[JackSpratts]

UCLA To Consider Using Detection Device For Copyrighted Files
Dmitri Pikman

New hardware introduced in January and currently used at two universities may put an end to illegal music downloads among college students.

The hardware, called CopySense Network Appliance, can be used to identify copyrighted songs and to block those songs from being downloaded on peer-to-peer networks.

"Basically it's the digital equivalent of a human ear. It listens to content, 'hears' it, and then generates a unique digital fingerprint," said Roland Woodcock, a spokesman for Audible Magic Corporation, the makers of the new device.

Central Washington University is one of two universities using the hardware on a trial basis. The second university did not want to be named, said Ikezoye, the chief executive officer for Audible Magic.

Additionally, a couple of other unnamed universities have purchased the hardware for use on their campuses, Ikezoye added.

UCLA officials will see a demonstration of CopySense later this month, though university officials want some questions answered about issues such as student privacy before they consider the hardware, said Jim Davis, associate vice chancellor of information technology.

"We've been tracking the product, and it is our intent to evaluate it and understand it in detail," Davis said.

Privacy advocates have questioned whether CopySense violates privacy laws because of its ability to take a digital "fingerprint" of files.

Ikezoye said such worries are unfounded because the new hardware comes with two different versions, one of them aimed at maintaining the privacy of those using the peer-to-peer downloading networks.

One version, geared mainly towards businesses, will be used to identify individual downloading behavior by tracking IP addresses, which are unique to every computer involved in downloading copyrighted files.

"Higher education institutions are more interested in the second version, which does not report on individual usage but just blocks file traffic," Ikezoye said.

Blocking peer-to-peer networks at the university level always has been plagued with difficulties.

"The one way you can block peer-to-peer sharing of music is (to) block all peer-to-peer sharing, but there are a lot of legitimate reasons for peer-to-peer networking, so it results in overkill," said Christine Borgman, a professor and chair of the information studies department.

Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, said the university may choose to block the downloading of copyrighted music files – because it owns the network – while not barring access to other useful information.

"If a university decides to block access to racist or communist material, for example, then that might raise a question of academic freedom – but not with copyrighted songs," Volokh said.

Ikezoye said this perceived overkill would not present a problem for CopySense users, as the new hardware can be configured three different ways.

One setting would block all peer-to-peer network traffic, making it impossible to trade files over the network.

Another setting would block only copyrighted content or any content specifically designated by the hardware owners, and the third would monitor the network without blocking downloads.

This flexibility of use will allow universities to continue sharing information over their networks while protecting copyrighted files, Ikezoye added.

"It provides a very good balance, for a university to be able to block copyrighted files download while also allowing peer-to-peer network trading to go on," Ikezoye said.

UCLA does not monitor its networks for the purpose of discovering potentially illegal activities, but it does pursue a set of ongoing initiatives geared toward protecting copyrighted files.

Those initiatives include educating students on copyright laws and the possible sanctions against known violators of those laws.

UCLA also prioritizes Web and e-mail traffic over file-sharing to keep total network traffic below a certain cap, a practice which is common throughout the University of California and other universities.

UCLA also will be embarking on an educational campaign to make students more aware of the possible consequences of illegal file-sharing, Davis said.

Some anti-piracy organizations are saying this attitude of education might be most beneficial toward curbing the spread of downloads of copyrighted files.

"I hope that universities play a role in the education of their students about the importance of intellectual property," said Ron Roecker, a spokesman for the Recording Academy.

He added that his organization does not promote a Big Brother role in regard to copyrighted music downloads, preferring to remain primarily an education organization.

The Recording Industry Association of America, however, has been taking a much more proactive role in recent months, suing hundreds of people – including college students – who have downloaded copyrighted files over the course of the last several months.

Ikezoye said the new hardware might be a way to manage copyrighted downloads without lawsuits.

"Peer-to-peer networks are a great technology, a great way for a community to get together, but we need to balance (them) with the rights of the creative person who does not want (his or her) things to be out there," Ikezoye said.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/...s.asp?id=28276


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Universities Use Software To Squash File-Sharing
Virginia Zignego

Two universities are making it harder for students to download copyrighted music.

Central Washington University and another university, which requested to remain nameless, have installed a filter that prevents users on the university's network filter from downloading copyrighted songs.

The universities are the first to thwart attempts at downloading music directly. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, employ a system that does not exclude downloading on the network but instead regulates such downloads to a slower network speed.

Central Washington University and the other university are in an experimental stage with the network filter, developed by Audible Magic Co., according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Audible Magic's product has been nicknamed a "file swap killer." It is slated as a way to "comprehensively control peer-to-peer file sharing," according to news articles and product descriptions on Audible Magic Company's website.

The technology allows users to block all peer-to peer-file transfer involving copyrighted material. All downloads on the universities' networks are matched against the filter's database of four million copyrighted songs. If a user attempts to download one of the songs in the database, the filter prevents the download.

Central Washington University officials have previously said the decision to use Audible Magic's product resulted from frustration with a slow network speed coming from a large numbers of songs being downloaded. Central officials also spent a large amount of time responding to cease-and-desist requests from the Recording Industry Association of America.

UW senior administrative program specialist Brian Rust said UW has no plans to use a network filter comparable to Audible Magic's.

Rust said, however, that UW housing has employed a "package shaper" since the beginning of the 2004-05 academic year.

"Our package shaper profiles the file sharing type and relegates it to a slower network speed. There isn't as much bandwidth access for file sharing as for other types of Internet usage," Rust said. "It was instituted at [UW] housing's request and seems to have taken care of most of the slow Internet problems in UW housing."

UW students expressed varying opinions on university property control issues.

"On campus is university property," UW senior Laura Kelash said. "If network bandwidth is occupied mainly by students downloading, the university also has to protect its property."

Some students, however, believe the property belongs to the people essentially paying for it.

"It's university property, but who pays tuition and UW housing fees, which all go into developing and maintaining the network?" said a UW junior who wished to remain anonymous. "Do all these people making the rules pay to have someone tell them how to use what they've paid for?"

As a response to results from a recent Harvard University study showing file down loaders actually buy more music than those who do not illegally download, UW sophomore Abby Vanderscheuren said she can understand both sides of the issue.

"As a musician, I can see where groups are concerned if they're not receiving royalties," she said. "But I don't think that most of the time people download a whole album. Usually it's just one song they don't want to spend $15 on a CD for."
http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/di.../40761e0303e43


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Valenti, Right and Wrong, Is a Man to Respect
Dan Gillmor

How I wish Jack Valenti had been on our side in the copyright war.

Valenti will soon retire from his decades-long post as president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the industry's enormously effective lobbying arm. I'm going to miss him.

A little story will help explain why. In October 2002, a colleague called to say that Valenti, during a meeting with reporters in Los Angeles, had denounced a
column of mine. The piece had been harsh, not for the first time, about the entertainment industry's copyright stance, which sought -- and continues to seek -- absolute control over digital content.

I called the MPAA and offered a deal. I would interview Valenti and, to the best of my ability, reflect his views in a column, followed a week later by my response.

The answer was an immediate "yes." Several weeks later, we met in Valenti's Washington office, a short stroll from the White House where he had served as a key aide to Lyndon Johnson before taking the helm of the MPAA in 1966.

Nothing he said surprised me, or changed my views. But I was struck by three things. First, despite my best efforts, he used his well-honed ability to weave around the questions he either couldn't or didn't want to answer. Second, he reflected his employers' -- and, I believe, his own -- views in his typically eloquent yet plain-spoken way.

Finally, he was gracious and respectful -- a gentleman. And shortly after the interview was published, he wrote me a letter -- on paper, not e-mail -- thanking me for the opportunity to be heard.

No doubt, the huge sums of cash the MPAA throws around in Washington and the state capitals accounts for much of the industry's clout. But so does the personal charm of someone like Valenti, 82, who is testament to the fact that it's much more pleasant to have an intelligent debate with people like Valenti than with verbal bomb throwers. It's easier to listen, for one thing.

It's also important to note that while the film industry is guilty of many sins, movie people have been some of the most important and effective defenders of free speech in recent times -- at least since the days of the cowardly McCarthy-era blacklisting.

I loathe much of what comes out of Hollywood. I'm especially contemptuous of the gratuitous bloodbaths aimed at impressionable teenagers; I wish the people who put out this garbage had more of a conscience. But I also understand that free speech means defending unpopular speech, especially what makes you furious. You challenge bad speech with better speech. You don't censor it.

