety.com/ story.asp?l=story&a=VR1117905340&c=1706


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New Ban For DVD Copying Software

A New York federal judge has issued yet another sales ban against 321 Studios' popular DVD-copying software, this time on behalf of copy-protection company Macrovision. The ruling will have little practical impact on sales, because two previous court rulings have already blocked 321 Studios from selling the original version of its software, which could make perfect copies of Hollywood DVDs. The Missouri-based software company has already released a new version of the software stripped of the controversial capability, but it's appealing the earlier rulings.

Macrovision's claim differs from the earlier rulings, based on patent law as well as copyright law. Because the earlier injunctions were already in place, the judge did not address the new issues, however.
http://news.com.com/Briefly%3A+New+b...l?tag=nefd.top


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Report: Kids Pirate Music Freely
David McGuire

More than half of young Americans with Internet access continue to download free music even though they know that they are breaking the law, according to a poll released today.

Eighty-eight percent of the respondents know that most popular music is copyrighted, but 56 percent download it anyway, according to the survey of 1,183 children, ages eight to 18. The survey also found that more kids worry about downloading computer viruses with their songs than about getting in trouble with the law.

Similarly high numbers of children know that books, software and games are copyrighted, the poll found, though a third download games and only 17 percent download considerably larger movie files. About 43 percent of the respondents said that they think downloading music is "OK" and 30 percent said the same about downloading software.

The survey was conducted between April 14 and April 20 by Harris Interactive. It was commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm that fights software piracy. The BSA's members include Microsoft Corp., Apple Computer and Adobe Inc.

The responses show that the software and entertainment industries need to step up their efforts to make sure children behave in a legal manner while they are on the Internet, said BSA spokeswoman Diane Smiroldo.

"It's a very good sign that a lot of kids and youth understand that creative works online are protected by copyright law," Smiroldo said. "[But if] they're still doing the wrong thing, that's not good."

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other lobbying groups that represent the entertainment industry have spent millions of dollars on national campaigns to educate children and adults about copyright law and piracy. The RIAA has enlisted high-profile musicians from Madonna and Mandy Moore to Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli to spread the word, while movie studios run anti-piracy ads in movie theaters. The BSA conducted its own anti-piracy campaign and occasionally coordinates its efforts with the entertainment industry.

The recording industry says compact disc sales have dropped from a high of $13.2 billion in 2000 to $11.2 billion in 2003, much of it because of piracy. The BSA says piracy costs its members at least $13 billion a year.

The RIAA has gone a step beyond its public awareness campaign against piracy, suing more than 1,000 suspected file-sharers, some as young as 12.

The Justice Department launched its own crackdown on file-sharing sites in late April, conducting more than 120 searches in 10 countries and 27 U.S. states on Web site operators suspected of trafficking in illegally copyrighted material. "Operation Fastlink" targeted networks suspected of distributing more than $50 million in software, music and movies.

Nevertheless, recently released figures from the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that file-sharing is growing more popular. There were approximately 23 million regular music downloaders in the United States in March, compared to 18 million in November and December 2003, according to the Pew study. The study said this showed a steady rise, though the number of people downloading music remains far off its high of 35 million users in the spring of 2003 -- around the time that the RIAA first started warning people that they could be sued for illegally sharing music.

The Harris poll shows that "education is important, but without an enforcement component, it can only do so much to influence behavior," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) said the Harris poll strengthens the case for tougher punishments for online pirates.

"People can understand what they're doing is illegal and not feel a great deal of empathy for the entity that's getting shafted," Berman said. "What they need to have also is the fear of getting caught -- that's the stick that needs to be out there."

Berman is cosponsoring a bill with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that would send people to jail for up to three years for trading more than 1,000 songs on peer- to-peer networks like Kazaa and Morpheus.

Wayne Rosso, chief executive of the company that runs the Blubster and Piolet peer-to-peer networks, said that file-sharing companies and the recording industry have to find ways to cooperate instead of clamping down on online music distribution.

