Carpe Nocturne
In an
article entitled “Globe Grows Darker as Sunshine Diminishes”, the New York Times reports scientific measuring devices have recorded unexpected - and unexplained – major drops in worldwide levels of sunlight reaching the planet going back to the 1950’s. Since the sun itself is as bright as ever something on earth is causing the loss. Speculation involves pollution but no one’s really sure about the cause, indeed there is even some dispute whether the levels have dropped at all, though readings have the put the amount of light lost as much as a startling 37%. It’s understandable if the average reader’s a bit confused, with such a politically touchy subject most media would rather ignore it until it’s unignorable. This comes on the heels of a major Hollywood movie launch about of all things, global warming. The film’s such a hot potato (no pun intended) the studio releasing the picture had disinvited certain guests to the premiere leading some to conclude they were shunned for political reasons, out of fear of offending the Bush administration. Since the studio head is big Bush supporter and the Bush administration’s been historically hostile to the concept of human induced global warming it may not be idle speculation. Another film falling victim to this new politically correct censorship is Michael Moore's latest picture “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Disney is so set against distributing the liberal advocate’s product it’s ordered subsidiary Miramax to sell it outright - and arrange to have it marketed by another company altogether. According to the report Disney has no desire to alienate certain customers by involving itself in a partisan issue, but since there’s no way to actually avoid partisanship, which many public corporations typically define as “anti-establishment,” claiming to do so is arguably an act of partisanship in itself. Actions such as these usually reflect great unease on the media companies’ part against upsetting the current ruling parties, ultimately censoring competing viewpoints that may prove embarrassing.
None of this is good news for a democracy. The way in which a healthy political system deals with it is by making sure there are enough competing voices that the establishment can never fully control most of them. That’s the theory anyway. In practice the results are far from perfect and during the current climate of media consolidation - done with the establishment’s full support - there has never been a time in America’s past that so many voices are controlled by so few people. This democracy is not dealing responsibly with the problem. We are living in a time when one establishment - indeed one political party - controls nearly everything we see, hear and are allowed to do. Such a monopoly on ideas, information and lawmaking calls into question America’s self-defined image of itself as a people’s republic. A democracy by definition cannot be monolithic. All voices must be heard – and respected. Majorities may govern but not by marginalizing, minimizing or silencing the minority. By itself a ruling party does not an establishment make however, not in a democracy, at least not here and not yet so there are still competing philosophies and interests well served by other media. One party’s ascendancy is normally temporary, the state of being in power always in flux. The New York Times is a famous example of a strong minority party paper, thoroughly establishment and preeminently so, separate and often at odds with the current ruling party but flourishing in spite of it.
By itself a strong minority paper does not a democracy make however, and the damage is without question spreading beyond one country’s borders. Increasingly stratified philosophies manipulated by corporate sponsors monopolize the time and decision making of global bureaucrats whose philosophies make business stronger at the expense of individuals. We see it everywhere, especially in the media, where communication industry rule-making invariably favors consolidation over breadth of voice while simultaneously marginalizing and even criminalizing dissent. The exception is now so rare as to be noteworthy, as when a Canadian judge recently “legalized” file sharing. It was only yesterday that sharing was not only legal but encouraged, a sign of civility and good citizenship. The reverse – the perverse - is now the rule as ever wealthier conglomerates usurp long cherished rights in search of greater riches, their power spreading corruption and malignancy deep into our increasingly fragile democracies.
There is something disturbing when people loose their way. But to lose one’s own culture is an insupportable burden. When the very tools that create ideas and give flight to thought are stolen by the industrialized state and corrupted for use against the people we face an appalling future.
Without eyes how can we see? Without ears how can we hear? Without voices how can we speak?
Without question and by any measure there is a darkness spreading across our lands. Unless we act decisively we will face a future permanently obscured in twilight. What future is this that we would choose to leave to our children? It is not one we should nor I believe are fated to leave them - but it will take action to evade, and even sacrifice. Can we continue our course? Are we up to the task ahead? Do we have it in us to avoid this descent into darkness? I think we do, and I think if you’re here reading this you may be one of those who can lead. I hope so. Believe me, many of us are counting on it.
Enjoy,
Jack.
Developers Search For Anonymous File-Sharing
Bernhard Warner
While media companies step up their legal crackdown on Internet song- swappers, separate teams of software developers -- from the Middle East to Madrid -- toil away on a foiling technology: an anonymous file-sharing network.
"Our users are requesting more and more privacy. They are more than disgusted with the threat of lawsuits," said Pablo Soto, chief programmer and co-founder of Madrid-based Optisoft.
Optisoft runs Blubster (
http://www.blubster.com) and Piolet (
http://www.piolet.com), music-only file- sharing networks. They run on Optisoft's proprietary MP2P peer-to-peer platform.
Music trade group the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued 11 of MP2P's 10 million users for putting their music collection online for others to download. The new upgrade, which goes into effect shortly, should shield MP2P users from future lawsuits, Soto said.
"I do not think it will stop the RIAA from suing our users. But if any of our users has the balls to go to court, I don't see any way on the planet for the RIAA to win," Soto said.
The RIAA, however, recommends taking any claims of anonymity with a grain of salt. "More often than not, these are marketing ploys rather than a genuine technological capability," an RIAA spokesman said.
THE QUEST FOR ANONYMOUS SHARING
Relaunching later this month, MP2P will offer users the closest thing yet to anonymously sharing music files with others computer users, he said.
Others, including Palestine-based EarthStation 5 (
http://www.es5.com) and Filetopia (
http:// www.filetopia.com), make similar claims.
Most technical experts say absolute anonymous file-sharing is difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish. But the young technicians are undaunted.
If they can't completely disguise a user sharing his Outkast tracks with others, they say they can make it exceedingly difficult for outsiders to trace.
The stakes are high. Since January, the music trade group RIAA has sued more than 2,000 Americans for copyright infringement for sharing their music collection with others over Internet peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and WinMX.
Hundreds more face legal action in Europe and Canada announcing similar lawsuits. Media companies have employed firms to scour file-sharing networks to find the biggest uploaders.
CAMOUFLAGED FILES
The 24-year-old Soto said his new file-sharing network offers two layers of camouflage. Each user is assigned multiple Internet protocol (IP) addresses to mask precisely who is trading what file at any one time.
And, the files zipping around the network are disguised to look entirely generic to the outside observer. "With the files, you get a user ID and some data, but that data looks bogus," Soto said.
The multiple IP addresses, he explained, are pulled from other users on the network at the same time, thus distorting the activities of individual file sharers to the outside observer.
There is a serious flaw, Soto admits. Light users, who at the moment are not being targeted in the lawsuits, could be rounded up alongside other MP2P users who share hundreds or thousands of music tracks through the network.
But, he reckons, it makes it four times more difficult for a copyright holder to trace the activities of file-sharers.
EarthStation 5, which carries the slogan "Resistance is futile, only the Anonymous will Survive", uses third-party proxies' computers in an attempt to throw copyright lawyers off the trail.
And, Filetopia has developed encryption tools to protect the identity of its users and their actions. Encryption is used by companies and the military, among others, to mask the content of data files to outside eyes.