I thought this was largely a given in America. But the blue-nosed, neo-Victorians are on the move again, trying to stomp out speech they don't like. They say they're protecting children, as they ignore the best protection of all: changing the channel.

Valenti has been one of the most prominent voices in protecting our First Amendment, at least when it comes to the rights of filmmakers. I salute him for that.

As my friend Cory Doctorow -- a writer and campaigner for civil liberties in the Digital Age -- has observed, the film industry's lobbying clout stems in part from its defense of First Amendment rights.

But as he also notes, Valenti has not been a friend of free speech for programmers. Nor has Valenti been a friend of innovation, not when it challenged the movie industry's business model.

In this context I consider the members of the MPAA and its music counterpart, the Recording Industry Association of America, to be akin to a cartel. These industries are largely responsible for the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, a law that turned First Amendment logic on its head.

To stop copyright infringements, the cartel has used the DMCA to threaten or stifle scholarly research. It has gotten courts to rule that journalists may not even publish hyperlinks to certain Web sites where people can find information on how to play DVDs on unauthorized machines. It has sued technology companies that dared to create products with entirely non-infringing uses.

I also believe Valenti and the cartel were dead wrong when they got Congress to keep extending copyright terms. They are taking away the public domain, the traditional bedrock of creativity and innovation, to protect the financial interests of a tiny group of corporate copyright holders.

These are not small matters. They are not solely about the rights of copyright holders vs. the rights of everyone else. They go to the heart of tomorrow's economy.

Valenti has shown respect for his opponents, something I can't say his employers have done as a rule. If they're smart they'll find someone who is equally charming, not just equally cunning, to fill his shoes.

So, as I said, I'll miss him. He has been a constant reminder that, as the saying goes, we can disagree without being disagreeable.

One of Valenti's longtime opponents in the copyright debate has been another friend, activist John Perry Barlow. I mentioned to him how much I wished Valenti had been on what I consider the right side. He replied:

"Jack has been wrong, but he's been so entertainingly, eloquently and charmingly wrong. He could never have been on our side, though. He was born into a different world. He still lives there."


Comments

And meanwhile my "Boston Strangler" keeps playing movies as I pump money into the Hollywood money machine. Jack was a man of limited vision, unfortunately, and even more unfortuunately that seems to be the norm in the copyright holders camp.

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/colu...s/010192.shtml


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The Voluntary Collective License



This is a sketch of how a voluntary collective license might work if applied to P2P. I left out the bugs, snags and roadblocks in order to first illustrate the concept. However, the source files are available [PDF, OmniGraffle, Visio or PNG] under a CC license if you'd like to add those features yourself.
http://www.trubble.com/vcl.html


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The Invisible Inner Circle

Forget Gnutella. Frankel's Waste is where it's at.
Robert Capps

Kazaa and Gnutella are fine for the masses, but real peer-to-peer insiders do their file swapping behind the velvet ropes of Waste - and odds are you're not on the list. Credit file-sharing wunderkind Justin Frankel, who wrote the MP3 player Winamp and the P2P program Gnutella. His bosses at AOL ordered him to shutter the latter. So Frankel came up with a better idea: Waste, which hides file-sharing, chat, and instant messaging behind bombproof, munitions-grade encryption. Users can even run Waste as a "darknet," secretly piggybacking on university or corporate networks. Only the invited can join; no bosses, copyright watchdogs, or bandwidth hogs allowed.

Of course, AOL spiked Waste, too, and Frankel has since quit. The software is still on the Web, though, so if you can't score an invitation, you can start your own inner circle. But keep a close eye on the guest list. Like all the best clubs, Waste networks get overcrowded. One operator says he's already shut down two. "I don't care what some random jackass has to offer," he says. "It's much more interesting to see what my friends are doing." More proof of its exclusivity: Waste uses network port 1337 - in coder-doodz lingo, that's Leet, as in elite.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...tart.html?pg=9


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New York Police Bust Pirate CD Operation
David Gregorio

Thousands of illegal knock-off recordings by such artists as Bruce Springsteen and 50 Cent were seized and six suspected CD pirates arrested in one of the biggest raids to date on a pirate recording shop in the Northeastern United States, authorities said Saturday.

Police who raided the home Friday said they found 15,000 counterfeit recorded compact discs and blanks, along with equipment capable of churning out up to 5,000 CDs an hour.

Officials believe some 70,000 pirated CDs a week were coming out of the two-story, red brick house in the New York City borough of Queens. They arrested six suspects aged 19 to 29, who were to be arraigned on charges carrying sentences of up to four years in prison.

Police said they were combing through the thousands of recordings, which included music by Jessica Simpson, Alicia Keys, Sheryl Crow and Eminem. They also found apparently counterfeit designer handbags, luggage and pornographic DVDs.

"The counterfeit CDs turn up all over the city," Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement. "They are sold in neighborhood retail stores, in flea markets and by street corner vendors" for $4 to $5 apiece, much less than the $15 to $18 charged by legitimate retailers for authentic CDs.

Acting on a tip by private investigators for the record industry, undercover officers placed an order at the pirate plant and turned up with a search warrant while the plant was making the discs, law enforcement sources told Reuters.

The pirate CD shop was one of the biggest such operations ever found in the Northeastern United States, Brad Buckles, director of the Recording Industry Association of America's anti-piracy unit, said Saturday.

"The size of this operation puts a different face on music piracy," Buckles told Reuters. "People who see a street vendor with a few phony CDs on a blanket tend to think this is no big deal, but it requires a very organized criminal enterprise to carry off something like this."

Buckles said the pirates were "able to produce these CDs for probably a half a dollar. They don't have to pay for the artist or anyone else involved. So that's an enormous amount of money in the underground economy."

The recording industry has estimated that CD pirates cost it $400 million a year in lost sales.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4677504


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Cable or Phone? Difference Can Be Taxing
Matt Richtel

Are you paying monthly taxes on your high-speed Internet connection?

The answer, bizarrely, depends on whether you use a cable connection or a telephone data line, even though the two services offer comparable access to the Internet.

In Minnesota, for example, customers of Earthlink Inc., an Internet service provider, who get broadband access from a cable modem pay no tax on the service. But Earthlink customers who get their high-speed access through telephone digital subscriber lines have to pay $3.10 a month in state and local taxes and other surcharges. A similar tax distinction is made in 17 other states and the District of Columbia.

This odd situation has grabbed attention in the Senate, and is part of a debate on whether to extend a tax moratorium on Internet services, an issue the Senate may vote on this month. Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia, has strongly argued that state taxation of digital lines slows the spread of high-speed broadband and unfairly distorts the market.

"You're giving the advantage to one technology over another," Senator Allen said. "It's discriminatory taxes." He is sponsoring a bill that would ban taxes on all forms of Internet access, regardless of the technology involved, similar to a bill the House approved in September. But some lawmakers and state and local government officials argue that taxes on digital subscriber lines have become important sources of revenue.

Treating the two kinds of broadband access differently has its roots in the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act, which barred states from taxing Internet services for three years to encourage the expansion of online commerce.

The tax moratorium, which Congress extended in 2001 and expired in November, did not apply to "telecommunications services," industry experts said, because Congress feared that phone companies would use the moratorium to avoid paying tariffs like the universal service fee, which is used to subsidize telephone service in rural areas.

Congress is considering whether to extend, or even make permanent, the tax ban. Senator Allen's bill, which has passed out of the Commerce Committee, appears headed for a Senate vote this month. A competing bill, sponsored by Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, may also see Senate action.

During the moratorium, some states took the position that under the 1998 law they were still allowed to tax digital subscriber lines provided by phone companies because of the telecommunications exclusion.

Telephone industry representatives said it was difficult to generalize about how much state and local taxes add to digital line costs, but it could be as much as $4 a month. Cable and digital line services cost $30 to $50 a month, with cable costing slightly more in most markets, analysts said. Lee Goodman, a lawyer for Time Warner Cable and America Online, said Congress excluded telecommunications services from the tax moratorium because it wanted to draw a distinction between phone and Internet service. But Mr. Goodman says, "Technology has vaulted ahead of law, thus forcing this debate."

In the last five years, the distinction has become increasingly important for state and local governments as well as for the telephone and cable companies that are battling in the broadband market.

Cable companies control about two-thirds of that market, with phone companies controlling a third. Although those shares are holding fairly steady, phone industry representatives argue that the additional taxes place their Internet services at a significant disadvantage to cable.

Taxes on digital subscriber line services are collected in 18 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research institute.

