Early Edition
Quotes Of The Week
"Theft of intellectual property is so prevalent on the Internet that I will never put myself out of business." – Mark Ishikawa
"There's no form of copyright protection that can't be broken." - Kevin Carmony.
"Peer-to-peer networks are here to stay." - Michael Goodman
"It has nothing to do with eXeem." - Olivier
"If you can just give up a Saturday night, there's a very small chance at it being the biggest event in human history." - Amal Dorai
Broadcast Flag lowered
Court Blocks TV Anti-Piracy Tech Rules
Ted Bridis
A U.S. appeals court on Friday threw out new federal rules to require anti-piracy technology that would have limited how consumers could record and watch their favorite television programs in the future.
The three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia determined the Federal Communications Commission had exceeded its authority when it announced it would require such technology in digital televisions and other consumer electronic devices sold after July 1.
"This opens up the future for consumers to have more wide-ranging video experiences," said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Washington-based Public Knowledge, a consumers group. "They will be able to take advantage of new products and features that won't be dictated to them by the entertainment industry."
The controversial rules were challenged by consumer groups, including library associations. Their lawyers complained the FCC requirement would drive up prices of digital television devices and prevent consumers from recording programs in ways permitted under copyright laws.
The technology, known as the broadcast flag, would have been required after July 1 for televisions equipped to receive new digital signals, many personal computers and VCR-type recording devices. It would permit entertainment companies to designate, or flag, programs to prevent viewers from copying shows or distributing them over the Internet.
Entertainment companies said the technology was needed to block viewers from recording high-quality, digital versions of television shows and films and distributing them free online.
The FCC acknowledged the agency never had exercised the authority to impose regulations affecting television broadcasts after such programs are beamed into households, but it maintained that was permitted by Congress since lawmakers didn't explicitly outlaw it.
"We categorically reject that suggestion," the appeals panel said.
The appeals decision will launch an aggressive lobbying effort by entertainment companies in Washington to persuade lawmakers to require new technology to enforce copyright protections.
Friday's ruling was no real surprise. During courtroom arguments, U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the FCC it had "crossed the line" by requiring the new anti-piracy technology for next-generation television devices and rhetorically asked the FCC whether it also intended to regulate household appliances.
"You've gone too far," Edwards told the FCC's lawyer. "Are washing machines next?"
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan...=apn_home_down
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Internet Piracy Fails To Sink Film Profits
Staff and agencies
Despite fears that internet piracy would dent its profits, Hollywood has had a buoyant year.
Worldwide revenues from cinema tickets, videos and DVD sales, as well as television rights, reached a whopping $44.8bn (£24bn) last year, up 9% from 2003.
Record DVD sales fuelled the increase, up 14% in the US and 46% worldwide, but most other sectors did better than last year. The only exception was cinema ticket sales
outside America. These did fall, but by a relatively modest 1%.
The figures are from a report by the Motion Picture Association, part of the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood studios.
For the past year, the MPAA has mounted an aggressive anti-piracy campaign in the US, claiming that studios lose around $3.5bn (£1.8bn) in potential earnings each year.
In February, it launched its third wave of lawsuits in four months against anyone illegally up- or downloading movies through internet file-sharing programs. The MPAA has also taken to sending guards sporting night-vision goggles into cinemas, in a bid to catch the pirates red-handed.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/stor...475482,00.html
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Azureus Introduces DHT Layer
Thomas Mennecke
Azureus, a leading java based BitTorrent client, has introduced DHT (Distributed Hash Table) to its client. DHT is a networking protocol that enhances the scalability and efficiency of decentralized networks by creating a virtual index rather than broadcasting search queries. Decentralized networks that utilized DHT technology are able to search and locate files significantly faster than networks that do not use this technology.
You may think to yourself, "So what, Azureus has incorporated DHT, many decentralized networks employ this technology."
The significance of adding this layer to Azureus is that it significantly increases the efficiency of file distribution. With the new version of Azureus, any client can choose to become a tracker or not. This is where DHT comes into play.
With DHT, each node is responsible for indexing a certain percentage of hash files on the network. For example, say there are 50 Azureus users all participating on the DHT portion of the network. If 8 decide to become nodes, each one will work together to become a virtual index (so-called "tracker-less.")
This allows a client to continue downloading a file even if the web-based tracker goes down. In addition, even if a tracker happens to go down, the swarms will continue to be maintained - even finding alternative file sources. Olivier from Azureus explains this new DHT implementation has a familiar origin.
"The technology behind the DHT (Distributed Hash Table = Distributed Database) is Kademlia, (the "Kad" network in eMule is another Kademlia distributed hash table, Kad is heavily modified from the original specifications for performance reasons). Azureus implementation follows quite a lot the original Kademlia specifications so far."
Keep in mind this is not a "decentralized BitTorrent" network. The BitTorrent network and DHT network operate independently. DHT is a layer added on top of the BitTorrent network to assist in Azureus’ performance. BitTorrent is a distinct networking protocol, of which is specified by creator Bram Cohen. Anything existing outside of those specifications is not BitTorrent. Some articles have attempted to label the new Azureus as a “decentralized BitTorrent”, possibly confusing some with a dubious client named “eXeem.” Olivier makes it quite clear these two clients are not even in the same Universe.
“It has nothing to do with eXeem, and in terms of performance, searching the DHT is a matter of ms (milliseconds) when the content is available (ie, when it has results), and of seconds when it' s not. I don't know for sure how eXeem works, but from the test I did, it's not using a DHT.”
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=772
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Hackers Figure Out File Extraction From Sony UMD
Software developers have figured out how to extract files from the Universal Media Discs used in Sony Corp.'s new PlayStation Portable handheld video game device, though there is no way to play the games extracted from those discs.
Some details of the exploit were posted Wednesday night on the Web site PS2nfo.com, along with lists showing all the files pulled off the game discs for "Ridge Racers," "Wipeout Pure" and "Vampire Chronicles."
The games are not yet playable because there is no way to burn UMDs from scratch, and the PSP does not accommodate larger discs. However, the site said the ability to look through the games' file structures could still be instructive for developers.
A spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment of America was not immediately available for comment.
Sony released the PSP on March 24 in North America, and the device has sold well since. Movie studios are gearing up to release some of their films on the UMD format, though it was not immediately clear if the techniques used to extract the game files would also work for films.
http://today.reuters.com/News/TechSt...ONY-PSP-DC.XML
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USB Drives Aid File Sharing
Enid Burns
Portable USB flash drives come in all shapes and sizes, and capacities and capabilities are growing to suit users. Eighty percent of respondents in a survey have flash drives primarily for personal use, and share files with their friends 66 percent of the time according to a survey conducted by Hall & Partners, commissioned by M-Systems and DiskOnKey.
The survey polled 415 respondents who regularly use USB flash drive devices or are likely to buy one within the next six months. It found USB drive consumers are predominantly male, in their mid-30s to mid-50s, and make over $50K a year.
Most Popular Files Stored on USB Drive
File Type
Respondents
Music
62%
Graphics
52%
Video
46%
Source: Hall & Partners, February 2005
The overwhelming majority of respondents (83 percent) would pay more for extra storage capacity, with 59 percent are likely to buy another flash drive in the next two years. Capacity is an important purchase consideration, say 51 percent of respondents, followed by speed. Thirty-eight percent of those questioned want a faster drive.
USB flash drives have become a daily accessory for 21 percent of those surveyed. Sixty-six percent use their drive to share files with friends and families. The pass-along rate of files (not necessarily the drives themselves) may provide a new outlet for rich media that can be stored and shared on USB flash drives.
Interest in Future Applications on USB Drive
Application
Respondents
Customizing portable desktop
54%
Accessing e-mail
51%
Managing passwords
47%
Accessing Web accounts
43%
Source: Hall & Partners, February 2005
"Making content more portable, like the BMW film ads; USB flash drives made it easy to transport content," says Joe Unsworth of Gartner Group.
Unsworth explains the price point is the driving factor in the sale of this medium, with a $50 purchase price being the sweet spot for most buyers. A few are willing to spend a few dollars more to up the capacity of the drive they are purchasing.
"They want that extra storage for a few more dollars. That is where it is compelling, and has made the market elastic," comments Unsworth.
Another element to the pass-along rate of USB flash drives is when they're given out at conferences and events loaded with presentations and other data. The affordable size for this brand of promotion is typically up to 64 megabytes.
"You are going to see video talk tracks and music talk tracks," explains Unsworth. "There is talk about giving away music player USB drive devices with little cost to the marketer."
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/...le.php/3501446
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People Telecom Gets Piracy Warning
Renai LeMay
Anti-piracy agencies are targeting a select number of Internet service providers with e-mails warning of illegal movie and software downloads by their users.
MediaSentry and the Business Software Alliance, which act for sections of the recording and software industries in stopping online piracy, respectively, have requested ISPs to clamp down on illegal file- sharing activity. If no action is taken, legal action would be taken.
Australia's People Telecom is one such ISP which has received numerous warnings. However, Telstra's BigPond, the country's largest ISP, has received none.
"We get hundreds of them, all the time. Every ISP does," said People Telecom CEO Ryan O'Hare, adding that the company has been receiving such e-mails since it launched 18 months ago.
A BigPond spokesperson said the company "did not believe it had received any such e-mail". At press time, other large Internet service providers including Optus, iiNet, Internode, Netspace and Westnet did not comment on whether they too had been targeted.
Upon receiving notices from anti-piracy organisations, People Telecom would merely forward the e-mails to customers in question and request for an end to such activities. The company's action is in line with its standard service agreement, which states that customers may not use its network to infringe intellectual property rights.
In two e-mails obtained by ZDNet Australia , the ISP said: "Please be advised that we have received a copyright infringement notice against an IP address identified as belonging to your account.
"We request that you check your PC for a virus and/or cease immediately from downloading copyright material. Should you fail to comply with this request within 48 hours, further action may be taken against you."
O'Hare said it was his belief that some ISPs didn't react to the e-mails, "because they say it's not their responsibility", but some -- such as his own company -- do.
"We always have, and it's part of the Copyright Act," he said. "We're trying to do the right thing."
