[JackSpratts]

Never Too Young For A Copyright Lesson
Alorie Gilbert

Think schools are just scaring kids about drugs, sex and poor study habits these days? Now you can put illegal file trading on the list.

Sixth-graders in American Fork, Utah, will start their journey to middle school on Tuesday with a warning from the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about the ills of illegally downloading music, movies and games from the Web.

Director Jon Dudas is scheduled to deliver this year's commencement speech at Legacy Elementary School, situated in the suburbs south of Salt Lake City.

"Under Secretary Dudas will remind students that downloading and copying music, movies and video games without...the artists' or copyright holders' permission is an illegal activity," his agency said in a statement.

"Dudas will also talk to the children about the importance of intellectual property and describe the value of patents, copyrights and trademarks in our economy," the statement continued.

It could make for a long day for the kids, but the legal ramifications of illegal file trading are real. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued hundreds of children for copyright infringement related to music downloading.
http://news.com.com/Never+too+young+...3-5717670.html


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This What Happened To Me When Trying To Defend The Legal Use Of P2P Networks In Spain

I have been teaching "Intellectual Property" (although I dislike the term) among other subjects at a Masters Degree in the Polytechnic University of Valencia UPV (Spain) for over 5 years. Two weeks ago I was scheduled (invited by the ETSIA Student Union and Linux Users' Group for the celebration of "Culture Week") to give a conference in one of the university's buildings. During that conference I was to analyze the legal use and benefits of the P2P networks, even when dealing with copyrighted works (according to the Spanish Intellectual Property Law, Private Copy provision, and many research papers, books and court rulings). I was even going to use the network to "prove" that it was legal, since members of the Collecting Society "SGAE" had appeared on TV and newspapers saying that "P2P networks are ilegal" (sic) just like that, and to that extent I even contacted SGAE, National Police, and the Attorney General in advance to inform them about it.

The day before the conference, the Dean (pressured by the Spanish Recording Industry Association "Promusicae" as I found out later, and he recognized himself in a quote to the national newspaper El Pais, and even the Motion Picture Association of America, as another newspaper quotes) tried to stop it by denying permission to use the scheduled venue. So I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time. Finally I gave the conference on the university cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people.

Later on that day (May 4th, I will never forget), I received a call from the Director of the Masters Degree Program where I was teaching telling me that the Dean had called and had asked him to "make sure I did not teach there again", and on a second call saying "it's your choice, but also your responsibility".

The Director called me and first asked me to remove any link to the university from my website, and also to "hide" the fact that I was teaching there. Then he told me about the pressures and threats he and the Program received (to be subjected to software licenses inspection, copyright violations inspections, or anything that may damage them). Obviously I had to resign to save his job (and everybody else's at the Masters Program). So I did.

But even after I had resigned, when the media (which started to pay attention to the case, as you can see in the attached links) called, the Vice-Dean of communications had the nerve to say that "I was never a teacher in that University, and I only taught a few classes". Sure I was not a Professor (which I never said I was), but I taught several subjects there for over 5 years!

It is not so important that I lost my job even though my ratings from the student satisfaction questionnaire were the highest of the whole Program, and I never violated any rule, contract, or regulation. I don't even mind so much that I never received a direct phone call from anyone objecting to my ideas or procedures. What I regret the most is to have suffered CENSORSHIP inside my own university (in a European Union member state, of all places on earth), and as a result of pressures and threats coming from Collecting Societies and Recording and Movie Industries (on my website you have proof of all that).

When are we going to do something about it? We can't let them impose their failed, outdated, and inefficient business model through threats, pressures and silence. We must speak out. I am wiling to travel the world (as I am doing now in conferences all over Spain) to tell my story, and they will not silence me. The truth has to be known. But I need your help.

This story has already been covered by over 400 Spanish bloggers, national radio stations, magazines and newspapers. But nobody seems to have noticed this outside Spain. Could you please help me spread the word outside Spain?

Should you require any further information, do not hesitate to let me know.

Best regards, and Thank you very much in advance,

Jorge Cortell
jorge (at) cortell (dot) net
jorgecortell (at) mac (dot) com

http://homepage.mac.com/jorgecortell...dio/index.html


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Bypass Found For Windows Piracy Check
Joris Evers

A tool provided by Microsoft could let people get around a check meant to prevent those with pirated copies of Windows from downloading additional software from the company, according to a security researcher.

Researcher Debasis Mohanty outlined what he said was a technique to trick Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage validation check in a posting to the Full Disclosure security mailing list on Monday. WGA is a software tool that verifies whether a particular copy of the operating system is properly licensed.

Using a secondary Microsoft validation tool called "GenuineCheck.exe," it may be possible for people to trick the checking mechanism, Mohanty said in the posting. They could then download and run supposedly restricted software from Microsoft's Download Center on a PC running a pirated version of Windows, Mohanty wrote.

Microsoft confirmed that the technique could circumvent the piracy check, but a representative said Monday that the company is not worried.

"This represents very little threat to Microsoft," the representative said. "We expected counterfeiters to try a number of different methods to circumvent the safeguards provided by Windows Genuine Advantage."

The company has been testing the WGA piracy lock on its Download Center and Windows Update Web sites for several months. It has said that by an unspecified date in the middle of this year, all Windows XP and Windows 2000 users will have to validate their copy of Windows before they can download from the Web sites.

The GenuineCheck.exe tool used to bypass the check is meant to provide an alternative way for users to prove that their copy of Windows is genuine. The primary Windows Genuine Advantage checking mechanism uses ActiveX, which is not supported in all Web browsers.

GenuineCheck generates a code that can subsequently be used to validate a pirated copy of Windows, according to Mohanty's posting. However, a PC running a legitimate version of Windows is required to run the GenuineCheck tool.

The threat is mitigated because the keys generated by the GenuineCheck tool expire "rapidly," the Microsoft representative said. Consequently, it would not do anyone much good to put up a Web page with a list of keys. Still, somebody would be able to generate a key and use it immediately on a PC with a pirated copy, or pass it on to a friend.

