[JackSpratts]

Grokster Unleashes Ad-Free Software
Lisa M. Bowman

Grokster on Tuesday released Grokster Pro, the first version of its software that's free of pop-ups and adware.

Consumers who want to use the software will have to fork over $19.99 for the ad-free experience.

Popular peer-to-peer software services such as Grokster and Kazaa have attracted millions of people through free downloads, which let them offer and access songs and other MP3 files without paying. But users of the services have long griped about the annoying pop-ups that greet them when they search for music.

Grokster said it was responding to some of those complaints.

"We can offer the user a better experience at a reasonable price that still allows us to pay our bills," Grokster President Wayne Rosso said in a statement.

The move comes as rival StreamCast Networks also released a new version of its Morpheus software that attempts to help people mask their identities by uploading and downloading files through proxy servers.

Both companies have been bolstered by a ruling in April, in which a federal judge said they were not responsible for the actions of file traders who used their software. The companies had been the target of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which said the file-swapping services were violating copyright laws by allowing people to trade major label music without paying.

Changing course, the RIAA has threatened to sue the people using the services to swap files, and last month it began an evidence-gathering campaign to identify people who offer music through Grokster, Morpheus and others.

A survey released Monday said the RIAA's legal threats seem to be deterring people from swapping music. Nielsen/NetRatings said the use of the top file- trading applications has declined by about 15 percent since late June, when the RIAA issued its warning, although StreamCast said it hasn't seen a drop and Kazaa has said its numbers have increased.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1025994.html


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The Ovum View: DRM - Protecting Content And Revenues

DRM is key to many upcoming content services from mobile operators...

People have long trumpeted digital rights management (DRM) technology. But how can organisations make it work for them? Ovum senior analyst Michele MacKenzie sheds some light on DRM in wireless...

After high profile disasters such as WAP, the wireless internet finally seems to be experiencing an upturn.

The first signs are that MMS applications, such as picture messaging are proving popular and uptake of Java is growing. Ringtone downloads continue to grow and Ovum estimates that revenues from this application grew to $900m in 2002.

Evolution to the next phase, that of rich media incorporating music and video downloads, depends on a number of technological issues being resolved. This is where DRM (digital rights management) and content protection come into play.

What's at stake?

Premium content represents a significant opportunity for operators. Revenues will grow from around $9bn in 2003 to $39bn in 2007 but this revenue growth is dependent on DRM being in place.

In the fixed world, many service providers have ignored their responsibilities in protecting content and many have taken a short-term view on illegal file sharing as a means to generating extra traffic.

Content providers claim to have suffered significant losses from online piracy. The International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) estimates, in its June 2002 report, that the pirate market for music was worth $4.3bn and that this figure is conservative. It does not include any estimate of losses to the recording industry from Internet copying but estimates that 99 per cent of music files available online in 2001 were unauthorised.

Understandably, perhaps, content providers are now taking extreme measures to protect their content by limiting its availability. This business model is unsustainable and greater collaboration is required between the players.

Mobile operators will learn from the fixed experience but will have to educate both the users and the content providers.

In order to get buy-in from the content providers, mobile operators will need to convince them that they have a viable DRM solution in place. Initially this will consist of simple forward lock (once a user receives content that he has paid for he is unable to forward it to other mobile terminals), as in OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) version 1.

But it is critical that mobile operators work with content providers to gain their confidence in the mobile channel if they are to move to a super-distribution model at a later phase. O2 is a good example. It has worked closely with its content providers for its music download service to determine which DRM solution should be implemented.

Content owners need to ensure that they can capture the revenues for their content while allowing a fair degree of flexibility to meet user requirements. A 'fair play' policy - the middle ground - has to be reached and DRM is the technology that facilitates it.

Both parties have to build an understanding of the needs of mobile users. Those needs include the rights to use the content they have paid for the way they want to – including porting, duplication and distribution.

When will DRM be ready?

Early deployments of DRM are taking place now. Version 1 of the OMA standard was only released at the end of 2002. Handsets supporting DRM will be shipped in volumes in Q3 2003, although the first DRM handsets were announced in Q2. Deployment of the technology supporting version 1 will not really begin until 2004.

And phase 2 of OMA, which supports a more sophisticated and flexible DRM solution allowing rights management and super-distribution, is not expected commercially until the end of 2004. Therefore, most deployments of the standardised version 2 will only start in 2005.

Mobile users are used to paying for content over their mobile phones. Operators will need to manage the introduction of forward lock carefully as it might annoy some users to find that they cannot port their content to other devices or 'share' it. It is critical that do not view this as a long-term inflexible approach by operators to curb their rights. Once super-distribution becomes available, probably towards the end of 2004, operators will need to re-educate users to the benefits of DRM. That is the right to port, duplicate and distribute content.
In order to provide a dynamic portfolio of rich content, it will be imperative to have a viable DRM solution to:

Encourage content owners to consider mobile as a channel for their content

Protect operator revenues from sources from piracy

Eventually enable a 'paid-for' super-distribution mode. This will stimulate traffic as users become a distributor of content as well as generate new revenues from content.
http://www.silicon.com/opinion/500018/1/5097.html


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Piano Tuner Blues

Those who keep our ivories in key are rarely in sync themselves, especially when debating whether to work digitally or by ear.
Paul Pringle

A note about piano tuners: They often are not in accord.

Tuners can't agree whether their ranks resonate with talent or reek of the tone-deaf. A professional guild sets the bar for training, but most tuners won't join it.

Many are sharply critical of how piano owners treat their instruments — and their tuners. Others flatly don't care, as long as the customer pays scale.

And nothing stirs more dissonance in the do-re-mi trade than the debate over tuning by ear versus tuning by technology.

The dispute predates the Digital Age — electronic tuners debuted in the 1930s — but has grown louder as software becomes increasingly popular on the job. The Kansas City, Mo.-based Piano Technicians Guild says computers are now used by at least half the 10,000 tuners who service America's 18 million pianos.

"Piano tuners love to argue," said Jim Ogden, 55, a La Cañada Flintridge resident who got into the business nine years ago. "It's just endless."

Cyber-tuning has drawn a line between the likes of Richard Davenport and Ron Elliott, who otherwise have much in common. They occupy the upper range of Los Angeles tuners, with a combined six decades of experience, big-name clients, and steady gigs at recording studios and concert halls.

The similarities stop when they lift the piano lid and go to work.

Davenport's routine is to wrestle a laptop from his gear bag, place it gently on the piano's cast-iron plate, and power up a program that displays a spinning green disc that measures the pitches of the 88 keys. Davenport watches it as he tunes.

Elliott simply tilts his head toward the strings and listens. His tools are sleeved in a handyman's roll pouch. None requires batteries.

"I've always tuned by ear," he said.

Elliott stood over a nine-foot Steinway on the darkened stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. His task was to improve the "feel" of the piano for soloist Richard Goode.

Elliott tugged his tuning hammer — a misnamed wrench — this way and that on the pin of a B-flat string, adjusting it by hair-widths, while pounding the key. The B flat reverberated like a pipe banging in a storm drain, only purer.

"There are a lot of people who use electronic tuners," said Elliott, a soft-spoken 51-year-old with clipped, graying hair. He wore a suit and tie. "Maybe they never really learned to tune by ear." He said no computer can "hear" the subtle tonal differences between two pianos, or along the multi-string unisons within a single instrument.

Elliott also said the gadgets can't "stretch the octaves," making the bass flatter and treble sharper — to suit a performer's taste.

"A machine is very rigid," said the Pasadena resident. "Tuning is creative."

Elliott has tuned the Music Center's pianos for 17 years. He drifted into the craft after studying piano.

It took him an hour to sweeten the Steinway. The piano is tuned before every concert. Household pianos typically are tuned once a year.

"Richard Goode is a very sensitive player," Elliott said as he tinkered with the Steinway's felt hammers. They bounced on the Swedish-steel strings like woodpeckers peppering bark. Elliott jabbed one hammer with a needle — "sugar-coating" it — to render the string less strident.

Goode appeared from the gloom just as Elliott finished. The impish-faced pianist wanted another rehearsal before that night's performance.

Music to His Ears

Elliott hurriedly collected his tools and retreated backstage. After tearing into a Mozart concerto, Goode complimented Elliott. "Ron is one of my favorites," he said. Elliott was visibly pleased.

It's all about the ear, Elliot said later.

"When you start using a machine, you are allowed to become kind of lazy," he added. "You don't really have to pay attention to what you're doing. The machine becomes a crutch."

That view prevails at some prestigious music academies, including the Juilliard School, as well as at Steinway & Sons.

"We don't use electronic tuners here and we don't advise any of our technicians to use them," said Ron Coners, chief concert technician for Steinway in New York. "We feel you do not train your ear well enough because you're relying on the machine."
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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Corporate P2P Use Is Common, Study Says
John Borland

File-swapping applications are deeply entrenched inside corporate networks, according to a survey of computer systems by a Canadian network monitoring company.

In a study spanning 560 companies, ranging from 10 to 45,000 employees, Canadian company AssetMetrix found peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa and Morpheus installed at least once in 77 percent of companies. The survey found that every company in its sample with more than 500 employees had at least one installation of file-swapping software.

The results highlight the potential risks that corporations and individuals run, as the record industry prepares to file potentially thousands of lawsuits against individuals who offer copyrighted materials online.

"Corporations are frantic about how to rein in some control over this," said AssetMetrix President Paul Bodnoff. "Like with software licenses, most companies want to be on the right side of the law. The challenge is how they do that."

The presence of file swapping on corporate networks has been a subject of increasing concern during the past year, for reasons extending beyond businesses' legal liability.

Copyright holders have steadily increased their pressure on corporations to crack down on their employees' file-trading behavior, sending letters to the Fortune 500 companies warning of legal risks, and even settling out of court for $1 million with one company where a large archive of copyrighted songs was found.

However, corporate technology managers say they are also worried about the drain of resources sparked by file-swapping applications. P2P software can allow viruses to worm their way onto corporate networks, and transfers of large media files such as movies can take up large amounts of bandwidth, resulting in unexpected network costs for companies.

Several companies have sprung up that offer network management tools aimed at finding and deleting unauthorized applications, including file-swapping software. AssetMetrix now offers a free service that lets corporations scan their networks to see how many P2P clients have been installed, and how much storage space is taken up by multimedia files downloaded through the services.

The first round of lawsuits against individual file swappers is expected from the Recording Industry Association of America in mid-August.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1026184.html


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Now Hear This: Piracy Linked To Terrorism

Paris - (SA) The head of Interpol called on Wednesday for a global crackdown on software and music piracy, saying the illicit proceeds help finance al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist networks.

