[JackSpratts]

Downloaders Of The World Unite
David Rowan

BY RIGHTS, YOU ought really to be banned from reading The Times.

Who knows what injuries the newspaper, rolled up, could inflict as you fight for your seat on the packed 8.13? Later you might wrap it around your chips, all saturated fat, thus exposing News International to vast potential costs in some future obesity lawsuit. The newspaper is a menace. Wouldn’t it be better for Britain if we simply switched off the presses?

Mercifully, that quaint notion of a free press keeps us going. Just as breadknife manufacturers are not held liable for the rare unlawful uses of their products, modern communications businesses are not shut down simply because they have the potential to enable others to break the law. It would be absurd to blame Vodafone for terrorists chatting across their network.

Yet if some of America’s biggest entertainment companies have their way, that presumption of a communication medium’s neutrality is about to disappear. Next Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court will begin hearing a case that affects anyone who has ever downloaded a music track, recorded a television show, or even sent an e-mail. The case, known as MGM v Grokster, is the culmination of a four-year legal battle to determine whether “peer to peer ” file- swapping services are liable for every pirated digital file that passes through their networks. The issues, to non-geeks, may appear arcane, but they affect the very future of technological innovation. They boil down to this: if a technology can potentially be used for ill, should it be banned — so preventing any of its legitimate uses?

The defendants are two American companies that make file-sharing software, Grokster and StreamCast Networks, known for a program called Morpheus. In 2001, a powerful alliance of entertainment companies brought a lawsuit claiming that these software companies should be held responsible for copyright breaches by their users. It was easy for the music industry to shut down Napster, as its technology required all exchanged digital files to pass through the comp any’s central computers. But with Morpheus and Grokster, there is no central infrastructure for the lawyers to target: the software simply lets users find files on each other’s computers.

In 2003, a federal judge ruled that the developers could not be held liable for how their users interact across peer-to-peer networks. The ruling was upheld the next year in California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Now the movie and music industries, along with supporters ranging from the National Football League to the Church Music Publishers Association, are going for the big one. If they win, innovation will be the victim.

The complainants want to overturn the famous “Sony Betamax ruling” of 1984, which held that manufacturers of video recorders were not responsible for tape piracy involving their machines. At the time, the court, by a five-to-four majority, decided to protect any technology from liability if it was “merely capable” of “substantial, non-infringing use”. The decision freed manufacturers to develop many of today ’s must-have gadgets, from the iPod to personal video recorders, which may be used both for unlawful and “non-infringing” purposes. In the propaganda campaign that preceded the Betamax case, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, declared that the video recorder was “to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone”. Strange, then, that video rentals went on to become the film industry’s main source of revenue.

Established interests have never much liked innovation. Back in 1906 the composer John Philip Sousa predicted “a marked deterioration” in musical tastes as newfangled gramophones “reduce the expression of music to a mathematical system of megaphones, wheels, cogs, disks, cylinders and all manner of revolving things”. Similar battles were fought over the printing press, photocopier, mechanical piano, radio and television. Remember how home taping was going to kill music a generation ago? Music seems to have survived.

Yes, most of the traffic flowing through the peer-to-peer networks involves breaches of copyright. And yes, music sales did fall by almost a quarter in the five years to 2003, as fans realised that technology offered a free alternative to extortionate CD prices. But the roughly 10 per cent of “legal” file-swapping on these networks allows programmers to swap code, academics to exchange learned papers and little-known musicians to gain a fan base. Why should the music industry be able to close such communications channels? Just because technology comes along and disrupts existing business models, should copyright owners not find clever ways to adapt, rather than suing 12-year-olds and fighting software developers in court?

If the studios do win, it will be the consumer who loses. The next generation of digital music players, internet telephony, TV recording equipment — all will suffer from a new legalistic caution that will stifle progress. The music lobby may have more star names on its side: a Sheryl Crow and a Brian Wilson for every Terence Trent D’Arby on the software companies’side. But if the music lobby wins, you might as well swap your iPod for a Thomas Edison wax cylinder.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...542213,00.html


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Japan

High court upholds online music file-sharing as illegal

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that MMO Japan Ltd violated the Copyright Law by providing an online service for swapping music files and ordered it to pay a total of 71 million yen in damages to a copyright association and 19 record labels.

This was the first high court ruling acknowledging a copyright violation concerning music file sharing on the Internet. MMO Japan, based in Tokyo, has suspended its service following an injunction issued in April 2002. The udge said that MMO could predict that the service would infringe on copyrights and computed the damages based on the assumption that the monthly usage fee for one file was 2,000 yen.
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content...at=2&id=332532


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A Big First Quarter for Films With African-American Casts
Catherine Billey

Sony's "Guess Who," a comic remake of the 1967 classic "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" with reversed racial roles, opened at No. 1 at the box office on Friday, part of an unusually strong showing this quarter by films starring African- Americans.

"Guess Who," which pairs Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, brought in $21 million in ticket sales. It joins two other Sony films featuring black actors that opened at No. 1: "Hitch" starring Will Smith, with cumulative sales nationally of $166.5 million (and almost $300 million worldwide), is the top grossing film of the year; "Are We There Yet?" with Ice Cube is the second highest with domestic sales exceeding $80 million.

Sony isn't the only studio with films featuring black actors that opened at No. 1 and performed well: Paramount's "Coach Carter," starring Samuel L. Jackson, has taken in $66.8 million at the box office, and Lions Gate's "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" counts $49.4 million in receipts.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Company, which tracks box-office numbers, said in a telephone interview Friday that "2005 has been an absolute banner year for films starring African-Americans."

"There seems to be a preponderance of movies doing well that have African-American casts," he added.

One of these is MGM's "Be Cool," starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Danny DeVito, directed by F. Gary Gray, who is black, and featuring a strong African-American cast that includes Cedric the Entertainer.

MGM executives say they have made special efforts to cultivate talent in the black film community over the past few years, lining up African-American writers, directors and producers as well as actors for their enormously successful "Barbershop" franchise. The next installment, "Beauty Shop," starring Queen Latifah, opens on Wednesday.

Chris McGurk, vice chairman of MGM, said, "When you add up 'Barbershop,' 'Barbershop 2' and 'Beauty Shop' and the upcoming Showtime TV series, it's the gold standard for the urban entertainment franchises."

Although films featuring black actors have demonstrated unusual strength this quarter, first- quarter box office receipts overall are only 1 percent ahead of last year.

"It would be a fairly solid first quarter," Mr. Dergarabedian said, "if it were compared to anything other than last year," when "The Passion of the Christ" dominated the box office, opening at No. 1 with $83.9 million in sales. "We've been in a slump for the past few weeks compared to last year," he said.

Another film that opened last week, "Miss Congeniality 2," starring Sandra Bullock and Regina King, landed in the No. 2 spot at the box office with $14.5 million in estimated receipts. Rounding out the Top 5 were holdovers: "The Ring 2," which took in an estimated $13.8 million; "Robots" with $13 million; and at No. 5, "The Pacifier" with $8.5 million in sales.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/movies/28boxo.html


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Should iPods Carry Health Warnings?
Andrew Orlowski

Competition An Australian head teacher has banned (http://www.theregister.co.uk/ 2005/03/24/australian_school_bans_sadpod/) pupils from bringing their iPods into school, because they encourage social isolation. "People were not tuning into other people because they're tuned into themselves," she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

As we noted this week, all kinds of fascinating social possibilities elude the iPodder. Music is a social activity, but the children are only responding to corporate advertising that encourages solipsism - "to shield ourselves," as Oscar Wilde put it, ironically, "from the sordid perils of actual existence".

But there are other solitary pleasures that are bad for us, and nanny governments rarely miss the opportunity to scald us about them.

The EU demands that cigarette manufacturers display excruciatingly personal warnings.

In Brazil, the consequences of smoking are dramatically illustrated.

So we modestly propose that in the interests of consistency, anti-social technology such as the iPod should carry similar health warnings. Reg reader, artist and music activist Mark Splinter (http://www.splinterproducts.com) has risen to the challenge.

It may seem as if we're picking on Apple, but only because they're first into the breach,. Apple is simply pioneering this ugly trend of de-socializing music (http:// http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03...l_bans_sadpod/), and others are following suit. Apple has gradually disabling the sharing functions from its iTunes.

So the warning could be specific –



Or personal -



Harsh. But not entirely without foundation. We cite as evidence iTunes' "Party Shuffle" feature, a computer algorithm that Apple describes as "The ultimate DJ at any gathering." Oh yeah? Try it. Shuffle's juxtapositions are so clumsy that it will have cleared the room by the time it gets to Song #3. Clearly, the billionaire fruitarian must employ something, or someone, to retain his guests. Because it sure ain't his music.