The results of their combined work are far from foolproof, technology observers point out. "In theory, you can never have a completely anonymous network. But you can make it really, really difficult to trace," said Jupiter Research analyst Mark Mulligan.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040506/80/eswo2.html
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Japan
Top Software Developer Arrested For 'Winny' File Sharing
AFP
Japanese police have arrested an elite computer engineer for developing popular piece of software that allows anonymous users to download pirated films and music through a file sharing network.
Isamu Kaneko, 33, was arrested for suspected conspiracy to commit copyright violation by the High-tech Crime Taskforce of the Kyoto Prefectural Police.
It is the country's first arrest of a file sharing application developer, a police spokesman said.
The alleged offence is punishable by up to three years in prison or a maximum fine of $US26,700.
Kaneko, known as only "47" in cyberspace, is a research assistant in a computer engineering graduate course at Japan's Tokyo University.
He developed the file sharing application, called Winny and released it free of charge over the Internet in May 2002, enabling users to exchange files stored in their computers.
More than one million people are believed to be using Winny in Japan, according to Kyoto police.
Files available for exchange by Winny users include pirated films, music, game software and other leaked confidential information.
The Mainichi Shimbun daily has said some 200 categories of confidential information, such as internal army documents and wages for postal workers, have been circulated among Winny file sharers.
The spokesman said Kyoto police had been aware of Kaneko's activity since at least last autumn as their "cyber patrol unit" searched his apartment in November in connection with the arrest of two Winny users for engaging in piracy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1105174.htm
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Vietnam Seeks To Silence Online Dissent With Tough New Laws
HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam has introduced tough new laws regulating the use of the Internet in an apparent bid to silence online dissent.
The Ministry of Public Security's mouthpiece, the An Ninh The Gioi, said Wednesday that the new rules were necessary "to tighten the management of Internet operations". Under decision No. 71, which came into force in March, taking advantage of the web to disrupt "social order and safety" or to breach the communist nation's "fine customs and traditions" are "strictly forbidden". "Storing on Internet-connected computers information, materials or data classified as state secrets," is also prohibited. Furthermore, accessing foreign Internet Service Providers to visit websites firewalled by the authoritarian regime is outlawed. Internet cafe owners must also comply with a lengthy list of regulations or face legal action. They include recording "full and detailed information" about all their customers. Only around 3.2 percent of Vietnam's 80 million people surf the web, mainly through cyber-cafes. Many analysts believe the biggest constraint on the growth in Internet usage is Hanoi's desire to control and censor the online world to prevent it from being used as an anti- government tool. The new rules follow a June 2002 decree by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai that ordered all Internet cafes take action to prevent access to pornographic sites and those that revealed "state secrets" and "reactionary documents". On May 5, Vietnamese cyber-dissident Nguyen Vu Binh had his seven-year jail sentence and three-year house arrest order for espionage upheld. He was found guilty on December 31, 2003, of communicating with overseas "reactionary" organizations as well as writing articles and sharing information that "distorted the party and state policies". Binh, who denied all charges, was detained in September 2002 after posting an article on the Internet criticising a controversial Vietnam-China land border accord. The 35-year-old pro-democracy advocate was the latest in a series of journalists and intellectuals to have been arrested and tried over the past two years for using the Internet to voice dissenting opinions. International human rights groups have accused Hanoi of using national security as a pretext to silence criticism of the one-party regime.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040512/323/etdn3.html
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Chinese Internet Writer Jailed
BBC
A Chinese journalist has been jailed for two years without trial, according to an American civil rights group.
Liu Shui was detained in the southern town of Shenzhen, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
The group is concerned that Mr Liu could have been arrested in connection with his writings on sensitive political topics.
He had recently posted essays on the internet commemorating pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Liu Shui is a former editor and reporter for the outspoken Southern Metropolis News and the Shenzhen Evening News.
He was detained in Shenzhen on 2 May, accused of soliciting prostitutes, the rights group said.
He was reportedly ordered to serve two years of "custody and education", a form of punishment specifically designed for accused prostitutes and their clients.
According to Chinese law, the authorities can sentence individuals to up to two years of "custody and education" without filing formal charges or holding a trial.
Before his arrest, Mr Liu wrote essays commemorating the 4 June military crackdown in Beijing, which he posted on the internet. The essays called for political reforms and the release of political prisoners.
The 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown will take place next month.
The deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, said Mr Shui's arrest was another example of the Chinese authorities using spurious criminal charges against a journalist for political reasons.
"Fifteen years after the June 4 crackdown, China's leaders have proven that they still will not tolerate any open discussion of political and social reforms," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ic/3706727.stm
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$50 MILLION IN ROYALTIES RETURNS TO ARTISTS
Deal With Record Industry Sets New Procedures for Recovery of Unclaimed Asset
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced a deal with the nation’s top recording companies that returns nearly $50 million in unclaimed royalties to thousands of performers.
The agreement comes after a two-year investigation by Spitzer’s office found that many artists and writers were not being paid royalties because record companies had failed to maintain contact with the performers and had stopped making required payments. This problem affected both star entertainers with numerous hit recordings and obscure musicians who may have had only one recording.
"As a result of this agreement, new procedures will be adopted to ensure that the artists and their descendants will receive the compensation to which they are entitled," Spitzer said.
Under the deal, the recording companies have agreed to do the following:
• List the names of artists and writers who are owed royalty payments on company websites;
• Post advertisements in leading music industry publications explaining procedures for unclaimed royalties;
• Work with music industry groups and unions to locate artists who are owed royalty payments; and
• Share artists’ contact information with other record companies.
In addition, each company has agreed to have the heads of the royalty, accounting and legal departments meet regularly to review the status of royalty accounts and take steps to improve royalty payment procedures.
The companies have also agreed to comply with New York State’s Abandoned Property Law, which requires that if an artist or his or her family cannot be found, unclaimed royalties be "escheated" or turned over to the state. The state then holds these monies until a claim is made.
The participating companies include: SONY Music Entertainment; Sony ATV Music Publishing; Warner Music Group; UMG Recordings; Universal Music; EMI Music Publishing; EMI Music North America; BMG Songs; Careers-BMG Music Publishing; BMG Music and the Harry Fox Agency.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/may/may4a_04.html
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DMCA Mods
Congressional Panel To Weigh Digital Copyright
Declan McCullagh
A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday plans to hold what appears to be the first hearing devoted to critiquing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Critics of the 1998 law are hoping to use the event to slam its highly controversial "anti-circumvention" sections--which generally prohibit bypassing copy-protection technology-- and drum up support for an alternative called the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act.p>
First introduced by Rick Boucher, D-Va, and John Doolittle, R-Calif., in October 2002, the DMCRA would defang current law by permitting circumvention for "fair use" purposes. It has received a hostile reception from the entertainment industry and is not expected to be enacted this year. One reason: The consumer protection subcommittee convening this week's hearing does not have jurisdiction over copyright law.
http://news.com.com/2110-1028-5209689.html
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CDs, DVDs Not So Immortal
AP
Dan Koster was unpacking some of his more than 2,000 CDs after a move when he noticed something strange. Some of the discs, which he always took good care of, wouldn't play properly.
Koster, a Web and graphic designer for Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, took one that was skipping pretty badly and held it up to the light.