People Telecom is currently involved in a court case resulted from a raid on the premises of its subsidiary Swiftel this March. The Music Industry Piracy Investigations has alleged that Swiftel hosted and maintained two servers providing access to copyrighted material via the BitTorrent application, which is enjoying rising popularity in peer-to-peer file-sharing circles.
O'Hare would not confirm whether his company was currently monitoring its users' traffic for copyright infringements due to the restrictions of the Swiftel court proceedings.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communi...9190667,00.htm
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Austrian ISP Has To Divulge User Data After All
A performing rights society has won a suit filed with the Intermediate Court of Appeals in Vienna to have the identity of a file-sharing user revealed. The court thus upheld the original judge's ruling. The Council Chamber of the first-instance district criminal court of Vienna had overruled this ruling on December 01, 2004. The provider has been ordered to reveal the name and address of a customer charged with offering 3,864 music files as downloads for 21 minutes on October 07, 2004. The plaintiff, a performing rights society, only knows the person's dynamic IP address.
The first-instance district criminal court has rejected the plaintiff's demand to have the data revealed, arguing that a dynamic IP address is not master data (unlike names, addresses, etc.). Hence, the court argued, the identity of the accused could only be determined by tracing the call data, which is admissible according to Section 149a of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) only if crimes with penalties exceeding one year in prison were committed intentionally. However, the plaintiff argued that Section 91 paragraph 1 of the Copyright Act has been violated, which has a maximum sentence of six months in prison.
The Appeals Court thus had to rule that an IP address was equivalent to a telephone number, thus making both master data. "Master data are not subject to privacy of telecommunications, but rather only to data protection. Information about master data provided to criminal courts - i.e., the regular revelation of a user's identity based on a telephone number (which corresponds to an IP address) - can be provided if the suspect is to be investigated and prosecuted for a specific crime; here, the restrictions in Section 149a ff stop do not apply", the court explained when handing down its ruling. The Appeals Court based its ruling on "Section 18 paragraph 4 of the ECG, which stipulates that service providers have to divulge a user's name and address if a third party has a material legal interest in determining the user's identity to provide evidence of an illegal action." In addition, the Court explained that "providers cannot be allowed to decide at their discretion whether to issue static or dynamic IP addresses in order to avoid their duty to disclose information.” (Daniel AJ Sokolov) / (Craig Morris) / (jk/c't)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/59083
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Apple Gets Tech Support In Court
Dawn Kawamoto
The potential conflict between trade secrets and First Amendment rights intensified earlier this week as Intel, Genentech and the Business Software Alliance filed court briefs in support of Apple Computer.
Apple wants to subpoena e-mail records from a Web site that leaked confidential product information.
The briefs, filed this week in a California appeals court, support a tentative ruling by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg. Kleinberg ruled that Apple could subpoena e-mail records of Macintosh enthusiast site PowerPage, which leaked confidential information about a music hardware device code named Asteroid, one of Apple's upcoming products.
Following the judge's decision, however, the digital-rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the appeals court to overturn Kleinberg's ruling, saying it would infringe on PowerPage's First Amendment rights. EFF represents three online journalists whose records are being sought by Apple in the case.
Intel, Genentech and the software alliance contend that innovation would be hampered if it were legal to obtain trade secrets and post them on a Web site.
"Strong trade secret laws are vital to the health of California's high-technology business and to the economy of the nation as a whole," Intel and BSA stated in their joint brief. "There is no public interest in having such trade secrets stolen and plastered on the Internet for competitors and others to see."
The chip giant and BSA asked the appeals court to differentiate between First Amendment protections and cases where reporters "have been conduits of stolen information and their files contain direct evidence of that illegal conduct."
Genentech, a biotech giant, asked the court to consider the effect of allowing a company's intellectual property to be published without its permission.
"In this day and age, when a trade secret--indeed, any kind of secret--is never more than a few keystrokes away from global publication, companies that prosper on the strength of their intellectual property must have the ability to take reasonable steps to learn the identities of those who steal that property," Genentech stated in court documents.
In the last five months, Apple has subpoenaed the records of PowerPage and AppleInsider to uncover the identities of three "John Does" who it says leaked the confidential information to the sites. While Apple is not directly suing the two sites, it is focusing its suit against the individuals who leaked the information. In a separate case, Apple is suing the publisher of Web site ThinkSecret for its role in disclosing Apple's trade secrets.
Apple declined to comment on the Intel, Genentech and BSA briefs, and instead referred to its original statement when it filed its John Doe case with the Santa Clara County Superior Court.
"Apple has filed a civil complaint against unnamed individuals who we believe stole our trade secrets and posted detailed information about an unannounced Apple product on the Internet. Apple's DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success," the company said.
Meanwhile, in a third, unrelated case, Apple sued three men who leaked developer copies of its new Tiger operating system onto file-sharing sites. Apple has settled with two of the three men.
http://news.com.com/Apple+gets+tech+...3-5689203.html
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Apple Sued Over "Tiger," Injunction Sought
AppleInsider Staff
Apple Computer has been slapped with a lawsuit by Tiger Direct Inc. for allegedly infringing its trademark with the new Mac OS X "Tiger'' operating system scheduled for release on Friday.
Tiger Direct, which sells computers and related products on the Internet, said Apple's Tiger OS threatens to dilute its trademarked name, according to Bloomberg, which has obtained a copy of the lawsuit.
The online retailer also accused Apple of deceptive and unfair trade practices in the lawsuit, filed today in federal court in Miami, Florida, Bloomberg said.
"Apple Computer has created and launched a nationwide media blitz led by Steven Jobs, overwhelming the computer world with a sea of Tiger references," Tiger Direct's attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
If the court grants Tiger Direct's request for an injunction, Apple's rollout of Tiger could be stopped.
Tiger Direct, which is based in Miami, Florida, has used its family of Tiger trademarks to sell computers and computer related products since 1987, the lawsuit said. The company owns trademarks on the names Tiger, TigerDirect and TigerSoftware.
The retailer said Apple's use of the name "is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the general purchasing public."
At the root of the issue appears to internet search results. Tiger Direct contends that Apple's use of the name has adversely affected its ranking amongst the Internet's largest search engines, Google and Yahoo, bumping the company from its usual spot in the first three results.
Tiger Direct has asked the federal court to block Apple from using the name, according to Bloomberg.
The online retailer is also seeking damages and legal fees.
Update: Tiger Direct claims a preliminary injunction hearing is slated for Tuesday, May 3, several days after Tiger is scheduled to go onsale.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1039
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Apple Releases Huge Security Update to OS X 10.3.9
Apple released a major security update earlier today for Max OS X 10.3.9, both client and server editions. The patch addresses 20 vulnerabilities in the OS, including Apache, AppleScript, Bluetooth, Finder, Terminal and VPN.
Security Update 2005-005 is a fix for all of the vulnerabilities and can be downloaded through Software Update or from http://
www.apple.com/support/downloads.
http://www.geekcoffee.net/archives/2...eleases_3.html
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Review
Mac Os X Steps Ahead of Windows
Matthew Fordahl
Tired of waiting while your PC slowly scours its hard drive for a document you stashed somewhere six months ago? Sick of having to change how you work to conform with the computer's rigid way of organizing files? Bored with the flat look of the desktop's graphics?
Microsoft's next-generation operating system for Windows, code-named Longhorn, is supposed to address such digital woes. It may even be released in time for Christmas 2006.
But if you've got a Macintosh computer, or plan to buy one, those issues have been tackled. They're amply addressed in the latest update of Mac OS X, dubbed "Tiger," goes on sale Friday.
Despite a much smaller user base, Mac OS X has been steps ahead of Windows on key fronts since its first release in 2001. It's got more advanced and polished graphics. It's less prone to malicious attacks. And Macs look better than nearly all Windows PCs.
Until recently, Apple has been dogged by a reputation for high prices. Its computers now start at $499, and the number of programs that run on them has grown dramatically. Tiger provides another excellent incentive to switch from Windows.
I've been trying out Tiger on a borrowed an iMac G5 and my own dual-processor Power Mac G4. New Mac users will get it with their systems; existing customers must pay $129 for the upgrade. (The update was simple, taking about an hour.)
Topping the list of 200 or so improvements in Tiger is a built-in search tool that goes a long way toward relieving one of the biggest headaches that's plagued computers.
That is, as hard drive capacity grows and our digital universe broadens to include text, music, video, e-mail, pictures and everything else, information gets lost in the shuffle of folders scattered across gigabytes of hard drive real estate.
Operating systems have been designed to pigeonhole that data into a hierarchy of folders. But what if a document, song or picture fits into five or six different categories, each with its own folder? If you choose one, how will you remember it a year from now?
Tiger addresses both problems with a search technology, called Spotlight, that also enables a new way of organization, called Smart Folders.
Accessed by clicking small magnifying glass icon, search results fill in as you type keywords. Spotlight doesn't just search filenames. It also looks inside files - into a document's text, a picture's caption or tags linked to a music file, for instance.
Spotlight's speed, even on my older Power Mac, is impressive. Results were on target, too.
Like the desktop search tools available on Windows PCs from Yahoo, Google and MSN, Spotlight relies on an index that's created when it's first installed. Instead of having to scour an entire drive in search of something, it just looks it up in the database.
Indexing with Windows add-ons is a more computer-intensive process. Most are smart enough to do their work only when you're not working on something, but that means new information isn't always available. I have also found their range of files to be limited.
After the initial index is built in Tiger, changes are made to it whenever a file is changed - whether it's saved, deleted, moved or modified in another way. I noticed no performance hit and, despite my repeated attempts to trick it, Spotlight never missed a file change.
I actually found myself using Spotlight to launch programs.
And there's more. Searches can be saved and the results turned into folders that run a query each time they're opened, fine-tuned to display only certain types of files. Time variables can also be set.
There is room for some improvement, however.
Spotlight only searches for files on the local computer, not networked hard drives or remote shared folders. Network file searching is something that's expected in Longhorn, and Apple hasn't ruled it out as a future feature.
Tiger - like previous versions of Mac OS X - also sets the bar high in the graphics display area.
In its "Dashboard," small programs called "Widgets" overlay the screen at the punch of a button. They such display information as the weather, stock prices, flight information and calendar info. More can be added, and they pop open with a rippling flourish.