The international police agency's secretary-general, Ronald K Noble, urged governments and law enforcement agencies to treat such crimes as a priority, saying in a statement, "it is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups".

The statement was issued on Wednesday ahead of a speech on the subject that Noble was to give in Washington to the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations.

"There are enough examples now of the funding of terrorist groups in this way for us to worry about the threat to public safety," Noble said. "We must take preventative measures now."

An Interpol document to be presented in Washington later on Wednesday said that a wide range of terrorist groups have profited from the production or sale of counterfeit goods, including al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Chechen separatists, ethnic Albanian extremists in Kosovo and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, the statement said.

Noble called for stepped-up efforts to trace the proceeds of pirated CDs, DVDs, computer software, and counterfeit clothing and cigarettes.

Interpol, based in Lyon, France, co-ordinates information-sharing among police forces in 181 countries.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technol...388359,00.html


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New Company Touts Conditional Access Technology
David Minto

Latens Systems Limited, a new broadcast technology company based in Belfast, has not only announced its
arrival in the conditional access market, but claims it will saves operators up to 50 per cent of their current total security costs.

Well don’t they all…

Says Jeremy Thorp, CEO of Latens: “I began to realise that with a different strategy, new security techniques and the power of advanced 2-way networks a smartcard is no longer essential for strong security.”

Instead, Latens is offering two-way digital network to be provide conditional access for broadband and digital cable networks through secure software modules (SSM) in the set-top-box. The SSM are monitored and managed through the network, and whenever necessary are up-dated or replaced through the network, limiting the window of opportunity for hackers.

"At the birth of digital television, a chip, either in a smartcard or embedded in the set-top-box, was the most appropriate security solution,” says Jason Rogers, CTO, Latens Systems Limited. “However, over 15 years later, security technology and techniques have moved on. Latens is making the most of the power of the network and new advanced security systems to produce next generation Conditional Access systems that are cost-effective, scalable and flexible."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=17054


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Listen to the Technology
Arnold Kling

Note: This piece ran a year ago – js.

The future is here. But distributors of music have tuned it out.

Technology has made the CD-centric business model of the music industry obsolete. Fifteen years ago, the CD became the superior alternative medium for storing and transporting music. Today, though, disks represent the truly low-cost storage medium, and the Internet represents the low-cost transportation medium for delivering music to listeners. In short, something like Napster was inevitable.

That music has become much cheaper to store and to transport would be good news for the music industry, if they would listen to the technology. Instead, they cannot seem to bear the thought of a transition away from the CD-centric business model. Like the people in a 1960's cigarette commercial, the industry would rather fight than switch.

The music industry's court victory over Napster was symbolic, but no judicial ruling can overturn the fact that downloading songs over the Internet is more efficient than purchasing them as recorded CDs. The industry's next idea -- a bill authored by Sen. Ernest Hollings to try to outlaw technology that can be used to make copies of creative works -- seems destined to replace "Luddite" as an expression to describe a pathetic, irrational attempt to forestall the future.

Who Needs CD's?

Let's pretend, though, that the CD didn't exist. How would music makers try to deliver their music today?

I believe there would be two modes of distribution.

First, music could come packaged with hardware, much like most software is packaged with computers today.

In the past, that might have been too expensive. But in a world with cheap, high-capacity hard disks, any system with stereo speakers could, and should, come complete with recorded music. Not just computers, but all car and home stereos as well. A reasonably priced hard disk can store all the music that you have time to listen to, and with several more iterations of Moore's Law a disk will be able to store everything that has ever been recorded.

With pre-installed music, the music industry would make money like Microsoft. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) would pay music distributors for licenses to their collections. At first, because hard disk capacity is not unlimited, people would have to choose standard music packages and pay extra for custom collections. Eventually, just as the Evil Empire bundled more and more functionality into the operating system, the standard music packages would include more and more of what has been recorded.

How would the music companies do under such a distribution scheme? Well, suppose that each year in the United States sales of car stereos totaled 15 million units, personal computers for home use totaled 60 million, and home stereos totaled 25 million units. Then, if the music industry collected an average $100 license fee for the installed music on each product - a price well within the range of many consumer software packages- it would have $10 billion in annual revenue. This would nearly equal the revenue from CD sales today, but with much lower production and distribution costs.

Be Like Bill

A second method of music delivery would be through third-party developer licenses.

The software industry has learned that open systems that encourage third-party developers are more profitable than closed systems. I would argue that Microsoft and Apple are where they are today because Apple did less to encourage third-party developers. (Not that I want to plunge into the Apple-Microsoft debate here.)

Tim O'Reilly recently made an important pronouncement about the need for Internet companies, such as Google and Amazon, to create open interfaces to their data that would allow third-party developers to add value. No sooner was his article published than Dave Winer breathlessly reported that Google is doing exactly that.

Google is giving third-party developers licenses to access Google's catalog. Eventually, for high-volume licenses Google will charge a fee. Presumably, the high-volume applications will have revenue models attached to them.

Suppose that, like Google, a music distributor published an interface to its catalog, so that anyone could download music. Any third-party developer could obtain a license to access the catalog to create a play list, operate a radio station, create an algorithm to match people to music that suits their taste, or other value-added services. The developers would pay a license fee based on the intensity with which they access the catalog.

Subscription services, with revenue shared among third-party developers and music publishers, would be another revenue stream for the music industry. Consumers might pay low annual fees in order to be able to download a small number of songs. Third-party developers with high-volume services would pay higher fees. All in all, one can imagine 60 million subscribers paying $60 a year, plus 10 million subscribers paying $150 a year for premium services (more download privileges, custom music recommendation services, priority for concert tickets), for another $5 billion a year in revenue.

What about the Individual?

Suppose that the CD were to disappear and be replaced by these alternative revenue models. What does this scenario mean for individuals?

The music consumer would be paying flat fees for unlimited use. When you obtain a stereo with music installed, you pay a one-time fee embedded in the cost of the stereo. When you subscribe to a music service, you pay an annual fee for unlimited use of the service. I think that most music-lovers would gladly pay these modest flat fees in order to save on CD purchases and to enjoy the convenience of listening to whatever music they want whenever they want to listen.

Musicians and composers still would need to get paid. I am assuming that they would continue to be paid by the intermediaries in the music industry. Music distributors would pay musicians in order to keep their catalogs popular.

Of course, the nature of intermediation could change. Anyone who obtains the rights from artists and sets up a hosting service with a catalog and an interface could play the role of a music publisher. The third-party developers could access this catalog. Those developers might turn out to be the critical intermediaries, and they could end up paying musicians.

I suspect that fear of this sort of industry change -- and the potential loss of control -- is what is driving the behavior of the music industry today. However, eventually they will have to listen to the technology.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/10...D=1051-041802C


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Traffic to Web File Sharing Sites Down: Report
Reuters

Facing the threat of lawsuits from a music industry trade group, fewer people are using online file-sharing applications to swap songs, according to data released on Monday.

Internet audience measurement service Nielsen NetRatings said traffic on Kazaa, the leading file-sharing platform, fell 15 per cent in the week ended July 6 from the previous week.

It was during that prior week, on June 25, that the Recording Industry Association of America said it would track down the heaviest users of "peer-to-peer" services like Kazaa and sue them for damages of up to $150,000 per copyright violation.

Traffic on the Morpheus service also fell 15 per cent, NetRatings said, while usage on iMesh dropped 16 per cent. BearShare usage dropped enough that it fell below NetRatings' cutoff point for tracking.

"With the negative publicity and threat of steep fines, some surfers appear to be backing off," Greg Bloom, a senior analyst at NetRatings, said in a statement. "However, with millions of loyal users, these applications aren't likely to go offline in the near future."

In the wake of the RIAA's announcement, some peer-to-peer services have established relationships with lobbyists and set up trade associations to persuade lawmakers and the entertainment industry that they are legitimate businesses.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...how?msid=75589


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Australians Into CD Burning, File Sharing: survey
Steven Deare

Millions of Australians have obtained music illegally via CD burning and file sharing, a survey released by the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) claims.

Conducted by Quantum Market Research for ARIA, the survey researched CD burning and Internet file sharing and their effect on the Australian music industry.

According to the survey, 3.6 million Australians illegally burned a music CD in the six months prior to the survey. The survey was conducted from January to February and is based on 1001 telephone interviews with people aged 10 years or over across Australia.

While the survey did not provide a six-month figure for file sharing, it said around 1.8 million Australians had illegally downloaded music files in one month. The number of Australians who had ever used file sharing services totalled 3.5 million, it said.

Users of these services downloaded an average of 19.6 files a month, the survey said. Of these users, 21 per cent were broadband subscribers.

There had also been a 12 per cent decrease in CD purchasing among this file sharing group, the survey said.

The survey also found the level of music piracy among the under-25 age group to be almost twice as high as in the general population. That is, 22 per cent of the general population (all age groups) had been involved in CD burning, compared to 40 per cent in the under-25 age group.

However, 49 per cent of those surveyed in the 10-24-year bracket were unaware of the legality of CD copying and file sharing.

The results also found CD burners had been used by 22 percent of Australians to record music in the surveyed six months.

ARIA chief executive Stephen Peach said the levels of CD burning and file sharing in Australia were "significant", and weakened the local and international music industries.

ARIA said initiatives to combat music piracy included online business models, consumer education, technological solutions and litigation.
http://pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php?...58&fp=2&fpid=1


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Young Unfazed By Piracy: ARIA
Simon Hayes

THE music industry has fired a statistical salvo to stem the tide of file-sharing and CD burning, releasing "disturbing" figures that show many young people are unaware music piracy is illegal.

It has vowed to educate users to change their behaviour, while at the same time refusing to back down from a legal campaign that has seen both civil and criminal action taken in cases of alleged music piracy.

A survey of 1001 Australians conducted for the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) by Quantum Market Research found only 49 per cent of under 25s were aware copying was illegal, compared with 64 per cent of the general population.

While 57 per cent of those surveyed agreed burning music was like stealing, only 35 per cent of under 25s agreed.

Similarly, while 49 per cent of respondents agreed downloading music from the internet without permission was like stealing a CD from a record store, only 33 per cent of under 25s agreed.

ARIA chief executive Stephen Peach said copying and file trading had caused a downturn in sales of CDs.

"There is no way you can justify music theft by saying it might result in increased CD sales," he said. "(The respondents) say that as a result of using file sharing they are buying fewer CDs."

Mr Peach said the lack of awareness of illegality among younger music listeners would cause a worrying trend.