"I was kind of shocked to see a constellation of pinpricks, little points where the light was coming through the aluminum layer," he says.
His collection was suffering from "CD rot," a gradual deterioration of the data-carrying layer. It's not known for sure how common the blight is, but it's just one of a number of reasons that optical discs, including DVDs, may be a lot less long-lived than first thought.
"We were all told that CDs were well-nigh indestructible when they were introduced in the mid '80s," Koster says. "Companies used that in part to justify the higher price of CDs as well."
He went through his collection and found that 15 percent to 20 percent of the discs, most of which were produced in the '80s, were "rotted" to some extent.
The rotting can be due to poor manufacturing, according to Jerry Hartke, who runs Media Sciences Inc., a Marlborough, Massachusetts, laboratory that tests CDs.
The aluminum layer that reflects the light of the player's laser is separated from the CD label by a thin layer of lacquer. If the manufacturer applied the lacquer improperly, air can penetrate to oxidize the aluminum, eating it up much like iron rusts in air.
But in Hartke's view, it's more common that discs are rendered unreadable by poor handling by the owner.
"If people treat these discs rather harshly, or stack them, or allow them to rub against each other, this very fragile protective layer can be disturbed, allowing the atmosphere to interact with that aluminum," he says.
FACT BOX
"CD rot" Dos:
1. Handle discs by the outer edge or the center hole.
2.Use a felt-tip permanent marker to mark the label side of a CD.
3. Keep discs clean. Wipe with cotton fabric in a straight line from the center of the disc toward the outer edge.
4. Return discs to their plastic cases immediately after use.
5. Store discs upright (book style) in their cases.
6. Store discs in a cool, dry, dark place with clean air.
7. Open a recordable disc package only when you are ready to record.
8. Check the disc surface before recording.
Part of the problem is that most people believe that it's the clear underside of the CD that is fragile, when in fact it's the side with the label. Scratches on the underside have to be fairly deep to cause skipping, while scratches on the top can easily penetrate to the aluminum layer. Even the pressure of a pen on the label side can dent the aluminum, rendering the CD unreadable.
Koster has taken to copying his CDs on his computer to extend the life of the recordings. Unfortunately, it's not easy to figure out how long those recordable CDs will work.
Fred Byers, an information technology specialist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has looked at writeable CDs on behalf of government agencies, including the Library of Congress, that need to know how long their discs will last.
Manufacturers cite lifespans up to 100 years, but without a standardized test, it's very hard to evaluate their claims, Byers says. The worst part is that manufacturers frequently change the materials and manufacturing methods without notifying users.
"When you go to a store and buy a DVD-R, and this goes for CD-R as well, you really don't know what you're getting," he says. "If you buy a particular brand of disc, and then get the same disc and brand six months later, it can be very different."
This renders the frequently heard advice to buy name-brand discs for maximum longevity fairly moot, he says.
DVDs are a bit tougher than CDs in the sense that the data layer (or layers -- some discs have two) is sandwiched in the middle of the disc between two layers of plastic. But this structure causes problems of its own, especially in early DVDs. The glue that holds the layers together can lose its grip, making the disc unreadable at least in parts.
Users that bend a DVD to remove it from a hard-gripping case are practically begging for this problem, because flexing the disc puts strain on the glue.
Rewriteable CDs and DVDs, as opposed to write-once discs, should not be used for long-term storage because they contain a heat-sensitive layer that decays much faster than the metal layers of other discs.
For maximum longevity, discs should be stored vertically and only be handled by the edges. Don't stick labels on them, and in the case of write-once CDs, don't write on them with anything but soft water-based or alcohol-based markers.
Also, like wine, discs should be stored in a cool, dry place. Koster's friend Mark Irons, of Corvallis, Ore., stored his CD collection in a cabin heated by a wood-burning stove. The temperature would range between 40 degrees and 70 degrees in the space of a few hours. Now, the data layer of some of his CDs looks as if it's being eaten from the outside.
Irons is still pretty happy with CD technology, since it beats vinyl LPs and tape for longevity. Now that he's moved his discs to an apartment with a more stable temperature, he's noticed that the decay has slowed.
"I'm hoping they'll hold out till that next medium gets popular, and everyone gets to buy everything over again," he says.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html
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$20 Back-up
New DVD Copying Software To The Rescue
Court rulings have pulled the most popular software for copying DVD movies off the market, but a new program, already on sale at CompUSA and Wal-Mart, is trying to get around these rulings and still let users duplicate copy-protected discs.
The new software, called 123 Copy DVD, sells for as little as $19.99. Out of the box, it won't copy the vast majority of commercial DVDs, which are protected by encryption.
However, the manufacturer, also called 123 Copy DVD, has a Web site with a link to another site that contains a piece of decryption software. Users can easily download that patch, which allows the program to copy any disc.
Steve Thomas, the manufacturer's vice president, claimed in a telephone interview that the site with the decryption software is unaffiliated with 123 Copy DVD.
But that claim is contradicted by Web site registration records, which show that both 123 Copy DVD's site and the site with the patch are owned by the same company, Bling Software Ltd., which has a Gibraltar mailing address.
Reached later, Thomas said he had been unaware that Bling Software owned the site with the patch. He identified Bling Software as 123 Copy DVD's parent company.
Federal judges in March ordered another company, 321 Studios Inc., to stop marketing its best-selling DVD copying software. That was a victory for Hollywood studios, which contended that DVD-copying products violate the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law bars circumvention of anti-piracy measures used to protect DVDs and other technology.
Since those rulings, 321 Studios has shipped retooled versions of its DVD-copying products, removing the software component required to descramble movies.
Thomas said that because 123 Copy DVD does not ship with decryption software, it does not violate the law.
``Our position is that it complies with the Millennium Copyright Act,'' he said.
Linking to the patch doesn't make much of a difference, Thomas contended, since decryption software is widely available on the Internet anyway.
Bruce Sunstein, an intellectual-property lawyer for Bromberg & Sunstein, a Boston-based law firm, said that even if the Web site with the patch were not affiliated with 123 Copy DVD, the manufacturer is on very shaky legal ground by providing a link to it.
``If you aid somebody in circumventing copyright protection, then you've done the bad thing,'' he said. ``I don't see it as a particularly good defense.''
In a written statement, the anti-piracy director at the Motion Picture Association of America noted that every maker of DVD copying software has claimed that its product was legal.
``We have now sued over a dozen persons/companies offering these packages and in every instance, every court has deemed the product to be illegal,'' John G. Malcolm wrote.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8605291.htm
Site info
here – Jack.
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DVD dual-layer burner product test
Exclusive: Sony DRU-700A Dual Layer Recorder
A few weeks ago, we dangled a little DVD Dual Layer primer (teaser?) for all of you who are looking forward to the technology.
Even though we received a preproduction sample from Sony, we have a generally good idea which media will be bundled in the final version of the drive. To no surprise, most of the Nero Express suite will ship with the final drive. This includes Nero Express 6, InCD 4, ShowTime, ImageDrive, WaveEditor and the Nero Toolkit.
The faceplace of our preproduction drive looks identical to the DRU-530A. Our press guide claims that the final version of the drive will also ship with a black replaceable faceplate. Unlike the Gigabyte GO-W0808A, there is no forward headphone capability.