But Tiger is about a lot more than look and feel. It's also about looking at more people than ever on your video screen live.
With Apple's iSight camera ($149) and Tiger's new built-in iChat AV program, you can set up and participate in video conferences with 10 people. It's visually stunning, with each person showing up in a panel, their animated faces reflecting against a black background.
Of course, it's impossible to judge how Tiger will compare with the next-generation of Windows since Longhorn isn't available.
As more details come out, additional complaints of Microsoft copying Mac OS X will surely be heard.
Both Apple and Microsoft are trying to address the same problems: sifting more quickly through more and more data. The onus is now on Bill Gates & Co. to see if it can one-up Steve Jobs' shop.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS
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In Shift on Intellectual Property, Microsoft Will Team With Outsiders
Steve Lohr
Microsoft announced today that it would begin to license its home-grown ideas to venture capital firms and entrepreneurs. The move, the company said, is an effort both to open up its technology to outsiders and to exploit its storehouse of intellectual property.
The new program, called Microsoft Intellectual Property Ventures, is intended to foster more amicable relations between the big software company and start-up companies that have often regarded Microsoft as a threat.
The program, company executives say, will also provide a path into the marketplace for technology developed by Microsoft researchers that does not necessarily make it into the company's products. The licensing deals, which could include Microsoft's taking equity stakes in startups, will yield added revenue and investment income, though the amounts will be modest at first.
The new initiative points to a shift in Microsoft's intellectual property strategy away from a trade secrets mentality, in which inventions are hoarded under a licensing policy. Microsoft is following the well-traveled course of more mature technology companies, led by I.B.M., which has long licensed its innovations and earns more than $1 billion a year in royalties. Two years ago, Microsoft hired a former I.B.M. executive, Marshall Phelps, as deputy general counsel overseeing intellectual property licensing.
The traditional licensing policies of big companies have mostly focused on cross-licensing deals with other big companies. Yet in the last year or so, several major technology companies have tried ways to sell or share their technology with smaller companies and entrepreneurs by offering more flexible terms or making some patents free, as I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems have done.
Microsoft has been working for more than six months to develop its program with a handful of venture capital firms. Venture capitalists who have been told of the Microsoft effort said the technology on offer was grouped in 20 categories, including artificial intelligence, security, graphics, gaming and databases.
Lucinda Stewart, a general partner at OVP Venture Partners in Seattle, said startups could benefit from using off-the-shelf technology from Microsoft as building blocks for their own new products or services. "This program could accelerate the speed to market for some of the opportunities we're working on," Ms. Stewart said.
Besides building on the Microsoft technology, startups may also want to strike licensing deals to make sure their products or services work well with Microsoft products. "We want to make sure the things our companies are doing fit into the Microsoft ecosystem, and in the past that has sometimes been challenging," said Sam Jadallah, a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures in Silicon Valley.
One of the startups Mohr Davidow is financing is Scalix, which makes e-mail server software that runs on the Linux operating system, a competitor of the Windows server operating system. Scalix is also a direct rival to Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server software, lends support to Linux, yet must work well with Microsoft's desktop Outlook e-mail program.
Will Microsoft's more open licensing policy extend to potential competitors like Scalix? "I'm sure those kinds of conversations will take place," said Mr. Jadallah, a former Microsoft executive. "As in all things, you want to see how the execution of this program works."
For Microsoft's labs, which now employ more than 700 researchers worldwide, the new licensing program is a way to have their innovations used more broadly than in the company's products, Rick Rashid, senior vice president for Microsoft's research division, said.
Mr. Rashid cited a deal signed last month with a startup, Inrix, as a forerunner of the new program. Inrix licensed some predictive, real-time technology developed in Microsoft's labs for its business of modeling traffic patterns on highways and streets. "We don't do traffic-flow analysis," Mr. Rashid explained. "Computer science now has a lot to offer in a broad set of fields."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/te...4cnd-soft.html
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Microsoft Loses A Round In Eolas Patent Case
Microsoft Corp. lost a U.S. appeals court bid to limit the damages software makers can be ordered to pay in some patent-infringement cases, on its way to a new trial in a dispute over a method of surfing the Internet.
A jury had told Microsoft to pay Eolas Technologies Inc. $521 million for infringement. Yesterday, an appeals court let stand its earlier decision that upheld the infringement finding and ruled that Microsoft can be forced to pay damages based on overseas sales of software. Microsoft still gets a new trial to argue that the patent is invalid.
The case involves a 2003 award to closely held Eolas by a jury that decided Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser infringed an Eolas patent on technology for reading information stored on the Internet.
Intel Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online supported Microsoft's argument that damages in such patent-infringement cases shouldn't include global sales when disks containing software code have been sent overseas.
Microsoft said in court papers that more than 64 percent of the $521 million award was based on computers "made, sold and used entirely in foreign countries."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled March 2 that Microsoft's software on computers sold overseas was covered by a U.S. patent because it had been copied from a master program developed in the United States.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...3_eolas04.html
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IBM to Cut Up to 13,000 Jobs, Take Charge
AP
International Business Machines Corp. said Wednesday it would cut between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs and record a pre-tax charge of between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion in the second quarter.
IBM surprised investors last month when it missed first-quarter earnings estimates by 5 cents a share. When it reported earnings, the chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said the company would take a "sizable restructuring."
The majority of the cuts are planned for Europe. The company began cutting jobs at its European operations even before it announced its first-quarter earnings. The cuts are in line with analysts' estimates.
The company plans to realign its operations and organizational structure in Europe to reduce bureaucracy in lower-growth countries.
IBM stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange at $77.07 a share, up 60 cents, late Monday.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...M&SECTION=HOME
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Hard times for hard drive maker
Maxtor Swings to Loss for First Quarter
AP
Maxtor Corp., a maker of hard disk drives, said Wednesday it swung to a loss in the first quarter as it absorbed a big severance charge.
The company lost $24.2 million, or 10 cents per share, in the three months ended April 2 compared with a profit of $8.9 million, or 3 cents per share, a year ago. The results for the latest quarter reflected a $4.9 million charge related to the termination of the Company's 2.5-inch drive program and $13.9 million in severance-related charges associated with the reduction in force in the U.S. and in Singapore.
Revenue rose slightly to $1.07 billion from $1.02 billion. Analysts were expecting the company to post a loss of 8 cents per share on revenue of $989.3 million.
Maxtor said drive shipments in the quarter totaled 14.2 million, with desktop drives representing 13.4 million of the total, including 1,029,000 shipped to consumer electronics original equipment makers.
Maxtor said that following a review of its accounting for leases acquired in its 2001 acquisition of Quantum Corp.'s hard disk drive business, the company has determined that net income for prior periods was overstated by $6.7 million. The company said that it will file an amended financial statement for 2004 that will include the adjustments for the earlier periods.
Maxtor shares rose 26 cents, or 5.5 percent, to close at $4.97 on the New York Stock Exchange. It reported its earnings after the close and its shares were down a penny a share in extended trading.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS
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Russia's Federal Security Bureau Asks For More Authority To Control Internet
RIA Novosti
Russian security authorities should be given broader powers to control telecommunications and the Internet, argues Dmitri Frolov, of the Federal Security Service's Information Security Center.
Frolov spoke Thursday in the Federation Council, or Russia's upper house of parliament, at a panel discussion devoted to telecommunications and Internet regulations.
The Federal Security Service proposes setting new rules for Internet providers so that it could prevent the spread of extremist ideas, track down illegal online operations, and get access to databases with mobile telephone subscribers' details, such as e-mail addresses, Frolov said. There should be compulsory registration of mobile phone users with Internet connectivity.
The lack of clear-cut regulations on Internet operations may bring some sensitive information or misinformation into the public domain, as well as lead to copyright violations, argued Frolov. He believes that Russia needs enabling legislation to put this sector in order.
The Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications is opposed to the idea of adopting a separate law on Internet operations. Speaking at today's panel discussion in the Federation Council, Deputy Minister Boris Antonyuk said the use of the Internet could be regulated by more general laws already in effect, including those dealing with advertising, the protection of consumer rights, and administrative offenses.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050428/39757635.html
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Bahrain's Decision To Register Web Sites Criticized
AP
All Web sites operating in Bahrain must register with the country's Information Ministry under a new government mandate that has provoked protests
from an international watchdog for press freedom.
The move comes two months after the government detained three Bahrainis who were linked to an Internet forum that it viewed as hostile.
Web sites have six months starting this Monday to register. They must give the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the operators, said Jamal Dawood, the ministry's director of publications. Web sites will then get an ID number they must post.
The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders criticized the move, saying it will intimidate Web publishers, including operators of personal Web journals such as blogs, and pressure sites to cut back on message boards and other interactive features for fear they will be held responsible for what visitors post.
``This does not happen in any democratic country and is a threat to press freedom,'' the Paris-based organization said in a statement.
Dawood, who helped draft the regulation, denied the requirement was a restriction of press freedom or freedom of expression.
He said nobody will be refused registration on grounds of their site's content.
The government had not yet decided what would happen to those who fail to register, Dawood said.
The three Bahrainis detained in February were released last month, but their passports have been confiscated. They may yet be prosecuted for running a site accused of criticizing the royal family, inciting hatred against the government and spreading false information that could destabilize the nation.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11512867.htm
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Law Firm Suing To Take News Of Woes Off Web Site
Michael Beebe
Cellino & Barnes has gone to court to stop a Rochester law firm from mentioning its potential disciplinary problems on the Rochester firm's Web site.
Ross M. Cellino and Stephen E. Barnes claim that Moran & Kufta PC and its principal attorney, James J. Moran, violated New York State's civil rights law.
It had no right, the suit claims, to mention a March 11 Buffalo News story about the investigation of Cellino & Barnes on the Moran Web site and to link to The News story over the Internet.
Attorney Richard T. Sullivan, who filed the lawsuit, said Moran & Kufta never obtained permission from Cellino and Barnes to use "their names for advertising or trade purposes."
The suit, filed April 18 in State Supreme Court, demands a permanent injunction against the Moran firm from using the names of Cellino and Barnes on its Web site, and any other relief the court deems proper.