"Clearly the suggest that changes in the law need to be made," he said. "As opposed to throwing 53 percent of the young people in the country in jail, wouldn't it be better to make sure they can do this safely and legally and with respect for copyright law?"

Rosso and other file-sharing proponents so far have been unable to reach a compromise with the entertainment and software industries to pay copyrighted works shared online. File-sharing companies have proposed a licensing scheme that would force consumers and Internet service providers to be responsible for compensating artists and copyright holders, but intellectual property groups have objected to any plans that would not allow them to set the prices.

Online polls are often not considered to be as accurate as more traditional surveys conducted over the phone or in person. But Harris research official Marc Scheer said his company took a number of steps to ensure that respondents belonged to the eight-to-18 age group targeted in this survey, such as not specifying to a preferred age group in the initial questions. Harris has built a list of several million Internet users from which it randomly selects respondents for various surveys based on demographic and other criteria.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004May18.html


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Oh Oh

SK Telecom's Trademark Dispute

Korea's patent court ruled on Thursday against SK Telecom, barring the country's top mobile carrier from exclusively using ``011’’ as a trademark.

The ruling was in favor of KTF, the No. 2 mobile carrier, by the Intellectual Property Tribunal at the conclusion of a six-month court battle.

KTF had requested SK Telecom to stop claiming the exclusive right to use the cell phone prefix ``011’’ as an advertising or marketing tool because the number is a national asset.

However, KTF has suffered setbacks in another suit to ban SK Telecom from trademarking ``010,’’ the new and unified cell phone prefix.

SK Telecom said it is deciding whether to appeal the court's decision and declined any further comments.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech...5113411800.htm


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Sir Tim: 'No New TLDs Please'
Ryan Naraine

World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee has criticized a plan to create a new Top Level Domain (TLD) for mobile devices, warning that a new .MOBI domain will break device independence and separate the Web into two parts.

Berners-Lee used the spotlight of the World Wide Web 2004 Conference here to highlight the benefits of connectivity with the next phase of the Semantic Web. But he saved his most scathing comments for the .MOBI TLD proposal being championed by Nokia Corp., Vodafone and Microsoft.

"I'm a little bit concerned about these new nine domains [under consideration by ICANN]. People have become used to using 'www' and '.com'. It's already defined as a flat space so why create a tree around it now?" Berners-Lee said. (The nine TLDs under ICANN consideration include .MOBI, .TEL, .TRAVEL, .XXX and .ASIA.)

He warned of "hidden costs" of introducing new TLDs, noting that when new domains were released by ICANN a few years ago, it led to a confusing scenario where businesses were registering URLs in every conceivable format. "They thought that they were protecting their brand and trademark but they were actually devaluing the .COM and .NET names," he argued.

"Don't get me wrong. There are some reasons for which I'd like to open new domain names. It would be great to open new domains but only where a social system or technical system was very different. If you want to open a domain where you are numbering things like telephones, that may be useful. If you make a commitment to the integrity of that piece of the Web, then that would be interesting.

"I'm not against Top Level Domains at all. I think that if you're going to set one up, the governing of it should be fair. It should be run by a non-profit and it should be technically sound. It should provide wider value to everyone and not just be set up to be a cash cow for people who want to sell you things."

Berners-Lee, who is a director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), said the driving force behind the .MOBI domain proposal was the establishment of new standards for mobile compatibility, the enforcement of new standards within the .MOBI domain and the creation of new markets for mobile devices.

He insisted that there were potential problems outweighing the advantages. He said a TLD that only works on wireless devices would separate the Web into two parts. He also wondered aloud what would happen if a user wanted to bookmark a Web page on the phone and revisit it on a laptop of desktop PC.

In December, England's Buckingham Palace announced that Berners-Lee would be knighted by Queen Elizabeth in recognition of his "services to the global development of the Internet" for helping to invent the Web.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news...le.php/3356081


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In the Era of Cheap DVD's, Anyone Can Be a Producer


Illustration: Viktor Koen

Peter Wayner

IN the fall, on the Monday after each University of Texas football game, the university's athletic department produces a bulk mailing for the post office: DVD's containing a complete video of the game, interviews with the coaches and other features.