Our largest surprise came when we noticed the chipset in our DRU-700A was the same found in the Gigabyte GO- W0808A, the MT1818E. This little chipset has been with DVD burners for a long time; the only real upgrades that have occurred since DVD+R 2X has been upgrades to the analog controllers and pickups. The same innards are found in the Lite-On LDW-812S.
More
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P2P Group Accuses Music Industry of Smut Smear
Roy Mark
Charges of proliferating child pornography on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are part of a persistent smear campaign by commercial music interests and are not supported by the facts, a P2P trade group official told a Congressional panel Thursday.
Martin Lafferty, the chief executive of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, said although pornography Web sites have increased from 88,000 in 2000 to more nearly 1.6 million in 2004, the actual instances of documented child pornography on P2P networks has declined over the past year.
Speaking to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, Lafferty said while "no amount" of child pornography (not protected free speech, and a felony offense in most countries) can be tolerated, the music industry is making "disingenuous allegations" about P2P's role in the distribution of the material.
The music industry is currently suing about several hundred P2P file sharers over alleged copyright infringements.
Lafferty said reported child pornography on P2P networks was down from 2 percent in 2002 to 1.4 percent in 2003, data he cited from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"The use of file sharing software for the distribution of pornography is regrettable, but it is less a problem than activity in many other environments," said Lafferty, whose members include Kazaa and Grokster.
Lafferty's numbers are supported by a November supplemental report by the General Accounting Office stating that the risks of inadvertent exposure to pornographic content using P2P software are no greater than those posed by other Internet applications such as browsers, e-mail, search engines and chat rooms.
The peer-to-peer figures typically correspond to the period of greatest growth in the consumer adoption of peer-to-peer software, Lafferty said. "By contrast, Web sites, chat rooms, news groups and bulletin boards, already well established and relatively mature, represented more than 97 percent of reported incidents in this period."
Lafferty added that since P2P software first burst upon the scene, companies like Kazaa, the world's most popular P2P software, have added search filters that are effectively blocking out pornographic materials.
"The record demonstrates that these issues have been and are being addressed," Lafferty said, "resulting in a user experience comparable to, if not better, than that of surfing the Internet generally."
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), who has introduced legislation requiring file-swapping services to obtain parental consent before allowing children to use P2P network software, took exception to Lafferty's comments, claiming the P2P filters do not work.
"Now, I know we'll hear a lot today about peer-to-peer software's filters and parents' passwords," Pitts said. "They don't work. This is because they are keyword filters that only prevent children from searching for pornography. Because pornographers rename their files to sound innocent, the filters are ineffective."
Pitts' Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography Act (H.R. 2885) would also mandate that distributors of P2P software provide notice that pornographic material can be accessed through the networks. It also requires that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) develop "do-not-install beacons" to block downloading of P2P software.
"Some proponents of peer-to-peer say that in proportion to the Internet at large, the amount of pornography on peer-to-peer networks is meager," Pitts said. "I agree that pornography is rampant on the Internet, but this finger pointing is a pretty bad way to pass the buck. In fact, it sounds a lot like a child caught doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing."
Since the demise of Napster, the first widely popular P2P program later shut down by court order, newer file-sharing programs like Kazaa, Grokster and BearShare have surged in popularity.
Unlike Napster, which allowed only the sharing of music files, the newer P2P networks allow the sharing of digital images.
www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3350801
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Illegal Film Downloads 'Triple'
BBC
The number of internet users who illegally download films and TV series has tripled over the past year, a survey has suggested.
An estimated 1.67m people download illegal film or TV files, compared with 570,000 last year, the British Video Association's survey found.
The loss to the UK video industry was calculated as £45m in 2003 DVD sales.
The findings, based on 16,000 people between 12 and 74, were an "enormous" threat to the industry, the BVA said.
Movies and TV series illegally downloaded last year included Kill Bill: Volume 1, The Sopranos and BBC's The Office.
TNS, which conducted the survey, said: "With downloading growing at such an enormous rate the industry cannot afford to be complacent."
But it added: "There are several factors that reduce the impact on the retail market - quality issues being the major one."
This referred to the fact that many considered illegally downloaded films to be of poor quality when compared to legal DVDs or television broadcasts.
As long as we can continue to make our traditional product attractive... we hope to avoid the worst of the damage
Lavinia Carey,
Many also felt it took too long for films to download via the internet, but the growth in use of broadband - which offers faster internet connections - is changing that.
The average film or TV downloader was identified as under 35 years old and male.
He is most likely to live in the south of England, where broadband is more widely available, and to download an average of 30 films or TV episodes per year.
Lavinia Carey, from the BVA, said: "The film, TV and video industries are working closely to pre-empt the threat from online piracy.
"As long as we can continue to make our traditional product attractive and future online offers affordable and easy, we hope to avoid the worst of the damage."
The BVA also reported a 61% increase in DVD sales in 2003, the format now representing 70% of the total video market.
Total sales across the video industry rose from £2.05bn in 2002 to £2.42bn last year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...lm/3692999.stm
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Korean Conflict Over MP3 Handsets Deepens
Kim Tong-hyung
The conflict between the recording industry and mobile carriers over online music is widening, with lobby groups threatening to seek an injunction on the sale of LG Telecom Co.'s MP3 player-equipped handsets.
"LG Telecom's MP3 cellular phone provides no protection against playing free copies of copyrighted songs, which is a threat not only to the music industry but to the mobile content industry as a whole," said a legal advisor working for the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers yesterday.
"We are considering every legal measure possible, including filing a provisional injunction against the sale of the MP3 handsets," he added.
The statement comes a day after mobile operator LG Telecom offered to pay a percentage of sales from its MP3 phones to set up a digital music development fund, in a belated attempt to mend fences. However, the producer's association officials balked at the offer and insisted LG Telecom halt the sale of its MP3 phones immediately.
The association and other lobby groups, including the Recording Industry Association and Entertainment Producers' Association, held a rally in front of LG Group headquarters in Seoul's Yeouido district yesterday, demanding the company remove its MP3 phones from the market.
The groups said they will refuse to provide music files to
www.ez-i.com and other music download sites operated by LG Telecom starting today.
The dispute over online music began in February when the country's three mobile carriers - SK Telecom Co., KTF Co. and LG Telecom - and cell phone manufacturers confirmed plans to launch MP3 player-equipped handsets within the first half of the year.
The recording industry responded by expressing their concerns over the illegal distribution of music files and both sides have been engaged in talks ever since to set the guidelines of copyright protection.
The conflict appeared to be nearing a settlement early last month, when SK Telecom, KTF and cell phone makers Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Teletech reached an agreement to limit the playing time of free MP3 copies to 72 hours after downloading.
However, LG Telecom refused to accept the conditions and went on to release their LG- LP3000 model, made by handset manufacturer LG Electronics Inc.
Around 80,000 units of the LG-LP3000 model have been sold through this month, making it one of the hottest items on the telecom market. LG Telecom is Korea's smallest mobile service provider, controlling 5.5 million of the country's 35 million cellular phone users.
"Our MP3 phones are equipped with a DRM (digital rights management) system that limits the transmission of content to other handsets, thus reducing the possibility of illegal reproduction," said LG Telecom's Kim Seung-bum.