Moran referred questions to attorney Phillip G. Spellane, of the Rochester firm Harris Beach, who said only: "We disagree with the claim alleged and intend to defend it vigorously."
Sullivan, who is also representing Cellino & Barnes before the grievance committee with attorney Joel L. Daniels, could not be reached to comment.
A lawyer specializing in Internet law says Cellino & Barnes will have a difficult time winning its suit.
"It seems like a bizarre complaint," said Internet law professor Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer with the Electronic Freedom Forum and a founding fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
"It seems like something the First Amendment would not permit to go forward because commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment," she said.
She also said New York's Civil Rights statute more likely applies to an advertisement that falsely claims an endorsement or testimonial, not just the mention of a competitor's name.
Section 50 of the statute, referred to in the suit, reads in full: "Right of privacy. A person, firm or corporation that uses for advertising purposes, or for the purposes of trade, the name, portrait or picture of any living person without having first obtained the written consent of such person, or if a minor of his or her parent or guardian, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
Moran & Kufta's linking The News article on its Web site, Seltzer said, would be no different than the law firm putting a copy of the story in a newsletter or posting it in its lobby.
She said she suspects "the complaining party is perturbed that more people have become aware of the article because it's linked to on the Internet and think this might be a good way to quiet it down."
The lawsuit has already had a temporary effect. Moran & Kufta's Web site, moranandkufta.com, has not been available since the suit was filed.
In his complaint, Sullivan said Moran & Kufta posted the link to the March 11 article under the Web site's Hot Topics section. The Web site designer, Electronic Portfolio, described it as "a place for current hot topics, which keeps the site up to date . . . "
It carried a headline, "Cellino & Barnes Investigated." By clicking on an Internet link, the reader would be directed to The News Web site for the full story.
Before linking to The News story, the Web site copy also stated: "Cellino & Barnes facing the grievance committee because of multiple client complaints."
The News story referred to an expected decision by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court on complaints made about Cellino & Barnes to the grievance committee that investigates lawyers.
The story said the specific complaints were not known, but said the range of possible outcomes from the Appellate Division ranged from disbarment, suspension, censure, or letters of admonition to no cause of action.
No decision on Cellino & Barnes has come down from the court in the past two months. The next round of decisions from the Appellate Division is expected in June.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...03/1065516.asp
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Tunisia Jails Lawyer For Internet Writings
A Tunisian court jailed lawyer and human rights activist Mohamed Abbou for three-and- half years for charges stemming from articles he published on the Internet, lawyers said on Friday.
He went on trial on Thursday on charges of "his incitement of the population to infringe the laws", "spreading false information " to disturb public order and "violence" against a female lawyer.
Abbou, 39, has been detained since his arrest on March 1.
More than 300 lawyers lined up for his defence, arguing that the government was using the judiciary to punish dissidents for their opinion. The verdict came in early on Friday.
"The sentences were two years for violence and one-and-half year for the Internet articles, so he will be jailed for three-and-half years," lawyer Radhia Nasraoui told Reuters.
Lawyers argued the government has no case in trying Abbou for "violence" against one of his female colleagues, saying the case dated back to 2002.
"The authorities came up with this violence case just to disguise their hidden motives to punish Abbou for publishing his views," said Ayachi Hammami, also a lawyer and rights activist.
Some lawyers said the trial made a mockery of the North African country's selection to host the U.N.- backed World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in November.
The Tunisian government has been accused by human and press freedom groups of not being suitable to host of WSIS because of its record on press freedom and tolerance of dissidents.
Tunis dismissed such accusations, insisting it had won the right to host the summit in recognition for its social and economic development efforts, including Internet use expansion.
"It would be a shame and scandal for Tunisia to host the WSIS summit. It is a country that jails people for writing articles on the Internet," said Nasraoui, who is also leading rights activist.
Abbou wrote an article on the Internet recently arguing that conditions in Tunisia's jails were worse than Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison where abuse of prisoners by U.S. troops caused a global outcry.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and three Tunisian human rights groups said last week the government had subjected political prisoners to years of torture, rape and solitary confinement. Tunisia denies the existence of such prisoners.
Abbou also published an article criticising the authorities for inviting Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to attend the summit.
Sharon is unpopular in Muslim countries for his policy against Palestinians and his role as a defence minister for the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Lawyers said they will lodge appeal in the next few days but many of them said Abbou will leave jail any time soon only if President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali were to pardon him as he did with some prisoners in the previous years.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050429/80/fhnwl.html
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Ofcom May Have To Police Internet Content
Watchdog is uneasy at plans that may hinder UK firms
Owen Gibson
Media regulators across Europe could be forced to police internet content for taste and decency in the same way as television programmes, according to proposals under consideration in Brussels.
The plans have led to fears at the British media watchdog Ofcom that this may stifle innovation in the nascent broadband content industry and prove impossible to enforce.
This year the UK regulator will review the likely impact of broadband and other new services such as 3G over the next decade and consult the public and the industry over whether content delivered over them can and should be regulated.
The issue has come to a head as Brussels debates changes to a revamped Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets the agenda for European media regulation. New draft proposals are due to be issued later this year. The thinking in Brussels is that it will contain plans for Europe-wide regulation of television-style broadcasts over the internet.
But content providers, internet service providers and Ofcom are worried that as myriad new services delivering television over the internet become commonplace, they will prove impossible to regulate in the traditional manner.
And with overseas content providers able to broadcast internationally over the internet, there are also concerns that it would put British companies at a competitive disadvantage.
The proposals, if implemented, would run counter to Ofcom's determination to reduce its regulatory burden and switch to a "light touch".
Robin Foster, Ofcom's senior partner in charge of strategy, said: "[Television Without Frontiers] seems to be geared to extending traditional broadcasting regulation into new media and the internet.
"The slight worry is that it takes a very regulatory approach to new media, which may have a number of bene fits, but it may not be positive and may stop new ideas developing in a broadband world. We shouldn't just assume that we should regulate."
Instead, Ofcom is believed to favour a mix of existing laws, such as those on obscenity and copyright, and advocating greater media literacy so consumers can block unwelcome content themselves. One idea floated last year would be to rate content on all websites.
The industry, from internet service providers to websites, is also sceptical over whether the medium can be regulated in any meaningful way.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association, a trade body, said: "There's been laws passed against spam. But in a situation where spam is coming from around the world and there are different laws in place in Europe and the US, what do you do?"
Already an increasing number of broadband subscribers watch television programmes over the web as prices come down and connection speeds increase. Later this year telecom companies including BT and France Telecom's Wanadoo plan to launch video-on-demand services to be delivered over broadband lines via a set-top box to the television.
Mr Foster has also been asked by the chief executive, Stephen Carter, to lead a wide-ranging review of Ofcom's regulatory role in the digital age before he leaves the post later this year. And as part of the implementation of its recommendations in its public-service broadcasting review, it will ask media groups this summer to mock up options for its mooted £350m public-service publisher.
Designed to provide the BBC with competition in a multi channel age, the trial services will form the centrepiece of a public consultation.
Other pressing issues for the regulator include a review of the options for local television. Mr Foster said Ofcom would consult over whether to advocate a commercial "city TV" model or one based on not-for-profit community services.
He said he hoped to have a framework in place for the network of new channels by the time the government begins to switch off the analogue signal in 2008, so they could broadcast immediately using the spectrum released.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...476127,00.html
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Illinois Games-Restriction Bill Advances
Tim Surette
The Safe Games Illinois Act is a step closer to becoming law in the Prairie State.
House Bill 4023 was approved 6 to 2 in the state's Senate Housing and Community Affairs Committee on Tuesday, and now moves on to the state Senate. Since its proposal earlier this year, the bill has been readily approved through the legal process.
The bill would allow the state to slap its own ratings on games, ignoring those set by the self-regulatory Entertainment Software Ratings Board, or ESRB. The bill concentrates on keeping violent games out of youngsters' hands, and severely fines retailers who fail to do so.
According to state legislators, games that feature "dismemberment, decapitation, disfigurement, maiming, mutilation of body parts or rape" would be slapped with an "18" sticker similar to the parental advisory warning on compact discs. The sale of such games to minors would warrant legal action of a $1,001 fine and a red mark on the seller's permanent record. The current ESRB ratings system isn't legally binding.
The full spectrum of the bill's effects has not been set in stone. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, has not yet clarified the scope of the rating system or the financial penalties the legislation would incur. The bill's sponsor, Democrat Deanna Demuzio, has said that she will not bring the proposal to a Senate vote until questions of the fines and labeling are made clearer.
Legislatures in at least six states are considering new proposals that would make it a crime to sell mature games to children.
Courts have overturned laws in the state of Washington; St. Louis County, Mo.; and Indianapolis that made it illegal to sell violent games to minors, in each case ruling that games are constitutionally protected speech, and age restrictions thus must be limited to the type of discretionary systems used for movies, books and other media.
http://news.com.com/Illinois+games-r...3-5695620.html
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Tech Repair Official Kid Porn Watchdog?
Natalie Pona
The province is eyeing a law that would force computer repair shops to call police when they find kiddie porn on a client's computer, The Sun has learned.
Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh formed a committee in 2001 to examine ways to protect Manitoba children from being exploited on the Internet.
Now members are planning to suggest to Mackintosh that Manitoba legislate mandatory reporting of child pornography, including for employees of computer repair shops.
"He wouldn't have asked a committee to bring forward these recommendations if he wasn't seriously considering this," said a spokesman for Mackintosh.
Lianna McDonald, executive director of Child Find Manitoba, is a member of the committee. She said child pornography should legally be considered in the same vein as child abuse.
"If you look at child abuse, mandatory reporting is the law in this province. We want to see whether that could be applicable to child pornography," she said.
McDonald said they plan to bring the issue to Mackintosh in the next couple months.
Though mandatory reporting is not yet law, many offenders have been turned in to police after bringing their computers in to be fixed.
Yesterday, The Sun reported 21-year-old Matthew Jonathon Dudeck, of East St. Paul, was given a 14-month conditional sentence after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
Dudeck brought his home computer to a repair shop to be fixed on Oct. 23, 2003.
While the system was being re-installed, an employee noticed a file with the title "Fu----- pre-teen, both children under 10," flash across the screen, Crown attorney Mick Makar told court.