"Music is more popular than ever, but unfortunately no-one seems prepared to pay for it," he said. "It is disturbing that less than half of under 25s realise that stealing music is wrong."

The study found 3.6 million Australians, or 22 per cent, had burned a CD in the past six months, while 1.8 million, or 11 per cent, had downloaded pirated music from a filesharing service in the past month.

Among under 25s, 40 per cent had burned a CD in the past six months, while 26 per cent had swapped music online. About 40 per cent of respondents had at some stage received a burned CD.

The figures the industry finds most worrying are those that show 51 per cent of filesharers would "rarely or never" go and buy the music from a store, while 37 per cent would only buy the music "sometimes".

There was a 12 per cent overall decrease in CD purchases among file sharing users.

Citing successful internet services like Apple's iTunes, Mr Peach said the industry was interested in supporting legitimate online services.

The recording industry has been aggressively pursuing alleged pirates through the courts both in Australia and overseas.

A recent Federal Court action saw major music labels given access to data on the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the University of Tasmania computer networks in search of alleged internet pirates.

The parties in that case are waiting the issuing of formal orders.

A separate case has seen three Sydney university students charged under the Copyright Act over their alleged involvement in an internet web site that allegedly distributed music.

That case has been adjourned until August.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15318,00.html


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Record Companies Join The Enemy In Music Revolution
Carla Caruso

RECORD companies have started to change their tune.

Their losing battle against Internet users downloading free music off the Internet has forced them to join the competition in an attempt to cash in on the relatively new market.

Major companies are set to join the dotcom ranks by offering a download service for paying customers.

Sanity and EMI will be the first local companies to introduce the new service by Christmas with other retailers set to follow.

The move comes as the Australian Record Industry Association revealed yesterday that about 3.6 million Australians had illegally burnt CDs in the past six months.

Youth have been blamed for a drop in CD music sales nationally – their growing habit of "burning" and downloading music cutting into the profits of record companies.

But Australian Record Industry Association chief executive officer Stephen Peach says consumers would be the "ultimate" losers from the scam and record companies were introducing "copy control" technology to protect their profits.

"With copying rampant, there is a diminishing motive to invest in music production or risk supporting new talent," he said.

Burning CDs on a home computer can reduce the cost of music singles from as much as $8 in stores to about $1 – the cost of a blank CD.

The shelf price of a new release album is generally between $20 and $40, while downloading music, in most cases, will only attract normal Internet charges.

ARIA yesterday released the findings of the independent Quantum Market Research study conducted from research compiled from 1000 phone interviews with people aged over 10 earlier this year.

Downloading music and CD burning was found to be highest in the under-25 age group, with 40 per cent of those surveyed admitting to burning CDs in the past six months compared with 22 per cent of the general population.

Those under 25 were also more guilty of file sharing – 26 per cent – compared with 11 per cent of the general public. Among file-sharing users there was a net decrease of 12 per cent in CD buying, which was greatest in the 17-and-under age group.

Two thirds of those surveyed were aware that CD burning and file sharing were illegal.

Pooraka student Marie Trimboli, 16, said CD burning was a cheaper and more convenient option to obtain music.

"I'd have to buy a whole CD just to get the one track. This way, you get the songs you want on one CD," she said.
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au...55E911,00.html


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Firms Say File Swap Must Stop
Nik Bonopartis

Jesse Jordan has become somewhat of a poster boy for what can happen to people who get on the bad side of the music industry.

The 19-year-old student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy was one of the first people sued by the music industry in an initial round aimed at stemming illegal online trading of copyrighted music.

An information technology major going on his second year at the institute, Jordan ran a campus search engine where music could be traded. He says he didn't have many options -- or the money -- to fight the lawsuit in court. So he settled with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in exchange for his life savings: $12,000.

''There was nothing else I could do,'' he said. ''My parents aren't rich.''

Jordan's story may be a precursor of many more lawsuits. In six to eight weeks, hundreds of people who trade online will receive notice that they're also being sued by the industry.

The fight is joined

The lawsuits are the latest development in an increasingly pitched battle between the music industry and people who trade copyrighted material over the Internet. Even recording artists like Madonna are getting involved by spamming file-sharing networks with surreptitious, profanity-laced messages aimed at their fans.

An early report suggests the lawsuit threats may have had a small effect in the first week after the announcement. Nielsen/ NetRatings reported Monday that there was a 15 percent drop in activity on the networks during the week ending July 6. However, it's unclear how much of that drop-off was actually due to the threats or if other factors, such the July 4 holiday weekend, contributed.

A company working on behalf of the music and movie industries has been keeping tabs on online file-trading networks, recording not only what's being traded and the volume of copyrighted material exchanged daily between users, but also who is trading the songs and movies.

For instance, the company, BayTSP, can tell you that ''Finding Nemo,'' Disney's animated deep-sea adventure, was the most popular movie exchanged for free on online networks in June -- and that 103,788 people had that movie on their computers, despite the fact that it's still in theaters. The company spotted people trading the long-awaited ''Matrix: Reloaded'' several days before the official release.

BayTSP sends the information to the movie and music industries, and the industries decide who will be sent a letter of warning or slapped with a lawsuit.

''We're like the Internet private detectives,'' said Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP, which uses its MediaEnforcer software to track file traders. ''We can usually find (a movie) within a few minutes of it being put on the Internet. We find one copy, then we see 10 copies, then we see 100 copies.

''If we don't see it before a theatrical release, we typically see it the night of a theatrical release. And people have to understand that if you do that and get caught, you're going to go to jail.''

Or, at the very least, get sued for significant amounts of money.

The music industry says it has the cooperation of Internet service providers -- which can identify network users -- and is bringing the lawsuits as part of a multifaceted approach to stopping a crime.

To keep pressure on people who trade music and movies, the industries say some of the lawsuits will be random. So even small-time traders run the risk of a lawsuit.

''Making even one file available is illegal, so there's no hard and fast rule,'' said Amanda Collins, deputy director of the RIAA.

As for Jordan, handing over his life savings was his only option, he says. The paperwork on the RIAA lawsuit against him listed the names of music files that were searched for or acquired by people using his search engine -- along with a note that said it would cost him $150,000 per copyrighted song.

But thanks to the generosity of fellow file traders, Jordan ended up getting his $12,000 back by donations through his Web site.

''People have been really, really supportive,'' he said. ''In less than six weeks, I was able to get back all that I've lost in this thing.''
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/t...071603s3.shtml


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Internet Experts Dispute Lawmakers, News Reports
Nik Bonopartis

The future of music distribution may rest with lawmakers, and at the very least future versions of copyright law will go through both houses of Congress.

So it's with a bit of sarcasm that the Internet community, spurred by some of the comments below, see lawmakers as firmly in the pockets of the music and movie industries:

- In an early March congressional hearing on the effects of rampant pirating, the Justice Department's deputy assistant attorney general, John G. Malcolm, suggested that file trading could fund terrorism, according to IDG News Service.

- A new bill introduced by Texas Rep Lamar Smith, a Republican, would use the FBI to combat illegal file-sharing. The bill would instruct the FBI to "develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement," according to CNet News and Jupitermedia's Internet News.

- Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., "who is forming a new congressional caucus on piracy and copyright issues, also wants to run the music industry's lobbying organization,'' according to the Associated Press. A CBS News report said Bono was trying to distance herself from that statement after criticism for her comments.

Bono's remarks have drawn coverage from a wide range of press, including Billboard Magazine.

An Associated Press dispatch quotes Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics, who says: "Angering the RIAA is certainly not going to advance her job prospects, so one must wonder whether her views on this issue are motivated more by personal beliefs or her future career."

- In a May 4 report, the New York Times detailed "the development and testing of software programs that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music."

The New York Times notes that many of the new technologies, developed by Internet companies at the request of the music and movie industries, may never be used because of legal questions.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that destroying users' computers remotely "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights," according to several media reports.

An Associated Press report quotes Hatch saying: "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that. If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines.''

- Hatch's comments caused a storm in both Web and print publications, and Wired News reported on June 19 that Hatch himself was using copyrighted software without a license:

"The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's Web site."
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/e...ring_log.shtml


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KaZaA Founder Tips His Hand
Jo Maitland

Niklas Zennstrom, founder of the largest P2P network, KaZaA, has no intention of letting the heavy-handed arm of authority crush his ambitions for peer-to-peer networking. Au Contraire! He’s currently planning a fourth P2P company.

In an interview with Boardwatch, Zennstrom let it slip that he is working on a P2P voice communication business (see KaZaA Founder, Niklas Zennstrom).

He says it would allow people everywhere to talk to each other using intelligent end devices communicating across the Internet using P2P protocols. The need for "big hummer" telephone switches would disappear.

"Will it use SIP [session initiation protocol]?", Boardwatch asked.

“NO,” said Zennstrom, assertively.

Hmmm. How will it work then? He declined to say, for now. But expect something later this year.

Meanwhile, Zennstrom has other irons in the fire -- notably Altnet Inc., which is the paid-content distribution mechanism integrated with the KaZaA Media Desktop client. It's a joint venture of Brilliant Digital Entertainment and Zennstrom's third company, Joltid Ltd. (more on Joltid in a moment).

Essentially, Altnet provides a marketing and distribution campaign for content owners and distributors. All of the Altnet files are wrapped with DRM (digital rights management) software, and users pay for them. Songs that are legally on the KaZaA network with permission from the content owner are clearly marked with a gold label.

So why pay for them if they're also available, for free, on KaZaA? In the interview, Zennstrom likens this to selling mineral water to people who could drink tap water for free [ed note: which has always had me scratching my head].

As for Joltid, which Zennstrom just launched, it aims to help service providers reduce P2P congestion in their networks, using caching technology (see Euro ISPs Deploy P2P Cache).

Interestingly, Zennstrom says he doesn’t use the KaZaA service he invented to download music. “I buy CDs,” he retorts.

Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=37096

Interview at top – js.


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U.S. Bill Would Put Net Song Swappers in Jail
Andy Sullivan

Internet users who allow others to copy songs from their hard drives could face prison time under legislation introduced by two Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday.

The bill is the strongest attempt yet to deter the widespread online song copying that recording companies say has led to a decline in CD sales.

Sponsored by Michigan Rep. John Conyers and California Rep. Howard Berman, the bill would make it easier to slap criminal charges on Internet users who copy music, movies and other copyrighted files over "peer-to-peer" networks.

The recording industry has aggressively pursued Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer networks in court and recently announced it planned to sue individual users as well.