Senator Allen's bill would ban all taxes on Internet access services, including digital subscriber lines. It would give state and local governments three years to phase out Internet taxes.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, those governments collect around $40 million a year in taxes on high-speed digital lines. But that is not the only potential tax loss. The 1998 Internet law allowed 10 states, which at that time were taxing Internet access from both cable and telephone companies, to continue doing so. If Senator Allen's bill is adopted, those states could lose $80 million to $120 million a year, the Congressional Budget Office said.

Harley Duncan, executive director of the Federation of Tax Administrators, said the loss in tax revenue would be devastating. "This really blows a hole in state budgets," Mr. Duncan said.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she had been contacted by 121 cities and counties protesting a tax moratorium. "This will eliminate bona fide revenues from cities and counties that are struggling to stay afloat," she said.

The debate in Congress has split between those who want to nurture Internet technology and those who want to protect state and local tax revenue, with the sides supporting competing bills.

"Congress has taken a temporary ban on Internet access and turned it into a giveaway program to the high-speed Internet industry," said Senator Alexander, who has proposed legislation that would allow states that currently tax Internet services to maintain those taxes.

"If Congress wants to give big tax breaks to the high-speed Internet industry, Congress ought to pay for it," he said. Senator Alexander's bill, however, would not allow states to add Internet taxes.

He acknowledged that under his legislation, digital line customers would be subject to taxes while cable customers would remain exempt.

But he said that problem should be remedied by the Federal Communications Commission, which has defined the cable industry as an "information service" and the telephone industry as a "telecommunications service." If the commission defined the industries comparably, he argued, they would be subject to the same tax laws.

Senator Alexander compared efforts to roll back the states' ability to charge taxes on digital lines to an "unfunded mandate."

"Americans are sick and tired of Congress coming up with expensive ideas," he said, "taking credit, then sending the bill to state and local governments."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/te...y/05taxes.html


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Feds Tell States 'VoIP Is Ours'
Ben Charny and Declan McCullagh

Sen. John Sununu announced on Friday long-awaited Internet phone legislation that would effectively eliminate state and local authorities' ability to tax and regulate broadband phone calls.

The bill, which is expected to draw fire from state governments, says all authority over regulating VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services is "reserved solely to the federal government."

The measure, VoIP Regulatory Freedom Act, also imposes some curbs on the Federal Communications Commission's ability to extend to
VoIP much of the thick quilt of rules and requirements that govern the traditional phone network. For instance, it bans imposing certain "access charge" taxes, but does require the FCC to levy VoIP universal service fees that will be redirected to provided discounted analog phone service to low-income and rural Americans.

VoIP "is at a critical stage in its development, but its potential to serve consumers, business, and society is enormous," Sununu, R-N.H., said Friday. "Unfortunately, some interests would like to impose an outdated and stifling regulatory framework on this service, rather than allow VoIP to continue to expand freely."

A backlash from states is expected, according to Mike Hurst, legislative director for Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., who introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives on Monday.

"Of course they are going to be pissed," Hurst said.

Two representatives of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) did not return calls for comment. NARUC has battled earlier attempts to limit state authority over the broadband phone industry.

The legislation is another attempt by federal policymakers to claim lone responsibility for regulating VoIP calls. The FCC wants a light hand to foster the young industry, while states and cities fear that as more calls make their way onto the unregulated Internet, they'll have less taxes to collect to support 911 and other public services.

Federal regulators began proceedings weeks ago to answer many of the same questions posed in the congressional legislation.

Sununu's proposal also addresses the controversial issue of VoIP wiretapping, saying that VoIP companies that provide links to the existing telephone network--a category that would include Vonage, for instance--must provide some "access to necessary information to law enforcement agencies." But the access requirement, a key concern of the FBI, would not apply to instant messaging applications or peer-to-peer services like Skype.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352-5184603.html


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Judge Drops Internet Defamation Suit
NewsMax Wires

In a case defense attorneys called the first to test the limits of Internet free speech, a judge asked a court to drop her defamation lawsuit against someone who criticized her in an Internet chat room.

Judge Joan Orie Melvin no longer wants to know the identity of a critic who denounced her on the Internet in 1999, court documents filed in the past week show.

No reason was given for the decision. Melvin's attorney, Jack Orie, did not immediately return a call to his office Saturday.

Melvin sued after an anonymous person using the screen name "Grant Street 99" claimed in a chat room that Melvin had lobbied then-Gov. Tom Ridge to appoint a friend to a vacant county judgeship.

Political activity by judges is prohibited in Pennsylvania and Melvin, who denied the claim, sued. The case never made it to trial.

The American Civil Liberties Union defended the Internet critic, saying the case would be the first in the country to test the right to remain anonymous in an Internet forum.

A judge ruled in Melvin's favor in 2000, saying her attorney would have to know the identities of the people criticizing Melvin before trying to prove they did so falsely and maliciously.

The ACLU appealed twice before the state Supreme Court sent the case back to a lower court to decide whether a public official must first prove financial harm before the identity of his or her accuser is revealed.

It was unclear whether the court will still rule on that issue.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...4/142559.shtml


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Virtual Map wins copyright case against NTUC Income
CNA

SINGAPORE : Virtual Map, which set up Singapore's well-known online streetdirectory.com, has won a copyright infringement case against insurer NTUC Income.

Virtual Map claims that NTUC Income copied nine of its maps in 2002 without its permission or licence.

NTUC Income had admitted to copying the maps, but disputed that Virtual Map owned the copyright.

The quantum of damages and legal costs NTUC Income would have to pay Virtual Map will be decided at a separate court hearing, to be held in a couple of months' time.

About 40 other companies are also facing legal action for downloading maps from Streetdirectory.com.

The maps were mostly used to show the location of their offices on their corporate websites.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori.../77986/1/.html


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NASA Will Become First Agency to Get OSI Certification of Open Source Agreement

The open source software movement has moved beyond the academic and business communities to establish a new beachhead--on Cape Canaveral.

Open Source Initiative, a non-profit organization that certifies open source software licenses, told BNA March 28 that approval of an open source agreement drafted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should happen within a matter of weeks, making NASA the first federal agency to obtain OSI certification.

The certification coincides with the rollout of a pilot program at NASA that would permit the release of select NASA software on an open source basis, complementing the agency's current menu of release options.
http://ipcenter.bna.com/pic2/ip.nsf/...B?OpenDocument


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Digital Music: What’s In Store?
Jonny Evans

The music piracy debate has intensified once again, following controversial court decisions and a report released last week by Harvard Business School, and industry trends suggest the music business may eventually be forced to change.

The Harvard report disputes record industry claims that file-sharing has impacted against sales; calling the impact of file sharing "statistically insignificant". It suggests that competing entertainment formats; economic worries; limited breadth of music releases and the end of the vinyl to CD upgrade cycle have had more impact against music sales than file sharing.

The Canadian high court last week declared that music fans downloading songs using peer-to-peer services are not breaking local copyright law; and a Florida court also last week denied music labels attempt to extract personal information about file sharers from a local ISP. The Canadian decision is subject to change.

These revelations arrive as the music business prepares to extend its legal action against file-sharers internationally.

Commenting on the Harvard report, International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) chairman and CEO Jay Berman told The Guardian: "If I listened to that study my business would have improved."

It appears the music industry remains blinkered to the Harvard researchers’ alternative explanations for falling music sales, preferring to continue its tactic of demonizing file sharers as the business attempts to maintain its grip on the means of music production and distribution.

P2P United chair Wayne Rosso counters: "The recording industry is so completely misguided in its use of fear tactics that it can only engender even more contempt from fans. And what's even more ridiculous is that they're all profitable and their business is up, in part due to the free marketing they get from P2P networks. They should be paying us!"

Europe is ripe for digital music sales. Online music service OD2 sold one million tracks in Europe in the first quarter of this year. Support for licensed music-download services are an essential element to the music labels' strategic plan for dealing with digital music – litigation without a viable legal alternative can only be counter- productive. Berman observed: "I want iTunes, Real and Napster here as soon as possible. I'm trying more than ever for a licence on behalf of all these services."

Leave me alone

However, artists and music fans are increasingly vexed by the
music label's litigious tactics. And this is creating an interesting phenomenon. Artists are going it alone online.

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree is furious at music industry plans to litigate music fans, telling New Media Age: "It's preposterous". And the professional musician is not convinced that file-sharing music fans buy fewer records. "How do they know?" he asked.

Musicians are turning to the Internet in an attempt to create an alternative ways to make a living than working with the established music business, and since that business is built on artists' talent, it appears that its control of the means of production may be under attack.