"This is more of an individual method of pirating. We don't see this as too different from people who take legitimate software, burn it to a CD and distribute it to their friends that way," the Microsoft representative said.

Microsoft's Download Center and Windows Update Web sites offer applications such as Windows Media Player and the Windows AntiSpyware product, as well as security updates for Microsoft products. The trick with the GenuineCheck tool works only on Download Center, according to Microsoft.

When the Windows Genuine Advantage pilot program began last year, it was purely optional, with no benefit for verifying one's operating system and no penalty if the OS was found not to be genuine. Microsoft has gradually expanded the piracy check and is now withholding downloads for users of some international versions of Windows XP.
http://news.com.com/Bypass+found+for...3-5717127.html


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Jobs Says Apple Will Support Podcasts

Apple Computer will support and organize podcasts in the next version of its iTunes and iPod software, the company said Monday.

Podcasts, which are sound files and audio content such as radio shows, have surged in popularity. They do not require an iPod to listen to them on the go. Any digital MP3 player will work.

"With the next version of iTunes, due within 60 days, there will now be an easy way for everyone to find and subscribe to" podcasts, the company said in a statement.

Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and chief executive demonstrated on Sunday evening how Apple's podcasting organization and downloading process would work at a Wall Street Journal technology conference, said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategy, a market research company.

"From the demo, we saw you could put podcasts under categories," Bajarin said. "It makes it much easier to have, access, organize and sync podcasts to an iPod."

The updated digital music jukebox software, which Bajarin said Jobs said was version 4.9, "organizes the podcasts within the iTunes store."
http://news.com.com/Jobs+says+Apple+...3-5718074.html


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Futurologist Predicts Need For 'Digital Bubble'
Ingrid Marson

People will soon need a 'digital bubble' to protect them from unwanted electronic information, according to BT futurologist Ian Pearson.

Pearson, speaking in London at a briefing on the future of fashion and technology, said that as more and more marketing departments take advantage of wireless technology to beam information at potential consumers walking past, people will need to protect themselves from the onslaught of digital data.

"[In the future] there will be chips all over the high street relaying information and you will be bombarded with digital information everywhere you go," said Pearson. "You will need a digital bubble force field — a shield that lets through what you want and blocks everything else."

The digital bubble will act as both an electronic force field and a personal firewall, according to Pearson.

There are already technologies available that allow advertising to be pushed wirelessly to mobile devices, for example, the MediaTeam Oulu research group has developed an experimental system that uses Bluetooth positioning and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Push technology to deliver permission-based, location-aware adverts to mobile phones. WAP Push, which is part of the WAP standard, allows a user to automatically access WAP content from a mobile handset after receiving an SMS.

Digital bubbles will not only interact with the fixed environment, but with the bubbles of other people, according to Pearson. He pointed out that many people already broadcast information about themselves via a personal Web site. In the future, people may broadcast information about themselves on the go, via a personal wireless Web server that is part of the digital bubble, he said.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communicatio...9199800,00.htm


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Pixel Perfect
Torrent of images is leaving film in the dust

Evolution Of Photos Is Creating Unforeseen Effects On Society
Todd Wallack

In a small, second-floor photo supply shop on Folsom Street, Volker von Glasenapp sits and waits for the phone to ring.

But that wait between calls is getting longer and longer because von Glasenapp is trying to sell film in an increasingly digital world. His business -- fittingly called Just Film -- used to have 12 employees. Now it has one.

"I refer to myself as a buggy whip salesman or a blacksmith,'' said von Glasenapp, resigned to the digital photography revolution that has changed his world.

Of course, digital photography has changed just about everybody's world. It isn't just a trendy niche anymore; it is becoming the dominant platform. More than 4 out of 5 cameras sold in the United States this year will be digital (not counting single-use cameras). And the amount of film sold annually has dropped 60 percent since 2000 as people make the switch to digital, according to Photo Marketing Association International, an industry trade group. By now, both pros and amateurs alike have abandoned film, experts say.

"In 2001, it was early adopters'' taking up digital photography, said Mike Wolfe, a Seattle-based analyst with InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, a consulting firm. "Now it's the latecomers."

The evolution is having profound and unforeseen effects on society -- from changing the way that people record their daily lives to making it harder to trust the images we see. Archivists wonder whether digital images will remain as permanent as prints for future generations. And sociologists wonder how it will change the way friends and family relate to one another.

First and foremost, many people are awash in digital images. Without the cost of film and processing, there's little to stop shutterbugs from shooting everything in sight. And some do just that on a daily basis.

"I might take 20 pictures of birds at my bird feeder to get one or two to share,'' said Tony Miksak, 60, who owns a Mendocino bookstore. "With film, I would have stopped at four or five, max."

And people are taking their cameras everywhere. One in 10 Americans now carries a mobile phone with a built-in camera. Others tote cameras in their backpacks or purses.

"My motto is, 'Never leave home without it,' " said Gerald Parrott of Napa. "You never know when you will catch the most incredible sunset at the beach, a snake or a beautiful flower while you are hiking."

Some believe the technology is making photography more casual. Instead of having relatives smile stiffly for formal portraits, people are increasingly taking snapshots of everyday life.

"It leads to more openness,'' said John Grady, a sociology professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, whose research involves photography. "People are getting more documentary in style."

But people are also holding onto fewer of those images in tangible form. Some shutterbugs delete photos they dislike just moments after the image flashes across the tiny camera screen.

"Blowing the bad shots away at no cost is a joy of digital," said Alan Drummer, a Burlingame marketing writer.

Or people park images on their hard drive, leaving them suspended as bits of electronic data. Only a fraction of all digital photos taken are ever printed onto paper.

"I used to be really good about putting my photos in albums, (but) I don't have physical albums anymore," said Katie Sommer of San Francisco.

Nowadays, Sommer said, she prints pictures only if she wants to frame them or for special occasions.

But some observers think Americans' willingness to discard digital images is a sign that photos are becoming less precious.

"Taking pictures used to be an event of sorts,'' said von Glasenapp, the film retailer. "Now they have camera phones -- they e-mail pictures, look at them once and trash them. The image is not what it used to be. The value of the image is no longer what it was."