In a series of hearings on Capitol Hill last spring, lawmakers condemned online song swapping and expressed concern the networks could spread computer viruses, create government security risks and allow children access to pornography.

Few online copyright violators have faced criminal charges so far. A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to distributing a digital copy of the movie "The Hulk" in federal court three weeks ago, but the Justice Department has not taken action against Internet users who offer millions of copies of songs each day.

The Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied at least 10 times for a total retail value of $2,500. That would bump the activity from a misdemeanor to a felony, carrying a sentence of up to five years in jail.

It would also outlaw the practice of videotaping a movie in the theater, a favorite illicit method of copying movies.

"While existing laws have been useful in stemming this problem, they simply do not go far enough," said Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

A Conyers staffer said the bill had won the backing of many Democrats but Republicans had yet to endorse it.

The staffer said backers hoped to discuss the bill at a hearing on Thursday and combine it next week with another sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith.

A Smith spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3103468


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US Hotspots Outwit File-Sharing Purge
How wireless net access is bringing court cases to a dead end, by John Borland...

Early last spring, NYCWireless co-founder Anthony Townsend got a note in the mail saying that someone on his network had been violating copyright laws.

This type of note is becoming increasingly common as record companies and Hollywood studios subpoena ISPs for information about subscribers in order to stop people from trading songs and movies online. But Townsend's case was unusual: as the representative of a loose collection of wireless 'hotspot' internet access points, there was no way he or the relevant access point operator in New York's Bryant Park could identify or warn the file trader.

"We brought the notice to the attention of the park management but they weren't concerned," Townsend said. "That whole mechanism [for finding copyright violators] becomes really problematic when the ISP is someone sharing a wireless access point."

Townsend and others' similar experiences, no matter how limited today, point to a slowly widening hole in the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) recently announced drive to identify and ultimately sue what could be thousands of file swappers online.

Wireless net access through free, open or publicly available hotspots is proving to be a last bastion of privacy on an internet where the veil of anonymity can now easily pierced. Wi-Fi access points give anyone who possesses the appropriate computer equipment within a radius of about 300 feet the ability to reach the internet.

Traditional ISPs give each subscriber a unique, if temporary, identification number while they're online. Wi-Fi access points don't, and that makes it difficult for the RIAA or anyone else to pinpoint exactly who is doing what using these nodes on the net.

Wi-Fi access, meanwhile, is now one of the fastest-growing segments of the technology marketplace. About 28,000 publicly accessible hotspots exist around the world today, according to research firm Allied Business Intelligence. That figure is expected to grow to 160,000 by 2007, the firm predicted in a report last week.

Not all of those hot spots provide the same kind of anonymous access as the free services provided by Armstrong's network in New York. Most commercial Wi-Fi points are run as pay services by companies such as T-Mobile USA, typically requiring computer users to pay for their time, usually with a credit card, and log in to their account while online. This allows customers to be identified just as easily as they would on an ordinary ISP using telephone or cable lines.

Increasingly, cafes, parks and even private homes are offering access to the net where no registration is required. With people logging in and out without offering identities, it becomes virtually impossible for groups such as the RIAA to track down the identity of copyright infringers using these nodes.

It is hard to argue that this type of network access makes up more than a tiny fraction of file- swapping. People using public Wi-Fi access points typically use them for just a few minutes or hours, rather than staying online for the long periods of time necessary to download movie files, for instance.

This could change as the patterns of Wi-Fi use change, becoming more residential, however. Just last week, the ISP Speakeasy opened a programme that allows home broadband subscribers to sell wireless net access to their neighbors, becoming in effect a mini-ISP with Speakeasy's help.

This kind of approach illustrates further the potential holes in the RIAA dragnet. A Speakeasy customer who has several customers of their own could wind up unwittingly being the conduit for file-sharing activity.

In that case, Speakeasy would receive a subpoena, and be required under recent court decisions to give up the customer's name. Moreover, under the provisions of the company's new programme, the customer's role as 'administrator' for other people's accounts would make them responsible for any illegal activity by the people using the original customer's wireless net access.

"If our terms of service are violated on [that broadband] line, we hold the administrator responsible," said Speakeasy CEO Mike Apgar. "We think the best person to understand their local area is the administrator."

However, unless the administrator keeps detailed logs of everybody's account use - which is not required by law - they may well not know who was swapping files at the time the RIAA identified a problem and the subpoena may hit a dead end.

Recording industry officers declined to discuss their legal strategy in detail but said that the Wi- Fi issue was not necessarily a dead end for investigations.

"We are not limiting ourselves in that respect," said RIAA senior VP Matt Oppenheim.

What the group and other copyright holders can do if Wi-Fi access points turn out to be a substantial nexus for piracy isn't wholly clear. Unlike the file-swapping market, which in Napster's wake has been populated mostly by small companies that exist on the margin of the law, Wi-Fi is the technological darling of giants that range from Intel to Verizon Communications.

In theory, copyright holders could press policymakers for some regulatory framework that would require individual computer users to be identified wherever they were logged on to a network. That way, even people logging on to a free access point like the one in New York City's Bryant Park could be traced if found to be doing something illegal.

However, previous technological measures that involved the strict ability to identify users or users' computers, such as the unique serial numbers once built into Intel chips, have proven extremely controversial.

Privacy and civil liberties activists, by contrast, are encouraging the spread of Wi-Fi access points, whether officially under a plan like Speakeasy's, or simply by setting up a wireless access point on their own.

"I think there is good reason for people to become ISPs and offer this service in order to give people real anonymity again," said Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney who has represented file-swapping companies against the recording industry.

Von Lohmann, a copyright lawyer, contends that individuals and businesses that operate open Wi-Fi hot spots should be eligible for the same legal shields that ensure that ISPs aren't liable for the online actions of their customers.

Hot spot operators like Townsend say they are likely to attract the RIAA's subpoenas and lawsuits, which are due in mid-August. But they say, for now, they're not worried.

"It is obvious that people are using wireless hotspots to do the same kind of thing other people online are doing," said Townsend, whose NYCWireless group is made up of 160 hotspots around the city, mostly run by volunteers, "but there's no evidence that this kind of thing is any more prevalent. We haven't been asked to make (identifying people) any easier."
http://www.silicon.com/analysis/148/1/5172.html


Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne


Record Labels Send ISPs Subpoenas in Piracy Battle
Reuters

The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it sent out subpoenas to Internet service providers as it prepares to sue hundreds of individuals who illegally distribute songs over the Web.

"This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body.

Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA.

The trade group said it will probably file several hundred lawsuits this summer.

ISP EarthLink said it has received three subpoenas from the RIAA since the group pledged to track sites like Kazaa for heavy users.

RIAA last month said the time was right to go after individual users because a recent U.S. court ruling made it easier to track down copyright violators.

A federal court ordered Verizon Communications to reveal names of suspected song-swappers in April, prompting the Internet service provider to ask a higher court to stay the order while it appeals the case.

On June 4, the U.S Court of Appeals in Washington declined to suspend the order, allowing RIAA investigators to easily obtain the names of other Internet users it suspects of trading music illegally.

David Blumenthal, a spokesman for Earthlink, said the company had received three subpoenas in recent weeks asking the company to identify individuals.

"It is our intention to do so, based on the ruling on June 4," said Blumenthal. But, he added, "we disagree with the method that is being used here and while we support the right of them to enforce copyrights, we think this is the wrong method for doing so."

"We're urging the RIAA and other copyright holders to find a less intrusive method for protecting their intellectual property," he said.

The RIAA is the trade group for the world's major record labels include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment, EMI Group Plc EMI Recorded Music, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3104053


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Peer-to-Peer Hacking Bill Officially Introduced

Hollywood hacking bill hits House

By Declan McCullagh
July 25, 2002, 10:25 AM PT

WASHINGTON--Copyright owners would be able to legally hack into
peer-to-peer networks, according to a bill introduced in the House of
Representatives on Thursday.

As previously reported by CNET News.com, the measure would
dramatically rewrite federal law to permit nearly unchecked electronic
disruptions if a copyright holder has a "reasonable basis" to believe
that piracy is occurring.

Read the whole sorry thing. http://politechbot.com/p-03795.html


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“Overreacting six ways from Tuesday.”

House Proposal Targets File Swappers
Declan McCullagh

Peer-to-peer users who swap copyrighted files could be in danger of becoming federal felons, under a new proposal backed by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Their legislation, introduced Wednesday, would punish an Internet user who shares even a single file without permission from a copyright holder with prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $250,000.

Written by Michigan's John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee, the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act (ACCOPS) represents Congress' boldest attempt yet to shutter peer-to-peer networks, which the major record labels and movie studios view as a serious threat.

Currently, under a little-known 1997 law called the No Electronic Theft Act, many P2P users are technically already violating criminal laws. But if the ACCOPS bill were to succeed, prosecutors would not have to prove that a copyrighted file was repeatedly downloaded. Conyers' proposal would require them to prove only that the file was publicly accessible.

Other sponsors of ACCOPS are Reps. Howard Berman of California, Adam Schiff of California, Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, Robert Wexler of Florida and Anthony Weiner of New York. No Republican has supported the proposal.

One legal scholar viewed the legislation as an over-the-top measure.

"The business of expanding the criminal law so that making unauthorized personal copies of copyrighted works becomes a criminal violation is overreacting six ways from Tuesday," said Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University. "It's exceptional. But that does seem to be what the bill is trying to do."

Litman said that, without ACCOPS, criminal copyright infringement currently is "hard to prove, because you (have) to prove that a copy was actually distributed."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco, also criticized the bill. "Jailing people for file sharing is not the answer," EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann said. "Proponents of this bill are casting aside privacy, innovation and even our personal liberty as collateral damage in their war against file sharing."

ACCOPS would also do the following:

• Require that anyone distributing certain search software include a notice that "clearly and conspicuously" warns downloaders that the software may offer a security and privacy risk. The definition of search software is broad and includes any application that "enables third parties to store data" on a computer. Violators could face up to six months in prison.

• Punish anyone who knowingly provides false contact information, with intent to defraud, while registering a domain name. Penalties would include fines and up to five years in prison.

• Order the U.S. Department of Justice to share information with foreign governments to aid in tracking suspected copyright infringers. Information that can be shared includes "the technological means through which violations of the copyright law has occurred" and "the identity and location of the person who has committed such violation."

• Create a new copyright crime of recording a "motion picture as it is being performed or displayed in a motion picture theater."
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1026715.html


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Congressman pocketed $18,000 for RIAA 'lobbying trip'
Andrew Orlowski

The powerful Congressman at the center of the controversy over royalty rates for small webcasters took $18,000 from the Recording Industry Association of America.