The employee called police and Dudeck was arrested.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Winnip...24701-sun.html
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Dutch Plans For iPod Tax Could Kill MP3 Industry
Faultline
A Netherlands proposed tax on MP3 players could devastate sales of hard disk players, and set up international waves over copyright legislation.
The tax is being proposed by the Stichting Thuiskopie foundation, and is set to become law in the Netherlands in a few short months unless the European Commission finds a reason to intervene. It is unlikely that will happen, as it has failed to come up with a policy for levy taxation so far.
The idea of all levy based legislation is that some form of copyright collections agency collects tax by imposing a surcharge at the point of sale for any storage devices that could possibly be used to store pirated works. This certainly extends to the iPod which has up to 60 GB of storage, and which can store MP3 files.
Because of the fact that the great bulk of iPods are used to store legitimate iTunes files which are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected, this means that copyright is being purchased twice over for these devices if a levy is also paid.
The charge will be levied against every MP3 player, and is effectively a tax on the MP3 format. Some efforts to place MP3 files under DRM protection will also mean that these will pay copyright twice over.
Levies are an outmoded and unfair way of rewarding existing monopolies and are only ever put in place to keep ancient publishing copyright agencies in business.
In almost every case the organization itself that carries out the collection is lavish and well funded, the proceeds are distributed only to large multinational music publishers, bolstering their revenues unfairly. It is little more than a club of companies that "have a right" to make money.
If this legislation comes into play, the surcharge will be as much as €3.28 ($4.3) per gigabyte. This might put €180 ($235) to the price of a top end iPod.
Already in Germany there is a levy on PC hard drives, that will soon become larger than the entire PC industry revenue if it is left in place. Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device. Under this Netherlands law, if it were extended to the PC, the cost of 1,000 GB would be €3,280 ($4,300) and yet drives of this size will be delivered by 2007.
The only way to bypass this law in the Netherlands might be to tweak iPods and other players to only accept alternative formats that are always protected by DRM, but that would mean that only iPod (with AAC) and Sony devices (with ATRAC) could have any sales and we're not sure that would satisfy the new law as we don't yet know how it is going to be worded.
Or the Dutch could just become a nation without iPods. I wonder how happy that would make them?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...ands_ipod_tax/
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Diamonds Create Unhackable Code
Kate Lahey
DIAMONDS have long been a girl's best friend, but they could also become the sworn enemy of spies and hackers.
Researchers at Melbourne University are growing diamond particles on optical fibres to transmit information they say will be impossible to hack.
The diamonds, just 1/ 1000 of a millimetre in size, send information through a single photon of light instead of the billions of photons found in an ordinary light beam.
Research fellow James Rabeau compares the technology to flicking a torch to send a message to a friend across a room.
Light from the torch can be seen by others in the room, because there are billions of photons, and the message can be de-coded.
But if the light was a single photon beam, others in the room could not see it, and the two friends would also know instantly if it had been intercepted.
"If it's intercepted, no useable information is gleaned," Dr Rabeau said.
At the moment, when information is sent electronically, such as credit card details, it is encrypted and then decoded at the other end, but the information can be stolen along the way.
"They're stealing a coded message and then if they have very powerful computers they can start to try to crack the code," he said.
"Computers are getting faster and faster so codes have to get better.
"But our technique exploits quantum mechanics. This allows you to communicate in total secrecy, with unhackable codes."
The quantum cryptography project has been given $3.3 million by the Victorian Government to allow researchers to develop a prototype and make it commercially available.
Dr Rabeau said two companies were already selling a similar system for about $80,000, that simply "turned down" the light.
"They don't reliably produce single particles of light," he said.
"It's pretty secure, but it's still not absolutely secure."
The diamond particles are produced in a 1500 watt microwave reactor, using gases containing carbon to grow tiny crystals of diamond over the tip of the optic fibre, which itself is only the size of a hair.
Dr Rabeau said the technology did have limitations and slowed down the speed at which a message was sent, at this stage to about 120km/h.
Nevertheless, demand was expected to be high, he said.
"There are huge military and national security implications if we can do this," Dr Rabeau said.
"I think there's a lot of potential for spin-off technologies, this is a very unique device."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...-29277,00.html
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A Payday for Patents 'R' Us
Ian Austen and Lisa Guernsey
The express elevator that whisks visitors to Donald E. Stout's office on the top floor of a black glass building across the Potomac from Washington suggests success. But nothing up there indicates that Mr. Stout is a major player in the software business. There are no cubicles for software engineers or humming server farms capturing their keystrokes.
There are, however, plenty of lawyers. Mr. Stout, who has practiced patent law for 33 years, is a founder of NTP, whose only assets are a series of wireless e-mail patents granted to Thomas J. Campana Jr., the other founder, and whose only business is extracting licensing fees from companies.
Started 13 years ago, NTP has used the staff at Mr. Stout's law firm to exploit those patents. In March, their persistence paid off. Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, agreed to pay NTP $450 million to settle a long-running and sometimes bitter patent dispute between the companies.
Mr. Campana, a Chicago-area resident, died of cancer last year. Mr. Stout said the settlement was a vindication of individuals over large corporations. And the settlement has emboldened NTP, which is pursuing additional licenses. Other companies, including Nokia, a rival of Research In Motion, have already signed licensing agreements with NTP.
"Most people would like to see that a small inventor can succeed in this country," Mr. Stout said. "This is proof that it can happen."
But others find the growth of patent holding companies troublesome rather than heartwarming. Critics of the patent system maintain that these companies - called "patent trolls" by their detractors - rely on excessively broad patents, particularly for software, that should never have been granted in the first place.
And the costs of litigation and licensing fees to settle patent disputes have become facts of life for technology companies. In March, an appeals court upheld a $29.5 million penalty against eBay in a patent infringement suit brought by MercExchange, a failed online travel service that holds patents related to eBay's "Buy Now" feature. (The case remains in litigation, in part because of a preliminary Patent Office ruling against MercExchange in April.)
In 2003, Eolas Technologies, a Web browser patent-licensing spinoff of the University of California, was awarded $565 million in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft. In March, an appeals court ordered a retrial.
Other than legal respite, these companies get very little for their settlement money. For example, Research In Motion's BlackBerry e-mail software is far more sophisticated than anything outlined in Mr. Campana's patents, and there has never been any suggestion that R.I.M. relied on those patents while developing its own software.
Josh Lerner, a Harvard Business School professor and an author of "Innovation and Its Discontents," argues that the potential costs of patent litigation are higher for small technology companies.
"Any start-up company is a long shot," he said. "But now, even if you are successful in the market, there's a high probability that someone will show up with a patent. Many of these patent holding companies have been quite successful even when their patents have been problematic."
There have long been companies organized solely around pressing patent rights. Henry Ford required a prolonged legal battle to successfully fight a holding company that claimed patent rights over all automobiles with internal combustion engines in 1911.
It was not until 1982 that appeals of patent cases were moved to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, producing more consistent rulings. Before that, appeals were handled in circuit courts around the country, depending on the trial court where the case was first heard. Several of those appellate courts, specialists said, had reputations of siding against patent owners seeking to press their claims.
"Before the Federal Circuit, patents weren't worth much," said Thomas L. Creel, a lawyer with the firm of Goodwin Procter in New York. "Patents have now become a piece of property that is very valuable."
Mr. Stout, who is 58, and Mr. Campana first met at Telefind, a company that in 1987 introduced a primitive form of wireless e-mail that could send relatively short messages to pager-like devices. (The devices could only receive messages, not transmit them.) While Mr. Campana has been described as the inventor of the software that Research In Motion will now license, Mr. Stout acknowledged that was not the case. Instead it was developed by two employees of E.S.A., a separate company Mr. Campana owned.
"Tom was basically an overall developer of networks," Mr. Stout said. "The two co-workers at E.S.A. were software guys."
When Telefind went under in 1991, Mr. Stout said he and Mr. Campana decided to start NTP as "a kind of virtual company" to make money from the e-mail patents. Company headquarters were in Mr. Stout's home but NTP did attract 22 investors, most of them former Telefind shareholders who had just seen that investment vanish. (All the investors will receive money from the R.I.M. settlement, once the legal bills are paid.)
Patent holding companies often take an incremental approach. They initially focus their license demands on the smallest companies in a sector on the theory that little companies will not have the time or resources for a fight. The income they generate from those licenses, in turn, is used to build a legal war chest for challenging more established players.
But in 1992, there were not many companies developing wireless e-mail. That began to change in the latter part of the decade, and NTP began sending letters to wireless e-mail providers and software and equipment makers, citing the Campana patents and offering licenses. Often, Mr. Stout acknowledged, the NTP claims had no more support than printouts of the service providers' Web pages.
"There weren't a lot of letters coming back," Mr. Stout said.
At that time Research In Motion, based in Waterloo, Ontario, was a small manufacturer of specialized data wireless cards mostly for industry and the military as it embarked on what would become the BlackBerry. Nevertheless, it chose to challenge NTP rather than license its patents. (Through a spokeswoman, R.I.M. declined to comment about its dealings with NTP.)
Challenging patent licensing companies is not a common strategy except for giant competitors like Microsoft. While there are no reliable statistics, Mr. Creel and others said that most patent enforcement attempts were settled without a trip to court.
"The philosophy in many companies is that litigation is not only expensive, it's disruptive," Mr. Creel said. "Most people are willing to pay rather than fight. It's in effect a tax on doing business."
While Mr. Stout is now careful not to discuss R.I.M.'s motivation in taking on his company, during an interview in January he attributed the action to the personalities of its executives, in particular Michael Lazaridis, R.I.M.'s president and co-chief executive. Mr. Lazaridis, who started the company while still a student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is widely respected for his engineering skills and holds 30 patents covering wireless technologies and software.
"I've never seen anything like it," Mr. Stout said then. "Most companies don't have this amount of fight in them."
For Research In Motion, financial penalties set in early. In addition to legal expenses, after the litigation with NTP was under way in 2001 R.I.M. was forced to reduce its earnings, regularly setting aside millions of dollars in a fund to cover the cost of any settlement.