George Michael last month announced plans to dump the music business, promising never to make another album for retail sale. Michael will instead make future releases available online to fans in exchange for charitable donations.

Explaining this decision, he said it would take him out of the music industry mechanism, which requires artists create new song collections every "so many" years, "which nearly killed me," he said.

Music-business contracts commit artists to certain release cycles. For example, a musician can have created a collection of songs across many years before winning a record deal. They then find themselves committed to a gruelling touring cycle, and to a record release every year.

This creates the phenomenon of the difficult second album, as artists attempt to manage more fame and commitments while struggling to find the inspiration to create new music in order to fulfill their contract. Commercial realities can arguably transform artists into musical battery hens, and dampen the quality of their art.

Thank you for the music

In recent weeks, both Metallica – renowned for their litigation against Napster – and The Bare
Naked Ladies have begun their own experiments with digital distribution – experiments that could lead musicians toward more-autonomous futures.

While both remain committed to their existing labels, the acts are making MP3s of their live shows available from their Web sites for sale to fans.

Metallica's unedited soundboard recordings cost $9.95 as MP3s and are available here. The band is also making FLAC (an alternative higher-quality digital music file format) downloads available for $12.95. Downloadable CD labels – including tray and front cover inserts are also supplied, along with special booklets. The band is currently engaged on a mammoth North American tour, and each gig is made available within days of its taking place.

Bare Naked Ladies are offering recordings from up to 80 per cent of their shows for download, as MP3s with cover art ($13.99), or on CD ($20). The band sold over 35,000 songs in the first week of the experiment, with downloads outselling physical CDs by two-to-one, reports claim. While existing label Warner takes a slice of those sales, the band gets three times the royalties it accrues from studio albums.

These actions show that established musicians are already in position to make a profit online.

BPI representative Steve Redmond said the Metallica and Bare Naked Ladies actions show what can be done using the Internet for copyright holders: "This is bands profiting from their own copyrighted music."

He added: "Some people have come up with the idea that the music business is against the Internet. That's absolutely not true. But artists still need to be paid for what they do."

Culture shock at the power exchange

Other recent innovations from the creative community hint at future developments in music. The recent story of the Grey Album shows how the Internet fundamentally changes music distribution and control.

The Grey Album in brief: DJ Danger Mouse remixed the vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' White Album and called his creation The Grey Album. He sent about 3,000 promos out, until EMI told him to stop. However, Internet activists continue to make the Grey Album available online.

The Beatles and Metallica pop-up once again in another recent online happening, Beatallica, a pair of anonymous musicians who play Beatles songs in the style of Metallica.

The songs are made available free, and the musicians concerned hope to avoid legal action from Metallica or Beatles lawyers by remaining anonymous. It appears popular – since the release of the second album last week the official site has run out of bandwidth.

Break on through

Is it possible we are seeing the creation of a 'third estate' for music, opening the doors to new
creative expression accompanied by a need to create new economic models. EMI's move to axe 1,500 jobs last week shows change is in the air. The company intends further focusing itself on a smaller roster of large artists.

Existing legal music download services are experimenting with the new territory. Apple's iTunes Music Store, for instance, has begun selling exclusive live shows – some recorded at Apple's own retail stores. The company is also offering pre-release tracks, for example from popular US novelty act William Hung.

The music business is reluctantly going through growing pains, as artists, consumers and the business itself renegotiate its business proposition, and the labels attempt to cling to control.

As Karl Marx once wrote: "Wherever a part of society possesses a monopoly of the means of production, the labourer must add to the working-time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working-time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production."
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=8365


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More Americans Shunning Free File Sharing With Peers
Amy Ritchart

With paid music downloads from Internet businesses steadily on the rise, some music lovers say they don't understand the legalities of sharing computer music files or downloading music from the Internet for free.

"They say it's illegal. The way I see it, the rights of that CD are already paid for," said Clarksville resident Albert Casillas.

The Recording Industry Association of America, representing hundreds of record labels from various genres of music, is seeking through a lawsuit the names of more than 500 anonymous music consumers accused of using peer-to-peer file sharing software to download music or share songs via the Internet.

Peer-to-peer software is available on the Internet -- some versions are free while others have a fee -- and allows the user to download music files from other users they don't know from around the world. The software is legal because it can be used to retrieve files that are considered in the public domain, like speeches.

Last Tuesday the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a Swiss nonprofit RIAA-affiliated organization, announced in a written statement the group will take the campaign against illegal music downloading worldwide.

"This is the start of an international campaign against online copyright theft, and it is the logical next step in the fight against piracy, coming after our extensive education and warning campaigns of the last few months," Jay Berman, chairman and CEO of the Federation, said in Tuesday's statement.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said U.S. investigations also will be ongoing.

"What we do is go on these Web sites like anyone else and see who is offering our members' songs," Lamy said. "If someone is offering a significant amount, they can be a target of a lawsuit."

Casillas thinks stopping illegal downloading will take more than lawsuits. One challenge, he said, is creating albums and compact discs with enough quality music that consumers don't mind paying retail for it.

Another is flexibility.

Most often, Casillas likes only a select number of songs on any given CD, and he wants the option of paying for only those songs.

"To me the whole point is, if they would come out with an actual decent CD, then I would buy it," he said. "I'm not going to spend $16 for a CD with one good song."

Peer-to-peer file sharing originally met such a need for music consumers, but with the recent RIAA lawsuits, pay services are quickly filling the gap.

"The whole thing with the peer-to-peer and pay services is, you're getting to choose just one song," Casillas said.

Clarksville resident Cheryl Hunter-Grah received an iPod, Apple's portable music computer, for Christmas. She downloads music from iTunes, Apple's legal digital music store that offers both Apple and PC-based software.

"With iTunes it's so easy. I have a Mac. When you plug your iPod in, it's seamless. They (advertise that it's seamless) and it is," she said.

Downloading music illegally puts the person at risk of getting a computer virus, Hunter-Grah said.

"It's just not worth the hassles and the troubles," she said. "It's even cheaper to buy the whole album (at iTunes) instead of at Wal-Mart."

In addition to downloading music, Hunter-Grah joined an audio book club and is able to download books, The New York Times and many shows from National Public Radio.

Lamy said legal downloading services are growing as a result of the RIAA lawsuits. The suits also have served to increase awareness that it is illegal to download music from file-sharing networks, he said.

"Last year when we asked people in our own consumer surveys whether they knew it was illegal to download from a file-sharing network, only 35 percent (knew)," he said. "Now there is two-thirds. Public awareness that this is illegal has skyrocketed."

Apple released a written statement in March celebrating the purchase and download of more than 50 million songs for iTunes Music Store, not including songs redeemed from the current Pepsi-iTunes promotion.

According to Apple's calculations, consumers are downloading an estimated 2.5 million songs per week, or 130 million songs per year.

And that's just at the iTunes store.

Use of the PC-based online music service Napster is also on the rise. Parent company Roxio Inc. released a written statement indicating revenue predictions for Napster were increased to $5.5 million, up from $3.6 million.

Both Napster and iTunes charge 99 cents per download and a new music service from Wal-Mart is offering songs at 88 cents each.

"Those services are experiencing an uptake in sales," Lamy said. "We need to transition people. It's not something that's going to happen overnight.

"This issue has become a frequent topic at dinner tables and in conversation between parents and children. The more parents talk to their kids about this, the more teachers talk to their students, those are all good signs that people are beginning to rethink what was before seen as a harmless and a risk-free activity."

Opposition abounds

Many, however, are resisting the transition. An informal afternoon survey of music downloaders conducted by The Leaf-Chronicle ascertained only one in 25 local people use a legal service.

None of them want to disclose their names for fear they will be sued by the RIAA.

Casillas thinks people in the music business are making enough money without having to sue music downloaders for more.

"They're still making a whole lot of money," he said. "When these rap people are making more than police officers and teachers, that's scary right there."

But Songwriters Guild of America president Rick Carnes said most people in the music industry aren't high salary. The illegal downloading surge, he said, has hit many musicians and song writers hard.

"Quite frankly, just check the average earnings," he said. "(They are) about $4,600 per year. The only way we're making any money as a song writer is by delivering pizza too."

Carnes said he's seen many dedicated song writers leave Nashville over the past two years, and he blames people who lift music from peer-to-peer networks.

"In the end, stealing music is self-defeating," he said. "If you love music, you've just killed it by stealing it."

Carnes said those who say it's acceptable to illegally download music because people in the recording industry are wealthy are only rationalizing theft.