The rise of digital photography also raises questions about whether people will save these images for future generations, the same way they usually keep old prints.

Some experts point out that traditional film and prints degrade over time. But so do compact discs. And it's unclear how people will access old digital photos decades in the future.

But Grady, the sociologist, thinks people are taking more care than ever with photos.

In addition to shooting a flurry of images, people often spend time selecting the best one and touching it up. Many cameras now come with software to retool images, something that used to be the province of professionals. More elaborate software is available for sale.

For instance, Drummer, the Burlingame writer, recently used Adobe Photoshop to create a better family portrait. Drummer replaced the pouting face on his 3- year-old with a smiling image from another picture.

Others doctor photos to eliminate small blemishes, like a pimple or a piece of spinach in someone's teeth.

One local resident said she magically cleaned up a dirty carpet in a picture of her dog. Another, a bug collector, occasionally replaces missing legs of insects in his photos. Other people regularly crop out old boyfriends or girlfriends before posting photos on dating sites.

Doctoring photos isn't new, of course. Many Soviet leaders disappeared from old photographs after Josef Stalin declared them to be enemies of the state.

But never has it been so easy for so many people to alter a photograph. Just last year, supporters of President Bush circulated a phony digital photo of then- presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda at a podium. In 2000, the University of Wisconsin was caught digitally inserting a black face into a sea of white football fans to make the campus seem more diverse.

All of which raises questions of what images we can trust.

"People have to be skeptical,'' said Dennis Dunleavy, who runs the photojournalism program at San Jose State University and wrote his dissertation on the impact of digital photography. "It is a question of skepticism. It is a question of education. It is a question of not allowing people to be gullible."

But Dunleavy said the notion that the "camera never lies" has always been a myth. Photographers, he pointed out, have always presented just one, narrow slice of reality, while leaving the rest outside the viewfinder.

"As soon as I pick up a camera, I am editing my reality," he said.

But digital photos are already playing a powerful role in shaping the news and the political agenda.

The Abu Ghraib uproar, for instance, stemmed largely from digital photos soldiers took of themselves humiliating Iraqi prisoners, and then shared with friends. The photos eventually found their way to military investigators and news outlets and were beamed around the world.

Tami Silicio, a military contractor working in Kuwait, caused an uproar last year after she gave the Seattle Times permission to publish a digital photo she shot of a cargo plane filled with coffins of American soldiers killed in Iraq.

"The digital camera is really changing our lives,'' Dunleavy said. "It's not just the camera, but the ability to use the Internet to share those pictures with people a world away."

Indeed, many people use digital photos to keep in touch with friends and family, no matter where they are.

"I moved last year from the Peninsula to Marin, so I sent pictures back and forth with my friends there,'' said Heidi Hansen of San Anselmo. "It's a nice way to keep in touch."

Others e-mail photos to distant continents. Drummer, who posts photos on his family's Web site, said it was a key link to home when his family spent three months in Ukraine to adopt a child.

"It has let relatives and friends feel much closer," he said.

The list of effects goes on. Digital photography has made it easier to auction items online at eBay, for instance. And helped support online dating.

But Tom Davis, a retired Army officer from Benicia, said the biggest impact is that it's made his old 35mm Nikon and Bronica medium-format cameras an anachronism.

Von Glasenapp, who owns Just Film, said many of his customers have switched to digital over the years, especially pros who used 35mm film. "Thirty-five millimeter is gone," he said.

But von Glasenapp said several commercial and wedding photographers in the area continue to order medium-format and some other types of high-end films, keeping his business on life support. Gesturing to a box of film on his desk, he said someone just ordered several hundred dollars worth of film. And his phone rang twice during a short interview at his airy, second-floor office.

Even in the digital age, he pointed out, there's still demand for older technology.

"There are still blacksmiths,'' he said.



DIGITAL DOMINATES THE CAMERA MARKET

About 3 of every 4 cameras sold in 2004 were digital, according to estimates by the Photo Marketing Association International..

-- Camera sales in millions

Film Digital

1994 15.5

’95 15.0

’96 15.1 0.4

’97 15.6 0.7

’98 16.4 1.1

’99 17.8 2.2

’00 19.7 4.5

’01 16.3 7.0

’02 14.2 9.4

’03 11.2 13.0

’04* 6.7 18.2

’05** 4.6 20.5 * - Estimated ** - Projected Note: Excludes single-use cameras Source: Photo Marketing Association InternationalTodd Trumbull / The Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGNVCT8F01.DTL


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Religiously correct

Best Buy to Toughen Policy on Adult Game Sales
Sara Ivry

Youngsters who want to buy adult video games may have run up against a higher authority. Last week, Best Buy agreed to strengthen and publicize its efforts to keep minors from buying violent or sexually explicit video games after the company was pressured by the Christian Brothers Investment Services, which manages assets for Roman Catholic organizations.

The store's policy threatens disciplinary action against clerks who fail to check the ages of shoppers who look as if they may be under 21. It also permits the use of mystery shoppers - spies, in other words - to check whether clerks are observing the rules.

Best Buy agreed to post its policy on its Web site and on store signs after being threatened with a shareholder resolution asking for a report on how Best Buy complied with efforts to restrict the sale of explicit material. Also last week, the Illinois Senate approved the levying of fines against store owners who sell explicit games to minors.

Sue Busch, Best Buy's directory of public relations, rejected the suggestion that the disclosure action was simply to appease a bloc of investors. "We wanted to make sure we were as open as possible so people could see how seriously we take their concerns," she said.

Cathy Rowan, who co-filed the proposed shareholder resolution on behalf of Trinity Health, a Catholic health care provider, said that she was particularly concerned over the games Halo, Manhunt, Hitman and Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto where players are rewarded if they kill cops or rape prostitutes, she said. "Kids are going to play video games but are they being sold games that are really age inappropriate?"

Nell Minnow, the editor of the Corporate Library, an independent research firm, said . "There's not a bright line distinction between what used to be social policy issues and straight shareholder-value concerns." SARA IVRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/te...gy/23game.html


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Hollywood Unions Set Video Game Strike Vote

Two of the key unions representing actors have asked their members to authorize a strike against the video game industry after talks on a new master agreement between the two sides broke down.