Its decision to fight led to a trial court ruling in 2003 that upheld NTP patents and threatened to undercut R.I.M.'s success with BlackBerry. As part of its ruling, the court issued an injunction barring Research In Motion from offering BlackBerry service in the United States. And as the American market was by far the largest, NTP potentially had the power to destroy R.I.M.
Since then, NTP's litigation record has been mixed. An injunction was put on hold so Research In Motion could appeal. Late last year, the appeals court upheld 11 NTP patents but ordered that 5 should be reargued.
At the same time that R.I.M. initiated its appeal, the Patent and Trademark Office began reviewing eight of NTP's patents at R.I.M.'s request. On April 19, the patent office, in a preliminary ruling, declared one patent at the center of the legal battle between the companies invalid and rejected all 89 claims used to support it. To date, the patent office has reviewed 8 of NTP's patents in preliminary rulings, rejected 4 and dismissed 612 of its patent claims.
Research In Motion has never disclosed why it finally settled. But it had been under some investment industry pressure to end the litigation. Among other things, there were growing concerns that the uncertainty created by the NTP case might cause some wireless service providers to shy away from R.I.M.'s e-mail system.
The two adversaries are still working out the terms of the settlement, including a payment schedule. The BlackBerry's success means that Research In Motion has ample resources to cover its costs.
Little has changed at NTP beyond moving the company's mailing address from Mr. Stout's house to a business service center.
But as NTP picks new targets for its licenses, Mr. Stout is quick to reject suggestions that the company's patents will not survive patent office review or that the patent holding business is a less-than-desirable line of work.
"Those who criticize, they think that unless you make products, you aren't entitled to having rights," he said. "That's just not so."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/te.../02patent.html
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An MTV Host Moves to Radio, Giving Voice to Audible Blogs
Ken Belson
It was an offer even the podfather could not refuse: the chance to be host of a radio program devoted solely to podcasts, or homemade radio shows formatted for digital audio players.
Adam Curry, a former MTV host who developed software that lets people automatically receive these programs on Apple's iPod and other players, will produce and be host of a four-hour program every weekday starting May 13 on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Mr. Curry will help choose material for "Adam Curry's PodShow" from some of the thousands of amateur shows produced in basements, living rooms and dormitories. Sirius subscribers, who pay $12.95 a month for the service, can listen to the show on channel 148, "Talk Central."
Podcasting has grown out of the boom in MP3 players, which can store hundreds of hours of music in devices the size of a transistor radio. The word "podcasting" is a nod to iPod, the most popular player.
Podcasts - essentially homemade digital audio files that users upload to the Internet for others to download on demand - run the gamut from tributes by aspiring disc jockeys to their favorite music artists, to up-and-coming bands, to talk show "hosts" chatting with their friends about everything from fine wine to fly fishing.
As with TiVo and other digital video players, users can listen to podcasts whenever they want, pause them or rewind them to listen again. This allows users to carry their shows with them and no longer be bound to a radio station's schedule.
Unscripted podcasts are an audio version of television reality shows for the airwaves. The unpolished and recreational feel of podcasts often draws comparisons to the Saturday Night Live skit "Wayne's World." The serendipity of the shows appeals to listeners looking for an alternative to canned commercial radio.
"It has to be the completely unedited voice," said Mr. Curry, who will preside over the show from London, where he lives. "There's a whole universe of people who make music but there is no disc jockey putting it out there."
Sirius is not the only radio network moving into podcasting. Infinity Broadcasting plans to convert one of its AM channels in San Francisco, 1550 KYCY, which now broadcasts mostly syndicated talk shows, into one mostly filled with podcasts.
More than 200 people have already submitted podcasts to the station, whose programming will be simultaneously streamed over a Web site for listeners outside the San Francisco area. The channel will continue to sell on-air advertising, though it will be adapted to fit the irregular length of the podcasts, according to Infinity.
Mr. Curry's show on Sirius will also include advertising. But the company expects the show to have a free-form feel, much like the podcasts, rather than the more rigid format of mainstream radio.
The audience for the show is likely to be skewed toward 18- to 34-year-old listeners, who are also the core users of MP3 players. Mr. Curry expects them to be a vocal and demanding group, one that will help drive what's heard on the show.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/bu.../02SIRIUS.html
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Double Your Pleasure? Early 'Exorcist,' Take 2
Dave Kehr
When "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist," directed by Paul Schrader, opens nationally on May 20, some filmgoers may have the strange feeling they have seen it before. "Dominion" bears a not at all coincidental similarity to Renny Harlin's "Exorcist: The Beginning," a disappointment at the box office last August.
Mr. Schrader's film, the "original" prequel, was shelved by Morgan Creek Productions, an independent film company, in 2003 for being insufficiently scary. The company then hired Mr. Harlin to remake it. Morgan Creek, which had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers at the time, released the Harlin version with a single screening for critics the night before, usually a bad omen.
Perhaps someday a cinemathèque will present both versions in a simultaneous, side-by-side screening. The dueling films could provide fodder for a textual analysis of the auteur theory, with almost identical material yielding wildly different results in the hands of two temperamentally opposed artists: Mr. Schrader, the thoughtful, restrained art-house filmmaker ("Affliction"), and Mr. Harlin, the vigorous director of Hollywood action films ("Cliffhanger").
Both prequels star the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard ("Breaking the Waves") as a young version of Father Merrin, the Roman-Catholic priest played by Max von Sydow in William Friedkin's hugely successful 1973 film based on William Peter Blatty's best-selling novel. And both tell the story of Father Merrin's first encounter with demonic possession when, working for the Vatican in the years after World War II, he investigates the discovery of a perfectly preserved Byzantine church buried in the East African desert.
How these two movies came to be made is a story as tortured and complex as any Hollywood thriller. The notion of an "Exorcist" prequel dates back several years to when Morgan Creek, the owners of the franchise, commissioned a script from William Wisher, a writer of "Terminator 2." That script was rewritten by Caleb Carr, the author of the best-selling novel "The Alienist," and attracted the attention of the Hollywood veteran John Frankenheimer. Frankenheimer signed on to direct and had begun casting the film when he died in July 2002 at 72.
Rather than abandon the project, James G. Robinson, the Morgan Creek chairman, turned the film over to Mr. Schrader. As the director of "Light Sleeper" (1992) and "Auto Focus" (2002), and the writer of "Taxi Driver" (1976) and "Raging Bull" (with Mardik Martin, 1980), Mr. Schrader possessed impeccable art-house credentials, but had not directed a mainstream genre film since "Cat People" in 1982.
Mr. Schrader shot on location in Morocco and at Cinecittà Studios in Rome. But when the rough cut was screened for Mr. Robinson, he was reportedly disappointed to find that Paul Schrader had made a Paul Schrader movie, rather than a hyperkinetic action picture filled with gore and scary effects.
As was widely reported in the trade papers at the time, Mr. Robinson brought in Mr. Harlin for a couple of weeks of retakes with Mr. Skarsgard and the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The original script was rewritten by Alexi Hawley to introduce more shock sequences.
"It wasn't really a script," Mr. Skarsgard said of the rewrite, by telephone from his home in Stockholm, "but just a bunch of ideas about how to make film scarier, basically by throwing in unmotivated scares in every second scene. I didn't like it and I didn't want to do it. But then Renny Harlin came on, who I've worked with before, on the 'Deep Blue Sea,' and who is a friend.
"In many ways, he's the opposite of Paul Schrader, so it was hard to imagine him working with Paul Schrader's material. But gradually Renny turned it into another movie, and got Morgan Creek to reshoot the entire film - or rather, make an entirely different film."
Mr. Harlin's manager said he was traveling and could not be reached for comment for this article.
Using the standing sets of the church interior at Cinecittà, Mr. Harlin created an R-rated film of rapid cuts, expressionistic camera angles, extensive computer-generated imagery and a strong dose of sex and violence. Mr. Schrader's film, also R-rated, featured a demure leading lady, Clara Bellar (cast by Frankenheimer), who was replaced by the former Bond girl Izabella Scorupco. Father Merrin went from a withdrawn, tortured man suffering a crisis of faith to a sort of swashbuckling hero with a gun in his hand. The climax of Mr. Schrader's film, in which Father Merrin has a theological discussion with a preternaturally handsome demon (the pop star Billy Crawford) gave way to an apocalyptic free-for-all in Mr. Harlin's film.
"Exorcist: The Beginning" received largely negative reviews ("singularly fails to deliver any palpable shivers," Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times) and went on to earn a disappointing $41 million in domestic gross, not much for a film that cost a reported $80 million ($30 million for the Schrader version and $50 for the Harlin one).
In a recent e-mail exchange, Mr. Blatty, the author of the original novel, recalled going to see the Harlin version with Mr. Schrader at a multiplex in Bethesda, Md.: "After a slam-bang opening sequence, Harlin's prequel deteriorated into what was surely the most humiliating professional experience of my life, particularly the finale. I don't blame Renny Harlin, for he gave Morgan Creek, I promise you, precisely what Morgan Creek demanded: not shocking obscenity, but shocking vulgarity."
(Mr. Blatty had his own experience with Morgan Creek in 1990 when he directed an adaptation of his nonsupernatural novel "Legion" for the company. After much wrangling and reshooting, and the last minute addition of an exorcism, the film was released as "The Exorcist III." Mr. Blatty subsequently lampooned the experience in his satirical novel "Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing.")
Last fall, Mr. Schrader heard from the film editor Tim Silano that Morgan Creek was trying to reassemble his version, with an eye toward releasing it on DVD or on cable. The director volunteered to work with Mr. Silano, and with a minimal budget they assembled a score and completed a sound mix. In March, the movie received good notices at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film, good enough to interest Morgan Creek and Warner Brothers in a theatrical release.
The tricky job of positioning "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist," as Mr. Schrader's version came to be called, has fallen to Brian Robinson, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Morgan Creek, and a son of the producer who originally rejected it. Rather than give "Dominion" the 2,803-screen release that "Exorcist: The Beginning" received, he decided to aim the film at the specialized audience that has long supported Mr. Schrader.