As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, James Sensenbrenner was instrumental in forcing the deal that could result in an antitrust suit against the RIAA being filed by small webcasters.

The trouble is, Congressmen are forbidden from taking private donations to lobby abroad. Sensennbrenner recorded the visit to Taiwan and Thailand back in January, as a "fact finding mission".

According to the House Ethics Committee's advisory booklet on Gifts and Travel, "Members and staff may not accept expenses from a private source for travel the primary purpose of which is to conduct official business."

"If he's dictating policy, he should be a representative of the United States, not the RIAA," Boycott-RIAA founder Bill Evans told us.

The RIAA has confirmed that the purpose of Sensenbrenner's paid- for jaunt was one of exposition: "so they understand that this is a unified message coming from all levels of the U.S. government," according to an RIAA spokesperson.

"His own description belies that it was a 'fact-finding' trip," says Gary Ruskin, of the Congressional Accountability Project watchdog.

$18,000 can go a long way in Thailand. Sensenbrenner's brief trip was for just five days.

Three months before his five-day RIAA-sponsored trip, Sensenbrenner surprised observers by taking a close interest in the Small Webcasters Settlement Act (HR.5469) which morphed from the anticipated six-month cooling off period into a bill specifying detailed rates and conditions, which many small webcasters found unpalatable. According to participants in the negotiations, Sensenbrenner forced the webcasters to come up with a royalty settlement with the RIAA, threatening to use his staff to write the terms instead. Contacted by The Register this week, Sensenbrenner's office referered us to the House Judiciary Committee.

"It's not for us to say the rule was violated, but the House Ethics Committee should investigate, Ruskin told The Register. However, the Committee can only investigate the representative if asked to so by a fellow Congressman.

Boycott-RIAA and the Webcaster Alliance have produced an electronic form and urge music lovers to fax their Congressional representative so that an investigation can begin. You can find it here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31812.html


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Radio Royalties: The Ticking Timebomb Under The RIAA
Andrew Orlowski

An obscure backroom deal that took place in Washington DC last Fall - unreported by the specialist music press, then dismissed as insignificant after extensive coverage here at The Register - could yet be the undoing of the Recording Industry Association of America.

At stake is the RIAA's right to set punitive royalty terms for webcasters - royalties that terrestrial analog radio stations don't have to pay. But lurking in the background is the RIAA's legitimacy to police copyright terms for online, digital music. In the closing stages of the Napster trial, even Judge Patel questioned whether the RIAA had a right to perpetuate its distribution monopoly into the digital age.

Being unable to pursue its valuable copyright claims on electronic music would reduce the RIAA from being one of the richest and most powerful lobby groups into a museum piece.

But Perry Narancic, attorney for the Webcaster Alliance which this week threatened to file a suit alleging anti-competitive actions by the RIAA, stesses that this is early days.

"This is not a class action on behalf of 10,000 small webcasters," he told us. The Webcaster Alliance was born out of the acrimonious deal, reported here (see 96 pc of Net Radio' to close after backroom deal screws grassroots 'casters ) No suit has yet been filed.

Narancic explains that under Section 16 of the Clayton Act a trade association has right to injunctive relief. Also under examination is the RIAA's claim to negotiate sound recording royalites, which he argues may fall foul of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, regarding monopolization claims.

Why does he feel confident that the Webcaster Alliance could succeed where Napster had failed? Narancic says that the tradition of judicial conservatism effectively tied Judge Patel's hands in the Napster hearings.

"We believe RIAA and members control 85 to 90 per cent of the dominant market for music. They're seeking to eliminate a distribution channel that is absolutely vital to competing music from independents," he argues. "Music has a very difficult time getting exposure through traditional means. And yet the regulatory barriers are very low - Internet radio is a great way to distribute music in a convenient fashion." Raising the barrier to entry cuts off the air supply to thousands of smaller webcasters.

So what happened last Fall? Webcaster were astonished when a bill, HR.5469 hit the floor of the House. An earlier version was expected to be a simple affair which called for a moratorium for royalty payments: a six-month cooling off period. But instead the 28- page bill bound webcasters of a certain size into quite detailed rates and terms.

The revised bill, which gave interested parties only minutes to digest the new terms, was the result of a shotgun compromise between the RIAA and a group of breakaway webcasters, who styled themselves the "Voice of Webcasters". The thirteen, later eight, webcasters who signed up to the terms of HR.5469 had been under intense pressure from high-ranking Senator James Sensenbrenner, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. According to those present, Sensenbrenner - anxious for a result and under pressure from the AFL-CIO - threatened to use his own staff to set the terms.

In November, Senator Jesse Helms - under pressure from the religious broadcasters - introduced a third, revised version of HR.5469.

The Webcaster Alliance now argues that the backroom deal was anticompetitive.

At the core of the argument is how streaming media stations should pay performance royalties. All legitimate radio stations pay publishing royalties to the songwriter direct which are collected by BMI and ASCAP (unless the songwriter doesn't belong to these organizations or choose to waive the royalty).

Under the DMCA, the RIAA is entitled to collect performance royalties too, which, unusually, terrestrial stations in the United States are not required to pay. The RIAA argues that a streamed broadcast equates to a reproduction, not broadcast, even though most streams are well below the quality of CDs, and stream ripping software is itself illegal under the DMCA.

But as Kevin Shively of Beethoven.com, who withdrew his endorsement from the VoW deal, told us last October, outside the USA the performance royalties rarely exceeds the publishing royalties. "There's no way a station needs to pay a multiple of songwriter royalties," he says. "And in some cases proposed it reaches double digits."

"We're counting on the financial and moral support of the public," Alliance attorney Narancic told us this week. The Webcaster Alliance reported with scorn to comments made by John Simson, Executive Director of the RIAA's royalty collection arm SoundExchange in The Register this week, which characterized the 300-strong Webcaster Alliance as an organization of hobbyists.

Most of the 300 members are for-profit or non-profit organizations, said Alliance president Ann Gabriel. "For John Simson to classify our members as 'hobbiests' - members who have taken the time to form corporations and other legal entities so they can provide services to streaming media enthusiasts is laughable,"she said. "I consider SoundExchange the 'unincorporated division' of the RIAA to be more of a hobby than any type of operation our Webcaster Alliance members are conducting right now."

"The RIAA is a public relations nightmare unto itself," adds Narancic. This, you already know.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31705.html


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More Can Be Done To Stem The Tide Of CD Sales Declines, Says NPD Consumer Survey

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, July 15, 2003 - According to the results of a recent survey of more than 6,000 music consumers conducted by The NPD Group, more than one-third of consumers claimed to have purchased fewer CDs this year versus last year. But it's not all bad news for the recording industry: Consumers report that enhanced CD features, in conjunction with better marketing of those features, would make them more likely to buy music commercially.

According to Russ Crupnick, VP of The NPD Group: "While zero- tolerance for file-sharing has received a lion's share of media coverage, other methods to combat dwindling sales are being regularly rolled out by record labels˜though consumers are responding better to some tactics than to others."

Major reasons cited by consumers for purchasing fewer CDs include a perception that CDs are priced higher than they should be (43 percent), as well as fiscal belt-tightening due to economic uncertainty (43 percent). Among younger consumers, downloading and burning music tracks were an additional primary reason cited for purchasing declines. Forty-one percent of consumers aged 13 to 25 reported that their use of file-sharing services caused them to purchase less music.

According to The NPD Group's survey, the following extra features were most often used successfully by record labels to combat falling sales:

* Bonus Tracks were the extra feature that was recognized most by consumers (cited by 55 percent of survey respondents).

* Stickers were the most effective way to draw attention toward CD extra features (68 percent).

* Extra features were perceived to have a more positive impact on current/favorite artist sales (54 percent) than they would on new artist sales (37 percent).

* Bonus tracks (54 percent), discount/rebate offers (48 percent) and video content (42 percent) were relatively more appealing to consumers than informational features, such as interview discs and Web links (29 percent).

"With music sales continuing to decline, it's important to note that there are several marketing strategies that are getting consumers' attention," Crupnick said. "It's incumbent upon record labels and music retailers, however, to really listen to the concerns of music buyers, in order to provide them with the kind of music product they're willing to pay for."
http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=54360


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Movies on the Run
Michel Marriott

REMEMBER the first Walkman? It has been almost a quarter-century since Sony's portable cassette player changed the way people listen to music on the go. Now another form of entertainment is getting the Walkman treatment. Palm-size portable video players are beginning to change where and how people watch movies, cartoons and music videos.

The gadgets, which play compressed video files on a small screen, are designed to be generally less expensive and more convenient than portable DVD players, which have been available for several years. None of these new-generation players, in fact, play DVD's. Instead, using advances in storage and compression technology, most store video on hard drives or memory cards, much the way digital audio players store music files.

"It's just what happened to music," said Ulrich Neumann, director of the Integrated Media Systems Center at the University of Southern California. "We went from cassette tape to CD's to MP3 on memory chips or tiny hard drives. What is happening now is that you have digital movie files going from DVD's down to probably small micro drives."

A few of these players are already in stores. At the high end, Archos has released AV320 Cinema to Go, a hard-drive-based player that costs $600. At the low end, the toy manufacturer Hasbro unveiled a hand-held player for children last week called VideoNow. The $50 device plays 30-minute cartoons on a monochrome screen.

Yet it is unclear whether the public will want to watch video on a screen the size of a dollhouse window, with a resolution that is no match for even a standard TV set. After all, some hand-held organizers can show video, but that function has never been a particularly strong selling point.

Watching a movie requires more attention than listening to music, so it is difficult to see how the mobile video players will be used in the on-the-go way that portable audio players are.

Industry experts also caution that providing legal content for the devices is and will continue to be a major obstacle.

Still, several other electronics manufacturers, including ViewSonic and Samsung, have announced plans to introduce video players later this year. And Sony is developing a device, the PlayStation Portable, that will play video and music in addition to games.

But it is another game company, Nintendo, that is hastening the development of these devices, calculating that they will appeal to young people, mostly boys, who are used to playing games on a small, relatively low-resolution screen. The first mass-market wave of these gadgets is likely to piggyback on the Game Boy, Nintendo's hugely popular portable video gaming device.

Nintendo estimates that more than 150 million Game Boys have been sold since the machine was introduced in 1989. Its most recent permutation, the $100 Game Boy Advance SP, released this spring, is just 3 inches on its side when folded and about an inch thick. Most important, it has a bright full- color screen.

Parrin Kaplan, Nintendo's vice president for corporate affairs, said the company recognized the flexibility of its hand-held gaming franchise. "There's so much you can do with it," Ms. Kaplan said.