Materials were sent on Tuesday to about 1,900 members of the Screen Actors Guild and 1,000 members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Those unions both require "super-majority" approvals from their members -- 75 percent for SAG and 66.7 percent for AFTRA -- before their national bodies can formally authorize the strike.

The previous contract between game publishers and the unions expired last December, and after repeated extensions talks collapsed earlier this month.

The games industry said the biggest sticking point was residuals, or ongoing payments to actors and actresses for each copy of a game sold to which they contributed, including their voices and likenesses.

The unions wanted residual payments on games that sell more than 400,000 units, while the game publishers wanted only to make single up-front payments to talent.

Results of the strike vote are expected on June 7.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...LLYWOOD-DC.XML


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Nokia Unveils Linux-Based Web Device Without Phone
Lucas van Grinsven

Nokia unveiled on Wednesday a pocket-sized Web browser for wireless broadband networks, which is the Finnish firm's first Linux-based device and its first product without a built-in mobile phone.

The new device, dubbed Nokia 770, has a four inch horizontal touch screen that can display normal Internet pages.

It will sell for $350 excluding VAT or 350 euros including VAT, the world's biggest mobile phone maker said ahead of a Linux trade show.

The product marks a significant strategy expansion for Nokia which is venturing outside its mainstay cellular phone business. Nokia aims to sell the device through broadband home Internet providers and directly to consumers on its Internet web site.

"We're launching a completely new product category," said Janne Jormalainen, Nokia's vice president for convergence products at its multimedia devices division.

The device is aimed at consumers looking for an affordable extra Internet screen in the house that they can also carry with them and use at wireless hotspots outside the home or connect to a cell phone through a Bluetooth wireless link.

It will be available in the third quarter.

The product will run entirely on open source software, including a standard Linux operating system also used in desktop computers, marking more unchartered waters for Nokia. "Using standard desktop Linux means innovation is happening faster (than in Linux versions for small devices). We will be very fast in implementing this innovation," Jormalainen said.

Several of the innovations already in the pipeline are upgrades by early 2006 to enable Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls and instant messaging. Anyone who buys the device now will be able to upgrade the software next year.

VoIP phone calls from this portable device may cannibalise cell phone voice revenues from Nokia's main customers which are all of the world's biggest mobile operators.

New Open Source Website

Nokia will also launch and support an open source community Web Site, encouraging software developers to hack into the device and improve the product.

A rival to Microsoft's Windows, Linux is an open source operating system, meaning that the software will be freely available to everybody.

Nokia aims to be competitive by implementing innovations ahead of competitors, while benefiting from its huge scale -- it makes one of every three mobile phones sold in the world and the total mobile phone market is expected to be well over 700 million units in 2005.

Consumers will be able to store content downloaded from the Internet on removable MMC memory cards, or transfer it to a desktop computer with a USB connection or Bluetooth.

Nokia has been looking for growth opportunities outside the strict boundaries of the mobile phone industry, first with its N-Gage gaming phone and later with a multimedia device which can double up as a television and video device, but these have been slow to catch on and always came with integrated a mobile phone.

This new device, which took Nokia two years to develop, is a stab at the market for portable computers.

Last year 189 million PCs were sold worldwide, and by 2008 market researchers expect more than half of all sales will be portable computers rather than desktops.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...A-LINUX-DC.XML


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U.S. House Votes To Outlaw Computer Spyware
Andy Sullivan

The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday voted to establish new penalties for purveyors of Internet "spyware" that disables users' computers and secretly monitors their activities.

By overwhelming majorities, the House passed two bills that stiffen jail sentences and establish multimillion-dollar fines for those who use secret surveillance programs to steal credit-card numbers, sell software or commit other crimes.

Spyware has emerged as a major headache for computer users over the last several years.

It can sap computing power, crash machines and bury users under a blizzard of unwanted ads. Scam artists use spyware to capture passwords, account numbers and other sensitive data.

Spyware can end up on users' computers through a virus or when they download games or other free programs off the Internet.

"Consumers have a right to know and have a right to decide who has access to their highly personal information that spyware can collect," said California Republican Rep. Mary Bono, who sponsored one of the bills.

The bills prohibit a number of practices often associated with spyware, such as reprograming the start page on a user's Web browser, logging keystrokes to capture passwords and other sensitive data, or launching pop-up ads that can't be closed without shutting down the computer.

The practice known as "phishing" -- in which scam artists pose as banks or other businesses in an attempt to trick consumers into divulging account information -- would also be outlawed.

The House voted 395 to 1 to impose jail sentences of up to 2 years. Violators could face fines up to $3 million per incident. Those who use spyware to commit other crimes, such as identity theft, could have an additional 5 years tacked on to their sentences.

Both bills passed the House last year but the Senate adjourned before taking action. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate this year.

Most spyware practices are already illegal under deceptive-business laws but federal and state law enforcers have only sued two spyware purveyors so far, one expert said.

"We know that there are literally hundreds of these cases out there. Unless there's a push for enforcement, passing a new law is really only going to help after the fact," said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a consumer-advocacy group.

The bill gives the Justice Department an additional $10 million per year through 2009 to fight spyware.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...SPYWARE-DC.XML


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New Ways to Drive Home the Message

New technologies that give viewers more control over how they watch TV could spell the end of the classic 30-second commercial. But fear not—advertising is not going away.
Brad Stone

One of the most talked-about commercials this year never appeared on regular television. It was available for voluntary viewing on, of all places, hotel pay-per-view networks. The 10-minute video promoted Virgin Atlantic's new first-class flat-bed seats and salaciously (though cleanly) parodied an adult film with "Austin Powers"-like humor. In six months, more than 1.2 million hotel guests clicked on their remote controls and sat through an average of seven minutes. Did we mention the commercial was about an airline seat? Virgin Atlantic was thrilled, of course, but not just with the response to the ad. "We actually thought the brilliance of the idea was the placement," says Virgin Atlantic VP Chris Rossi. "We want to put our message where business travelers are spending their time."