"It's on a limited release pattern of 110 screens, so the plan is to release it and see how it plays," Mr. Robinson said. "The Renny Harlin version was a much more commercially shot horror film, and this one is much more cerebral. The masses that want to see these 'Alien vs. Predator' movies want to see much more graphic violence. Paul's version is much more about the terror that resides in your own mind."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/movies/02exor.html
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A Megachurch's Leader Says Microsoft Is No Match
Sarah Kershaw
Before he became a born-again Christian and later a rising national star in the world of black evangelical ministers, the Rev. Ken Hutcherson started playing football because, he said, it was the best way he could think of to "hurt white people."
Dr. Hutcherson, a husky former linebacker for three National Football League teams who goes fishing with Rush Limbaugh and raises Rottweilers ("the bigger, the meaner, the better," he said of his pets), does not talk that way anymore about whites, saying his conversion to Christianity as a teenager changed all that. And a majority of the 3,500 members of his megachurch, which is based in this tidy Seattle suburb and high-tech hub, is white, as is his wife.
With a thundering charisma that makes him a hero to some and a gay-bashing bully to others, he has taken on the white mayor of Seattle, a prominent black county executive and the Washington State Legislature. In his mission to stop the legalization of gay marriage, Dr. Hutcherson has accused gay rights activists of trying to hijack and sully the civil rights movement by their comparison of the right of gays and lesbians to marry to the civil rights struggle he lived through as a poor child in Alabama in the 1950's and 60's.
Now Dr. Hutcherson, 52, known as "Hutch," and by his self-chosen nickname, "the black man," claims to be the person who forced Microsoft, situated near his Antioch Bible Church offices, to withdraw its support of a gay rights bill before the State Legislature, one it had supported the two previous years.
Dr. Hutcherson had threatened to organize a national boycott of Microsoft if it backed the legislation this year. The antidiscrimination bill was defeated by one vote in the State Senate on April 21.
But officials at Microsoft vehemently deny that the minister had anything to do with their decision not to support the bill this year; gay rights groups and employees have since criticized Microsoft, which had long enjoyed a reputation as one of the nation's most gay-friendly companies.
"We respect Dr. Hutcherson's right to his beliefs and opinions, but he does not speak for Microsoft, and he certainly does not set Microsoft's legislative agenda," said Mark Murray, a company spokesman. "We're proud of our antidiscrimination policies and benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, and we are committed to diversity at every level of our company."
Microsoft officials said they were re-evaluating their legislative priorities and had decided to take a "neutral" stance on the bill long before a high-level company official met twice with Dr. Hutcherson over his concerns that the company was going to support it.
In a style that is typically blunt (and, his detractors say, typically intimidating), Dr. Hutcherson described Microsoft's version of the events as "a flat-out lie."
Asked if he thought that he alone could have changed the giant corporation's mind, Dr. Hutcherson said in an interview Friday: "I don't think. I know."
He continued: "If I got God on my side, what's a Microsoft? What's a Microsoft? It's nothing."
If there is any question about Dr. Hutcherson's intolerance of dissent or disobedience - one that is infused with a stinging sense of humor - it could be answered quickly by a glance at the mini-refrigerator in his office. Next to his chair, which is submerged under a lavish white sheepskin cover, a sign on the fridge says, "Warning: I have licked the tops of all my Snapples - Hutch. * And I have tested positive for anthrax."
He is close to some of the nation's best-known Christian conservatives, including Dr. James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, whom he calls "Dr. D," and over the last year he has organized rallies in Seattle and Washington, D.C., drawing tens of thousands of opponents of same-sex marriage.
There is little doubt, from hearing Dr. Hutcherson tell it, that he believes not only in the power of God, but also in the power of "Hutch," especially when it comes to going up against companies like Microsoft - or anyone else, for that matter.
"God plus Hutch is enough," said the minister, who stands 6 feet 2 inches, weighs 260 pounds and has a shaved head and a thick goatee streaked with a splash of white.
He added: "I want to be to Christianity what Gretzky was to hockey, what Beckham is to soccer, what Jordan was to basketball, what Martin Luther King was to African-American rights, what the Pope was to Poland. I want to be that to Christianity."
By trusting God, he said, he hopes for "great things" and "that I will be the most feared man in America, not because of me, but because of who I got on my side."
As even some of the church members say, there is good reason to fear Dr. Hutcherson. The church's motto is "black and white in a gray world."
On Sunday mornings, a half-dozen trailers pull up to Lake Washington High School in nearby Kirkland, filled with risers, microphones and other equipment, turning a school parking lot into what looks like a staging area for a rock concert. Antioch, which has offices but not its own church building, holds its rollicking, multimedia Sunday services at the school's gymnasium.
Dr. Hutcherson is known for publicly chastising and excommunicating members if he finds out they are sinning, calling adulterers, for example, up to the pulpit and demanding they repent, congregants said.
"And if they don't want to repent of it, he'll let them know that this is not the church for you," said John Stachofsky, 42, a longtime friend of Dr. Hutcherson and a member of the church who goes bird and deer hunting with him.
Many African-American ministers and conservative Christians share Dr. Hutcherson's opposition to same-sex marriage, which he calls "the greatest danger to America." But Dr. Hutcherson also often criticizes gay rights activists for drawing comparisons between their quest for equal rights and antidiscrimination laws and the struggles of other groups facing prejudice.
"You tell me what I went through as an African-American, when they talk about discrimination, compared to what gays go through with discrimination - it's the difference between night and day, not even close," Dr. Hutcherson said. "I even get upset when people say, 'Well, you got to understand what they go through.' Not when they've chosen to do what they do. They can stop choosing what to do what they do, and they can hide it anytime they want. They can hide their homosexuality. Could I take a 'don't ask don't tell' policy as an African-American? I could try even to pretend I was Puerto Rican, but I'm still going to get blasted for my skin color."
Dr. Hutcherson's views have earned him a fast-growing stable of enemies and critics.
"He came across as a bully, somebody who was threatening people, someone who was using the Scriptures, not for love but for hate," said Ed Murray, an openly gay state legislator from Seattle, a practicing Roman Catholic and a sponsor of the antidiscrimination bill.
Mr. Murray said he heard Dr. Hutcherson testify at a House hearing against the bill last February. Two Microsoft employees testified on behalf of the bill, prompting Dr. Hutcherson to demand the two meetings with Microsoft and to threaten the boycott. Microsoft officials have said the employees were testifying as private individuals, not on behalf of the company.
"I think he didn't so much as change Microsoft's mind as he caught them off guard," said Mr. Murray, who has also said that Microsoft officials told him Dr. Hutcherson had a role in their decision not to support the bill this year. "I think he was successful in throwing a ball at them and that they fumbled."
Ron Sims, the King County executive, has been a target of Dr. Hutcherson's protests because of his support for gay marriage. Mr. Sims, who is black, said he strongly disagreed with the minister on the civil rights question.
"I don't think that civil rights is the province of any particular group," said Mr. Sims, who earlier this year publicly invited six same-sex couples to sue him for the right to marry in King County, a case that is now being decided by the State Supreme Court and could determine whether gay men and lesbians can marry in Washington state.
"African-American homophobia is just another form of discrimination," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/na...2minister.html
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Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases
Stephen Labaton, Lorne Manly and Elizabeth Jensen
The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."
In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.
Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.
Mr. Tomlinson said that he was striving for balance and had no desire to impose a political point of view on programming, explaining that his efforts are intended to help public broadcasting distinguish itself in a 500-channel universe and gain financial and political support.
"My goal here is to see programming that satisfies a broad constituency," he said, adding, "I'm not after removing shows or tampering internally with shows."
But he has repeatedly criticized public television programs as too liberal overall, and said in the interview, "I frankly feel at PBS headquarters there is a tone deafness to issues of tone and balance."
Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of PBS, who has sparred with Mr. Tomlinson privately but till now has not challenged him publicly, disputed the accusation of bias and was critical of some of his actions.
"I believe there has been no chilling effect, but I do think there have been instances of attempts to influence content from a political perspective that I do not consider appropriate," Ms. Mitchell, who plans to step down when her contract expires next year, said Friday.
Robert Coonrod, who stepped down as corporation president in July 2004, has known Mr. Tomlinson about 20 years and considers him a good friend. "I believe that his motives are exactly what he says they are," he said. Mr. Tomlinson is "trying to help the people in public broadcasting understand why some people in the conservative movement think PBS is hostile to them and, two, imbue public broadcasting with the notion of balance because he thinks that long term it's a winner in getting Congressional support."
"Whether people like the way he goes about it or not is a different issue," Mr. Coonrod added.
Though PBS's ratings have stabilized lately after several years of decline, the network has faced criticism that much of its programming - shows like "Antiques Roadshow" and "Masterpiece Theater" - is little different from what can be found on cable television. Though a huge bequest to National Public Radio from the estate of Joan Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald's, has furthered the independence of public radio, corporate support and state financing for public television have slipped in recent years, making the nearly $400 million in federal money annually funneled through the corporation increasingly important.
Nor have administration officials and lawmakers been shy about challenging certain programming. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, for example, earlier this year publicly denounced a program featuring a cartoon rabbit named Buster who visited a pair of lesbian parents.
The corporation is a private, nonprofit entity financed by Congress to ensure the vitality of public television and radio. Tension is hardwired into its charter, where its mandate to ensure "objectivity and balance" is accompanied by an exhortation to maintain public broadcasting's independence. Mr. Tomlinson said that in his view, objectivity and balance meant "a program schedule that's not skewed in one direction or another." Some corporation board members say that complaints about ideological pressure are premature.
Beth Courtney, president and chief executive of Louisiana Public Broadcasting and one of three non-Republicans on the nine-member board, said there had been no chilling of journalistic efforts. "What we should look for are the real actions," she said. "We shouldn't speculate about people's motivations."
But Mr. Tomlinson's tenure has brought criticism that his chairmanship has been the most polarizing in a generation. Christy Carpenter, a Democratic appointee to the board from 1998 to 2002, said partisanship was "essentially nonexistent" in her first years. But once Mr. Tomlinson, a former editor in chief of Reader's Digest, joined in September 2000 and President Bush's election changed the board's political composition, the tenor changed, she said.
"There was an increasingly and disturbingly aggressive desire to be more involved and to push programming in a more conservative direction," said Ms. Carpenter, who is now a vice president of the Museum of Television and Radio. One of the more disturbing developments, she added, was a "very vehement dislike for Bill Moyers."