Technology has been accepted when it helps us do what we already like doing. But technology companies are now determined not only betray their own consumers, but they also betray the potential (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/01/ triple_setback_for_music_giants/) of the technology for which we pay them. As ever, we're only one piece of paper away from a fix (http://www.badpress.net/talks/ inthecity2004/index.html) - a trusted, traditional solution - that keeps everyone happy.

Australian school bans iPod (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/24/ australian_school_bans_sadpod/)
Apple de-socializes iTunes (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/15/social_music/)
iTunes store 'hole' open again (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/23/ pymusique_unblocks_itunes/)

Full story, more illustrations here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03...alth_warnings/


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In Test of Free Speech, Russian Court Rules Against Art Show
Steven Lee Myers

In a criminal case testing the accepted boundaries of artistic expression in Russia, a court convicted a museum director and a curator today for inciting religious hatred when they organized an exhibition of paintings and sculptures that, to many, ridiculed the Russian Orthodox Church.

The court, however, rejected the prosecutor's appeal to sentence them to prison and instead fined them the equivalent of $3,600 each, ruling that the exhibition was "openly insulting and blasphemous."

The case against the exhibition, entitled "Caution! Religion," has deeply divided Russia's religious and artistic communities ever since it opened briefly in January 2003, provoking alternate charges of censorship and animosity to religious believers. Today's verdict satisfied neither side entirely.

Yuri V. Samodurov, director of the museum, which is named after the Soviet dissident and human-rights advocate Andrei D. Sakharov, said he was relieved by the punishment, though not by the court's ruling. He said he had gone to court with his prescription medicines, assuming that he would immediately be imprisoned.

Still, he said, the court's verdict asserted the state's power to dictate the limits of artistic expression. "In essence," he said in a telephone interview, "the court declared a certain kind of art unacceptable."

Aleksandr V. Chuyev, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament who played a role in pressing prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the museum, agreed that the verdict would set a precedent, but one he considered healthy.

Mr. Chuyev said the case had established the legal foundation for prosecution of other exhibitions, as well as of pornography, films and other works that offend the faithful. He cited a recent exhibition by an artist collective called Russia 2, which addressed similar themes at the First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art last month and also prompted calls for criminal prosecution from Orthodox Church leaders.

"The people and the authorities now understand that religion and the feelings of believers should not be touched on," Mr. Chuyev said in a telephone interview. "They should understand that their rights end where the other person's begin."

The exhibition had been open only four days before six men from an Orthodox church in Moscow ransacked the museum, damaging or destroying many of 45 works on display. Criminal charges against four of the men were dropped, while two others were acquitted last year in a trial that led to the new charges against Mr. Samodurov; the museum's curator, Lyudmila V. Vasilovskaya, who was also convicted and fined on Monday, and one of the artists, Anna Mikhalchuk.

Ms. Mikhalchuk, who exhibits under the name Alchuk, was acquitted today. She said the verdict effectively erased the separation of church and state in Russia. "I am afraid the formulation of the court's ruling will be used as a precedent for the authorities," she said. "It practically crosses out Russia on the list of secular nations."

The works - some of which are still on the museum's Web site at http://www.sakharov-center.ru/exhibi..._ostorojno.htm - addressed spiritual and political aspects of the Orthodox Church, whose influence over politics, if not society generally, has grown since the Soviet Union collapsed.

One sculpture depicted a church made of vodka bottles, a biting allusion to the tax exemption the church received in the 1990's to sell alcohol. A poster by Aleksandr Kosolapov, a Russian-born American artist whose work often satirizes state symbols, depicted Jesus on a Coca-Cola advertisement. "This is my blood," it said in English.

The court refused a request by prosecutors to destroy the artworks, ordering that they be returned to the artists who created them.

The Rev. Aleksandr Shargunov, a priest from the church St. Nikolai in Pyzhi, whose parishioners attacked the exhibition, derided the fines as lenient. He described the exhibition as a deliberate and hostile provocation and called for more stringent laws against desecration of icons and other sacred symbols.

"The prophecies say that once God is insulted, expect trouble," he said. "And this is what happened."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/in...nd-russia.html


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Writers Reach $18 Million Settlement With Database Operators
AP

A group of companies that operate electronic databases have agreed to pay freelance writers up to $18 million to settle copyright infringement claims
brought under a class action lawsuit, according to a settlement announced Tuesday.

The settlement covers claims brought against the companies by three groups representing freelance writers: the National Writers Union, the Authors Guild and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

The plaintiffs claimed that the database operators, including ProQuest Co., Reed Elsevier Group's LexisNexis database, as well as The New York Times and Dow Jones & Co., used articles from freelance writers in databases without the authors' permission.

In a related case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of freelance writers in a 2001 lawsuit they brought against the Times and other companies.

That case, Tasini et al v. The New York Times, set the stage for the settlement announced Tuesday, said Jonathan Tasini, the plaintiff in that case and also the president emeritus of the National Writers Union.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11259959.htm


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NYT Opines

When David Steals Goliath's Music

The battle over online music piracy is usually presented as David versus Goliath: the poor student in his dorm hunted down by a music conglomerate. It is easy, in that matchup, to side with the student. But when the Supreme Court takes up the issue this week, we hope it considers another party to the dispute: individual creators of music, movies and books, who need to keep getting paid if they are going to keep creating. If their work is suddenly made "free," all of society is likely to suffer.

The court hears arguments tomorrow in a suit by music and movie companies against Grokster, which makes "peer to peer" software that allows Internet users to exchange songs and other computer files. At least 90 percent of the material "shared" on Grokster, and perhaps more, is copyrighted. Grokster gives away the software, but it sells advertising aimed at the millions of people who use it.

Many big entertainment companies are backing the suit, along with marquee-name musicians like the Eagles and the Dixie Chicks. But so are some creative professionals - represented by groups like the Authors Guild and the Professional Photographers of America - for whom even a few thousand dollars in royalties makes a big difference.

The technology community has rallied to Grokster's defense. Its most radical members argue that "information wants to be free" online and disparage the whole idea of intellectual property. A more modest argument, and one Grokster relies on in court, is that if it loses, there will be a chilling effect on technological innovation.

The legal case against Grokster is far from a slam-dunk, and we have been wary of it in the past. The court ruled, in a landmark 1984 case, that Betamax video recorders were legal even though they were used to copy copyrighted material, because they had significant legal uses. It is true that there are legal uses for Grokster - not every file exchanged is copyrighted. But it is notable how much illegal use predominates, and how much its business model relies on theft.

The founders wrote copyright protections into the Constitution because they believed that they were necessary for progress. Movies, music and books require investments of money and time. If their creators cannot make money from them, many will be unwilling or unable to keep producing. Or they may have to finance their work in troubling ways, like by building in product placements or taking money from donors with agendas.

Grokster's supporters are justified in worrying that if the courts are too quick to rein in new technology, innovation can be stifled. They are also right to point out that copyright has sometimes been given too much protection, notably in the Copyright Term Extension Act, which gratuitously added 20 years to existing copyrights. But these concerns do not erase the continuing importance of intellectual property, which is unquestionably under assault.

Both the court and Congress should be sensitive to evolving technologies. But they should not let technology evolve in a way that deprives people who create of the ability to be paid for their work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/op...28mon1.html?hp

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USAToday Opines

Industry Opposes File-Sharing — But It Fought VCRs, Too

In the past two decades, Hollywood has come to love the VCR. This little box, and its modern cousin, the DVD player, account for about half of the revenues of an average film.

But it is a romance born in conflict. Between 1976 and 1984, Hollywood warred with consumer electronics giant Sony Corp., arguing that it and other makers of VCRs should be held liable when people tape movies and television shows. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Sony's favor by a single vote after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor switched sides. TV viewers have taped at will ever since.

Tuesday, in what is widely seen as a rerun, the movie industry joined forces with music labels to argue before the high court that makers of so-called peer-to-peer network software should be held liable for illegal file-sharing. These systems, made by such companies as Grokster, are used to copy vast amounts of music and, increasingly, movies.

This is illegal, just as taping movies on a VCR is. Copyright law views both as stealing the property of musicians, filmmakers and entertainment companies.

But it would be naïve to think either practice will stop. VCRs, not to mention advances such as TiVo, are accepted, and peer-to-peer software, already widespread, will exist even if the companies that invented it disappear.

Instead, shutting down the peer-to-peer software companies would be as damaging to technological development as shutting down VCRs would have been in 1984. Indeed, several of the justices appeared troubled by this prospect during arguments Tuesday.

Today, it is hard to imagine what the world would have looked like had Sony lost in 1984. Presumably, movie viewers would have watched far fewer films at home during the past 21 years. And makers of other devices capable of copying — including the personal computer and myriad handheld devices — would have had to navigate a legal minefield. Some of these devices might have come to market slower, or not at all.