There's lots of hand-wringing on Madison Avenue these days. Companies like Virgin Atlantic are concluding that advertising on TV is too pricey and the effects too difficult to measure. They're also eying the inexorable advance of technology with trepidation. Digital video recorders like TiVo, video-on-demand services and Internet broadband allow consumers to skip the hallowed 30-second spot like a crack in the sidewalk. The industry must adapt to a coming world where consumers enjoy total control and will no longer tolerate tedious commercials that hold them hostage to messages they care nothing about. "The consumer is increasingly in the driver's seat in all forms of media, and TV is no exception," says Tim Hanlon, vice president of the Starcom MediaVest Group. "There are still a lot of people in the business that don't accept what is about to happen. That is myopic."

Perhaps it's time for the TV industry to get contact lenses, because the latest research suggests that trouble lies ahead. Although only 5 percent of households own DVRs, the number is expected to grow rapidly; most ominous, 70 percent of DVR owners skip the ads. Meanwhile, the average wired consumer now spends more time fiddling with the Internet at work and home than watching TV. Accordingly, the top 50 advertisers are slowly scaling back TV spending in their ad budgets, to 54.9 percent last year from 55.5 percent in 2001, even while overall advertising revenues rose in that time period, according to a study by TNS Media Intelligence. These trends have provoked a flurry of self-examination at ad agencies. Last month a long essay called "The Chaos Scenario" in the trade publication Ad Age worried that the industry might not be prepared for the collapse of the old advertising model. And a book to be published next month, "Life After the 30-Second Spot," surveys the formats that might replace the industry's workhorse. Says author Joseph Jaffe, "Unfortunately, nothing in this industry has changed except consumers, who don't take commercials at face value anymore."

The broadcast TV networks aren't exactly watching idly while their $42 billion in ad revenue dwindles. CBS, for example, is exploring video-on-demand and tailoring programs for cell phones. "You might see the rise of 15-minute shows," says Larry Kramer, head of digital media for CBS. But some of the network's solutions may be doing more damage than good. Commercials in prime time are now more expensive and more obtrusive than ever—18 minutes per hour in the most popular prime-time shows, versus 13 minutes back in 1992. Reality TV, as those who swear by it know, is now clogged with product placements, some subtle and clever but others unbearably clunky. Despite (or maybe because of) these strategies, marketing dollars are slowly fleeing from TV to outdoor ads and into the rising online ad networks of Google and Yahoo.

No one is giving up television advertising for dead quite yet. But even while they argue that the 30-second, mass-targeted commercial will never truly go away, broadcasters are experimenting with ways of replacing or complementing them. One curious strategy involves ads that are actually longer than 30 seconds. A few years ago, BMW started putting on its Web site short videos filmed by notable Hollywood directors and featuring BMW cars. Millions of users downloaded the stylish spots, proving that longer formats can give advertisers more leeway to tell compelling stories, as opposed to just shouting trivial corporate slogans.

Now advertising innovators are tailoring that idea for the TV. Advertisers working with TiVo can send long ads to a consumer's set-top box, then try to entice viewers to watch them. For example, during Disney's live spots about the anniversary celebrations at its theme parks, TiVo users see an icon inviting them to click on the remote to watch the longer clip for a chance to win a free vacation.

The coming wave of interactive TV is also bringing new advertising opportunities. In a trial over the past year, Time Warner Cable in Hawaii allowed consumers to use their remotes to play along with game shows, look up news headlines and interact with commercials. The Game Show Network, for example, let its Hawaiian viewers compete along with contestants and other audience members in programs like "World Series of Blackjack." During the commercials, viewers could add to their scores by answering questions related to the ad, such as choosing their favorite meal at Burger King. It sounds like a transparent, easily ignored ploy, right? Game Show Network exec John Roberts says that 85 percent of viewers interacted with the commercials when they could have skipped right by them. "We're TiVo-proof," he brags.

Advertising insiders concede that these new formats will not deliver the massive audiences of prime-time network TV. So they theorize that most companies will soon target multiple, smaller pools of consumers—on TV, on the Web, over cell phones and, yes, even in hotel rooms. The key will be finding audiences that are interested in the product to begin with—say, someone who is shopping for a new car and wouldn't mind seeing the latest GM SUV mount a staged assault on a mountaintop. Fulfilling this vision will require significant changes in the ad industry. Media research—how advertisers measure what people watch and how they respond to ads—will have to get considerably savvier about gauging media consumption habits. Creative ad teams will have to make better ads that people are actually interested in watching. If all this occurs, in a decade or so, when everything about TV has changed, we'll undoubtedly miss all the old advertising tropes we grew up with. But a vibrant, smarter ad industry that continues to subsidize good programming is better than having no commercials at all and seeing every channel turn into pay-per-view. Nine out of 10 dentists agree.

With Rana Foroohar

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7935918/site/newsweek/


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Television Reloaded

It's a transformation as significant as when we went from black-and-white to color—and it's already underway. The promise is that you'll be able to watch anything you want, anywhere—on a huge high-def screen or on your phone.
Steven Levy

Forty-four years ago, when Newton Minow famously described television as a vast wasteland, he might have hit the bull's-eye on the
wasteland part. But he didn't know from vast. TV back then—a few black-and-white channels with a test pattern after midnight—was a sleepy three- light town where everybody hung out at the same dull places because there wasn't much else going on. As monochrome moved to color, and we got pay TV, more channels, remote controls, VCRs and cussin' on HBO, television sprawled much wider. But compared with what's coming, our 2005 experience is only half vast.

Tomorrow's television? Now we're talking vast. Start with the screens—wide, flat, high-definition monsters that delineate tire treads on NASCAR rigs and zits on an anchorperson's chin—and move to the programming choices, which will expand from a lousy 200 or so channels to tens of thousands of 'em, if you figure in video-on-demand (VOD). It'll be a cosmic video jukebox where you can fire up old episodes of "Cop Rock," the fifth game of the 1993 World Series, a live high-school lacrosse game, a ranting video blogger and your own HD home-movie production of Junior's first karate tournament. While it's playing, you can engage in running voice commentary with your friends, while in a separate part of the screen you're slamming orcs in World of Warcraft. Then you can pay your bill on screen. And if you ever manage to leave your home theater, you can monitor the whole shebang in your car, at a laptop at Starbucks or via the laundry-ticket-size screen on your cell phone. The ethos of New TV can be captured in a single sweeping mantra: anything you want to see, any time, on any device. "We are at a watershed moment in home entertainment," says Brian Roberts, CEO of the cable giant Comcast.