There may be more college football on television than ever before, but even so, schools like Texas with prominent football teams can't count on reaching a national audience every Saturday. So the university offers DVD's of its 12 games as a $300 package; so far about 300 fans around the country are subscribers.

Sports events may seem an unlikely subject for distribution by DVD, but football games are far from the only discs in the mail carrier's bag these days. Independent filmmakers, specialty magazine publishers, artists, educators - all those with a video to sell, no matter how narrow the niche - are turning out DVD's and distributing them through the mail. It's a trend that began in the era of videotape but has accelerated with DVD's because they are inexpensive to duplicate and ship.

"The costs have come down, and it's an open market to put whatever you can on a disc," said Maureen Healy, publisher of DVD News, a trade publication.

Poetry Television, for example, a San Francisco-based group devoted to verse, sells a DVD of readings, "Weapons of Mass Production: The Spoken War" for $20 through its Web site, www.poetrytelevision.com. The DVD is part of a planned subscription series.

"We're looking to reach at least 500 subscriptions by the end of the year,'' said Isaias Rodriguez, the group's founder. "It's a small number, but it will have a huge impact."

For $29.95, fans of mountainboarding (a sport best described as all-terrain skateboarding) can subscribe to a year of Mountainboard Video Mag on three DVD's (www .mountainboardvideomag.com). Each installment contains video of daredevil runs and spills, interviews and features on the sport's culture.

And Primedia Workplace Learning, a division of the media company Primedia, ships programs of continuing education for firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers on disc so that lessons can be paused and replayed between calls. February's selection was "The A and the B: Airways and Breathing."

As these and other projects demonstrate, even 500 cable or satellite channels aren't enough for a nation filled with so many stories, lessons and events. DVD distribution has helped create a market for specialized visual programming.

At its most developed, DVD distribution includes companies like Netflix, which rents movies - everything from Hollywood blockbusters to small art films - to consumers by mail. Netflix (www.netflix .com), which charges a flat monthly fee for rentals, had revenues of $272 million last year.

Beyond Netflix, lots of individuals and groups are producing videos in a market that is as varied and heterogenous as the book industry. The market has even spawned companies like CustomFlix (www .customflix.com), the equivalent of a custom book publisher, which for a fee will duplicate DVD's in small runs and help distribute and sell them.

Consider Jimi Petulla, a man who says he invested $400,000 of his own money to produce "Reversal," a semi-autobiographical film he wrote and starred in.

Mr. Petulla said that several early screenings of the film about a high-school wrestler and his father brought about 20 distribution offers from companies specializing in smaller independent films. The terms, however, were too onerous.

"I've met so many people who've done good little movies, and they've never seen a penny from their distributors," he said. "It's insane what these companies can get away with."

Instead, Mr. Petulla began making the DVD's himself. To date, he said, the film has grossed about $650,000 and continues to bring in $15,000 to $18,000 a month. The discs sell for $29.95 at www.reversaldvd.com.

John Geyer, the vice president for marketing at CustomFlix, tells the story of a customer who made "RoadRace," a movie about people who race motorcycles on weekends. "He's an accountant," Mr. Geyer said. "I think he works for a Fortune 500 company and he races motorcycles on the weekend. He went around and put five video cameras on his bike. In two months he sold $10,000 worth of his product."

Mark Brereton, the movie's director, is also the director of credit and payroll for the tire maker Pirelli North America. "I just wanted to film a few things and make something for my friends as a memento," he said. "Then I showed it to some friends and they said, if you put a bit more work on it, you can take it out and sell it."

The final version included video shot from the motorcycle of a friend who races, along with music from a local band. Mr. Brereton is at work documenting this racing season and promises that the next DVD will incorporate suggestions from fans.

Both Mr. Petulla and Mr. Brereton showed a knack for marketing. The DVD for "Reversal," for example, includes testimonials from celebrities like the gymnastic gold medalist Shannon Miller and the track and field star Carl Lewis. Once he received these endorsements, Mr. Petulla paid college students $10 an hour to spread the word about the film by e-mailing wrestling groups, electronic newsletters and Web sites.