"Even if somebody is rich, does that justify breaking into his house and stealing his television?" he said.

Amy Ritchart can be reached by telephone or by e-mail at amyritchart@theleafchronicle.com.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news...ws/172447.html


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Hollywood Competes With the Street in Russia
Erin E. Arvedlund

MOSCOW, April 6 — The American film industry is fighting rampant DVD piracy in Russia with a radical new tactic: cutting prices.

To fight piracy here, where 9 out of 10 DVD's sold are counterfeit copies, Columbia TriStar, a division of Sony, will price DVD's at no more than 299 rubles, or just over $10, less than half its current price. Warner Home Video, a division of Time Warner, has already cut its DVD prices in Russia to the equivalent of $15.

"The idea is to get Russian consumers used to buying licensed material, but at a price that most of the population can afford," said Vyacheslav Dobychin, general director of Columbia TriStar's licensee here. Columbia TriStar is setting up its own factory outside of downtown Moscow, which later this month is to start churning out licensed copies of "Bad Boys 2," "Big Fish," "S.W.A.T." and other movie hits.

The low-price idea has long been anathema to industry advocates in the United States. "You can never compete on price with a pirate," said Jack Valenti in a recent telephone interview. The longtime president of the Motion Picture Association of America, he has made stern copyright enforcement his rallying cry.

But Hollywood appears to be running out of options in Russia. Piracy is getting worse, says Konstantin Zemchenkov, director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization, a group partly financed by Hollywood studios and the Motion Picture Association of America, which is leading the fight against producers, distributors and retailers of pirated discs and videos in Russia.

A former KGB officer, Mr. Zemchenkov said that piracy in Russia accounted for 9 out of every 10 DVD's sold and 6 out of every 10 CD's. His numbers stand in sharp contrast to estimates by the Trade and Economic Development Ministry that counterfeit disc sales fell 15 to 20 percent in 2003 from the previous year, when pirated production accounted for 76 to 86 percent of sales.

So far, a number of leading music labels in the United States and Britain have been content to file lawsuits against Russia's largest producers of audio, video and software.

Russian DVD distributors, however, said they had to find a way to compete with the street. As an example Mr. Dobychin cited Disney's animated children's feature "Brother Bear," which is just lighting up theater screens in Moscow. Already, he notes, pirated copies are for sale for 120 rubles (about $4). "The DVD quality is perfect," he said. "And yet licensed DVD's of 'Brother Bear' will only arrive in September of 2004. That's just too late."

At Gorbushka, a vast CD and DVD bazaar southeast of downtown Moscow, a pirated copy of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," not yet released in theaters here, fetches about $4. The stunningly professional DVD box and disc are lined with Cyrillic titles, and the movie is programmed to play in several foreign languages, including French, English and Russian.

On weekends, Gorbushka, the largest pirated CD and DVD market in Europe, is packed with hundreds of Russian families cruising for a middle-class good time: the latest software (Microsoft Excel: $3), music (Norah Jones's latest album: $2.50) and computer games (The Sims Livin' Large: $4). For educated city dwellers whose tastes outstrip their incomes — the average monthly wage is $200 — Gorbushka is a cultural motherlode. For the most part, the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization has devoted its resources to shutting down counterfeiting plants instead of markets.

Columbia TriStar argues that its price war represents the vanguard in the fight against piracy here. Moreover, homegrown factories will help create jobs and avoid import and customs duties. Other film and music studios may have no choice but to follow.

"Major studios understand that this situation is different here," Mr. Dobychin said. "And other studios will come around to that point of view," he predicted, both by lowering prices and by starting to produce here in Russia. "I don't know of one studio that hasn't at least thought about it," he added. A licensed but imported DVD carries so many customs duties and import taxes, that by the time the discs arrive from overseas, the price can range from $20 to $30.

"We now import from Western Europe," said Gregory Economou, vice president for licensee markets at Warner Home Video Europe, based in London. "We would like to find a way to replicate locally, and we're looking for a suitable local partner." Warner Home Video and its Russian distributor, Premier Video Film, have cut prices on licensed DVD's, and Premier Video will also sell discs more cheaply to retailers who stick with the recommended retail price, to combat piracy.

"Socially, it's crucial to cut prices," said Christopher Abel-Smith, the Moscow-based general director of Premier. "You can't just feed that top 1 percent of the population. You need to make product available to everyone, to low-income people." He pointed out that Russians could now buy a new German-made Rolsen DVD player for about $60. "So it's unlikely they spend $20 for one DVD," he said.

Most Russians, including law-enforcement agents, don't view buying or producing pirated goods as a serious crime. And Russia has historically copied the West: Stalin was an avid fan of Detroit sedans. He decreed in 1942 that "the workers' paradise" should produce a new limo, so the Russian limos were stamped right from the dies of the 1941 Packard Super 8. Soviet bloc nations built their computer industry around smuggled I.B.M. and Digital Equipment machines and contraband software. In the 1940's the Soviets copied piece by piece the American B-29, the only plane capable of transporting nuclear weapons at the time.

"It's part of the Soviet legacy," said Timothy Swanson, with the United States Embassy's commercial section here, which has been battling piracy on behalf of American film and music companies. "An artist was an artist — he got paid a salary. There weren't royalties for artists or composers. Everything was owned by the state — for 70 years intellectual property rights never existed."

This culture helps explain why "it often feels like we are fighting the sea," said Mr. Zemchenkov, director of the antipiracy group. His cramped downtown offices here house hundreds of "disc spindles" and boxes of pirated entertainment purloined in frequent raids — so many that they are stacked in the bathroom. The group conducted three warehouse raids just last week, one netting several thousand discs and $500,000 in cash.

Intellectual-property legislation is wending its way through Russia's parliament, and the police continue stepping up their raids.

In late February Moscow's regional Economic Crime Police mounted a raid on a clandestine DVD plant in Pushkino, a city about 20 miles from here. Authorities seized new DVD production lines; about 800 stampers; 25,000 pirated DVD's of films like "Snowboarder" and all three "Lord of the Rings" titles; artwork for "Indiana Jones" movie boxes and "Tomb Raider" computer games; and pornography.

Mr. Valenti, who will soon leave his decades-long post as president of the Motion Picture Association, insists, "The only way to kill piracy in Russia is strong copyright law with stern penalties and government resolve to enforce that law."

But there is another way, said Mr. Dobychin of Columbia TriStar's licensee here: "We're changing distribution from the `exclusive model' to the `mass model' in Russia. Our goal is to fight piracy, and with lower prices, we can finally compete."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/movies/07PIRA.html


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Today's Lesson for College Students: Lighten Up
Sara Rimer

BRUNSWICK, Me. — It was intended as a statement against the kind of perfectionism that drives some Bowdoin College students to spend two hours a day on the treadmill: plastered all over campus recently were photographs of naked undergraduate Bowdoin women — or at least their bodies, as the pictures had been shot from the neck down — in all their short, tall, thin, not-so-thin, fit and unfit, anonymous, unairbrushed glory.

Far from being shocked, Craig W. Bradley, dean of student affairs, said he supported the women's group that came up with the poster campaign — anything to get students to stop worrying so much about body image, grades, careers.

Mr. Bradley, along with other college officials, has been telling students to get off the treadmill. Go for a walk, go surfing. Read a novel just for pleasure. Eat ice cream. Hang out with the knitting club. Find your passion.

Bowdoin's efforts reflect the ever-increasing attention colleges across the country are giving to undergraduates' personal growth and emotional well-being.

It has been more than a decade since colleges became mindful of the new generation of students arriving on campus with serious mental health illnesses. But these days, as they respond to the rising number of students seeking help for stress-related conditions on campus and the expectations of consumer-minded parents, many colleges are extending the therapeutic culture far beyond treatment for clinical depression and bipolar disorders.

Private and public colleges alike have begun offering a wide range of services and activities intended to help students negotiate what used to be considered the ordinary rites of passage: homesickness, sophomore existential angst, romantic relationships. There are now free massages and dogs to cuddle in exam seasons, biofeedback workshops and therapists available to help students work through their first C.

At Harvard, the training given to graduate students who live in the undergraduate houses has in recent years expanded to include ways to help students fight perfectionism — a theme on many campuses — as well as negotiate matters involving race, class and sexual identity.

At Amherst College in Massachusetts, students can have unlimited sessions with the counseling center's therapists. They are free to discuss more mundane concerns like their futures and their relationships — with family members, roommates, boyfriends and girlfriends — as well as more serious issues like depression and eating disorders.