Similarly, a ruling against Grokster now would raise unsettling questions. Peer-to-peer networks offer significant and still-emerging legitimate uses. Stifling their development in what is sure to be a futile attempt to stop copying would do tremendous damage to innovation on the Internet.

Peer-to-peer networks, which send files from one PC or electronic device to another without the aid of a central server, hold promise for routing Internet phone calls. They may also make the Internet more secure since less information would be copied onto servers, which can be broken into.

More generally, a ruling against Grokster would stifle a whole idea of how the Internet should be shaped. If the music and film industries get their way, the free exchange of information would have to be channeled through bottlenecks and checkpoints.

The film and music industries argue there is a third way: Peer-to-peer networks that automatically filter out copyrighted material. They have yet to perfect these systems. And it is far from clear that they will ever succeed. Even if they do, those people who want free copies will find other methods. The answer to property theft lies first in convincing people that it is wrong, and providing them convenient ways of making honest buys. Online vendors such as Apple's iTunes Music Store show how people can be convinced to buy music even if they could steal it.

This may not be ideal. But it does acknowledge reality. And as happened with the VCR, entertainment companies will adjust.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...ring-our_x.htm


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Supreme Showdown for P2P's Future
Katie Dean

When Grokster and MGM Studios square off Tuesday in front of the Supreme Court, the lawyers will argue copyright law. But the court's decision will affect how people use entertainment and share information.

The highly anticipated case, MGM Studios v. Grokster, pits all the major movie studios and record labels against Grokster and StreamCast Networks, two operators of file-sharing services.

The entertainment companies petitioned the Supreme Court to take the case after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that file-sharing companies are not liable for their users' copyright infringement. The decision upheld a lower-court ruling from April 2003.

The appeals court based its ruling on the 1984 Supreme Court Sony Betamax case. In that case, the court ruled Sony's videotape recorder was a legal device because it was "capable of substantial non-infringing uses," even though it could be used to violate copyrights. The case is credited with leading to a lucrative home- video and DVD market for the entertainment companies. The decision also provided innovators with a benchmark to support the development of new products.

A number of emerging-technology companies are among the Grokster supporters who have filed a friend-of-the- court brief in the case, concerned that a ruling for the entertainment companies could stifle innovation and harm their businesses.

"The large content players ... are trying to shift the enforcement burden to the tools manufacturers," said Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, a blog search engine. "That directly impacts my business."

Rafer said Feedster already removes copyright material from its site when it receives Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices from copyright holders.

"If we have to look (at) every piece of inbound stuff that comes in for copyright materials, then most of the internet tools that we use every day would be illegal," Rafer said.

"All these internet technologies share this common mass-copying capability: e-mail, web servers, web browsers, basic hard drives," said Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents StreamCast Networks. "There's no principal distinction between (P2P) and other internet technologies in the way it's designed.

"I think the court will find it very, very difficult -- if not impossible -- to draw any distinctions between the programs in front of them in this case and other internet communication programs," he said.

Also signing on to the emerging technologies' amicus brief are companies like Kaleidescape, which markets a product that permits people to store personal DVDs on a secure home server and access them from any room in the house. And Slim Devices, maker of the Squeezebox that people can use to stream music from a home computer to a stereo, has signed on.

But defenders on the entertainment side say the 9th Circuit was wrong, and the peer-to-peer companies should be held liable for the massive copyright infringement occurring on their networks.

"The principal use of the Betamax was for time shifting, and that time shifting is a fair use," said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and Washington general counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America. "In the Grokster case, the opposite is true. The overwhelming use of Grokster is for infringing purposes."

William Hart, an attorney who represents the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, best known for its Grammy Awards, said the vast majority of people who use file-sharing sites are coming to "lift a copy of a commercial recording and make a copy for (themselves). If that's really the use to (which) the device is put, and that's really why it's attracting people and that's why it's attracting the advertisers, then that has to be factored in to the analysis of whether the device is really an item that is infringement-neutral."

Still, while some artists oppose file sharing, others believe the technology is an important tool they can use to reach new audiences. About 20 artists, including Heart, Chuck D, DJ Spooky and Brian Eno, filed a separate friend-of-the-court brief in support of the P2P services.

"Copyright law as it's being practiced and lived are two different things," said Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky. "Shareware culture is here to stay." He said the entertainment industry has a "neo-medieval mentality. They need to update their (business models)."

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case in June. Whatever the outcome, observers think the issue may end up in Congress.

In Congress' last session, entertainment companies fought mightily to pass the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act, which would have held technology companies accountable for copyright infringement committed by people who use their products. Technology and consumer groups were staunchly opposed to the legislation, and the bill ultimately failed to pass in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67010,00.html


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Moguls v. millions

Supreme Court Takes Up The Issue Of File Sharing
Linda Campbell

MGM vs. Grokster isn't a monster movie but a monster of a legal fight, with rhetoric invoking political freedom and the Framers' intent, technological creativity and dissemination of ideas.

But make no mistake: This case is about money.

Who's making it, who's not making enough of it and who should be making more of it.

When best-selling musical performers can sell 500,000, 800,000, a million CDs in a few days - even at $15 a pop - there are multi-bucks at stake.

When "The Ring Two", an inferior sequel to a peculiarly intriguing horror flick, can take in $36million in its first weekend, there are fortunes at stake.

When low-budget indie film "Napoleon Dynamite" can make $44million in DVD release in just a week, well, you get the picture.

Arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday will focus on application of the Betamax rule, secondary liability for copyright infringement and possibly the intricacies of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.

But it boils down to this: Will companies that facilitate free downloading of copyrighted movies, music, sports highlights, books, photos and other materials over the Internet be able to continue distributing their software - or will free-riders in cyberspace and their enablers finally have to pay up?

It's notable that the legal precedent at issue, the 1984 Supreme Court ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, also known as the Betamax case, represents a telling example of the entertainment industry proving wildly incorrect in its doomsday predictions about the impact of technical innovation on artists, film studios, movie theaters and other copyright holders.

Video recorders didn't doom cinema, after all.

Still, the entertainment behemoths insist that they're losing multi-hundreds of millions of dollars because Internet users illegally share their products for free online. The studios, record companies and songwriters want Grokster and StreamCast Networks, companies that make the exchanges possible, to be stopped.

In the Betamax case, the Supreme Court said the maker of a product that can be used to copy copyrighted material without paying for it can't be held liable for wrongdoing if the product is capable of substantial legal uses.

The entertainment industry argues that 90 percent of the file-sharing facilitated by Grokster and StreamCast's software is illegal, but the companies say that figure is exaggerated.

The software distributors say they don't control what users share, so the industry should go after individual copyright infringers; the industry says the companies should have to police what they've spawned.

The studios and record companies claim that the companies insidiously promote a lawless culture in cyberspace and "inflict massive and irreparable harm because of the viral distribution they make possible."

Grokster and StreamCast say their software provides economic benefits for creators and consumers and enhances political freedom: "It is harder to suppress a book if 50 million homes, not only central libraries, have copies."

The collection of friend-of-the-court briefs - 23 supporting the entertainment industry, 25 siding with the software firms, seven for neither side - includes opinions from law professors and economists.

Intel Corp., AT&T, SBC and Verizon support the companies; the Bush administration, state attorneys general and professional baseball, football and basketball take the flip side.

And don't miss the most curious interest group alignment.

Would an entertainment industry win stifle innovation, as the American Conservative Union and National Taxpayers Union argue - or would it protect personal property rights, as Americans for Tax Reform says?

Does unfettered file-sharing threaten to "spawn a proliferation of anonymous, decentralized, unfiltered and untraceable peer-to-peer networks that facilitate crimes against children" through child pornography and predatory behavior, as argued by an alliance of groups including the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Fraternal Order of Police?

Or is cracking down on Grokster and StreamCast "akin to enjoining Johann Gutenberg because of some unauthorized reproductions of the Bible," as claimed by the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund?

There's something about circumventing the inflated CD prices and inflated movie ticket prices and inflated rental fees we chumps pay that just looks like stealing. Will the justices know it when they see it?

Still, the ongoing debate over online downloading already has stimulated market changes and invention. When the recording industry used the courts to shut down the P2P service Napster several years ago, fee-based operations sprang up, purchasing licenses to distribute copyrighted works, then charging users for access.

The Financial Times reported just this week that "international digital music sales grew sharply last year as consumers embraced legal downloading of tracks, and the number of legitimate music sites grew fourfold."

Maybe supply-and-demand always will outsmart the movie and music moguls.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democ...n/11231526.htm


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Who's Liable For Actions Of People Who Share?
Jefferson Graham

LOS ANGELES — Singer-songwriter Janis Ian has lived through vinyl albums, cassette tapes, eight-track cartridges, compact discs and now, digitized music that is swapped illicitly or bought on the Internet.