Mr. Brereton gained publicity by donating $5 from the sale of each disc to a charity for equipping racetracks with special barriers that can reduce the injury during a crash. Now several Web sites that report on motorcycle racing carry notices about his generosity, and also mention the film.

In some cases, DVD producers get lucky. Mary Dalton, a professor of communications at Wake Forest University, also creates documentaries, including one about an artist named Sam McMillan.

When an article about Mr. McMillan appeared in Smithsonian magazine, Ms. Dalton started receiving requests for copies. So she started making 50 copies at a time, storing them in her bedroom and selling them online.

The Internet is more cost-effective as a medium for advertising and selling DVD's that are delivered by mail than as a video distribution network. Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies the evolution of broadband, says that it would cost $5 to $10 to deliver the four gigabytes of data on a standard DVD over the best high-speed Internet connection.

Discs, on the other hand, cost between 60 cents and a dollar to fabricate and can be sent through the mail for the price of a first-class stamp. Moreover, some DVD's contain 9 or even 18 gigabytes of data. These cost slightly more to duplicate, but no more to ship.

Videographers for the Poetry Channel discovered the cost advantage recently. They captured poetry readings for the local cable public access channel, then jumped to the Internet when they realized that it would extend their reach beyond the San Francisco Bay area. The video clips at their Web site, however, were small and often took a long time to download.

"The DVD subscription allows people to affordably get more content," Mr. Rodriguez said, adding that their new DVD burner will enable them to duplicate the DVD's themselves.

The notion of DVD's by subscription is growing because of its simplicity and economic stability. Craig Lillard is the owner of Visual Realities, a company that ships a disc called "Video Illustrations for Youth Ministry" to churches four times a year. The vignettes come in two formats and can be displayed either with a standard DVD player or incorporated into a PowerPoint presentation.

"Why sell one when you can sell four at one time?" Mr. Lillard said. "That's really how we started our business. We were selling four videos when we hadn't finished one of them. We were getting payment up front."

CustomFlix and a number of other companies are hoping to help serve niche markets in a similar way. Amazon, for example, stocks DVD's and videotapes from small companies alongside films from major studios. The DVD creator must produce the duplicate DVD's. Amazon collects 55 percent of the list price for the service.

CustomFlix offers a more sophisticated service, bundling manufacturing, order processing, payment collection and shipping. A filmmaker pays $50 to open an account and $9.95 for each film that is produced on demand. The filmmaker receives any revenue beyond that. If the title is popular, the profits can rise because CustomFlix's price drops to $7.95 per disc after 20 copies and $6.95 per disc after 50 copies.

While these companies can help deliver the discs to a niche marketplace, they can't do much for the greater challenge of finding a large audience. It is still difficult for small productions to break into the larger marketplace.

Warren Lieberfarb, the former head of Warner Home Video, said that the big studios continue to dominate the stores and other major distribution channels. "There's a concentration of retail distribution," he said. Although companies like Amazon are doing a good job of reaching out through the Web, he said, "specialty retail akin to what's happened in books and music just hasn't materialized."

"It's hard to get into a store," said Ms. Healy of DVD News. "It's the same problem that we've always had with this industry. The studios dominate the distribution.''

"You can sell it online," she said, "but then you've got to get your Web site out there."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/te...ts/20dvdd.html


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Rewrite CD Copying Law, Congress Told
Lynn Hulsey

The US Congress has been told it should roll back part of a 1998 law against digital piracy to restore consumers' rights to copy DVDs and CDs for personal use. "I didn't grasp what the real issues were when this was approved," said Representative John Doolittle, co-sponsor of a bill that would amend the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The Californian Republican added: "I think we went way overboard as a Congress when we enacted that law."

Backers of the proposed bill told a House of Representatives energy and commerce sub-committee that the 1998 law slows development of new technology, hurts libraries seeking to archive digital information and violates the United States's historical tolerance of "fair use" of copyrighted material.