Washington University in St. Louis has established stress-free zones during finals, where students can get chair massages and listen to New Age music. Addressing the notoriously poor sleeping habits of undergraduates, the university recently celebrated Sleep Awareness Week by handing out sleep quizzes and reminding residential advisers not to brag about how little sleep they can get by on.

Kevin Kruger, the associate executive director for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, with nearly 1,500 members, said the new services were the natural extension of the awareness raised by students with serious mental health problems.

"This movement is an indication of colleges trying to be more proactive," Mr. Kruger said, rather than waiting for students to "flunk out, have a breakdown or whatever the outcome is going to be."

But many college officials also acknowledge that they are responding to the heightened consumer mentality of many parents. "If you're paying a lot, you expect a lot in return," said Craig McEwen, dean of academic affairs at Bowdoin, one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges. "Unhappiness is not something you're supposed to feel."

Some college officials say that these services are not only driving up higher education costs but some may also be an extension of a therapeutic culture that has gone too far.

While it is important that colleges talk about "the whole student," said Steven E. Hyman, the provost at Harvard, and the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, "that doesn't mean they should all be in group therapy."

Dr. Hyman said he also doubted the value of the biofeedback and massage, suggesting that it might be more helpful if students learned to organize their lives.

"It's a difficult tightrope to walk," said Dr. Hyman, who is a psychiatrist. "There's a risk that we will medicalize what are really developmental issues: negotiating independence, deciding what your goals are in life, having the courage to explore your interests rather than follow the straight and narrow path of careerism. At the same time, we have to be very careful that we don't miss serious treatable illnesses like depression, anxiety disorders and eating disorders."

Colleges have been steadily increasing the availability of treatment and counseling, and students have responded. At the University of Michigan, for example, the number of students seeking counseling has risen 22 percent in three years, said Todd Sevig, director of counseling and psychological services.

Some college officials see the contradiction inherent in their new efforts to offset stress and encourage the joys of reflection and unstructured time. After all, it was multitasking, hyperorganized, résumé building behavior that helped some students get admitted to their schools in the first place.

"We admit only the most over-scheduled children and we boast of how many sports they play, how many clubs they organize, how many hours of volunteer service they provide," said Elaine Hansen, president of Bates College, in Lewiston, Me., in her inaugural address two years ago. How then, she went on, could Bates encourage those same children to risk "moments of woolgathering, daydreaming, improvisation" that she viewed as an essential component of a liberal arts education?

Ms. Hansen said she had thought about calling off classes on the spur-of-the-moment so everyone could enjoy, say, a glorious spring day in Maine. But, she said: "If we do it without a conversation first about why we're doing it, we're afraid people will just go to the library and get caught up."

In his January letter to parents, Bowdoin's president, Barry Mills, expressed his concern about what appeared to be a national increase in stress-related conditions among college students. Expanding on the president's letter, Dean Bradley spoke to the college's trustees recently about creating a culture that emphasizes the joy of learning for learning's sake, "a culture that can itself ameliorate the anxiety many students feel about grades, jobs, grad school admissions."

At the same, Bowdoin officials say they do not want their students to relax too much. "You still have to accomplish," President Mills said. "You still have to succeed. This is not about relax and schmooze your way through Bowdoin."

Many students here said they welcomed the emphasis on the joy of learning. And many said they were having fun at college. But they were quick to point out the realities of the world they live in.

Travis Brennan, a Bowdoin senior who wants to be a lawyer, said all his love of learning would not get him into a good law school. What he needs, Mr. Brennan said, are high law board scores. "You have to be mindful that you're operating in a larger system," he said.

In the 1960's and 1970's, with students demanding liberation from administrators, colleges relinquished their role as in loco parentis chaperones. Now, some of the students who once told administrators to get out of their lives are parents paying high tuition and expecting colleges to smooth over everything from their children's relationships with roommates to grades.

Colleges, in the meantime, are coaching their students on how to manage their overmanaging parents. At Austin College, in Sherman, Tex., Rosemarie C. Rothmeier, director of student services and counseling, coaches pre-med students who are afraid to tell their parents that they hate organic chemistry and do not want to be doctors after all. One piece of advice, "Don't drop the bomb at Thanksgiving dinner."

Some college officials say parents must share responsibility for their children's difficulties in coping with the inevitable stresses of college.

"Rather than seeing late adolescence as a time of learning by trial and error," Mr. Bradley told the trustees, "many parents put great energy into trying to eliminate the error." He suggested that perhaps parents were creating a generation of students afraid to take risks.

Another factor contributing to stress is the high price of education.

"If you break it down, it's about $75 a lecture," said Karen Jacobson, a Bowdoin senior, quoting a faculty member who had made the calculation based on Bowdoin's $37,950-a-year price tag.

Ms. Jacobson said she had sought her mother's advice about taking a dance class. "She said, `Are you sure you don't want to take something more intellectual?' " said Ms. Jacobson at a meeting of the college knitting club.

Ms. Jacobson said she figured her mother might have been thinking, quite understandably, that she was not paying that much so her daughter could take a dance class. "I ended up taking statistics," she said. "I realized I needed it for grad school."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/ed...TRE.html?8hpib


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Big Brother Journal

Cox Closes Wiretap Hole For VoIP
Ben Charny

Police can now wiretap all Internet phone calls on Cox Communications' network, kicking off a new era for law enforcement.

The cable and broadband provider turned to security specialist VeriSign to supply the know-how, the latter announced Monday.

Law enforcement officers can now eavesdrop on every call made by Cox's nearly 1 million voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone subscribers. Police can already tap calls on 12 of Cox's 13 telephone markets because they rely on traditional phone equipment equipped with eavesdropping abilities. But in December, Cox deployed VoIP, a much cheaper alternative that uses the unregulated Internet. Roanoke, Va., is the first of several small markets where Cox is deploying VoIP technology.

There is no requirement to tap Net phone calls yet, but all broadband providers are feeling pressure from a far-reaching FBI proposal that would require compliance with the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). This act requires telecommunications carriers to rewire their networks to government specifications to provide police with guaranteed access for wiretaps.

Cable operators "realize they are going to have to do it one day," a VeriSign representative said.

VeriSign Vice President Raj Puri said VeriSign is talking with "all the major cable companies selling VoIP" but did not announce any additional deals Monday.

Cable operator Comcast offers broadband phone service that uses a mixture of VoIP and traditional phone switches. Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are VoIP-only.

Telephone services are playing an increasingly important role for U.S. cable companies, which are winning new customers by offering low-priced bundles of broadband, television and phone services. Traditional phone companies have responded with a "triple play" of services of their own.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352-5184774.html


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Zapping Old Flames Into Digital Ash
Anna Bahney

JILL HAMMELMAN, a hair colorist who lives in Manhattan, doesn't like to burn bridges with men she has dated. But she makes exceptions for those who have acted like creeps, as she did with a recent boyfriend she met online.

"When you're seeing someone," said Ms. Hammelman, 29, "they get top billing. When they lose their status, they have to go."

So when things unraveled in November, after Ms. Hammelman and Mr. Wrong had dated for three months, she cast a cold eye over the dozens of e-mail messages he had sent and the digital photographs of him on vacation that occupied a prominent folder on her computer desktop. She deleted everything in about three minutes. Having had a "ceremonial moving-on," she said, she felt empowered.

In predigital times, the end of a relationship might have been marked by the burning of letters. The ex would have been scissored out of photographs, and LP's too painful to hear dropped off in the nearest Goodwill bin. Or maybe everything would have been parked in a shoe-box way station under the bed.

But modern life means that mementos of affairs of the heart reside on computers. And they can be expunged with brutal efficiency.

While the Internet has sped up modern dating and made encyclopedic records about love interests more readily available, the magic of digital erasure allows the other end of a relationship, the bust-up, to be just as seamless: the lovelorn can simply delete away the pain.

It is debatable whether more sentiment is attached to physical mementos than to Internet text messages, blogs, postings at Friendster-like sites, electronic greeting cards, cellphone photographs and MP3 files of a couple's signature song. But the ease of consigning electronic remembrances to the virtual trash seems to be changing the age- old sorrow of the breakup and the rituals of moving on.

"In the old days it was burn the letters," said Dr. Kathryn Faughey, a psychologist in Manhattan, who counsels the lovelorn to destroy all trappings of failed relationships. "Today, clear the hard drive."