"We consider it a violation of consumer rights to limit the usage of individually obtained music files downloaded on personal computers. There are currently no such limitations on personal MP3 players here or abroad," he added.
In a survey conducted by local portal site Daum.net, 83 percent of the 6,398 respondents said they take the limitations on the playing time of MP3 files as a violation of consumer rights.
With more than 11 million Korean households, or 73 percent, having Internet access, the free distribution of digital music has always been at the center of copyright disputes. The online music site Bugs Music (
www.bugs.co.kr), which provides free music streaming services, has more than 14 million subscribers, while the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Soribada has more than 4.5 million members.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/da...0405070032.asp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBR Not Interested In Buying Napster Systemwide
AP
It doesn't look like Tennessee colleges will be buying a new service from Napster, which is trying to sell music legally to colleges and universities.
The company is best known for popularizing illegal music downloads in dorm rooms across the country.
The Tennessee Board of Regents was looking into the idea of buying Napster for all 180,000 students at 45 state schools.
But TBR officials say they didn't like the idea of the mandatory fee they would have had to charge students for the service.
Plus, they didn't think illegal downloading posed a specific problem for the Tennessee schools.
Only two schools have signed up so far on similar deals, Penn State and the University of Rochester in New York.
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=1830040
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Civil Liberties Groups Criticize Whois Bill
ILN News Letter
Five civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, CDT, and EFF, have signed a letter criticizing the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act, which would criminalize providing false WHOIS information. Letter at
http://www.cdt.org/copyright/2004050...3754letter.pdf
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Japanese Find a Forum to Vent Most-Secret Feelings
Norimitsu Onishi
TOKYO, May 8 - In a society in which subtlety is prized above all, face-to-face confrontation is avoided, insults can be leveled with verbal nuances and hidden meanings are found everywhere, there is one place where the Japanese go to bare their souls and engage in verbal combat: Channel 2.
It is Japan's largest Internet bulletin board - the place where disgruntled employees leak information about their companies, journalists include tidbits they cannot get into the mainstream news media and the average salaryman attacks with ferocity and language unacceptable in daily life. It is also the place where gays come out in a society in which they mostly remain in the closet, where users freely broach taboo subjects, or where people go to the heart of the matter and ask, "What's for dinner?"
About 5.4 million people come to Channel 2 each month (
http://www.2ch.net), many of them several times a day. Founded in 1999, "ni-channeru," as it is called here, has become part of Japan's everyday culture as no other Web site has.
News organizations follow it closely to gauge the public mood; big companies meticulously monitor how their products or companies are portrayed on it; and the police react immediately to threats posted on the site - as they did recently when someone wrote about wanting to blow up the Chinese Embassy, prompting a sudden increase in security around the building.
Americans are more direct about expressing themselves in person, and they can turn to radio talk shows or other media for straight talk. But the choices have always been limited in Japan, so Channel 2 has created an entirely new type of forum. It plays a role that no single Web site does in the United States.
As with any bulletin board, anonymous users start threads on myriad subjects and post comments. Unlike the real Japanese world, where language is calibrated according to one's social position, the wording on Channel 2 is often stripped of social indicators or purposefully manipulated to confuse readers. Language is also raw. "Die!" is a favorite insult - and the comments are blunt, often cruel and hurled with studied cynicism.
Although about 20 Web sites attract more users than Channel 2, based on March ratings from NetRatings Japan, most of the others are portal or retail sites; and while Yahoo Japan also runs a bulletin board, it is not considered as influential as Channel 2.
Unlike the other big corporate sites, Channel 2 is run by a single person and its contents are shaped entirely by the individual users who post comments. Its only source of income is advertising from obscure companies and services.
"Channel 2 has become a brand name in this society and has an influence that cannot be measured by numbers," said Akiko Sugiyama, manager of the data mining division of Gala, which is hired by big companies to track how they are portrayed on the Internet in general and especially on Channel 2.
The manager and founder of Channel 2 is Hiroyuki Nishimura, 27, who started a business designing Web pages for customers while studying psychology in college. In 1998, he studied for a year at the University of Central Arkansas and, influenced by America's Internet culture, created Channel 2.
In an interview, Mr. Nishimura played down Channel 2's significance, saying he created it because he had "some free time." Still, he explained that he wanted to create a Web page for which others would provide the content - in effect creating a community or an open space.
Two incidents shortly after Channel 2 started up signaled the birth of a new player in Japanese society. A customer who was verbally abused by a Toshiba service representative recorded the conversation and uploaded it onto Channel 2. Then, a 17-year-old youth, an hour after posting his intentions on Channel 2, hijacked a bus in Fukuoka, stabbing one passenger to death.
Channel 2's popularity has continued to rise significantly, to 5.4 million users in the latest figures from the 220,000 users that NetRatings recorded in June 2000, when it began keeping track.
In the United States and Europe, a community spirit was behind the growth of the Internet and remains a force. But in Japan, which was late to the Net, it has been almost exclusively business driven.
"In that regard, he is unique in the Internet culture and played a big role," said Soichiro Nishimura, vice president of NetRatings Japan, referring to Channel 2's founder, to whom he is not related.
"He started the Web site because he liked it and wanted to play with it. This still seems to be his policy. That is, he is doing it because he liked it. This type of thinking is unusual in Japan and it is interesting. If I were the owner, I would naturally turn it into a business."
The most popular subjects on the site tend to relate to the news. Information not found anywhere else is leaked here, like the name of a then 14-year-old who decapitated an 11-year-old and left the severed head at a middle school a few years ago. A popular subject in Japan right now is speculation about the real reason Princess Masako has been out of the public eye for several months, which mainstream news organizations have covered circuitously.
The site also provides a community setting for people wanting to discuss topics that are still avoided in public in Japan: gays who may be thinking of coming out or people suffering from depression. In a forum in which a father discussed whether to tell his child of the family's background as burakumin, an outcast group in Japan and a very delicate subject, one user wrote, "As a resident of eastern Japan, I've learned that this problem remains a severe one only thanks to Channel 2."
But Channel 2 is also a window into Japan's ugly side. Many of the contents tend to be nationalistic and xenophobic, especially toward Koreans. When Sony and Samsung recently announced a joint project, users attacked Sony for cooperating with the South Korean company. "Die, Sony!" read several comments. "Die, Koreans!" Many wrote that they hated Koreans, using a derogatory term to describe them.
Some see that kind of comment as simply a reflection of a society that has grown increasingly conservative and nationalistic. Others say that part of Channel 2's culture is to shock by exaggerating.
"They seem to dare to say things that they cannot utter in the real world even though that's a little different from their true feelings," said Kaoru Endo, a sociology professor at Gakushuin University, referring to users of the Web site. "They want to say antagonistic things against Koreans exactly because there is a prohibition against saying such things in Japanese society."
On Friday, Mr. Nishimura said he paid $20,000 a month to a company in Palo Alto, Calif., to provide a host for the Web site. With the advertisements, Mr. Nishimura said he managed to break even.
In keeping with his detachment, Mr. Nishimura said he was bored with his Web site and did not believe it was worth enough to attract buyers. Asked about Channel 2's role in Japanese society, he said people used it simply to "kill time."