The new Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act would allow people to bypass discs' electronic encryption in order to make copies for personal reasons; require that companies label copy-protected CDs, DVDs and software; and protect scientific researchers from legal action under the 1998 law.

But Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the proposed bill would legalise piracy and make the problem of illegal copying of films even worse. He said the 1998 law made it safer for the industry to produce digital consumer products because it outlawed using technology to override encryption. But even so, anti-encryption technology was being used to steal the intellectual property Valenti called "America's prize trade export".

Waving a DVD copy of the film Runaway Jury, Valenti told the committee that an associate had bought the illegal duplicate in Washington's Chinatown.

Valenti said it appeared to have been made with software produced by 321 Studio of St Charles, Missouri. The 321 Studio founder and president, Robert Moore, told the committee that its software includes protections against piracy but the movie industry has refused to work with his company to encrypt copies and boost anti-piracy safeguards.

Moore said his company was nearly destroyed by a February court ruling banning sale of the software because it violates the 1998 law.

But Robert Holleyman, chief executive of the Business Software Association, said the law had been a boon to many other software firms because it promoted development of encryption technology and protected companies from software piracy.

Much of the committee debate centred around the concept of fair use of copyrighted material. Some argued that a consumer should be able to circumvent encryption to make copies of songs or movies for personal use, or to bypass commercials or offensive parts of DVD movies they had bought.

Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig said the proposed new law would restore balance lost in the 1998 law.

Joe Barton, a Texas Republican member of the House of Representatives and chairman of the full energy and commerce committee, said he did not support copyright infringement but once he has bought a film or CD, "it should be mine to use once I leave the store".

But Mary Bono (Republican, California) said artists had a right to be paid for their work and there were many opportunities for consumers to download songs from the internet for a small fee.

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said that while much of the focus has been on mass piracy, consumer copying of CDs is also a problem. He said industry sales have dropped 31 per cent in the past four years as CD burners and peer-to-peer file sharing over the internet gained steam.

"CDs are being burned beyond belief," Sherman said.
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/0...646114961.html


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Will It Be Free, Or Feudal?

Copyright now applies to everything from e-mail to office memos, and it's giving companies an unprecedented degree of control over popular culture
Andrew Potter

Implausible as it sounds, intellectual property law is all of a sudden hip, happening and sexy. Want to know what the kids are talking about? They're talking about copyright.

It is all thanks to the Internet, of course. The old rigid distinctions between creators and consumers, between mass society and local markets, and thus between commercial and non-commercial culture, have completely dissolved. High-bandwidth connections and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have turned every dorm room into a broadcast studio, while digital technologies have democratized artistic production. Using the omnipresent sea of symbols, images, sounds and texts as source material, millions of people are laying claim to their cultural inheritance. Call it postmodern, call it open source, call it rip/mix/burn, the upshot is a culture transformed.

It took a while for corporations and governments to twig to what was going on. When they finally clued in around the mid '90s, the effect was tectonic, causing an Andes of angst in the boardrooms of copyright-rich corporations. The very features of the Internet that made it so appealing to business -- the ability to store, alter and deliver content anywhere on Earth quickly and at no cost -- also appeared to make it impossible to enforce intellectual property rights.

These are the roiling headwaters of the coming copyright wars. While a lot of money is at stake, the real issue is one of control over ideas, the way copyright holders are using the power of law and technology to not only set the terms under which culture can be consumed, but also the extent to which it can be remade. The underlying question is, will the culture be free, or will it be feudal?

Every good movement needs an inspirational figure, a philosopher/activist able to both set the terms of debate and lead by example. The "free culture" movement has found its leader in the unlikely figure of Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University. For years, Lessig has been pushing a somewhat contrarian position about the Internet, arguing, in his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and its 2001 sequel, The Future of Ideas, that the Internet is on its way to becoming the most highly regulated place on Earth.

In his new book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, Lessig takes on the entire system of cultural ownership and production. The book's subtitle is awkward, and slightly misleading, since his target isn't so much big media as "Big Copyright."