The Internet, including the unauthorized song-swapping services at the heart of a fight heading to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, helps sales of her CDs, she says.

"I've seen it happen time and time again," says Ian, who self-produces and releases her albums at www.janisian.com. "Someone downloads one of my old songs on Morpheus or Grokster, then they come to my site and buy my new CD."

A raft of musicians on major record labels disagree. Artists such as The Eagles and Sheryl Crow want to see the Supreme Court shut down Internet song-swap providers Grokster and StreamCast Networks-owned Morpheus. Tuesday, in the biggest tech vs. entertainment industry showdown in more than 20 years, the high court will tackle whether software makers are liable for the actions of people who use their programs.

No matter how the court rules, Ian says, file-sharing isn't going away: "It's way too big."

Consider that Apple Computer has scored big selling authorized downloads at its iTunes Music Store — about 300 million songs since 2003. Just last month, more than 1.4 billion songs were available for swapping with online programs such as Kazaa and eDonkey, says Internet measurement firm BigChampagne. About 8.5 million people were logged into peer-to-peer (P2P) networks at any one time.

That's a huge jump from the 6.8 million who were logged into P2P networks in June 2003, when the Recording Industry Association of America trade group announced it would begin suing online song swappers for copyright infringement.

The RIAA says the lawsuits made people more aware of the ethics of taking music for free. RIAA has sued more than 9,000 swappers for "uploading" — sharing collections online for others to download. Uploaders are easy to catch: Their Internet computer address is posted within share programs such as Grokster and Morpheus.

Now, many digital music fans are zapping songs to friends in one-on-one instant-message programs, e-mails or by finding ways to transfer them from digital music players such as Apple's iPod. The iPod is built to prevent that. But savvy PC users are finding ways to work around the system, accessing many of the new programs — iPodRip, iPod Access, iPod Liberator — available online.

Passionate about free music

Researchers for the Pew Internet & American Life Project interviewed 1,400 users about downloading habits in January. It found that while 43% got music through traditional Internet methods, 35% used workarounds to nab free music through instant messages, e-mail or the iPod.

BigChampagne CEO Eric Garland says the study results show the passion young people have for free music. "This is a generation that's grown up with free online music, and they're not about to give it up," he says. "This generation wants what it wants, when they want it, on demand."

Younger music fans haven't moved en masse to paid alternatives such as iTunes, the new, legitimate Napster and Yahoo's Musicmatch, he says. That's because they're harder to use than the free file-sharing programs. Songs are copy-protected and can't play on all digital music players without a workaround. A song bought at Musicmatch won't transfer to the iPod easily; ditto for an iTunes song and players by Rio, Creative Technology and Dell.

The most popular file-sharing program now is eDonkey, followed by BitTorrent, Garland says. Both take file-sharing to a new level of speed. Instead of just connecting computers to share media, as Morpheus and Grokster do, they tap multiple PCs simultaneously. They acquire pieces, or bits of files, and reassemble them. The process enables faster downloads, especially for huge files, such as movies.

Hollywood studios have joined the labels in suing Grokster and Morpheus and are also suing the growing numbers of downloaders using programs such as eDonkey and BitTorrent to freely acquire films and TV shows.

While Hollywood isn't hurting, the music industry is still recovering from four years of declining sales. CD shipments rose 5.3% last year. Still, the industry is selling fewer CDs than it once did. About 153.3 million were shipped to retailers last year, down from 194.9 million in 1999.

Son of Napster

From his Northeastern University dorm room, then-freshman Shawn Fanning rocked the industry in 1999 when he introduced the first swap network, Napster. It was designed to make finding online music easier until the RIAA shut it down in 2001.

A slew of son-of-Napsters followed, including Morpheus, Grokster, Kazaa and Audio Galaxy. And so did more RIAA lawsuits. But while some sites stopped file-trading, Grokster and Morpheus fought back and won.

In late 2003, Grokster and Morpheus pulled off the first of two surprise court rulings in their favor. Judges said Grokster and Morpheus weren't liable for copyright infringement — their users were. The decision was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last August.

Those decisions paved the way for the RIAA to petition the Supreme Court. It also spurred a host of Web sites offering subscriptions to "free and 100% legal MP3s," using the so-called Grokster decision to support their claim.

The entertainment industry argues that developers of software used for copyright infringement should be held liable. The opposition — which includes technologists and Internet providers SBC and Verizon — says to do so would set a dangerous precedent that would turn back the clock. They say it would make owners of many popular products today, including the iPod and the TiVo digital TV recorder, liable for copyright infringement as well.

The industry has been down a similar road before. In 1984, the entertainment industry sued Sony over its Betamax video recorder. Hollywood was concerned that excessive home taping of movies would eat into profit.

But the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, said that as long as a device had "substantial, non-infringing uses" — as the VCR did — it was legal. That paved the way for a host of new gadgets, including the iPod, CD burner, scanner, personal digital assistant and BlackBerry e-mail device.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group in San Francisco, has been building support for file-sharers by pointing to past products it says wouldn't have survived had the Sony ruling gone the other way. These include the Xerox copier, e-mail and Internet blogs.

"File-sharing will be fine no matter how this case turns out," says foundation lawyer Fred von Lohmann, who represents Morpheus. "If they rule against Grokster and Morpheus, more companies will set up offshore."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/20...ability_x.htm#


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Historical Epic Is Focus of Copyright Dispute
Sharon Waxman

A legal conflict is brewing over one of the summer's biggest potential blockbuster movies, the Crusades epic "Kingdom of Heaven," with a prominent author accusing the film's director, Ridley Scott, and the studio releasing the film, 20th Century Fox, of stealing his research for their screenplay.

In a letter this month, a lawyer for James Reston Jr., author of "Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade," accused the studio of violating American and international copyright law by using "events, characters, scenes, descriptions and character tensions" in the film that were "strikingly similar" to his narrative history.

A lawyer for the studio responded last week with a five-page rebuttal that said the creators of "Kingdom of Heaven," to be released on May 6, had never read Mr. Reston's book. The letter added: "The works are not substantially similar. In fact they are completely dissimilar, other than having in common some elements that are historically authentic."

But Mr. Reston's lawyer, Timothy DeBaets, said his client would decide this week whether to pursue a lawsuit, since he was convinced that his painstaking work over three years - including research in original sources in the Library of Congress and several Arab countries - had been lifted by the screenwriter William Monahan, who was hired by Mr. Scott.

"The key thing in the letter is, they say no one read it," Mr. DeBaets said. "We don't believe that, and we have evidence to the contrary. I think they read Jim's book and took material from there, and after the fact it's easy to run around and find stuff, since it's history."

Indeed, the fact that the film and the book are both rooted in historical events may make Mr. Reston's claim difficult to prove in a legal area where claimants regularly accuse studios of stealing their ideas and only rarely prevail. Michael J. Plonsker, a lawyer with the Los Angeles firm Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan who litigates such cases, said winning them was difficult but not impossible.

"History is not copyrightable," Mr. Plonsker said. "But if the manner in which you tell about a historical event is a particular expression of character or sequence of events, that is copyrightable. If you can show that the defendant had access and that the works are substantially similar, which is the legal standard, then you can win."

Mr. Reston insists that his history of the Third Crusade, when Richard the Lionheart tried to wrest control of Jerusalem from the Muslim conqueror Saladin, fleshed out many obscure details from the period and brought to life minor historical characters who turn up in "Kingdom of Heaven." The book, published a few months before 9/ 11, has sold about 100,000 copies worldwide.

Among those characters, Mr. Reston said, is Balian of Ibelin, the central figure of the Scott film. Played by Orlando Bloom, Balian is depicted in the film as a knight who maneuvers among the political intrigues of his Christian allies while trying to protect Jerusalem from Muslim attackers seeking to regain the control they lost in a previous Crusade.

In Mr. Reston's book Balian is described as nothing less than a hero: "A tall man of noble bearing, this blue-blood had for years reigned his fief well from his castle in Nablus as his father had done before him." According to the book, Balian found himself in the besieged city of Jerusalem after securing permission from the enemy leader, Saladin, to rescue his wife; once he was there, the locals begged him to stay and defend the city.

But Fox's letter said Balian had featured prominently in original sources and secondary works, including "History of the Crusades," a three-volume work from the 1950's by Sir Steven Runciman.

"The reality is that your client's book concentrates upon Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, and Balian is not a significant part of the text," the letter said. In Mr. Reston's book, Balian is mentioned on only about 10 pages.

Mr. Reston, however, believes he has a smoking gun. In December 2001 the producer Mike Medavoy, who had bought an option on "Warriors of God," sent the book to Mr. Scott with a letter suggesting that they collaborate, after speaking to the director's lawyer, Skip Brittenham. "There are lots of great characters in this story - think 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'A Man for All Seasons,' " Mr. Medavoy wrote.