With varying degrees of support from Nintendo, four electronics companies have developed technologies that use the Game Boy Advance SP's 2.4-by- 1.6-inch screen to play anything from cartoon shorts to full-length movies in full-motion video. Some Game Boy video technology is expected to reach the market as early as September.

"It is a new application for the Game Boy Advance," Dan Kitchen, vice president for hand-held development at Majesco, a video game publisher in Edison, N.J., said of his company's approach to augmenting the Game Boy for video playback.

Called Game Boy Video Pak, the Majesco product consists of special cartridges that appear to be no different from standard Game Boy game cartridges. But when they are inserted into the Game Boy they transform it into a video player, complete with stereo sound, DVD-like controls and full- screen playback.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/te...ts/17boyy.html


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Byte Of The Apple
Charles Haddad

The Chili Peppers' Sour Grapes Over iTunes

This rock group's refusal to be included on Apple's popular new music-download service is a backward move that's doomed to fall flat.
These guys call themselves rock musicians? Where, I ask you, is their sense of storming the Establishment ramparts, of thumbing their noses at authority? Instead, by refusing to let Apple (AAPL ) sell their music online at the new iTunes Music Store, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are leading a vanguard in the wrong direction. They might as well put their clothes back on.

Of all the iTunes holdouts, the Chili Peppers, with their longstanding popularity and reputation for artistry, are perhaps the most respected. Others include bands spanning hip-hop to metal rock, from Linkin Park to Metallica. All of them fret that they would lose creative control if they let Apple sell their songs individually on iTunes. "Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format," Mark Reiter of Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Chili Peppers, Metallica, and several other artists, told Reuters recently.

TOO MUCH FILLER. It's a bogus argument that makes these bands sound like shills for the music-industry's suits. After all, most individual artists and groups lost that kind of control when they signed up with a big label. For listeners, the album format has all too often been a tool of oppression.

Sure, some bands, including the Chili Peppers, do work hard to craft albums whose span of titles are consistently good. But under pressure from their label, most artists and groups combine three or four quality songs with filler, a strategy that lets the industry justify the $15 to $20 price tag for CDs.

Such thievery sparked the rise of downloadable music, generating an opportunity for pirates using file-sharing networks such as Napster and KaZaA. Pirating music is neither legal nor right, but it's an illegitimate response to a legitimate problem. Now, Apple has seized Napster's fallen banner and is taking the digital-music revolution mainstream.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...6812_tc056.htm


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N.C. Senate Approves Policy On Refilling Printer Cartridges
AP

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state House agreed Tuesday to Senate changes to a bill that would give printer owners the right to refill any printer ink cartridge, voiding purchase agreements that ban the practice.

The bill, approved by an 80-32 vote, now goes to Gov. Mike Easley to be signed into law.

Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, had supported the same provisions the Senate put back into the bill. He said the legislation would be ineffective without them and urged his House colleagues to accept the Senate version.

"I think if Ford Motor Company tried to completely control the aftermarket by trying to control the tire you put on your car by some device, I think this Legislature would act," he said.

Some other House members said the legislation essentially gives legislative endorsement to trademark infringement. Some called it legislative meddling in the courts.

"If there is an unfair and deception trade practice, that will be found and it will be stopped," said Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, R-Wake. "The only way that the bill really matters is if in fact a court finds that it is not anti-competitive and it's not an unfair and deceptive trade practice. And if that's the case, why would we want to get involved?"

The bill was prompted by a lawsuit filed by printer company Lexmark International against Static Control Components of Sanford, which makes components for the laser printer cartridge industry.

Static Control makes computer chips that allow less expensive in cartridges to be adapted to Lexmark printers.

Static Control employs 1,200 people at plants in Sanford.

After Lexmark sued Static Control to try to stop it from manufacturing the chips, the Sanford company filed its own lawsuit, accusing Lexmark of monopolizing the toner cartridge market and falsely representing their products.

The Static Control chips mean consumers don't have to send their cartridges back to Lexmark for refills. Many Lexmark buyers agree to return the cartridges to Lexmark's factory in Kentucky in exchange for a rebate. The agreement is found on the box or in paperwork inside.
http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-371743.html


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Milking The Last Drop Of Ink From Epson’s Printers
Joe Figueiredo

Thanks to an ingenious piece of free software from Dutch online-shopping website Digital Revolution, users of
Epson computer printers can continue printing their favourite text documents and pictures—even when their printer ‘thinks’ that its ink cartridge is empty.

According to Digital Revolution’s director, Gerben Kreuning, Epson printers use a software ‘counter’ in a chip in the ink cartridge that tracks the amount of printing done (and thus the amount of ink used), determining when the printer ink-cartridge needs to be replaced and when the user needs to be informed accordingly.

However, this message is apparently issued ‘prematurely’, and by resetting this counter, printers are fooled into thinking that a new cartridge has been installed, thus allowing computer users to continue printing merrily until the cartridge is truly empty.

Digital Revolution claims to have deployed this software (which is applicable to most Epson printers) to ‘re-use’ four Epson Stylus Colour 580 cartridges after they had been ‘declared’ empty (after three to four months of intensive use).

Earlier last week, the Dutch consumer association, Consumentenbond, advised consumers against buying Epson printers because of just this reason, stating that the printer manufacturer “wants to make money out of selling consumers cartridges more often”.

Epson, which reacted angrily to this allegation, calling it “factually incorrect”, is considering legal action.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=17030


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Can an MP3 Glutton Savor a Tune?
Rogier Van Bakel

WHEN Marcel Proust bit into a little madeleine, it famously triggered a book's worth of delicate memories. But when it comes to being jolted back in time, foodstuffs aren't nearly as effective as music.

Almost everyone knows hundreds of recordings that are time machines. With a few guitar notes, or just a couple of syllables sung by a familiar voice, they transport you into your past, perhaps placing you in the middle of teenage angst and your first love. Baby boomers like me may suddenly find themselves on a long-ago road trip with a Talking Heads mix tape blaring from the speakers, or reliving a sweltering backyard evening with friends and tubs of cold beer and David Bowie incanting his inscrutably cool lyrics. By virtue of repetition over weeks or months, music can become a soundtrack for a particular time in your life.

But all that may be changing now that music fans can indulge boundless appetites, and shoveling ever more music onto CD shelves and computer hard drives has become almost a quest unto itself.

With the advent of online music services both legally sanctioned and illicit, expanding your collection no longer requires deep pockets. At www.emusic.com, for example, I typically find a few hundred good-to-great tracks each month (the service charges as little as $120 a year for virtually unlimited downloads). I'm an EMusic aficionado because the site has introduced me to artists I might otherwise have missed, like the atmospheric Scottish rockers Mogwai and the wonderfully delirious Ethiopian sax player Getachew Mekurya.

But with so much worthwhile music pouring into my computer and from there into my iPod, none of it seems quite as long-lasting or momentous as the old tunes. I'll come across sets of MP3's I have no recollection of having downloaded just weeks earlier. Such forgetfulness would surely turn into full- blown musical amnesia if I used free illicit services like Grokster, KaZaA or Morpheus, where the repertory is many times bigger than that of any fee- based MP3 site and where my musical greed would go dangerously unchecked.

My iPod, by the way, is the most capacious player on the market. It's my fourth iPod, because I ran out of space on three previous versions with smaller hard drives. And I haven't exactly stopped buying CD's, either. Just months ago I had new shelves built in my living room to accommodate my ever-growing collection of the shiny disks. (If anything, my MP3 habit fuels my CD habit; I buy official CD's of my favorite downloaded music because the sound quality of the disks is markedly better. It's also nice to have printed lyrics, liner notes and artwork.)

But sometimes doubts arise. It's not that I beat myself up over the materialist aspect of it, over the money I spend. (My excuse is that in comparison with fine art, for instance, recorded music is a pretty good bargain.) Rather, I'm thinking about what the music means to me - to us, to music fans. Are we diminishing its emotional capital by spreading our affection for new cuts so thin?

When I was a student and money was tight, virtually every album I bought came to stand for something. The music became the marker of that period for the rest of my earthly existence. I remember who I was, where I was and what my life was like when the first two Joe Jackson albums were released. That music is forever tied to the post-adolescent turmoil of those years, and to my cramped room with its preposterously huge speakers (a belated apology to my former housemates). It brings back memories of the friends I had at the time, of plays and concerts I went to, of meals and vacations and embraces and discussions. Records by Wire, John Martyn and Tom Waits had the same effect. I wrapped myself in every note, lyric fragment and album cover.

At the time, my entire music collection, after seven or eight years of buying records, consisted of maybe 150 to 200 albums. That's 2,000 songs, give or take - all of which would probably now fit on the lowliest iPod. I own a hundred times that much music these days. Question is, was I somehow getting more out of my tunes when all my albums fit into a duffel bag?

The suffering recording industry aside, there is something to be said for consuming small portions of music instead of engaging in the gluttony that has become the norm for many music fans. So here's my back-to- basics admonition to myself: Buy two or three CD's, or download just a short playlist of songs, and listen to them repeatedly. Play them so often that they become a bookmark of the present. Years from now, the music will remind you who you were, where you were, whom you were with. It will call up myriad locations, colors, smells, moods.

In other words, music's mnemonic power, like Aretha Franklin in her signature song, deserves a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T than it gets from us inveterate acquirers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/te...ne r=USERLAND


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ISPs And Labels 'Must Cooperate'
Electricnews.net

Since broadband providers and music labels have not shown a willingness to cooperate, European consumers are unlikely pay for e-music anytime soon.

That is the finding of a Jupiter Research report, which included a survey of 5,000 European consumers, 43 per cent of whom said they are not convinced that paying for a digital music service was a necessity.

Indeed, the report said that many European broadband users sign up for their high-speed connections so that they can more easily participate in illegal file sharing. Jupiter added that this motivation is not only bad for labels, but will pose an increasing problems for broadband Internet service providers (BSPs), putting their networks under greater strain.

According to the company's numbers, some 18 percent of European Internet users are still using illegal file sharing. Mark Mulligan, Jupiter senior analyst, said that as long as such high numbers are downloading illegal music, the take up of legitimate music services will be hindered. He also said that in order to convince music downloaders to switch to paid models, broadband Internet service providers (BSPs) and music labels must work together.

But this has not yet happened, despite the fact that 29 percent of BSP respondents in Jupiter's survey said that they believe that music downloads will eventually generate significant revenues. Currently, over half of the European BSPs surveyed intend to launch a music service later in this year.