Copyright began as an artificial legal mechanism to provide an incentive to authors for the creation of useful books. The point was not to create an unlimited property right, but to confer a temporary and limited monopoly over the right to make copies of a book, with the goal of cultivating a rich public domain.

Yet, over the years, the length and scope of copyright has been steadily increased. The original term of copyright was only 14 years, renewable once, and it only granted a right over maps, charts and books. Today, the average copyright term in the United States is 95 years, and it applies to everything from e-mails and office memos to poems, plays, songs and software. Furthermore, copyright does not only grant authors the exclusive right to publish copies of their work, it also covers all "derivative" works (such as translations of books or novelizations of screenplays) and "transformative" works (such as parodies, samples, fanfiction, remixes, etc.).

This has given copyright owners -- in particular, copyright-rich corporations -- an unprecedented degree of control over popular culture. Lessig's argument is that, instead of spurring greater creativity, copyright now acts as a brake, stifling creativity, smothering innovation and squandering the democratic potential of the Internet. The jacket blurb on Free Culture reads, "What's at stake is our freedom -- freedom to create, freedom to build, and, ultimately, freedom to imagine."

That might sound a bit overheated, until you consider the steady parade of examples. Lessig tells of a documentary filmmaker who had to cut a scene from a documentary about the staging of a Wagner opera because an episode of The Simpsons was playing on the television in the background. Similarly, screenings of the film Twelve Monkeys were stopped by a court for 28 days after its release because an artist claimed a chair in the movie resembled a sketch of a piece of furniture that he had designed

These sorts of uses are supposed to be protected by "fair use" provisions of copyright law ("fair dealing" in Canada), but the extreme cost of litigation makes everyone utterly risk averse. The mere threat to sue over infringement is usually enough to get copyright holders what they want. Recently, the Canadian artist Diana Thorneycroft voluntarily removed some of her parodic drawings of cartoon characters (examples of which are shown on this page) from a show at a Winnipeg gallery after she was advised by a lawyer that the drawings might violate copyright. Playwright Jason Sherman's new work The Message (about the last years of Marshall McLuhan's life) was supposed to open at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto last fall, but it was cancelled after McLuhan's family made vague threats about suing for copyright infringement.

These are not exceptions, they are the norm. And they are ridiculous. What suffers is the very notion of a public sphere, a commons, where ideas are freely available to be discussed, debated, manipulated and transformed. Ultimately, it is an assault on the very idea of free speech. Former American Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "the general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communications to others, free as the air to common use."

If only. Ultimately, securing access to the information commons will require a fundamental shift in our legal culture and our attitudes towards intellectual property. Meanwhile, there is always good old- fashioned activism.

Lessig managed to convince his publisher, Penguin Books, to release Free Culture under a "Creative Commons" licence. Drawing on the "copyleft" idea that came out of the free software movement, it is a more relaxed form of copyright that grants a broader range of user's rights. The licence covering Free Culture allows anyone to make and distribute as many copies of the book as they like, as long as it is for non-commercial purposes. It also allows anyone to create non-commercial derivative works based on the book, without needing to ask for permission.

Last month, Lessig posted a PDF version of the book to his Web site. Within two days, users had created versions in nine distinct formats, and competing audio versions had been posted, with different people reading individual chapters. Then another law professor started a legal theory seminar on his blog, using simple formatting tools to mark up and comment on the text of Free Culture. Lessig's Weblogged reaction: "Very cool."

In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan wrote, "The artist picks up the message of cultural and technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs. He, then, builds Noah's arks for facing the change that is at hand." His point is the same one that Percy Bysshe Shelley made when he proclaimed that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, "the influence which is moved not, but moves." Art has its own agenda, which moves far in advance of politics and business, but which traces the path they will eventually follow.

The copyright wars are shaping up as the civil rights issue of this decade. And a law professor named Lawrence Lessig is the one setting the agenda.

http://www.canada.com/national/natio...2-303eed5f8ef9















Until next week,

- js.














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