He said an assistant to Mr. Scott had called him to decline collaboration. "What was said at the time was, he had a Crusade project of his own," Mr. Medavoy said.

An announcement in Variety three months later confirmed that Mr. Scott indeed had his own Crusades project, which would focus on "the religious Crusades of the 11th century," to be written by Mr. Monahan. In a statement, Mr. Monahan said that he was "astounded by these false, unfounded allegations" and that he had been a student of the Crusades since he was 14.

Mr. Reston, the son of the New York Times editor and columnist James Reston, said he thought the matter was closed until he saw a Times article in August 2004 that revealed the film was about the Third Crusade, in the 12th century - the period covered in his book - and not the First Crusade.

Asked about the matter recently, Mr. Scott, who is still finishing the film in England, said he had not read Mr. Reston's book, nor any book about the Crusades. "Categorically, I don't read anything, for just this reason," he said, referring to the dispute. "I draw the fences up."

He said that Mr. Monahan had relied on original documents and several Muslim authors, and that chronologically "we were between the Second and Third Crusades" from the start.

Mr. Reston remained unconvinced. "I suppose there is a legal argument," he said, "that he had it in mind all along, that they knew of Balian of Ibelin, that he got all this from somewhere else, reading 1950's Cambridge, England, stodgy old histories. But I don't think so."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/movies/29king.html


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How Venture Capital Thwarts Innovation

The tech bubble was a boon to start-ups, but it was a bust when it came to truly original ideas.

Venture capital lights fires under scrappy and ambitious start-ups. It can help bring great new ideas to market, some of which go on to disrupt entrenched industries, spawn entirely new ones, and perhaps even change the world. In theory, venture-capital-backed start-ups are the best engines of innovation.

But are they in fact? With venture capital funding an order of magnitude greater today than it was in the early 1990s, now is an excellent time to ask: has all that funding during the past decade brought more innovation or less?

In an article in the April issue of IEEE Spectrum, Bart Stuck and Michael Weingarten explain how venture capital funding works, and proffer four reasons why it produces so little genuine innovation. They are managing directors of Signal Lake Management LLC, an early-stage telecom venture-capital fund based in Westport, Conn., and Boston.

As venture capitalists themselves, the authors reserved judgment until they could accumulate and analyze the data from what has been the most frenzied decade in technology history. They examined 1303 electronic high-tech initial public offerings for a 10-year period ending in 2002, and sorted out those that were VC-funded and compared them to those that were not, rating them on a scale of 1 to 5.

What they found shocked them. Overall, the level of innovation during that decade was surprisingly low. Even more dismaying, it did not correlate well with VC funding: the level of innovation actually dropped sharply after 1996, even as venture funding was going through the roof.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/510630/?sc=swtn


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Crackdown Starts on Online Pornography
Moon Gwang-lip

The prosecution has launched a massive crackdown on Web search engines for posting obscene video content on their Web sites.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said yesterday they indicted without detention three managers of three leading portal sites for their online services of lewd content.

Twenty other operators of adult-only Internet sites were also indicted on charges of posting video files revealing sexual intercourse on their Websites.

It also requested a court impose 7 million won to 10 million won ($7,000-$10,000) on operators of three other Web portals and 12 other online pornography sites.

The office also asked other district prosecutors to investigate 50 adult Web sites operating out of provincial areas.

The prosecution plans to conduct an additional investigation on 100 people, including employees of local mobile operators, on suspicion of distributing sex videos or photographs via the Internet and cell phones.

``We don't expect the crackdown on online sex content will lead to their annihilation. But we are doing this to prevent more people, especially teenagers, from getting a distorted view of sex through the influence of the obscene content,'' a prosecutor said.

According to the prosecution, the indicted sex content providers earned up to 150 million won ($150,000) a month from membership fees of their Websites.

The membership is given to adults in those Websites, but most of them purposefully leave loopholes in their adult confirmation process to allow visitors to their Web site under 18 to peek into the content with fake identification.

The law-enforcement agency says the content was vulgar enough to cause shame to viewers, even though the genitals of actors and actresses were not seen.

But added most of them were found to have passed the review of the Korea Media Rating Board, the agency in charge of screening all video content in the nation.

For this, the prosecution plans to suggest the relevant ministries and government agencies beef up its supervision of online services.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nati...9251511980.htm


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Court Orders Blogger To Stop Posting Patient Data

The woman had already promised not to do so
Linda Rosencrance

An Alameda County Superior Court judge yesterday ordered Elisa Cooper, a former Web coordinator at Kaiser Permanente, to stop posting and distributing the confidential information of 140 of its patients over the Internet (see story).

Although Cooper, who called herself the "diva of disgruntled," told the court she would keep the promise she made last week not to post the information, officials for the health maintenance organization in Oakland, Calif., sought the injunction anyway.

"We got a preliminary injunction in court," said Kaiser spokesman Matthew Schiffgens. "Both sides had the opportunity to portray why the injunction should or should not be served, and Cooper said, 'Why do we need an injunction?' She promised not to do it, but now if she does it, she will be in contempt of court and subject to court sanctions."

Schiffgens said he doesn't know what the sanctions are because Kaiser hasn't seen the injunction yet. "But this gives us remedy and gives our members an additional level of security to know the court takes this matter seriously," he said.

Kaiser learned of Cooper's actions in January from the U.S. Office of Civil Rights -- the enforcement arm under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Cooper said she filed a complaint against Kaiser with the OCR after coming across the information on a public Web site. She also linked to the site from her weblog, and when Kaiser had the site taken down, she posted copies of the information on the Internet.

Schiffgens blamed Cooper for posting the information to a public Web site, saying the information was available only on a nonpublic corporate internet.

An internal investigation into the incident, he said, indicates that Kaiser inadvertently posted patient information -- including names, addresses, telephone numbers and, in some cases, lab test results for the 140 patients -- on an intranet site for IT employees that was not secured. The information was included in schematic diagrams related to an application that generated letters for the lab reporting systems.

"It's safe to say ... that we were the ones who inadvertently posted patient information to our unsecured, unpublished intranet site," Schiffgens said. "It would not have been discoverable by a Google search as [Cooper] indicates. Someone posted it.

"It was copied by, we believe, Miss Cooper and placed on a [public] site that could be found, and she used information that she gathered through her terms of employment to make that available," he said.

Schiffgens acknowledged that some other Kaiser IT employee could have made the information public. "I can't say definitely she was the one who posted it," he said.

Last Friday, the California Department of Managed Health Care issued a cease-and-desist letter to Cooper for unauthorized use of patient information. She has 15 days from that date to request a hearing on the matter.

In an e-mail to Computerworld, Cooper said she has not yet responded to that letter.
http://www.computerworld.com/securit...100615,00.html


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Lawmaker aims to outlaw hunting, killing animals online

Shoot To Kill Real Animals Using Your Computer Mouse For $300

A lot of people fire fake guns playing video games. But now there's a way to use your computer to fire an actual gun and kill live animals.
Linda Eggert

If you've never heard about this it's hard to believe, but the Texas Web site, Live-Shot.com aims to collect money from hunters who hope to kill something big with a tiny mouse.

Think you need a weapon to go hunting? Think again. Inside a shed in Texas is a robotic 22-caliber rifle system people all over the world are tapping, literally. The Web site Live-Shot.com lets computer users log on and start firing a remote rifle by clicking a mouse. Right now, there are only targets to shoot, but starting next month you can hunt live animals. The first live hunt is set for April 9. For $300, you'll get control of a remote camera and rifle and be able to fire real-time bullets at non-native Texas animals, such as baraby, big horn sheep, antelope and wild hogs, on Lockwood's 200-acre fenced ranch. Many Wisconsin hunters are outraged. Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, is trying to outlaw Internet hunting. "When I first heard it, I just thought it was crazy. I mean, I just said, 'What are we doing allowing people to sit at their desk maybe 1,000 miles a way and you know, move your mouse to you know to shoot a deer?'"

Gunderson, an avid hunter, said Internet hunting violates the ethics of fair chase. He's drafted a bill to effectively ban it in Wisconsin. "It would say that you have to be in physical possession of a firearm to be able to shoot an animal," Gunderson said. Lockwood said he understands that people think his system is a little wacky, but he insists his Web site is useful -- for new hunters and for persons with disabilities, such as Dale Hagberg, 38, who is paralyzed.