It is not a shock that Mr. Moyers's work exercised Mr. Tomlinson. He is a reliable source of agitation for conservatives, who complain that "Now" under Mr. Moyers (who left the show last year and was replaced by David Brancaccio) was consistently critical of Republicans and the Bush administration. Days after the Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 2002 elections, Mr. Moyers - an aide in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and a former newspaper publisher who has been associated with PBS since the 1970's - said the entire federal government was "united behind a right-wing agenda" that included "the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives."
In December 2003, three months after he was elected chairman, Mr. Tomlinson sent Ms. Mitchell of PBS a letter outlining his concerns. " 'Now With Bill Moyers' does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting," he wrote.
Shortly after, Mr. Tomlinson hired a consultant to review Mr. Moyers's program; one three-month contract cost $10,000. The reports Mr. Tomlinson saw placed the program's guests in categories like "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay," referring to the House majority leader, corporation officials said. The reports found the guests were overwhelmingly anti-Bush, a conclusion Mr. Moyers disputed.
Mr. Moyers said on Friday that he did not know a content review was undertaken but that he was not surprised. "Tomlinson has waged a surreptitious and relentless campaign against 'Now' and me," he said, dismissing complaints that he is biased. Mr. Moyers left "Now" to write a book but is back on public television as host of the series "Wide Angle."
Mr. Tomlinson said he conducted the content review on his own, without sending the results to the board or making them public, because he wanted to better understand complaints he was hearing without provoking a storm. "If I wanted to be more destructive to public broadcasting but score political points, I would have come out with this study a year and a half ago," he said.
Recently, PBS refused for months to sign its latest contract with the corporation governing federal financing of national programming, holding up the release of $26.5 million. For the first time, the corporation argued that PBS's agreeing to abide by its own journalistic standards was not sufficient, but that it must adhere to the "objectivity and balance" language in the charter. In a January letter to the leaders of the three biggest producing stations, in New York, Boston and Washington, the deputy general counsel of PBS warned that this could give the corporation editorial control, infringing on its First Amendment rights and possibly leading to a demand for balance in each and every show.
The corporation said it had no such plans, and the contract was finally signed about a month ago.
Mr. Tomlinson did help get one program, "The Journal Editorial Report," on the air as a way of balancing "Now." Ms. Mitchell backed the program, but public broadcasting officials said Mr. Tomlinson was instrumental in lining up $5 million in corporate financing and pressing PBS to distribute it.
Public television executives noted that Mr. Gigot's show by design features the members of the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, while Mr. Moyers's guests included many conservatives, like Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition; Richard Viguerie, a conservative political strategist; and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Mr. Tomlinson said that it was his concerns about "objectivity and balance" that led to the creation of a new office of the ombudsman at the corporation to issue reports about public television and radio broadcasts. But the role of a White House official in setting up the office has raised questions among some public broadcasting executives about its independence. In March, after she had been hired by the corporation but was still at the White House as director of the Office of Global Communications, Mary Catherine Andrews helped draft the office's guiding principles, set up a Web page and prepare a news release about the appointment of the new ombudsmen, officials said.
Ms. Andrews said she undertook the work at the instruction of top officials at the corporation. "I was careful not to work on this project during office hours during my last days at the White House," she said.
Mr. Tomlinson has also occasionally worked with other White House officials on public broadcasting issues. Last year he enlisted the presidential adviser Karl Rove to help kill a legislative proposal that would change the composition of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board by requiring the president to fill about half the seats with people who had experience in local radio and television. The proposal was dropped after Mr. Rove and the White House criticized it.
Mr. Tomlinson said he understood the need to reassure liberals that the traditions of public broadcasting, including public affairs programs, were not changing, "that we're not trying to put a wet blanket on this type of programming."
But his efforts to sow goodwill have shown that what he says he tries to project is sometimes read in a different way. Last November, members of the Association of Public Television Stations met in Baltimore along with officials from the corporation and PBS. Mr. Tomlinson told them they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate.
Mr. Tomlinson said that his comment was in jest and that he couldn't imagine how remarks at "a fun occasion" were taken the wrong way. Others, though, were not amused.
"I was in that room," said Ms. Mitchell. "I was surprised by the comment. I thought it was inappropriate."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/ar...rtner=homepage
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Synergy for Viacom: Dr. Phil of CBS Interviews Pat O'Brien of CBS
Mark Glassman
March was not a good month for Pat O'Brien.
First, Mr. O'Brien, the host of the syndicated celebrity gossip show "The Insider," entered a rehabilitation center for alcohol abuse, leaving his anchor position. Around the same time, several sexually explicit voice-mail messages apparently made by Mr. O'Brien surfaced on blogs, making him instant fodder for late-night comics.
And that is when Dr. Phil McGraw got a call from his producer, suggesting that Mr. O'Brien's misfortunes might one day be material for a show. The rest is synergy.
On Wednesday night, CBS will broadcast an hour-long special, "Behind the Headlines," in which Dr. Phil McGraw, the combative host of "The Dr. Phil Show," will conduct the first interview with Mr. O'Brien since his discharge last week from the rehabilitation clinic. Both "The Dr. Phil Show" and "The Insider" are properties of Paramount Television, a subsidiary of Viacom, which also owns CBS Television. The special will replace the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" during this sweeps period, which helps determine advertising rates for the network for the rest of the year.
The next day, Mr. O'Brien, 57, will appear with other guests on Dr. McGraw's syndicated daytime show in an episode dedicated to rehabilitation from substance abuse. That night, Mr. O'Brien will return as the host of "The Insider."
The practice of cross-promoting shows on the same network has existed since the days of radio, but broadcast television has grown much bolder recently. Failed contestants from "The Apprentice" and "Survivor" typically appear soon after on the morning news shows of NBC and CBS respectively, for example.
But Mr. O'Brien's awkward return to television on Dr. McGraw's special may represent the first time a host has used another network show as part of his professional and personal rehabilitation.
A CBS executive who did not wish to be identified said that the idea for Mr. O'Brien's appearance had come from the staff of "Dr. Phil" and not from anyone at CBS, but that the network management had quickly agreed. (He declined to say who at the network had approved the show.) The executive said that the synergy "only makes sense, when you have these great assets that fit within the framework of what your show is." He added that this was especially true when the show's interests aligned with the setbacks of "a high-profile actor."
Mr. O'Brien could not be reached for comment.
Dr. McGraw, the weight-loss guru who preaches tough love in an affable Southern twang, said that he did not take into account corporate relationships when choosing a subject and that he himself had made numerous appearances on other networks.
"It doesn't make a difference to me who somebody else works for," he said.
"I do all the networks, and I do all the different shows. I'm not going to exclude CBS just because we both do business with Viacom."
This is Dr. McGraw's third CBS prime-time special to use television celebrities from CBS programs. In September, Amy Brenneman, the lead in the series "Judging Amy," and Patricia Heaton, from the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," appeared in Dr. McGraw's CBS special on parenting. Five months later, Jonathan Baker and Victoria Fuller, the feuding couple from the sixth season of CBS's "The Amazing Race," confronted Dr. McGraw with their marital problems on his special, "Romance Rescue." Dr. McGraw has also appeared on the MTV series "The Osbournes," another Viacom property.
Joseph Turow, who studies mass media industries at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said Mr. O'Brien and Dr. McGraw were each playing roles in one more story in a long tradition of celebrity confessionals.
"There's a whole ritual that's developed around these sorts of issues," he said. "It typically involves admitting, treating and confessing. This is just another example of that, but it happens to be synergistically appropriate."
Mr. Turow added, "Clearly that there was a strategic decision made that he was going to have to talk to someone. He might as well talk to Dr. Phil."
But Dr. McGraw bristled at the idea that he would pull his punches for a fellow Paramount employee, and said that he doubted that anyone else "could've conducted a more microscopic interview" with Mr. O'Brien.
"It was not a home court advantage," said Dr. McGraw, who taped the interview last Wednesday. He added that censored portions of Mr. O'Brien's graphic voice-mail messages would be played during the piece.
Still, Mr. O'Brien did not balk. "He made no requests," Dr. McGraw said. "He put up no fences or boundaries whatsoever."
Dr. McGraw said that Carla Pennington Stewart, the executive producer for "The Dr. Phil Show" and for the past two CBS specials, had suggested that he pair up with Mr. O'Brien to discuss the latter's struggle with alcoholism.
"When the story broke in the media a couple of months ago," Dr. McGraw said, "she came and said, 'I know you're not big on celebrity interviews, but this is a natural to-do.'"
Alcoholism and drug addiction have been recurrent themes this year on "Dr. Phil." Dr. McGraw estimated that at least 20 episodes have dealt with substance abuse in the program's third season. That made Mr. O'Brien's case of particular interest, so it was closely monitored by the program, Dr. McGraw said.
"We made the decision probably two or three weeks ago, when it was apparent that he was going to be coming out of rehab," Dr. McGraw said.
Until then, CBS had planned to broadcast another Dr. Phil special on Wednesday, called "Escaping Danger," about physically and emotionally abused wives, the CBS executive said.
Either special would have replaced CBS's regularly scheduled "60 Minutes" program on Wednesday and could prove to be a substantial lift during sweeps week. This season, the Wednesday evening edition of "60 Minutes" has drawn an average audience of 8.5 million viewers, representing a 6 percent audience share, according to Nielsen Media Research. Dr. McGraw's February special drew 11 million viewers, a 7.7 percent rating, and the September special, which fell on a Wednesday, drew 13.1 million viewers and scored a rating of 9 percent.
When Mr. O'Brien was released a week ago, he wasted little time before meeting with Dr. McGraw. Mr. O'Brien took Tuesday "to kind of get home and get unpacked and settled," Dr. McGraw said. The camera crew arrived at his home on Wednesday.
Joan Bonsignore, the executive director of the Westchester County branch of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said that the first several days after release from a rehabilitation clinic can be a confusing time for patients.
"I'm concerned about anybody walking out of a rehab and sitting in front of a camera," Ms. Bonsignore said. Still, recovery is an individual process, she said, adding, "If he's able to go back to work, who are we to judge what he should do?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/bu...ehab.html?8dpc