"Many people who write on Channel 2 are stupid," Mr. Nishimura said, making a statement that many Channel 2 regulars would agree with but one that will surely draw a flurry of attacks. "They cannot change the world by writing about it. If they really want to have an impact, there are other things they could be doing."
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Connecticut Woman Fined For Getting Tunes Off Internet
AP
A federal judge has fined a Connecticut woman $6,000 for allegedly downloading copyright-protected music from the Internet.
Jennifer Brothers of Andover was among thousands of people named in lawsuits filed by the recording industry last year.
Court documents indicate Brothers never accepted a copy of the suit and never filed a response with the court. The fine came when she failed to appear for a hearing last week and U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall found Brothers to be in default.
Some 2,500 suits have been filed nationally within the past year as the industry attempts to protect itself from downloads and file sharing.
Brothers Wednesday told the Connecticut Post that the only indication she had that a suit might be filed was a letter she received a month ago from a California lawyer who claimed to represent Arista Records.
Brothers said she had never received any notice of the suit from the federal court or from Connecticut lawyers handling the case.
"It think this is very unfair because I had no idea when I downloaded the music that I was doing anything wrong," Brothers said. "And after I got that letter I immediately stopped downloading off the Internet."
Last week the recording industry filed 477 suits, two of the suits claim students at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield and Trinity College in Hartford illegally downloaded music.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb.../NEWS/40506006
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Apple Asks Indian Portal To `Play Fair' — Seeks To Shut Down Free Web Download
Raja Simhan
APPLE Computer Inc has asked an India-based portal to shut a free computer programme available on the Internet. The programme decoded Apple's protected files, converted them into unencrypted files and allowed them to be played and distributed in an unrestricted manner.
The global information technology giant recently issued a legal notice that is available on the Net, to the Thiruvananthapuram- based Sarovar.org to remove the computer programme `PlayFair' from its portal. Sarovar also infringed the copyright in iTunes, an online music services offered by Apple, said the notice. iTunes offers over one-lakh new tracks from independent artists and record labels.
Sarovar.org hosts projects under free and open source licenses. The portal is customised, installed and maintained by Linuxense as part of their community services and sponsored by River Valley Technologies.
A Linuxense official confirmed that the programme was shut after receiving the notice. There were over 30,000 downloads of the programme from the portal in six days. He added that it is not illegal in India to download such a programme. The notice did not specify under which part of the law it was illegal to download the programme, he said.
``However, we had to shut down, since any legal action would affect our investors and the Internet Service Provider that hosted the programme,'' he said.
The notice, issued by advocate Mr Nitin Sen said that Apple has invested a substantial amount of resources to obtain legitimate rights in these works and make them available through its iTunes Music Service. The songs are formatted in the AAC:MPEG4 audio format (`AAC'). These AAC files sold over the iTunes Service are encrypted by Apple, which allows user to burn songs on to an unlimited number of compact disks (CDs), listen to the songs on an unlimited number of Apple's music players called iPods and play songs on up to three computers.
`PlayFair', on the other hand, decoded Apple's protected AAC files, converted them to unencrypted files and allowed them to be played and distributed in an unrestricted manner. ``This is contrary to our client's terms and conditions governing availability of the service and is causing them enormous potential loss of revenue and reputation. Not only that, PlayFair is against the express provisions of our Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Copyright Act, 1957,'' the notice said.
The programme was previously hosted on a Web site called SourceForge. When Apple addressed a `cease and desist' letter to SourceForge, the Web site removed the programme immediately from its server.
Apple asked Sarovar to immediately remove `PlayFair', all links and/or references thereto from all Web sites and servers, the notice said.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...0400440700.htm
************************************************************
Posted By: Sarovar.org Admin
Date: 2004-04-16 17:18
Summary: "PlayFair" has been taken down.
This is to announce that the project "PlayFair" has been taken down from
Sarovar.org upon receiving a legal notice this morning from Apple's
attorneys. We are awaiting to hear from our attorneys. Here is the notice we received in its full form:
E-mail :
info@linuxense.com
RSK/NSN/skk/A45 - 547
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Linuxense Information Systems
Lalita Mandir
16/1623, Jagathy
Thycaud P. O.
TRIVANDRUM - 695014
[ Fax # 0471 233 3186 ]
Attn: Mr. C. V. Radhakrishnan
President
Dear Sirs,
Re: Circumvention Computer Program "PlayFair" &
Infringement of Copyright in ITunes of
Apple Computer Inc.
We write on behalf of our clients, Apple Computer Inc, a corporation
organised and existing under the laws of the State of California, USA, of
1 Infinite Loop MS:3TM, Cupertino, California - 95014, U.S.A.
As you are undoubtedly aware, our clients own and manage one of the most
comprehensive and well-known online music services in the world under the
brand "iTunes". The iTunes music service contains hundreds of thousands
of songs from major music labels, plus over 100,000 new tracks from
independent artists and record labels. Our clients invest a substantial
amount of resources to obtain legitimate rights in these works and make
them available through their iTunes Music Service. The songs are
formatted in the AAC:MPEG4 audio format ("AAC"), which is one of the
foremost audio codecs revolutionising the field of online music today.
These AAC files sold over the iTunes Service are encrypted by our clients,
which allows the user to burn songs on to an unlimited number of CDs,
listen to the songs on an unlimited number of our clients' music players
called iPods and play songs on up to three computers. In short, our
clients have one of the most generous personal use rights attached to
services of this kind, thus enjoying the patronage of millions of users worldwide.
It was recently brought to our clients' attention that a program called
"PlayFair" had been developed, which decoded our clients' protected AAC
files, converting them to unencrypted files allowing them to be played and
distributed in an unrestricted manner. This is contrary to our clients'
terms and conditions governing availability of the service and is causing
them enormous potential loss of revenue and reputation. Not only that,
the PlayFair program is against the express provisions of our Information
Technology Act, 2000 and the Copyright Act, 1957 and you are equally
liable as accessories, being the means through which the offending program
is available for download at the Sarovar site at the following URL:
http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/.
This program was previously hosted on a website called "SourceForge".
When our clients addressed a cease and desist letter to SourceForge, the
website removed the program immediately from its server, in recognition of
the fact that PlayFair compromised the intellectual property rights of our
clients. Following the removal of PlayFair from the SourceForge's server,
it has moved to Sarovar.org, which is run, owned and managed by you.
You will agree that no site hosting open source / free projects can
support programs of this sort, which are in contravention of the law and
undermine the intellectual property rights of the owners. It may be
mentioned that you are completely aware of the background of the matter
inasmuch as the fact that PlayFair has moved from SourceForge to your
website has been clearly mentioned in the "latest news" column of your
Sarovar.org homepage. It is, therefore, not understandable as to how you
have knowingly allowed the illegal PlayFair program to be hosted on your
website.
In the aforesaid circumstances, you are hereby called upon to:
1. immediately remove the program called "PlayFair", all links and/or
references thereto from all websites and servers under your control; and
2. undertake that you will not host the program "PlayFair" on your website
or link to the location of the program "PlayFair" on your website, as well
as you will not use or cause or allow others to use "PlayFair" through
your website in future.
Since you have styled yourself after "SourceForge", our clients expect
that you will do likewise and remove the PlayFair program from your
servers as well.