Mulligan said however that any forthcoming e-music schemes from BSPs could face trouble unless broadband penetration broadens and labels must sufficient amounts of content on-line as well as offer less restrictive digital rights.

Still, some progress has been noted in 2003, Jupiter noted, with labels making more of their catalogue music available to on-line distributors. Mulligan added that BSPs and labels in Europe should learn from what's happening in the US, where the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has taken key ISPs to court to handover details of subscribers, and start cooperating.

Mulligan also said there was a huge willingness on the part of BSPs to cooperate with labels but that the strength of labels' focus on licensing was causing problems for the service providers. "Labels should not only see ISPs as a threat but see the potential to work as partners," he told ElectricNews.Net. "ISPs make a perfect distribution channel for digital music."

With respect to the prospects of major progress in the near future Mulligan said, "I don't think so, to be honest, the parties are too far apart. Labels are too concerned with tackling piracy rather than on legitimate alternatives and ISPs are focused on getting new subscribers."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31786.html


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A Congressional Look At IP Crimes
Declan McCullagh

A key legislator in the House of Representatives said Tuesday that he will release the first "Intellectual Property Crime Index" next week. Rep. Lamar Smith,

R-Texas, the chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees copyright law, said the index would accomplish what he asserts the Department of Justice statistics currently don't do well: track intellectual property crimes and analyze trends over time.

"Our analysis will break down the numbers so we know precisely what type of IP (intellectual property) crimes are occurring, from copyright law to trademark violations to the theft of trade secrets," Smith told the Media Institute, a First Amendment nonprofit group. "While some of these statistics will be familiar to us, they will also be a useful tool for lawmakers as we move forward to increase the enforcement and identification of intellectual property crimes." A year ago, Smith signed a letter to the Justice Department that urges prosecutors to seek indictments against peer-to-peer pirates.
http://news.com.com/2110-1028-1026176.html


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Online Music Commune To Share-The-Wealth Of Downloads
David Minto

Hard as it may be to shed tears for platinum-selling pop princesses and cynically-sunglassed music execs, filesharers, ‘pirates’, and music-lovers are all unlikely to want their activities to make it more difficult for genuine, uncorporatised musical talent to eke out a living.

Which is why a new UK site, IntoMusic.co.uk, may come as good news indeed. Set up by musician and web- developer Gavin Molton, the site describes itself as a cooperative venture amongst independent music artists, through which the artists themselves get a 50 per cent cut of the revenue every time one of their tracks is downloaded.

With musical styles ranging from ‘Acoustic’ through to ‘Dance Experimental’, vetted submissions are reviewed and made available to download from the site.

Users purchase tracks through a ‘credit’ system, something Molton claims is unique to the site. Credits are available in batches of 5 or 20 (on a sliding pay-scale), each one allowing users to download further tracks with burn and transfer capabilities. A streaming preview facility enables user to ‘try before they buy’, whilst unlimited- use subscription for the site is also available.

Molton explains his motivation for launching the site: “I think there’s a lack of good UK sites for downloading and discovering new music, IntoMusic.co.uk is the antidote to the current dearth of anything interesting going on in the mainstream music industry.”
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=17040


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New Cable Boxes Record Shows, Play DVDs, MP3s
Posted by xix

In the cable industry's latest move to combat competition from satellite TV, Charter Communications will soon introduce its most feature-packed cable set-top box yet.

The box, to be released in the fall, records programming onto a hard drive, has a built- in DVD player and can serve as a media center for digital photos and music. The dual- tuner device supports two TVs, allowing users to simultaneously record two different shows, or watch one program in one room while playing another show in another. It also supports high-definition television, video-on- demand and pay-per-view services.

The device also has Ethernet or wireless networking capabilities, so users can transfer digital music or photo files from a desktop computer. The machine can feed stored music or photos to a computer -- but not television programs, because of built-in copy-protections.
http://www.geeknews.net/?info=168


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Apple Beats Expectations, Posts $19 Million Profit
posted by Shane

Apple released its third quarter financial statement yesterday, beating analysts' expectations. Apple was expected to report a net profit of three cents a share on revenue of US$1.48 billion. Instead, Apple reported a net profit of 5 cents a share on $1.545 billion in revenue, with a net profit of $19 million. This compares to a net profit of $32 million, or 9 cents per share, a year ago.

Apple's desktop line-up sales are down, however laptop sales are up considerably, accounting for 46% of Macs sold, with iBooks increasing 12% and PowerBooks up 71%. Overall, Apple shipped 771,000 Macs during the quarter, which was down 5% from last year.

iPod sales are going extremely well, and the iTunes Music Store has sold 6.5 million songs to date, with 5 million of those sales coming in the third quarter.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0717020861.htm


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Senate Committee Tables Bill on Privacy
Jon Healey

A California Senate committee has postponed action on a bill by Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) that would have required Internet services to notify customers of subpoenas seeking their identities and allow more time to challenge the requests in court.

At a hearing Tuesday, leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Simitian that he didn't have the votes to get Assembly Bill 1143 through the panel, and they suggested that he bring it back next year.

Opponents of the Assembly-passed measure, led by the Motion Picture Assn. of America and several video game companies, argue that it would make it harder to protect their intellectual property from being stolen online.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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Music Pirate Hunt Turns To Loyola
Robert Becker and Angela Rozas

2 students' names are handed over; lawsuit possible.

Preparing more lawsuits to fight music piracy, the recording industry has subpoenaed records from Loyola University Chicago seeking the names of students suspected of offering copyrighted songs over the school's computer network.

University officials said they have complied with the July 7 subpoena from the Recording Industry Association of America and have turned over the names of two students linked to an Internet address listed in the court document. The students, who have not been identified, share a dorm room, school officials said.

"We take these things seriously," said Rev. Richard Salmi, vice president of student affairs at Loyola. "We let the students know that from time to time."

The subpoena to Loyola is just the latest twist in a long fight waged by the recording industry to protect the work of such artists as Sheryl Crow and Shakira from being pirated off the Internet or local computer networks.

After battling big file-swapping services like Grokster and Kazaa, the industry is now also going after individual users.

RIAA attorneys are collecting evidence and sending out subpoenas to Internet service providers, including colleges. Officials declined to comment on any specific subpoena or on who may be a recipient.

Just last month, a federal appeals court rejected a request by Verizon Communications Inc. to delay turning over the names of four of its Internet subscribers suspected of illegally offering free music for downloading.

"They are sending a message," said Tom Lewry, a Southfield, Mich., attorney who represented a Michigan Technological University student who was sued by RIAA. "A lot of it is overkill."

Education officials say that while universities are typically under legal obligation to protect student privacy, the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act afford students suspected of copyright infringement no such protection.

The privacy laws "do not give students a license to steal," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel with the American Council on Education, a Washington-based group representing college and university presidents. "And as such, the subpoenas rendered by the RIAA are reasonable and valid ... and the institutions have an obligation to comply with the law."

Some students, however, fretted that their privacy was being violated.

"I don't think they should go through the school to get names," said Laurence Stepney, 19, a sophomore from Oak Park studying psychology and theater. "If they want to go through on their own and find out who it is, that's fine, but I don't want record companies looking at what I look at at school."

For the moment, Loyola is the only local school known to be served with a subpoena. The University of Illinois and Northwestern University, for example, say they have had no such contact with the RIAA. Officials at the University of Chicago could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
http://www.mediareform.net/news.php?id=650


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Retooled Airplane Albums Ready For Takeoff
Troy Carpenter

Almost 30 years after a host of lineup changes led psychedelic-era pioneers Jefferson Airplane to rechristen themselves as Jefferson Starship (later just Starship), BMG Heritage has prepared deluxe reissues of the group's first four albums, all set for an Aug. 19 release.

"Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," "Surrealistic Pillow," "After Bathing at Baxter's" and "Crown of Creation" have each been digitally remastered from the original master tapes by engineer Bob Irwin and amended with rare or unreleased bonus tracks and liner notes by biographer Jeff Tamarkin.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1934939


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Neil Young Surveys 'Greendale'
Jonathan Cohen

Neil Young has set an Aug. 19 release for his next Reprise album, "Greendale." The 10- song set chronicles the life and times of the Green family, residents of the fictional town from which the album takes its name. "Greendale" will be bundled with a bonus DVD of Young performing the album in sequence during a recent solo acoustic show in Dublin.

In his review of the show for Billboard.com, Nick Kelly said the Green family seemed to "represent the best of America -- they're by turns kind, loyal, creative, rebellious, and self-possessed. We heard tales of Grandma and Grandpa Green and it's almost as if we were back on Sugar Mountain or at home with the Waltons."

Young is backed on the album by Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Billy Talbot. The artist is right at home as the all-knowing narrator of the stories, which run the gamut from "Carmichael" (where one character murders a policeman after being caught with drugs in his car) to "Bandit," marked by the bittersweet lament: "someday you'll find everything you're looking for."

"Greendale" will also exist as a stand-alone film, directed by Young under his alias Bernard Shakey. No dialog is included in the movie, which features a number of Young's family members and such longtime associates as musician Ben Keith and "Greendale" album co-producer L.A. Johnson. Young himself cameos as entertainer Wayne Newton.

The "Greendale" film will premiere in September at the Toronto Film Festival and will be released as a separate DVD in the fall. The "Greendale" acoustic concert will air on local cable television stations in more than 100 markets in August, as well as on DirecTV.

On the same day "Greendale" is released, Reprise will reissue the long out-of-print Young albums "On the Beach," "American Stars 'N Bars," "Hawks & Doves" and "Re.ac.tor," which were originally slated for June 24.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1933832


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Processing MPEG-2 Compressed Material
Irina Piens

Within the context of an IST project, a software development toolkit has been generated that supports editing operations in the compressed domain for MPEG-2 formats.

MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), constitute a set of standards that are most often employed for coding audio- visual information in a digitally compressed format. Thereby, extremely robust compression methods are used that allow significantly smaller size files with the same quality in comparison to other coding formats. Among the various versions, the MPEG-2 format has already gained the wider acceptance of consumers and professional users of video material.

Focusing on developing new ways of easy and timely manipulation of video content, this EC-funded project has also introduced the so-called Compressed Editing Toolkit (CET). While most conventionally used approaches offer decode-edit-encode capabilities, the innovative CET offers manipulation of images to be directly applied to the compressed data. In this way, processing MPEG-2 in the compressed domain may be significantly improved as far as performance and quality are concerned.