To paraphrase sci-fi author William Gibson, the TV future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed yet. Early adopters have jumped on the new stuff because they offer two qualities traditionally lacking in the fading era of broadcast television: personalization and empowerment. All of which is worse news than a crummy Nielsen rating for the major networks, whose market share has already plummeted in the past decade.

Start with the hardware. Ever notice that no one uses the term "TV set" anymore? That's because people can watch on anything from a traditional box in the den to their computer, to a screen on the seat back of a JetBlue plane. But when it comes to the living room, the standard is a big-screen monitor that delivers high-definition quality. After years of hype and wrangling about standards, prices are down and a quarter of all TVs sold are now high def. Once you get one, you're hooked. "You find yourself mesmerized," says Mark Cuban, an entrepreneur who used his dot-com earnings to buy the Dallas Mavericks—and now has started HDNet, a cable-and-satellite offering that hosts about 20 hours of original high-def programming a week. "You'll always give the benefit of the doubt to something in HD," he says. That's good for Cuban, who snags viewers with homegrown productions like "Bikini Destinations." Meanwhile, HD is a must-have for network prime-time dramas, and just last week ABC announced that "Good Morning America" would go HD.

Another transition well underway is time-shifting, the ability to rearrange the schedule to watch programs at your convenience, not the networks'. Though videocassette recorders have enabled this for decades, those devices were always too hard to use and too dumb to really shape our habits. But a digital video recorder —(DVR) can easily grab your favorite shows—even if you don't know they're on—and allows you to freeze-frame fast action and jump commercials. Former FCC head Michael Powell called it "God's machine." As DVRs are offered in cable and satellite set-top boxes, more people are finally enjoying the benefits.

Video-on-demand provides another way to bypass what programmers offer at a given moment—and millions are already experimenting with it, commonly choosing old episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to the usual prime-time fare. VOD libraries will inevitably expand to the equivalent of the mammoth music boxes of iTunes and Rhapsody. And if you ever get tired of old movies, you'll have a chance to watch flicks at home while they're still in theaters. "All the studios say it's a matter of not if but when... new movie releases will quickly air on cable TV," says Comcast's Roberts.

Some people believe that between the recorders and VOD, people will follow schedules only for real-time events like sports and election night. Fox TV president Peter Ligouri says, "People want to watch shows like 'American Idol' live, in the moment." But everything else can wait. "Look behind any programmer's desk and you'll see a chart with the prime-time schedule—in 20 years that model will be as obsolete as the nickelodeon," says Steve Perlman, CEO of Rearden, Inc., and founder of Web-TV.

While time-shifting changes the when of television, "space-shifting" tinkers with the where. Now that you've stored your show on a TiVo, it's only logical to take it with you on your laptop, hand-held viewer or PSP game player. A company called Sling Media sells a device that allows you to watch the program playing in your living room on your computer, anywhere in the world. Other schemes are designed to beam programming directly to gadgets not normally regarded as TV devices. MobiTV, a service that sends programs to cell phones (like CNN and Discovery Channel), has 300,000 subscribers. It may call to mind the characters in "Zoolander" squinting into their microscopic mobiles, but Idetic CEO Phillip Alvelda reminds us that people once scoffed at mobile phones. "The truth is, mobile devices have a lot of advantages over television," he says. "For one thing, it's personal." And while you might not want to watch a viewing of "Lawrence of Arabia" on your Razor, new programming ("Mobisodes") will fit the size and time constraints of commuter-potato viewing.

All these elements come together in what may be the most significant development of all—the movement of the television platform to the Internet. IPTV hopes —to merge the lay-back culture of the living room with the bustling activity of the lean-forward Net. "This is the future," gushes Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who has a $400 million deal with telecom giant SBC to implement it.

"Moving from broadcast TV to broadband TV changes the whole industry," says Gates's IPTV czar Moshe Lichtman. While cable and satellite companies have limited channel capacity, the Net—which, you'll recall, can host billions of Web pages without a sweat—has room for everything. You can stack as many shows on the screen as your eyes can handle. When you watch baseball, you can monitor several games at once, or choose to view the game from several different angles at the same time. A future presentation of the Masters Tournament might let you follow any golfer for every minute of his round.

Since the Internet is open to any digital content, your television will merge with other activities. Someone on the phone? You'll get caller-ID information on the TV screen. If you don't feel like fast-forwarding past the commercials, check your credit—-card bills. And you know those news-channel "tickers" that run on the bottom of the screen with headlines, weather reports and updates on Britney Spears's wedding status? "Ninety percent of that stuff you don't care about," says Gates. "We'll let you have a custom ticker [with stock quotes, scores and other information that you pick]."

"Once you put this stuff up nobody knows what will happen," says SBC's Randall Stephenson. What some people think might happen may not please media middlemen like... SBC. While IPTV originally requires a reliable high-bandwidth platform to ensure top-quality reception, fast connections will eventually become commonplace. In that case it might be feasible for programmers to reach the mass audience without going through a gatekeeper, be it a telecom, cable provider or satellite service. Video would be served directly, like everything else on the Web. "Most flat-panel TV sets will have Internet connections in their future," says Steve Shannon, founder of Akimbo, a Web video service that has content deals with more than 100 partners, including CNN, Turner Classic Movies and the BBC.

Others focus on the prospect of outsiders' gaining access to your TV set, as bloggers have invaded media on the Web. "Already there is more data downloaded for video over the Internet than there is for music," says Mike Ramsay, cofounder of TiVo. "What happens when a 14-year-old creates a BitTorrent browser that's easy to use and plugs right into your TV? You go from 500 channels to 50 million channels." We soon may find out, as a number of open-source-inspired Internet efforts hope to open the floodgates. "We have tools to let anyone make high-quality videos to reach millions of people," says Tiffiniy Cheng of the Participatory Culture Foundation in Worcester, Mass. "We'll give a channel to anyone who wants a channel."