Hagberg said he hopes to use his mouth to become only the second live shot user to kill a feral hog. Lockwood vows to stay open as long as it's legal. But that may not be long. Maine has outlawed Internet hunting, and Gunderson predicts Texas will do the same probably by May. Regardless of what other states do, Gunderson wants Wisconsin to ban Web sites like this. There will be a public hearing next Wednesday.
http://www.channel3000.com/technolog...59/detail.html


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ILN News Letter

Japanese Study Finds P2P Has No Impact On Sales

A Keio Universtity Economics professor recently released research that indicates that the use of "Winny", the most popular P2P application in Japan, has no effect on CD sales. In fact, the study found that P2P helps to promote music sales and allows for new music discovery.

English translation at http://www.iir.hit-u.ac.jp/file/WP05-08tanaka.pdf

Japanese report at http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/...3/08/6754.html

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Microsoft To Rename Media Player-Less Windows
Ina Fried

Microsoft will rename a product it was ordered by the European Commission to offer--a version of Windows with its media player removed.

The product, which Microsoft had wanted to be called Windows XP Reduced Media Edition, will now be known as either Windows XP Home Edition N or Windows XP Professional Edition N.

Earlier this year, Microsoft said it was working with the commission on naming options after antitrust regulators balked at the "reduced media" name. Microsoft said the name was selected by European regulators over nine other alternatives proposed by the software maker.

"We have some misgivings about the chosen name as we fear it may cause confusion," Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said on Monday. "We will adopt the commission's name in order to move forward and accelerate the pace of the implementation process."

Among other options Microsoft suggested were Windows XP Not Incorporating Windows Media Player, Windows XP/N and Windows XP/B.

In addition to challenging the name of the new Windows version, the commission has expressed concern about the degree to which Microsoft has complied with its order requiring the company to license Windows communications protocols to rivals.
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+ren...3-5643117.html


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Stolen UC Berkeley Laptop Exposes Personal Data Of Nearly 100,000
AP

A thief has stolen a computer laptop containing personal information about nearly 100,000 University of California, Berkeley alumni, graduate students and past applicants, continuing a recent outbreak of security breakdowns that has illustrated society's growing vulnerability to identity theft.

University officials announced the March 11 theft on Monday under a state law requiring that consumers be notified whenever their Social Security numbers or other sensitive information has been breached.

Notifying all of the 98,369 people affected by the UC Berkeley laptop theft could prove difficult because some of the students received their doctorate degrees nearly 30 years ago, university officials said.

The laptop -- stolen from a restricted area of a campus office -- contained the Social Security numbers of UC Berkeley students who received their doctorates from 1976 through 1999, graduate students enrolled at the university between fall 1989 and fall 2003 and graduate school applicants between fall 2001 and spring 2004. Some graduate students in other years also were affected.

The stolen computer files also included the birth dates and addresses of about one-third of the affected people.

University police suspect the thief was more interested in swiping a computer than people's identities, UC Berkeley spokeswoman Maria Felde said. She said there been no evidence so far that the stolen information has been used for identify theft. Scam artists often use the data to borrow money by posing as someone else.

The UC Berkeley theft follows several other high profile instances in which businesses and colleges have lost control of personal information that they kept in computer databases.

Recent breaches have occurred at ChoicePoint Inc., a consumer data firm duped into distributing personal information about 145,000 people; Lexis-Nexis, where computer hackers obtained access to the personal information of 32,000 people; and Chico State University, where a computer hacking job exposed 59,000 people to potential identity theft.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...y/11252045.htm


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HP Sues Firms That Refill Ink Cartridges
Stephen Shankland

Hewlett-Packard, much of whose profit comes from selling printer supplies, has sued two companies that sell refilled ink cartridges, but it stopped short of trying to block the refill business altogether.

On Friday, HP sued InkCycle in U.S. District Court for the western district of Wisconsin, alleging that the company's ink violates three HP patents. And on Monday, HP sued RhinoTek in U.S. District Court for the northern district of California, accusing RhinoTek of false advertising by using packaging that indicates its refilled HP printer cartridges are new.

Refilling ink cartridges is "a giant problem, not just for HP, but for everybody in the printing business," said Gary Peterson, an analyst with GAP Intelligence. "I would say at least 10 to 15 percent of all consumables purchases are refills. That's a huge chunk of profit taken away from HP and all the other printer companies."

But HP said the suits aren't a change in HP's policy that customers have a right to refill legally purchased cartridges or buy refilled cartridges. "We still believe it's the customer's choice," said spokeswoman Monica Sarkar, adding that HP believes its products have better quality and reliability.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based printer powerhouse requests that InkCycle stop--in HP's opinion--infringing the patents and pay damages and HP legal fees. Brad Roderick, vice president of marketing for InkCycle, said Monday that a settlement in that suit is expected soon.

"We've been in direct communication with HP and expect a very near-term full resolution," Roderick said. He declined to comment on terms or whether InkCycle will continue to sell its products, but he said, "We're a company that has always been respectful of intellectual-property rights."

The ramifications of the InkCycle case could spread beyond the company if it's using ink that other refillers use as well. Roderick wouldn't comment on the origin of the company's ink.

In the Rhinotek case, HP asserts that the company's "packaging and promotional materials are calculated to give consumers the impression that defendants' cartridges are new." HP wants a requirement that Rhinotek use the words "used" and "refilled" prominently on its packaging of refilled HP ink cartridges. HP also wants all Rhinotek profits from the time of the alleged deceptive advertisements.

Rhinotek didn't immediately respond for this story.

HP has been less aggressive in legal attacks against printer supply companies than one rival, Lexmark. HP lashed out against Lexmark's attempt to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, to stop ink refillers.

"We think it is stretching it," HP printing unit exec Pradeep Jotwani said in a 2003 interview. "The DMCA was put in place (to protect) things like movies, music and software applications."

"We consciously make sure that our cartridges are reusable and refillable," Jotwani said at the time. The company does put some limits on the practice, such as adding software that makes some of its cartridges unusable after a certain expiration date--either four-and-a-half years after its manufacture or two-and-a-half years after its installation.

In the case against InkCycle, HP claimed the company has violated three patents: Nos. 5,165,968; 5,428,383 and 5,488,402. The first concerns fast-drying ink that works well on plain paper, and the second two concern methods for preventing color from bleeding.

HP said in its suit against Rhinotek that it holds 9,000 patents related to imaging and printing, 4,000 of them for consumable supplies such as ink and cartridges.
http://news.com.com/HP+sues+firms+th...3-5643687.html


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Surveillance

RFID Cards Get Spin Treatment
Mark Baard

Conspiracy theorists and civil libertarians, fear not. The U.S. government will not use radio-frequency identification tags in the passports it issues to millions of Americans in the coming years.

Instead, the government will use "contactless chips."

The distinction is part of an effort by the Department of Homeland Security and one of its RFID suppliers, Philips Semiconductors, to brand RFID tags in identification documents as "proximity chips," "contactless chips" or "contactless integrated circuits" -- anything but "RFID."

The Homeland Security Department is playing word games to dodge the privacy debate raging over RFID tags, which will eventually replace bar-code labels on consumer goods, said privacy rights advocates this week.

An RFID tag is a microchip attached to an antenna, which transmits unique information to a reader device that can be anywhere from a few inches to several feet away. The technology, with its many names ("contactless chips" has been around for some time), is used in security access cards, E-ZPass automatic toll-paying devices and ski-lift tickets.

Computer scientists and data-encryption experts, the editors of an RFID industry journal -- even the makers of the contactless chips themselves -- all agree that the Homeland Security Department is using RFID technology.

But the Homeland Security Department is very carefully avoiding use of the term "RFID." The department, along with Philips, is also backing a trade group that is branding ID documents with RFID tags as "contactless smartcards."

"We'd prefer," said Joseph Broghamer, Homeland Security's director of authentication technologies, "that the terms 'RFID,' or even 'RF,' not be used at all (when referring to the RFID-tagged smartcards). Let's get 'RF' out of it altogether."

The Homeland Security Department this spring will begin issuing RFID-tagged employee ID cards (which include fingerprint records) to tens of thousands of its employees. Homeland Security's employee ID card has "contactless" technology to speed workers' access to secure areas, said Broghamer. He also wants to replace conventional reader devices, because their metal contacts break down after repeated use.

The department is also evaluating technology pitches from several RFID tag manufacturers, including Philips, for an RFID-tagged passport containing biometric data. The government's plan will earn billions of dollars for the RFID suppliers while helping security officials track individuals more effectively by detecting their ID documents' radio signals in airport terminals, or wherever reader devices are present.

The Homeland Security Department and Philips said they worry that the public will confuse the RFID tags in ID documents with those used by retailers, such as Wal-Mart, to track consumer goods. Contactless chips, said Broghamer, are more sophisticated than retail RFID tags, because they can carry more information and can better protect sensitive personal information.