The natural reaction to a breakup — game over, start again — is played to a surreal end by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." The lovers opt to erase the memories of their relationship scientifically, as if their brains were hard drives. Kirsten Dunst, playing a nurse, quotes Nietzsche while Mr. Carrey's mind is being emptied: "Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders." A Manhattan legal assistant had a real-life catharsis of similar dimension after her boyfriend of three years coldly broke up with her in an instant message. She had saved many of his four-a-day e-mail messages, digital photographs from his camera phone and dozens of music files. But in minutes, she eliminated all trace of him. "It was fairly clinical," said the woman, who asked not to be named. "Technology makes it very depersonalized. It is just, `Select all — delete.' "

Jesse Lovelace, 23, who is studying math and computer science at North Carolina State, said the end of an affair leads to a sorting process. "Pictures and stuff, sometimes I'll keep them around," he said. "It is a lot easier to delete a digital photo than to trash something in a frame." A recent breakup led to a rewriting of his online biography. "I had all these references to her and pictures of her on my Web site. I did some editing."

Dr. Faughey suggested that digital keepsakes, which she calls "objects of magnetic emotion" that evoke memories, have a way of coming up again. If a new lover finds evidence of an old flame on a computer, it can be just as troublesome as finding physical evidence in a closet. "Some people come around with a lot of emotional stuff, and that becomes a lot of clutter in a new relationship," she said.

Gina Lynn, 32, a columnist on relationships and technology in Los Angeles for TechTV .com, recently wrote about digitally erasing her ex, an English professor whom she had dated for five months and who, she said, had confessed to cheating. She rounded up his e-mail messages, which she called long and prosaic; a screenplay and poetry he had written; and a digital folder containing pictures of them on a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. All gone with a few clicks.

In her column, Ms. Lynn suggested tactics for digital deletion:

• "Block every I.M. handle."

• "Check `My Pictures,' `My Documents' and your attachments folder for images."

• "Don't forget to check your P.D.A., your text-messaging device and your cellphone."

"I didn't do it with a lit candle in a big ritual," Ms. Lynn said in an interview, adding, after a pause, "but I would recommend that."

But deleting isn't forgetting. And psychologists are divided over the value of expunging records of a failed affair, whether digital or tangible. This mirrors the ambivalence of some ex-lovers themselves. Dr. Michael Radkowsky, a psychologist in Washington, said that disposing of romantic detritus might slow the process of moving on.

"The important thing is the spirit in which you get rid of those things," Dr. Radkowsky said. "I could see how it wouldn't be useful — it might even be sad or heartbreaking — to hold on to that stuff. But if you get rid of it in a fury, that mood is more of a problem than what you choose to do with those artifacts."

Computers make actions taken in a pique irreversible, as anyone knows who has fired off an outraged e-mail message at the office, only to regret it instantly. Peter Rojas, a writer and editor for Engadget.com, a technology review site, cautioned that technology abets rashness. "Now it is too easy: you can delete a folder of pictures of you and your significant other and do it really quick," he said. "You might come to regret it later. But if you had photographs and letters, even if you throw them out you can still go get them out of the trash again an hour later."

Computer experts note that it takes more than hitting "delete" to consign an ex to the nether world — deleted files usually languish on the hard drive until they are overwritten or removed with special scrubbing software. And because of the interconnectedness of computers, it can be difficult to erase all the other virtual footprints of a relationship.

"For people who live some part of their life online, because they have a blog or use online networking sites, there is all this online detritus — that's the truly novel thing," said Dr. Bruce Barry, a professor at Vanderbilt who teaches a seminar on technology, culture and society. People are "communicating more often, more freely and more informally, using things that are archivable."

Last month, Jesse Hudson, 23, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, saw a revealing posting that his girlfriend, Jane Pinckard, 31, a writer and musician, had written about an ex-boyfriend on a Web site. Because so much information on the Web seems to exist in an eternal present, Mr. Hudson felt a sudden queasiness. Even after realizing that the posting was two years old, he remained uneasy. "I had a physical reaction to it," he said. "Sadness, jealousy, a little bit of anger."

Mr. Hudson explained his feelings to Ms. Pinckard. As it turned out, she had been there herself. Digital information lacks the time and place clues of old letters and pictures, Ms. Pinckard said. "Even if you see a date stamp on it," she said, "it is still there on the screen, indistinguishable from anything current."

While Ms. Pinckard is a saver — "I still have boxes and boxes of letters from predigital" — she agreed that hard copies are a different kind of marker of a relationship than digital remnants. "The fact that they are physical artifacts feels different," she said. "It is archival, and archaeological."

Mr. Hudson apparently feels the same way. He described a "cute, adorable moment towards the beginning of the relationship" when Ms. Pinckard sent him an e-mail picture of her computer's desktop with a photo of him as its background wallpaper. A note with it said, "This is what dorks do when they are in love."

He chuckled fondly, then confessed, "I deleted it." After a pause he added, "I regret that now."

Dr. Michael Anderson, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon who has done research with colleagues on the mind's ability to repress unwanted memories, said that saved mementos, paradoxically, may help people forget.

"Most people would agree forgetting is a bad thing," Dr. Anderson said. "It is neglecting responsibilities and losing your history."

"But forgetting is precisely what you want to do with things that are hurtful and distracting," he said. "To be able to remember something is more distracting than to try to forget." To deal with a painful memory, he said, it's best to confront the reminders regularly and desensitize oneself to it. "It is that mental act of pushing them away — that's the thing that makes you forget."

Dr. Anderson said "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," impressed him because of the philosophical questions about memory it raises and its technological sophistication. "I thought the science behind the movie was pretty on target," he said, explaining that homing in on specific areas of the brain is similar to his work in tracking brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging — though memory-zapping remains one step beyond.

But even if a bad relationship could be deleted from the brain like a computer file, it may prove impossible to completely move on. Triggers to recollection lurk everywhere.

Now that "Eternal Sunshine" has been in theaters a few weeks, Anthony Bregman, a producer of the movie, said he has been receiving the usual congratulations from friends and acquaintances. But many include a personal and confessional note, he said: "A large number of people are saying they just got an e-mail from an ex."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/fashion/04DIGI.html


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German Online Music Platform's Troubled First Weeks
DW Staff

Just weeks after its launch, Phonoline, Germany's first online music platform, is the object of much criticism. Soon the fledgling company will face heavy competition from oversees -- can it survive?

The launch of Phonoline, Germany's online music platform, was a fiasco – even embarrassing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Three weeks later, critics are still on the attack, claiming the selection is too limited and the price of downloading individual songs too high. With more competition coming from overseas in the form of a soon-to-be launched European version of Apple's iTunes and others, Phonoline will have to fight to survive.

Three weeks ago at the annual CeBit technology show in Hannover, Phonoline was set to debut with much fanfare. In a special ceremony, Chancellor Schröder, who in the midst of his "innovation offensive" is eager to align himself with all things high-tech, was supposed to download the first song.

But before the Chancellor could download Belgian singer songwriter Kate Ryan's "Only if I," the German Copyright Society (GEMA) put a damper on the festivities. In an open letter, the society suggested that the Chancellor would be engaging in an illegal activity because, "the required copyright licence for this download at CeBit had not yet been obtained by any party".

The flap exposed the ongoing battle between GEMA and Phonoline, who have been engaged in negotiations for months to determine under what circumstances music can be downloaded legally, from whom the necessary rights must be obtained, and at what cost. This begged the question: is this version of "legal" downloading really legal?

Instead of displaying his technological savvy and downloading the song himself, the Chancellor stood by and watched as someone else did the dirty work. What was supposed to have been a public relations coup became a fiasco. But that was just the beginning. Three weeks after the launch, Phonoline is still facing harsh criticism.

At the launch, Gerd Gebhardt, the head of Phonoline, promised consumers "a comprehensive catalogue of some 250,000 songs with the daily addition of chart- toppers". But that has not proven to be the case. Users have not failed to notice that the platform lacks hits from music icons, like the Beatles, Madonna and Robbie Williams. Ditto for German stars Herbert Grönemeyer and Sarah Connor. "Comprehensive" it's not, they say.

What's more, the cost of downloading individual songs is comparatively expensive at €1.19 to €1.99. And the songs are encoded, limiting the number of copies that can be made to between three and five depending on which online music store customers use to access the online database. Popfiles and Eventim are the two main distributors.

Phonoline was meant to be part of a two-pronged assault to reduce music piracy. In addition to proceeding with legal action against those who illegally use peer-to- peer file sharing software like Kazaa, Phonoline was supposed to offer music fans a viable (and legal) alternative. But given the limited selection and cost, the latter part of the plan may not work.