Please confirm your compliance of the above requisitions within 24 hours
from receipt of this notice, failing which our clients would be forced to
consider the legal options available to them.
Yours faithfully,
[ Nitin Sen ]
Advocate
http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474
************************************************************
Update: Meanwhile, FairTunes offers the ability to decode protected into unprotected and uncompressed audio... but does not retain the unique ability of the other applications of converting from Protected AAC -> Unprotected AAC without any loss.
http://fairtunes.cjb.net/
************************************************************
PlayFair Project Coming Back Online Soon
The PlayFair free software project is likely to come online again soon, despite efforts by Apple Computer Inc. to close it down, according to Infoworld; a new improved version to be hosted outside the US is expected: "Apple last month shut down last the free software project, which lets tool users play music from the Apple iTunes Music Store on hardware not authorized by Apple, such as GNU/Linux PC, provided an authorized key is available. Sarovar, a free software development community site based in India said it would stop hosting the PlayFair project after site sponsors received a legal notice from Apple's attorneys alleging infringement of copyright."
http://www.macnn.com/news/24543
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FTA 'Unleashes Bounty Hunters'
Karen Dearne
THE US-Australia free trade agreement will unleash copyright "bounty hunters" locally even as their controversial practices are being questioned in the US, according to Verizon vice-president and general counsel Sarah Deutsch.
The US take-down notice system was "essentially a joke", said Ms Deutsch, who led ISP Verizon's successful challenge to Recording Industry Association of America demands that ISPs hand over customer information.
"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act that is now being force-fed to you has been twisted and distorted in extraordinary ways," she said.
"Originally, the concept was quite simple and workable: if you hosted content, you had an obligation to take down infringing material, but if you were simply a conduit, you were absolutely exempt.
"That worked well until the rise of peer-to-peer sharing. Frankly, US copyright owners have tried to twist the DMCA to fix a new business problem, and now we find the whole deal is unravelling."
Ms Deutsch, in Australia to attend an Internet Industry Association workshop on the FTA in Canberra and a Baker and McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre symposium in Sydney, said the recording industry had aggressively pursued so-called "infringers".
In a bid to stamp out music file-sharing, owners began automating their enforcement activities — engaging bounty hunters who used software bots to search the internet for alleged infringements, then flooding ISPs with automatically generated takedown notices.
"The problem, though, is that the materials are not on the ISP's system or network — they are on the user's hard drive," Ms Deutsch said.
"Automated P2P notices ask ISPs not only to take the material down, but effectively terminate the subscriber. It's a very egregious remedy."
Bounty hunters pumped out hundreds of thousands of automated notices based on little more than a file name match against a target list, so serious mistakes were being made, she said.
These types of errors have given rise to the now infamous cases of the record industry suing a 12-year-old girl in a housing project over a child's song, and a 66-year-old Massachusetts grandmother whose Macintosh didn't have file- sharing software.
Copyright owners were not obliged to show due diligence in sending out notices, Ms Deutsch said, but ISPs had to check each one.
The scale was vast, she said: "Over the past 12 months, one US ISP received more than 90,000 automated notices.
"In the three months since January it received 30,000 — and only two of these actually related to materials that were on its network."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...E15306,00.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NewsLeecher is a brand new Usenet downloading (leeching) application. It downloads movies, pictures, MP3 files, and software applications in a snap, and uses it's inline engine to assemble and decode all the downloads. The powerful featureset and state-of-the-art user interface makes it an application "you simply can't live without" if you are a serious Usenet leecher.
Beta 18 released this week.
Download.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesharing Is Not the Enemy
Joy Lanzendorfer
In a 2001 episode of "The Proud Family," a Disney Channel cartoon series, the teenager Penny gets addicted to filesharing after she is shown the wonders of a Napster-like program called EZJackster.
Crazed, she starts downloading all the music she ever wanted. Soon after, chaos erupts. Her favorite singer doesn't get his royalty check, her local record store goes out of business, the police come to her house and threaten to take her jail, and worst of all, her mom takes away her computer. Penny practically single-handedly destroys the U.S. economy before she finally sees that filesharing is wrong.
The episode rings with Reefer Madness-era propaganda; the 1936 film promoted the idea that marijuana makes people go insane, have promiscuous sex, and dance maniacally to jazz music in seedy apartments.
Still, the episode's underlying message – that filesharing is stopping CD sales and destroying the recording industry – has been promoted by groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) ever since Napster hit the mainstream five years ago. Several studies have come out supporting the RIAA's assertions, which have been used to back up some of its actions, like filing lawsuits against people for sharing files and lobbying to have peer-to-peer filesharing categorized as a criminal activity.
But a new study by Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina is going against the popular beliefs surrounding filesharing. After tracking 1.75 million downloads over a 17-week period in 2002 and then comparing those observations to the sales of 680 popular albums, the study found that filesharing has no negative effect on CD sales.
In fact, for the most popular 25 percent of CDs, the study found that downloading boosts sales. For every 150 songs downloaded, sales of that album jumped one copy.
"Initially, we were surprised by our results, given the consistent claim that P2P hurts sales," says Koleman Strumpf, co-author with Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "But on deeper reflection, not so much. Filesharing can potentially boost sales through the user learning about new music, and this could offset the substitution for buying, as is often claimed."
Stealing or Sampling?
The response to the Harvard-UNC study has been mixed. The RIAA decried the study, calling it "inconsistent with virtually every other study done" on the subject. While previous studies have relied on surveys asking users about their downloading habits, the Harvard-UNC study was the first to directly compare actual downloads – using server logs from OpenNap, an open source Napster server – with album sales data from Nielsen SoundScan.
Other researchers, like Stan Liebowitz, Professor at University of Texas at Dallas, have criticized the details of the study. Among other things, Liebowitz believes the study shows the result of advertising on popular music, not necessarily the effect of downloading on the entire music industry.
"It's a study that on the surface looks pretty good, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, serious problems arise," he says. "I don't find the results believable."
Others say the study is evidence of how little we know about the effect downloading has on music sales, and that alone is reason to proceed judiciously when creating laws about the technology.
"The only thing we can confidently say is that filesharing makes some people buy more records and some other people buy fewer records," says Fred Von Lohmann, Staff Attorney for the Electronic Freedom Foundation. "But there's no very clear data on what the ultimate balance of the situation is."
Downloading has been likened to singles, cheap recordings with one or two songs that were used to whet listeners' appetite for a full album. Like downloading, some people bought singles to get the one song they liked and others bought them to sample the music before buying the full album. Aptly enough, singles were phased out by the record industry because they were suspected of taking away from the profit margin of full-length albums.
"When you download a Mp3, are you thinking of it as a substitution – Ha Ha, now I have that CD and I don't have to buy it – or are you thinking of it as sampling music that you like?" says Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, a market research firm focusing on online media. "That's the heart of this debate. In our experience, we've found that downloading both hurts and aids the sales of CDs, and it's pretty much a wash."
According to the study, most people only download a few songs per album. Of the albums tracked, more than 50 percent of the songs were never downloaded, which the study seems to interpret as evidence that many people are sampling music.
What about the Record Slump?