More specifically, the smart rendering features of CET are limited to simple copy operations, thus preventing excessive encoding and decoding that may lead to loss of video quality. Additionally, this may also reduce processor intensive recording, which is a time-consuming and effort-requiring task. In particular, the integrated scene cut detection algorithms have been designed to offer preservation of video quality and fast execution. General MPEG-2 support functions such as key frame grabbing, optimised scaling, seeking and playback have been also included.

This special library may be used either as stand-alone software with simple and flexible integration and usage or an incorporated part of other project's results (VIZARD-Installer). The provider is looking for various sorts of collaborations with commercial and scientific organisations. Moreover, partners are sought who may act as sales points for marketing and distribution of the CET as standalone software kit or as an innovative part of advanced video publishing Tools in the worldwide market.
http://dbs.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchida...OFFR_O_BUSI_EN


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3 Blinks Means You're Hot: A Wireless Network Tracker
Glenn Fleishmann

You've seen them wandering through airports and conference centers, holding laptops up at strange angles and squinting at the screens. They move slowly forward, then backward. Then they often scratch their heads, stow their computers and wander off muttering.

They are the wireless network dowsers, wistfully searching for network signals in public places.

This month Kensington will add a helpful tool to the diviner's kit when it releases the WiFi Finder.

The tiny gadget ($29.99) has three green light-emitting diodes and a button. When the button is pressed, the device scans the area for a network within 200 feet using the common 802.11b or the newer 802.11g network standard. If it finds one or more networks, it displays the signal strength of the strongest network with one, two or three L.E.D.'s.

The WiFi Finder's set of Wi-Fi chips will sense only that type of network, filtering out other radio signals and interference in its frequency range from devices like cordless phones or Bluetooth networks. More information is available at www.kensington.com.

Kevin Ota, a spokesman for Kensington, said the company's engineers had come up with the idea for the WiFi Finder after experiencing frustration of their own in finding networks. The product is a bit out of character for a company known primarily for mice and other computer peripherals. "We just thought it would be practical," Mr. Ota said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/te...ts/17find.html


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DirecTV Dragnet Snares Innocent Techies

In recent months the satellite TV giant has filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits against people who've purchased signal piracy devices. But some of those devices have legitimate uses, and innocent computer geeks are getting caught in the crackdown.
Kevin Poulsen

In 2000, Texas-based physician Rod Sosa says he had the entrepreneurial notion that medical offices might pay a premium for a secure workstation -- one better suited for housing sensitive patient information than an off-the-shelf PC. A long time computer geek and tinkerer -- as well as a medical doctor and internist -- Sosa began working on a prototype. "I wanted to do this as a means of making extra money outside of my own practice," he says.

Sosa quickly became enamored of the idea of using smart cards to provide access control at the keyboard; the PC would have an attached reader, and physicians, medical assistants and office staff would all carry their own cards that would unlock the system. So the doctor ordered an inexpensive smart card programmer from the Web, and began experimenting. "It turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated," Sosa recalls. He lost interest in the plan, and the $79 programmer was relegated to Sosa's electronics junk box with the old RS-232 cables and 5 1/4 inch floppy drives.

It sat there forgotten for nearly two years, until October, 2002, when Sosa received a letter from satellite TV giant DirecTV. The company accused him of purchasing piracy equipment, and, by extension, stealing DirecTV's signal. When he called the company to clear things up, he found they weren't interested in his explanations: they wanted $3,500 and the smart card programmer, or they would literally make a federal case out of it and sue him under anti-piracy laws. "I didn't know what to do, I was completely flabbergasted. So I sent the money in," says Sosa. "I have a livelihood, and I have a family, and there are a lot of things that I`d rather be than right."

And with that, Sosa was swept into and back out of DirecTV's vast anti-piracy machine -- perhaps the most massive corporate law enforcement effort since AT&T took on the blue box in the early 1970s. Backed by a legion of lawyers and empowered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, former FBI agents in the company's Office of Signal Integrity have staged raids against businesses that deal in piracy equipment, seizing customer lists and inventory with armed law enforcement officers as backup. The company has shut down scores of websites that sold or advertised equipment, often repurposing them with new content warning about the perils of piracy, and issuing dark threats like "your IP address has been logged" and "this site uses cookies" (it doesn't). Some of the commandeered sites now keep visitors up to date on DirecTV's latest courtroom victories, though ignoring their losses.

Last month DirecTV even won a court order gagging the webmaster of the Pirates Den, one of the largest and oldest electronic watering holes for satellite pirates. Using a Canadian legal instrument called an Anton Piller order, DirecTV had the site shuttered, and British Columbia-based proprietor Daryl "Risestar" Gray barred from discussing the action in public, according to sources close to the defense. The case is still being litigated, and Gray has launched another message board called Freedom Fight, where among fevered user discussions on the shutdown's implications for free speech and Canadian sovereignty, his court-ordered silence resonates.

But the most controversial pincer in DirecTV's piracy war is its fierce and growing campaign against end users -- the pirates themselves, who use devices like "bootloaders," "unloopers," and emulators to hack DirecTV receivers, or reprogram DirecTV smart cards, to receive standard and premium programming and pay-per-view content for free. Targeting pirates for their piracy is difficult, if not impossible, since receiving DirecTV is a passive operation. So instead the company is going after people like Sosa, who have purchased hardware from one of the equipment vendors shut down in the DMCA raids. Critics say that approach is misguided, and is snaring innocent hobbyists and security researchers, some of whom have never even owned a satellite dish. "Innocent people are being caught in DirecTV's dragnet," says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which began receiving calls for help from DirectTV defendants last year.

The company begins by sending the equipment-purchaser a letter, sometimes through a local law firm, citing a hefty sack of federal statues that outlaw piracy or possession of signal theft equipment. The letter gives the recipient a deadline of a couple of weeks to contact DirecTV, or face litigation and possible damages of $100,000 or more.

If the recipient calls the phone number on the letter, they're given a settlement offer -- usually the same $3,500 that Sosa paid. If they don't pay up, or if they ignore the letter entirely, another letter arrives in the mail as a reminder that settling with the company is the only way to resolve the matter "without either of us incurring significant legal costs." If the recipient still doesn't play ball, the company makes good on its threat and files a lawsuit. At that point, the settlement price tag jumps to $10,000 -- still less than the typical cost of paying a lawyer to go to trial against a corporate powerhouse in federal court.

DirectTV has sent out tens of thousands of these demand letters, and filed lawsuits against over 8,700 people around the country, most of them in the last six months. "The veil of anonymity has been lifted," says company spokesman Robert Mercer. "We believe that this really does send a very strong message to consumers that they can't steal DirecTV's signal with impunity."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31793.html


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The RIAA Offensive: Part III
Thomas Mennecke

Filetopia, while small compared to its powerhouse brethern, has long been an important member of the file-sharing community. With a stable userbase of approximately 3-4 thousand, the population of this network trade files in a secure and encrypted environment. In fact, Filetopia is the only sizable P2P network able to provide a secure environment while able to accommodate a mainstream audience.

Like our eDonkey interview, we asked three questions to "Enrique", the developer of Filetopia. We would like to thank him for his time and effort that made this article possible.

Slyck.com: What are your thoughts on the latest statement from the RIAA?

Filetopia: This is an indication of their weakness. They're losing the battle and this is a desperate move to scare the users. They will not succeed and their fanatical muscle cannot be big enough to sue a significant number of file-sharing users. This will probably make people share their files more, maybe taking more protective steps.

Slyck.com: How would you gauge the seriousness of this situation?

Filetopia: They're seriously losing the battle; their numbers probably show it. They may be able to sue a few hundred people, but we are many millions.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=196


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Fox, Disney, Universal Sue China Firms Over Pirated Films

SHANGHAI (AFP) - Three major US film studios have filed suit against three Chinese companies alleging copyright violations through the sale of pirated video discs.

In the first action of its kind in Shanghai, Fox Entertainment's Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, Walt Disney Co and French- owned Vivendi Universal's Universal Studios are seeking a public apology, compensation and a halt to the alleged violations, the Shanghai Daily reported. The case was heard last week by Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court, the report said. Yang Jun, a lawyer representing all three companies, told the newspaper that the plaintiffs had sent staff to the outlets of the three defendants and bought pirated VCDs and DVDs. "With China's entry to the World Trade Organization, the protection of intellectual property rights must be enhanced," Yang was quoted as saying. "If piracy is not properly combated, it could hamper the further introduction of good films from abroad and influence the development of the market." Fox is suing Shanghai Hezhong Enterprise Development Co for allegedly selling pirated copies of the fourth series of the television series "X Files" and is seeking 220,000 yuan (26,800 dollars) in compensation. The company is also suing Shanghai Yatu Film Culture for allegedly selling pirated copies of the same title and of "Speed 2", demanding 415,000 yuan (50,600 dollars) in compensation, the report said. Shanghai Husheng Audio-Visual Co is also in its sights for allegedly selling fake copies of the fourth series of "X-Files", and the films "Courage Under Fire" and "Moulin Rouge". Fox wants 615,000 yuan (75,000 dollars) compensation. Disney filed its suit against Yatu over alleged pirated copies of "A Bug's Life" and "Dinosaur" and is demanding similar compensation. Meanwhile, Universal has sued Husheng for allegedly selling pirated copies of "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic Park III". It has also sued Hezhong over "The Bone Collector" and "Jurassic Park III". Chinese law currently allows foreign film companies to seek a maximum 500,000 yuan (61,000 dollars) in compensation for each title if they are unable to provide exact details on losses or the counterfeiters' profit. The newspaper cited court officials as saying that both plaintiffs and defendants have agreed to mediation, although there has been no discussion of money.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030714/323/e44w0.html


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Avril Plugs Into iTunes
Jonathan Cohen

Teen pop/rock sensation Avril Lavigne is offering a five-track live EP for paid download exclusively through Apple's iTunes Music Store, beginning today (July 15). The cuts, "Sk8er Boi," "Nobody's Fool," "Unwanted, "Losing Grip" and a cover of Green Day's "Basket Case" were recorded on March 23 in Dublin. Fans can purchase individual tracks for 99 cents or the full EP for $4.95.

Lavigne recently completed her Try to Shut Me Up world tour, which will be chronicled with "My World," a concert CD and DVD due in October from Arista. Beyond live performances, the DVD will sport "backstage and on-the-road shenanigans with Avril and her band, as well as opening acts who took part in the tour," according to Lavigne's official Web site.

The artist was touring in support of her Arista debut, "Let Go," which is No. 63 in its 57th week on The Billboard 200 and has been certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for U.S. shipments of 6 million copies.

Lavigne is up for three Teen Choice Awards, including best album and best single, to be handed out Aug. 6 on Fox.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1933652