Given that future programming will be largely on demand, a "channel" could simply be a periodic video blog, a set of fly-fishing videos or a streamed soft-porn Webcam. "The cost of establishing a traditional programming vehicle and securing distribution is incredibly high," says Jeremy Allaire, founder of online distributor Brightcove. In the era of Internet television, it will be as simple and cost-effective to create a microchannel as it is to create a Web site.

How would you figure out what to watch? "By the time you scroll through the listings, something else would already be on," says Bradley Horowitz, head of video search at Yahoo. His suggestion? A personalized home-video page that stores your favorite channels and seeks out stuff you'd like. "Instead of a list of shows, you'd get 'Here's what's hot,' or 'Here's what psychologists are watching'."

Does this mean that traditional programming like "Desperate Housewives" and "The Daily Show" will get overwhelmed? Not necessarily. If two obscure animators at Web site JibJab could get millions of viewers for their Internet-based Bush/Kerry campaign video, would a 2015 "Sopranos Reunion" have any difficulty reaching a mass audience? "There is a consistent hunger for good stories and good characters," says HBO's Carolyn Strauss. David Hill, a DirecTV exec, contends that no matter how open the distribution is, the public will flock to tiny islands of quality, even if quality is defined by what's always been on TV. "People who say that everyone can be a David E. Kelley have no clue of this business," he says. The result may be that when all the time-shifting and space-shifting is accounted for, most people will watch the same stuff by the same creators.

In fact, even with today's relative abundance, most people stick to only a few channels. According to Nielsen Media Research, households that receive about 60 channels usually watch only 15. Households whose systems can receive 96 channels (around the national average) actually watch... 15.

What's more, a recent study conducted at the UPenn Annenberg School for Communications showed that when people were offered more programming choices, they stuck to fewer selections—and, alarmingly, watched fewer news shows.

This doesn't surprise Barry Schwartz, a Swarthmore professor and author of "The Paradox of Choice." He fears that people may stick to a small group of selections that don't challenge any of their assumptions. "I worry about 250 million separate islands," he says. It's a long way from the first era of television, when there were so few choices that almost everything you viewed was a mass-shared experience. Schwartz does concede that when you have millions of options to choose from, you're more likely to find ones that really appeal to you. But even then, you won't necessarily be more satisfied. "Whatever you watch," he says, "you'll know that there's something else on that's good, and regret you're not watching it."

Can it be that in the vast world of television's tomorrow, we'll be nostalgic for the wasteland?

With Brad Stone and Jennifer Ordonez
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7935915/site/newsweek/


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Triumph for Fox, but Pain for NBC
Bill Carter

One of the most competitive and volatile network television seasons ever recorded ended officially last night with three networks, Fox, CBS and ABC, celebrating and one network, NBC, decelerating.

For the first time in its two-decade history, Fox, once the upstart outsider, will win the network competition in the category of viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, which every network but CBS defines as the yardstick of prime-time supremacy, because so many advertisers pay a premium to reach that group.

CBS has its own claims to victory, however, across even wider audience categories. That network once again dominated in terms of the total number of viewers, still led by "CSI," as well as among the slightly older audience segment, those between the ages of 25 and 54, that CBS claims as its primary selling point to advertisers.

CBS executives had thought during much of the season that they would also take the 18-to-49 crown for a clean sweep of prime-time leadership, only to be nosed out by Fox. But they still noted that CBS would win with those 18-to-49 viewers in terms of regularly scheduled programs, marking the first time that CBS had won that category in 30 years. Regularly scheduled programs would not include, for example, Fox's broadcast of the Super Bowl, which by itself was enough to boost the network's seasonal average above CBS's.

The other positive network rating story came at ABC, which posted the most significant growth of any network. ABC was up 12 percent in the 18-to-49 audience category, thanks largely to the injection of three enormous hits: "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy."

NBC, meanwhile, is headed in the other direction, suffering an ignominious fall from first place to fourth in the network ratings, the first time any network has plunged that far in one season. NBC executives pointed out that the margin between first place and fourth was the closest of any network ratings competition ever. But NBC is, nevertheless, the only network whose momentum was conspicuously negative as the season ended.

For the season, NBC plunged 19 percent in the 18-to-49 competition, finishing at a 3.5 rating, down from a 4.3 last season. Fox's winning rating was a 4.1, while CBS finished with a 4 rating and ABC had a 3.7. Among total viewers, NBC was also dead last, down 11 percent, to an average nightly audience of 9.8 million. Last year NBC averaged more than 11 million viewers a night. Each rating point in the 18-to-49 category is worth 1.3 million viewers.

CBS had just under 13 million total viewers for its seasonal average, with ABC at just over 10 million and Fox at 9.9 million.

Peter Liguori, newly installed as president of entertainment for Fox, credited the Fox program department for what he called "a lot of great moves" that turned around what had been an abysmal performance in the fall into a winning performance since January.

Mr. Liguori cited the decision to keep Fox's powerhouse series, "American Idol," to just one contest a season; the strategy of holding off the hit drama "24" until winter so it could run straight through without repeats; the shift of the soap opera cult hit "The O.C." to Thursday night, where it established a beachhead for Fox on television's most competitive night; and the return of the animated series "Family Guy," which, though once canceled, had become a hit on DVD and was successfully revived by Fox this spring.

Mr. Liguori dismissed CBS's argument that Fox squeezed into first place only with the help of sports shows like the Super Bowl, which are not regular parts of the entertainment schedule. "There is no reason for an asterisk on this victory," Mr. Liguori said. "The Super Bowl is always included in the overall ratings."

Kelly Kahl, the executive vice president for program planning at CBS, said, "While we may be a little disappointed not to get the 18-to-49 win, we're certainly happy about hitting on some of these other things, like winning in 25-to-54 viewers two years in a row for the first time in 30 years."