Phonoline will not only struggle to triumph over peer-to-peer file sharing sights like Kazaa, it will also soon face increased competition from other legal online music platforms planning to launch in Europe this year.

Apple's iTunes, considered the industry leader, is expected to launch in Europe early this year. Should the Apple execs choose to maintain the current U.S. asking price of $.99 (€.82) per song, they will undercut the Phonoline price. Apple may also offer users a better deal by not limiting the number of copies that can be made.

Also jumping into the ring is the British online music company Wippit, which is threatening to start a price war that will challenge both Phonoline and iTunes. Wippit recently started offering downloads for a mere €.39 per song and has plans to launch in Germany soon.
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,336...16_1_A,00.html


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Scooch Over, Screwdriver: A Venerable Knife Gains a Chip
Andrew Zipern



Just when it seemed that metaphors comparing multifunction digital gadgets and the Swiss Army knife might have been waning, Victorinox, the venerable Swiss manufacturer, has upped the ante by actually adding a digital function to its famous knife.

The Swissmemory U.S.B. has the nail file, screwdriver and mini-scissors you would expect in a typical Swiss Army knife, but it also has a U.S.B. memory key that stores either 64 or 128 megabytes of data. The small device is compliant with the faster U.S.B. 2.0 standard and, like ordinary flash drives, has a red light-emitting diode to indicate read/write status.

The two versions of the Swissmemory knife, to be released in the United States this spring, are expected to sell for $73 and $88. More information is available at www.victorinox.com.

Oh, and for those who want to take their digital files past airport security, the U.S.B. plug is detachable, so the knife can be stowed in a checked bag.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/te...ts/01knif.html


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Janus Enables Music Renting
INQUIRER staff

SOFTWARE COLOSSUS Microsoft is likely to release copy protection software that will enable the online music industry to rent out titles legally.

Codenamed Janus, the software adds a clock function to portable music players using Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA).

This lets downloaded tracks to be programmed to expire, meaning that online music companies can "rent" unfettered subscription-based access to large music libraries rather than selling it on a per-song basis.

The Redmond Giant has not officially confirmed details of Janus, which is expected to launch this summer. But the technology is in beta, and Samsung is already advertising Janus compatibility.

However analysts say that while Janus would enable online music companies to sell a subscription service, it is unlikely that the music industry would buy into the idea.

It prefers to be paid by the title rather than giving users to access a large library of music which is too close to providing free music.

It will only allow it to take place if punters are not allowed to put the music onto portable devices, which has borked the market a lot.

But by time stamping music, Janus will mean that the music industry is more likely to accept file sharing and allow its music to be put on MP3 players.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15187


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Apple DMCA Sends iTunes DRM Decryptor Offshore
Andrew Orlowski

The PlayFair project, which removes fair-use restrictions from music purchased through Apple's online store, has become the latest victim of offshoring. Actually, that's not quite true: only the hosting provider has moved to India. Not surprisingly, Apple has used the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to ask SourceForge to remove the project. SourceForge declined to use the Safe Harbor provisions of the Act.

PlayFair uses Jon Johansen's iTunes circumvention to remove fair-use restrictions from iTunes Music Store files. Apple allows buyers to play the files on three authorized Windows or Macintosh computers and an unlimited number of iPods, and to burn up to ten CDs with the same playlist, which many Apple users have no problem with. However the circumvention allows you to play the files on a Linux machine, for example, or a smartphone or any other MP3 player that supports AAC playback. The new location for PlayFair is at Sarovar, a hosting company for software libre projects based in Trivandrum, India.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04...dmca_takedown/


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Editorial: Download this

File Sharing May Not Hurt Record Sales
The Saramento Bee

Just when the recording industry had almost convinced every last regulator and coed that downloading music is the root of all evil, along comes a study from the Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After examining millions of actual music downloads and the legal sales of the same music back in stores, the researchers came to an unexpected conclusion: File sharing is as benign as it is free.

How could this be? One of the researchers theorizes that there are two different markets at play here: the market of folks who will only download a song if it is free, and the aficionados who covet the same music regardless of price. The freeloaders never were going to buy the CD. The aficionados still are.

So then why have sales dropped by 139 million albums since 2000? Maybe it's the economy. Or maybe, just maybe, the core music buyers are trying to tell the industry something. It's possible, thanks to the declining number of music options being played on cookie-cutter radio stations, there isn't as much new music worth buying. This new study shouldn't fall on deaf ears
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinio...-9723195c.html


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NME Web Users 'Back File-Sharing'
BBC

Most music fans are refusing to change their downloading habits despite a campaign to stop illegal song-swapping, a music website survey suggests.

More than 1,000 readers of NME.com took part in the website's poll, with nearly 75% saying they would continue to use free download services on the internet.

That is despite the UK music industry threatening to pursue persistent illegal song-swappers in court.

Record companies believe illegitimate downloading damages CD sales.

Almost 90% of surveyed readers said downloading did not stop them buying music, with 85% believing downloading did not damage artists.

British Phonographic Industry (BPI) spokesman Matt Philips told the NME the BPI wanted to tackle "a few hardcore uploaders... we want to make it clear they can be sued".

He said the main object of the campaign was to raise awareness about the rules of downloading.

"You might find that we'll submit a lawsuit tomorrow. And we'd have been in our legal rights to submit a lawsuit a year ago," he told NME.

"But we don't want to do that. We want to continue on the awareness trail," he said.

But NME editor Conor McNicholas said the threats were creating a gulf between the industry and music fans.

"You'd think the BPI would be trying to build links between record labels and music fans," he said.

"But no, in threatening legal action against those who are currently swapping music over the internet, they've put more distance between labels and fans than ever before."

If the record industry had provided a decent legal alternative to unauthorised sites from the start, "then we wouldn't be in this mess", he added.

A recent report from Harvard and North Carolina Universities suggested that swapping songs online had no negative effect on music sales.

The research, conducted over 17 weeks in 2002, said high levels of file-swapping had an effect on CD sales that was "indistinguishable from zero".

But official music industry bodies branded the study "skewed".

And the number of songs sold via Europe's biggest music download sites has increased tenfold over the past year.

More than a million downloads have been sold via sites such as Freeserve, MSN and Mycokemusic from January-March - 10 times up on the same period in 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...ic/3611645.stm


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File-Sharing To Bypass Censorship
Tracey Logan
BBC

By the year 2010, file-sharers could be swapping news rather than music, eliminating censorship of any kind.

This is the view of the man who helped kickstart the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing, Cambridge University's Professor Ross Anderson.

In his vision, people around the world would post stories via anonymous P2P services like those used to swap songs.

They would cover issues currently ignored by the major news services, said Prof Anderson.

"Currently, only news that's reckoned to be of interest to Americans and Western Europeans will be syndicated because that's where the money is,"
he told the BBC World Service programme, Go Digital.

"But if something happens in Peru that's of interest to viewers in China and Japan, it won't get anything like the priority for syndication.

"If you can break the grip of the news syndication services and allow the news collector to talk to the radio station or local newspaper then you can have much more efficient communications."

To enable this, Prof Anderson proposes a new and improved version of Usenet, the internet news service.

But what of fears that the infrastructure that allows such ad hoc news networks to grow might also be abused by criminals and terrorists?

Prof Anderson believes those fears are overstated. He argued that web watchdogs like the Internet Watch Foundation, which monitors internet- based child abuse, would provide the necessary policing functions.

This would require a high level of international agreement to be effective.

"The effect of peer-to-peer networks will be to make censorship difficult, if not impossible," said Prof Anderson.

"If there's material that everyone agrees is wicked, like child pornography, then it's possible to track it down and close it down. But if there's material that only one government says is wicked then, I'm sorry, but that's their tough luck".

Commenting on Prof Anderson's ideas, technology analyst Bill Thompson welcomed the idea of new publishing tools that will weaken the grip on news of major news organisations.

Such P2P systems, he said, would give everybody a voice and allow personal testimonies to come out.

But the technology that makes those publishing tools accessible to everyone and sufficiently user-friendly will take longer to develop than Prof Anderson thinks, added Mr Thompson.

Prof Anderson's vision underestimates the political obstacles in the way of such developments, he said, and the question of censorship had not been clearly thought through.

"Once you build the technology to break censorship, you've broken censorship - even of the things you want censored," said Mr Thompson.

"Saying you can then control some parts of it, like images of child abuse, is being wilfully optimistic. And that's something that peer to peer advocates have to face."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/3611227.stm

















Until next week,

- js.














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