But there is another problem with the "RFID" name: Many people associate the term with radio chips "that blab personal information indiscriminately" to any reader device, said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Privacy rights groups such as the EFF, the American Civil Liberties Union and CASPIAN have for years argued that RFID tags on consumer goods could be used to spy on individuals.

That is why Homeland Security is engaging in doublespeak, to dupe Americans into accepting RFID tags on their passports, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.

"It's a frightening, Orwellian use of the language," said Steinhardt, referring to the "contactless" branding effort. Steinhardt called the RFID tags the Homeland Security Department is using, which have faster processors and more storage capacity than retail tags, "RFID on steroids."

Government agents will use reader devices to track individuals wherever they use their RFID-tagged identification documents, Steinhardt and Tien said.

"They can call it a contactless chip," said Tien, "but it is still RFID. And it shares virtually all of the same vulnerabilities."

Identity thieves will be able to lift an RFID-tagged passport holder's personally identifiable information with reader devices that can be purchased for less than $500, said Steinhardt.

Terrorists could also track down and kidnap Americans oversees by secretly reading their chipped passports.

"Let's say you are in Beirut, carrying a passport with an RFID tag," said Steinhardt. "A terrorist with a portable reader device could easily tell who is the American (in a public space)."

University of California at Berkeley assistant professor David Wagner, who researches computer security and cryptography, has reviewed engineering studies of the type of RFID tag that will be used in passports. Wagner called Steinhardt's terrorist scenario "absolutely conceivable."

"And," said Wagner, "unlike an ID with a bar code or magnetic strip, you'd never know your card has been read."

Homeland Security's Broghamer insisted that the contactless chips for ID documents are vastly different from RFID tags used in retail supply chains, because contactless chips must be held very close to a reader device to be activated and to transmit their data.

RFID manufacturers are typically making radio tags for ID documents that comply with ISO/IEC 14443, the contactless chip industry technology standard. This standard limits transmission ranges to a distance of about 4 inches. Other RFID tags can be read at distances up to 30 feet, making them easier targets for identity thieves trying to capture their data, said Broghamer.

Broghamer would not admit to something engineers testing ISO/IEC 14443-compliant chips have demonstrated, however: that electronic eavesdroppers up to 30 feet away can capture data (including biometric records) while it is being sent by the chips to an authorized reader device.

ISO/IEC 14443-compliant chips can also be read directly over much longer distances by specially built devices, according to a Tel Aviv University study (.pdf).

Broghamer seemed eager to stay on-message about the Homeland Security Department's name for its RFID technology, despite its apparent vulnerabilities.

"I nearly fell out of my chair," Broghamer said, when he read a Wired News report that the Homeland Security Department's employee ID card will include an RFID tag. "I never used the term 'RFID,'" said Broghamer, describing a presentation he made at a technology conference last month. "I only used 'contactless chip' or 'proximity chip' to describe it."

A Philips sales executive, however, testifying last summer to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, called contactless smartcards "RFID systems with advanced computing power, storage and strong encryption accelerators, offering advanced services with enhanced security and privacy protection."

The Homeland Security Department's employee ID card will use state-of-the-art authentication and encryption systems to protect the department and its employees from identity thieves and spies with unauthorized RFID tag readers, said Broghamer.

But the chips in passports will not have any of those digital security features, said Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Kimberly Weissman. "We want it to be compatible," she said, "with as many reader devices used by other countries as possible."
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67025,00.html


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Maybe they’ll just destroy each other

Companies in Radio Tag Business Broaden Legal Dispute
Barnaby J. Feder

A skirmish over patents between suppliers of gear that uses radio signals instead of bar codes to identify commercial goods expanded yesterday into a much broader legal battle.

Intermec Technologies, a subsidiary of Unova, said it had filed claims that Symbol Technologies was infringing on six major Intermec patents covering technologies used in wireless communications products that Symbol sells. Intermec's complaint is a counterclaim to a lawsuit that Symbol filed this month in a federal court in Delaware, accusing Intermec of infringing on basic Symbol patents in the wireless networking field popularly known as Wi-Fi.

But most investment analysts are focusing on the dispute between the companies over their patents in radio tagging, a technology that Wal-Mart, the Defense Department and other major buyers of commercial goods are promoting as a far more efficient way than bar codes to track products in their huge supply chains.

The dispute over the scope of the patents is the first such lawsuit since the use of radio frequency identification, or RFID, began to expand rapidly with the backing of Wal-Mart and major consumer products manufacturers.

Analysts and pioneers in the radio-tagging industry greeted it as an unmistakable if unpleasant indicator that the technology was maturing into a major business opportunity.

By some estimates there are more than 3,000 RFID patents, with some dating back to the 1940's. Intermec's claims are based in part on a core group of patents it bought from I.B.M.

Analysts said the litigation with Symbol might eventually go a long way toward determining who, if anyone, will wring substantial royalties out of the technology.

So far, there is no sign that the uncertainty about future royalties is slowing down investment in RFID.

"This is more about who gets the pie than when it gets baked," said Peter Lieb, general counsel for Symbol. But he added that overall investment could slow if Intermec gets the 5 percent royalty on every RFID tag it is seeking from Symbol, and if other patent holders start demanding similarly large royalties.

Symbol, a leader in bar code systems, invested heavily in RFID last July when it paid $230 million to acquire Matrics, a maker of RFID tags and readers.

That acquisition came just weeks after Intermec sued Matrics, a start-up that had balked at licensing the rights to use Intermec RFID patents. Negotiations resumed when Symbol acquired Matrics but reached an impasse when Symbol and Intermec, which buys laser scanning systems from Symbol, could not agree on cross-licensing proposals.

When Symbol responded with its own patent infringement lawsuit this month, it also terminated its agreement to supply the laser devices. Intermec said yesterday that Symbol's move freed it to file its broader claims against Symbol.

"Symbol walked out on negotiations two weeks ago," said Thomas O. Miller, president of Intermec. "If they want to walk back, we'll talk to them."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/te...gy/24tags.html


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Co. Develops System to Track PDF Documents
AP

A Canadian company has developed a system for businesses to track PDF documents in much the same way they can keep tabs on Web visits.

Before, businesses could count the number of times documents were downloaded, but they had no way of knowing whether the files were passed around or even opened.

With the service from Remote Approach, companies can insert a small programming script into documents using the popular Portable Document Format from Adobe Systems Inc.

The script sends a message over the Internet with such details as the file name, the computer's Internet address and any unique identifier the company might have included.

Remote Approach is also working on a feature that would let a company block a document from being read if there's no Internet connection. Another feature in the works would allow tracking on a page-by-page basis.

Privacy and security experts say the PDF tracker doesn't appear worse than what's already done elsewhere, but independent consultant Richard Forno worries about any requirements to be constantly online.

``What if that link is disrupted or goes down?'' Forno asked. ``What if I'm on an airplane?''
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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Engineers Develop Undetectable Means of Measuring Speed, Motion

Research aimed at teaching robots to “see” may soon make it possible to bag speeding motorists, track enemy planes, and automatically safeguard the nation’s borders and resources without any chance of detection.

Research aimed at teaching robots to “see” may soon make it possible to bag speeding motorists, track enemy planes, and automatically safeguard the
nation’s borders and resources without any chance of detection.

A University of Florida engineering researcher is developing a method to determine speed and other characteristics of a moving object using computer algorithms, or instructions, that rely on data from standard visual cameras rather than radar or lasers. The technique has the potential to render current detection systems in so-called “fuzz busters” and some military technologies useless. That’s because, instead of painting a target with radar waves or laser beams, a camera merely needs to capture an image or series of images from the target.

“If it can view the object moving, that’s all it needs. The computer figures out everything else,” said Warren Dixon, a UF assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “We’re trying to use both regular and infrared cameras, so night or adverse weather conditions don’t present a problem.”

Dixon’s most recent co-authored article on the research appears in the March issue of the journal Automatica. Related articles, also co-authored by Dixon, are scheduled to appear shortly in the journal Transactions on Robotics and Automation.

Achieving computerized speed and motion detection requires overcoming several challenges. One is figuring out how to get a computer to understand the surrounding environment by interpreting images recorded by a video or still camera.

“The information from a camera is just a flat-screen, two-dimensional image,” Dixon said. “The challenge is figuring out the mathematics of how do you take two images and understand how things are moving in our three-dimensional world.”

People and animals can perceive depth because their brains combine each eye’s snapshots. Two cameras can also achieve stereo vision, but computers can make sense of it only if they know the exact position of each camera. That allows them to triangulate the target and learn its position relative to the camera. Part of Dixon’s achievement is developing the underlying mathematics and software to circumvent this requirement.

“With my work, you don’t need to know that specific location information,” he said. “You could have one camera taking an image from an airplane and another mounted on a car taking a picture of the same image -- and not know how the airplane and car are related to each other -- and through this new mathematics you can understand how they’re related to the target.”