There's no doubt the record industry is struggling. The RIAA says it has seen a 31 percent reduction in units shipped in all formats since 1999. According to the Harvard-UNC study, CD sales declined by 139 million copies from 2000 to 2002.
The study's most pessimistic statistical model showed that downloading had a slight negative impact on CD sales, with 5,000 downloads of an album reducing sales by a single copy. This would have accounted for only 2 million fewer sales in 2002, according to the authors.
The study points to a number of other possibilities for the slump besides downloading. For one thing, the record industry's decline happened during a recession, when all industries were suffering. For another, there's competition for the entertainment dollar from new options like DVDs and computer games. And the consolidation of radio by corporations like Clear Channel has led to less music variety and, consequently, less interest from the public.
"The radio is turning into a wasteland," says Von Lohmann. "Fewer people are relying on radio for their musical needs because of the ever shrinking playlists that most radio stations play."
The record industry has also spent the last few years catering to the 15- 24 age group under the belief that young people buy the most records and are the most susceptible to advertising.
Young people are also the ones downloading music. This does not mean, however, that they would buy the CDs they are downloading if filesharing didn't exist.
"Peer-to-peer is attractive to folks who are money-poor and time-rich, like teens or college kids," says Strumpf. "But it's unlikely they would be able to buy all of that music in the absence of filesharing."
Whether they would buy the albums or not, the recording industry may have started shifting its attention to the music-buying habits of the over- 30 crowd, i.e. the rest of the population. While record sales as a whole are down, adult sales have gone up the last few years. While 15-24 year olds bought 246 million records in 2003, the over-30s crowd bought 417 million albums, according to the NPD Group. Adults purchase 56 percent of all records, and that could increase to 60 percent by 2005.
P2P and Independent Musicians
With only four companies controlling mainstream music, the common belief is that filesharing brings democracy to the music industry by allowing people to have access to music they would never otherwise see. Whether this is true or not is a matter of debate. Some independent artists like Ani Difranco, (who got her start by people copying and passing around her tapes), have come out saying that illegal downloading hurts independents.
The study seems to support this belief.
"Interestingly, independent musicians are the one group who seem to be hurt from downloads, according to our results," says Strumpf. "However, this could be in part an artifact of the few downloads we observe and the poor quality of the sales data for smaller bands."
It's true that the internet allows musicians to reach audiences they otherwise could not, though connecting to that audience can prove difficult. The real differences between independent and corporate musicians may be in what they are selling.
"Many independent musicians are not in the business of selling you a plastic disc, but a relationship," says Garland. "They want a loyal fan, the person who will buy a t-shirt or a concert ticket when they come into town. That's a very different business from the kind of widgets and Coca-Cola products the four major labels are into."
These relationships can foster a loyalty in the form of support. Many people who will not bother to buy a corporate artist's CD will buy the work of an independent artist. Such displays of loyalty have insulated some independents from the effects of downloading, like Lookout! Records in Berkeley, California, which handles Green Day, The Donnas and a host of other bands.
"I don't feel like downloading has harmed our business in any way," says Chris Appelgren, President and Co-Owner of Lookout. "Independents are not the same as major labels. The people who buy our records are fans who have understanding of the size of the business, and they feel that the money does find its way to the artist. So for them, buying an album is a show of support."
Nearly everyone agrees that the artists need to be compensated for the music that people are downloading. The problem is that some see filesharing as a way of ripping artists off and some see it as a technology that, if harnessed correctly, could cut out the middleman and benefit the artists even more. But even after five years, it's still too early to tell which way downloading will go.
One thing is clear, though. Despite the efforts of the RIAA, downloading is still going strong.
"You can try to sue downloading out of existence, but it's not doing to work with tens of millions of people doing it," says Von Lohmann. "It's like prohibition. You can ban alcohol, but people are still going to drink."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18698
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Congress Considers DMCA, Consumer Copying
Jay Lyman
The basic issue before the lawmakers this week was whether the DMCA infringes upon fair-use allowances for copying copyrighted materials for one's own personal use. Supporters of the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2003 -- sponsored by Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) and John Doolittle (R- California) -- argue that the DMCA prevents consumers from making fair use of encrypted materials.
This week's U.S. congressional hearing on the loosening of DVD and other copying restrictions based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 might signal a change in attitude toward laws that have been the basis of infringement suits against companies and consumers.
Some, including lawmakers on the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, view the ability to make backup and mixed copies of copyrighted music, movies and other media as fair use, provided consumers are not selling or distributing their homemade digital copies.
Copyright holders, such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Business Software Alliance , however, argued before the committee that the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2003 would "legalize hacking" and strip copyrighted content of its piracy protections, according to MPAA president Jack Valenti's testimony.
Despite a longheld defense of the DMCA in both the U.S. House and Senate, lawmakers are now joining consumers and industry representatives in questioning the six- year-old law's effects on law-abiding, paying customers, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.
"Yesterday's hearing really marked a turning point," von Lohmann told TechNewsWorld. "It's certainly been a case of a growing number of voices calling for DMCA reform."
Fair Use Fouled
The basic issue before the lawmakers this week was whether the DMCA infringes upon fair-use allowances for copying copyrighted materials for one's own personal use. While the DMCA was intended to protect such materials from piracy that has prospered with Internet distribution, DVD burning and other technologies, it also has been the basis for a failed lawsuit against an individual who cracked a DVD encryption scheme and the RIAA's use of subpoenas to identify peer-to-peer (P2P) network users.
Supporters of the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2003 - - sponsored by Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) and John Doolittle (R- California) -- argue that the DMCA prevents consumers from making fair use of encrypted materials.
"If you want to make a copy for your car and one for your wife's and one for the boat and another for the cabin, that is hard to do because of technical restrictions the industry wanted and Congress gave to them," said Allan Swift, a former congressman who testified.
Protection in Peril
Those opposed to the DMCA limitations contend that protection for copyrighted works would be weakened and that the ability to undo encryption and antitampering technology will lead to an explosion of piracy gadgets and other technology that will devalue copyrighted material.
Valenti argued there are three reasons the proposed DMCA limitations and an allowance for backup copies are "unsuitable for passage": It is illegal, it is unnecessary, and it allows hacking of encrypted, creative material, "which in turn puts to peril the future home video market."
"Back-up copies are not legal," Valenti said. "The Copyright Act does not say 'buy one movie, get one free.' There is no more a right to a back-up copy of a DVD than a back- up DVD player, lawn mower or set of wine glasses."
However, Swift, a former member of the committee who witnessed the Big Media resistance to videotapes and DVDs, said the industry track record is marked by fear.
"They have always distrusted new technology," Swift testified. "If Hollywood had been given its way, the videotapes and DVDs from which they now make a great percentage of their profits would have been smothered in their bassinettes."
Consumers and Industry
The EFF's von Lohmann said that while consumers traditionally have been the main source of DMCA resistance, industry is now joining in opposition because the DMCA is being used as an anticompetitive weapon.
"There is concern that this is being used as a protective measure, not to protect against piracy but to fence out competitors," von Lohmann said, referring to the printer cartridge, garage-door opener and auto manufacturing industries.
Von Lohmann added that while the DMCA revision faces "enormous resistance" among other lawmakers, such as the Judiciary Committee, the recent subcommittee hearing is evidence that a change is emerging in Washington, D.C.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/33787.html