The technology has law enforcement and military applications.

Police in moving or parked squad cars could use the computer-camera systems much as they do radar and laser guns to track and ticket suspected speeders. The target would have to be within the line of sight, with the range varying according to the power of the lenses in the camera. Dixon said the UF engineers have not built such a system, but “any camera with the right software could be used,” and a prototype could be built within a year.

Soldiers, meanwhile, could mount the cameras on airborne drones or truck convoys and set them to look for and automatically report potentially hostile objects moving toward the convoys – again, without any fear of giving away the convoys’ locations.

Robotic drones or remote camera-based monitoring posts outfitted with the technology also could be used for applications ranging from private security in warehouses and shopping centers to continuous remote monitoring of borders to protecting water supply reservoirs.

In addition to the robotic applications, the technique is being refined for a project led by Andy Kurdila, a UF professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to provide vision systems for tiny airborne surveillance drones called micro air vehicles.

The goal of that five-year project, which is jointly funded by a $5 million grant from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and involves several UF faculty members, is to give the drones the ability to fly without the assistance of a remote human operator. Instead, they would base navigational decisions solely on what onboard cameras view in the terrain as they fly, mimicking a human pilot.

Dixon also has been also been working with Thomas Burks, a UF assistant professor of agricultural engineering, to apply the technology to robotic harvesting in orange groves.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/510744/?sc=swtn


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The State

FBI investigating incidents on subdomains hosted by flag.blackened.net.

OK folks, here's the real deal as far as I can share it legally at the moment. Consider it as a press release if you wish and feel free to distribute it for whatever reason you deem necessary.

I'm under court order not to speak about specifics and have my attorney trying to find out what the maximum penalty for disclosure really is. I hate to have to keep my mouth shut in areas where the Gestapo is involved, but I also have to weigh things against the overall security of flag and it's subdomains and also the wellbeing of my family.

I have been ordered to submit IP info on two separate incidents having to do with subdomains hosted on flag. Both of these are in regard to claimed or threatened responsibility for acts of propaganda by the deed. Both incidents involve topics which are completely out of line for consideration here at flag and really I can only view them in two ways. Either people are simply ignorant about the murderous history of the FBI, or, as is my belief in one case, they are trying to make flag vulnerable to government intrusion.

At this point let me say, in all honesty and conviction, that if I end up dead by strange means - suicide, overdose, drunk driving accident (I never, ever, ever drink and drive), "accidental" gunshot to the back of the head while sleeping ala Fred Hampton, car jacking, or anything else reasonably suspicious, contact the FBI in Chico, California for more details.

I have called numerous friends nationwide, anarchists and otherwise whose opinions I respect and who I know will be honest and forthwith in their opinions to ask them how I should proceed. The unanimous consensus is that I comply with the wishes of the FBI and provide the IP addresses responsible. The only point of discussion, really, has been whether or not I should reveal the specific information in violation of two court orders.

Really, I am not left with much of a choice. Here are my two choices as I see them:

1. Do not comply with the wishes of the FBI. This will most likely lead to the seizure of flag and a compromise of all the sites and information online. It will probably also lead to me being imprisoned, I would guess. I personally do not fear this, but I am the sole support for my wife and infant daughter. There can be no doubt we would probably lose our home as a result.

2. Comply with the wishes of the FBI, provide the IP addresses, and count on the fact that I will catch a lot of heat and hatred from my comrades in the anarchist movement worldwide.

Though it pains me to comply with the State in any manner, I have to choose option #2. The people who have foolishly compromised us all will shoulder the burden for their selfish actions. Frankly folks, they know better - we all know better.

I was first contacted by the Oakland FBI. Many of you know their history. We are talking COINTELPRO for real - not a perceived or mythical fear. They are proven murderers and automatons for the state who will blindly follow any order to kill or disrupt without question. Read the history of their disinformation campaign against the panthers if you don't believe me. The panther comic book which they completed and distributed, the fake letters between Huey and Eldridge, the fires of hatred and murder they faked and inflamed between the panthers and the US or "united slaves" which led to the murder of Bunchy Carter and John Higgins in L.A., the list goes on and on.

But, the real point is that I feel like a coward and traitor to my comrades, even in the face of what is essentially a coerced decision. I'm the last one who will criticize or disagree with any of you who want to deride me. I'm also aware that this will probably cause quite a few of you to lose faith in me, flag, and it's subdomains. This can't be avoided and it's something I weighed into my decision. I post this mainly to inform you all and give you opportunity to make your own decisions as to whether I've handled this correctly and whether you wish to use flag or it's subdomains in the future. If you don't trust me, I understand, believe me.

It is by far the most agonizing decision I've been faced with in relation to my anarchist opinions.

This is why we do not discuss certain things as if they are a legitimate part of anarchism. Resist the extra y-chromosome influenced urge to sound more hardcore than the guy next to you. Nobody is impressed and the powers that be are sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for an excuse to shut down flag. Freedom of speech does not exist, don't try to test it. They will come bust down your door - for real - point a gun to your head and pull the trigger if you refuse to comply.

Believe it.

Your admin,

Dave

http://flag.blackened.net/forums/vie...er=asc&start=0


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High Court Appeal For Accused Pirate
Simon Hayes

AN Australian man alleged to have headed a massive software piracy ring will appeal to the High Court over an extradition order that would see him face criminal charges in the US.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, 42, of Berkely Vale on the NSW Central Coast, faces extradition to the state of Virginia following a lengthy extradition process that reached as far as the Federal Court.

Mr Griffiths was indicted by a US federal grand jury in 2003 over allegations he headed a "highly structured criminal organisation" that had pirated countless popular software packages.

The US indictment alleges Mr Griffiths was the leader of the infamous 'Drink or Die' internet piracy ring that taunted US authorities for several years.

The indictment claims Drink or Die pirated software to the value of $50 million.

The ring was shut down in a series of police raids in 2001, with members convicted in the US, the UK, Norway and Sweden.

Legal Aid Commission solicitor Antony Townsden said Mr Griffiths - who was ruled "eligible for surrender" to the US by the Federal Court earlier this month - had sought special leave to appeal to the High Court.

It is expected to take about two months before the High Court will hear the appeal.

If he is extradited, Mr Griffiths - who arrived in Australia from the UK as a child and never took out citizenship - could face eventual deportation to Britain.

Earlier this month two Britons were convicted of conspiracy to defraud in an Old Bailey trial. They will be sentenced in May.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html


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Out-of-State Telecommuter Ruled Liable For N.Y. Taxes
AP

A man who lives out of state while working by computer must pay New York tax on his full income, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday in a case
that could have wide implications for the growing practice of telecommuting.

The Court of Appeals said computer programmer Thomas Huckaby, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., owed New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent working at his employer's New York offices.

Huckaby, whose home state doesn't have an income tax, paid New York state tax on about 25 percent of his income over two years for the time he spent working there for the National Organization of Industrial Trade Unions.

The court upheld a state tax department ruling that all his income should be taxed. That amounts to $4,387 plus interest. However, the ruling could lead to much greater income for the state as it is applied to the growing field of telecommuting.

The U.S. Census Bureau's latest statistics show that nearly 4.2 million people worked at home in 2000, up from 3.4 million in 1990.

``The way the workforce is evolving and that companies are evolving, you are going to see more people working for companies from different states even across the country,'' said Bob Smith of the International Telework Association and Council based in Silver Spring, Md.

Smith said the issue of which state gets their income tax is a growing debate.

``It can be a damper on telework,'' he said. ``What's important in our country overall is to make sure laws keep up with technology developments and the needs of both the employee and the employer, because there are benefits for both.''

In February, President Bush proposed several new tax changes, including one to encourage telecommuting.

Huckaby's attorney, Peter Faber, said the case is the first of its kind involving the income tax liability of a telecommuter. He said he may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court because most states base income tax liability on the residence of the taxpayer.

``To say a person's taxability depends on where his employer is wrong,'' Faber said.

But Marc Violette, spokesman for state Assistant Solicitor General Julie Mereson, said: ``New York provides the job, New York provides the professional opportunity, and New York should be able to tax that income, even if the employee for his own convenience was working outside of New York state.''

The issue split the court, and the majority acknowledged the decision could discourage telecommuting.

``New York has the right to tax 100 percent of a nonresident employee's income derived from New York sources,'' according to the 4-3 decision by Court of Appeals. The court relied on a fairness rule called the ``convenience of the employer'' that says a worker's income is taxable if he chooses to live outside the state, as opposed to if he or she was transferred there.

In dissent, Judge Robert Smith argued that the basis of the majority's decision that all income is taxable is ``that the commissioner says it is. ... The majority cites no authority at all, and offers no persuasive reason, in support of this new interpretation.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11259955.htm