Mr. Kahl noted that the margin between Fox and CBS in the 18-to-49 race was so tiny it amounted to an average of just 60,000 viewers.

NBC's top program executives, Kevin Reilly and Jeff Zucker, conceded that the fall all the way from first place to last was psychologically and financially damaging to a network that had been routinely the network leader since the mid-1980's.

"Going from first to fourth, that's ugly," said Mr. Reilly, the president of entertainment for NBC. "We're a sexy hook for a story. People can't resist that. But the distance between first and fourth was six-tenths of a rating point. It's never been that close before."

Mr. Zucker, president of the NBC Universal Television Group, noted that NBC knew it was facing a challenging season because of the departure of the longtime comedy hits "Friends" and "Frasier" but that the network simply had not come up with much in the way of successful replacements. Only one new scripted NBC series, "Medium," could be called a success.

"The first thing we have to do is stop the bleeding," Mr. Reilly said. "This is really a momentum story. We do not come out of the spring with any momentum. We just didn't have any events, not even any artificial events, to build on. Next year we'll have the Winter Olympics and we have a handful of mini-series. But I don't think we have anything like an 'American Idol.' "

Perhaps most painful for NBC was the loss of its two-decade-long pre-eminence on Thursdays, the nights that generates the most advertising revenue in network television. CBS took complete command of the night this season, a development that its chairman, Leslie Moonves, predicted would lead to a transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues to CBS from NBC.

Given its surge this season, ABC is widely being cited as the network to watch in the next few years. Stephen McPherson, the president of entertainment for ABC, said he did not want to become complacent about ABC's strong turnaround this season. "I still think we're the underdogs," he said. "The networks are pretty darn close. We're getting into these roundings to determine who's ahead."

Mr. Kahl said that the closeness of the competition this season meant "we'll be going into next season ready for some real gun battles." He added: "We're not taking anything for granted. Hundredths of ratings points matter."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/ar...on/26rati.html


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Mötley Crüe Files Suit Against NBC for Banning It Because of an Expletive
Jeff Leeds and Jacques Steinberg

In the latest twist in the broadening battle overdecency standards, the glam-metal band Mötley Crüe filed suit against NBC yesterday. The suit states that the network violated the group's free-speech rights and weakened its sales by banning it after Vince Neil, the lead singer, used an expletive on the air in a Dec. 31 appearance on "The Tonight Show."

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Los Angeles, accuses the network of censoring the band to mollify a Federal Communications Commission that has been increasingly quick to levy steep fines for broadcasting indecent material on television and radio. The lawsuit says the network, which banned the group after Mr. Neil inserted an expletive into his New Year's greeting to Mötley Crüe's drummer, Tommy Lee, added insult to injury by promoting a summer reality series featuring Mr. Lee.

The band, known for 1980's hits like "Shout at the Devil" and "Girls, Girls, Girls," is requesting a ruling that NBC's ban is unconstitutional, a court order forcing the network to lift it, and unspecified financial damages tied to the band's reduced media exposure.

"We meant no harm, but it feels that we're being singled out unfairly," said Nikki Sixx, the band's bassist. "This is a discrimination issue, pure and simple. All we've ever asked is to be treated like everybody else, which is why we're taking this action." In a statement yesterday, NBC said: "To ensure compliance with its broadcast standards, NBC has the right to decide not to invite back guests who violate those standards and use an expletive during a live entertainment program. The lawsuit Mötley Crüe has filed against us is meritless."

The band's case appears somewhat quixotic, given that federal courts have afforded wide discretion to broadcasters to choose their own content. But it does illustrate the uneasiness of the relations between entertainers and the media companies that provide a platform for their fame in the cautious climate that has surrounded programmers since CBS's Super Bowl fiasco last year, when Janet Jackson's right breast was exposed during a half-time performance in front of tens of millions of viewers. Last year the F.C.C. proposed fines of nearly $8 million against broadcasters, primarily for risqué material, and executives have spoken openly of practicing self-censorship to avoid the agency's crosshairs.

Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, has provided examples of how the decency standards on broadcast television differ from those on cable. This past season, he played himself - albeit an expletive-spewing caricature of himself - in the limited-run Showtime series "Fat Actress."

Whether performers can take legal action to influence programming is in serious doubt, however. Charles Tobin, a Washington lawyer who specializes in First Amendment law and has represented CNN and Fox, said: "The government has no right to censor people on the content of their speech. But time and again the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of broadcasters, newspapers and the other media to decide who it wants to give priority to. That includes the right to ban anyone they want to."

"I think it's a publicity stunt," Mr. Tobin said of the Mötley Crüe suit. "It can't get NBC's help to boost its album through the airwaves. So it's going to try and do it by dragging NBC into court."

But the band's lawyer, Skip Miller, argues that there are lower-court opinions supporting the notion that a private entity, like a television network, acting under government pressure, can be liable for damages for violating free-speech rights. Mr. Miller added that NBC's action unfairly singled out Mötley Crüe because NBC had not announced similar bans on other performers who have uttered profanities on its airwaves, including the singer Bono of U2, or the singer John Mayer. (The F.C.C. found that NBC violated decency standards by broadcasting a vulgarity uttered by Bono during the Golden Globes in 2003, but did not impose a fine.)

"Once you're on, and then you get banned," Mr. Miller said, "the question is why? Is it because NBC decided to throw Mötley Crüe under the train? If it's because of kowtowing to the F.C.C. and governmental pressure," he continued, "yes, I do think that can be a First Amendment violation."

In the lawsuit the band said Mr. Neil was not aware that his statement was being broadcast. But in any event, the band said, the live broadcast took place during late- night hours when federal prohibitions on indecent material have not traditionally been applied.Three weeks later, Mr. Zucker of NBC told a meeting of television critics that "Mötley Crüe will not be back on NBC." He said that the New Year's Eve edition of "The Tonight Show" would be broadcast on a five-second delay going forward.

As a result, the band said, a previously planned appearance on NBC's "Last Call With Carson Daly" was called off. The band also said it was barred from appearing on other network programs, including "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," and media exposure that cost it prospective ticket, merchandise and album sales, as well as corporate sponsorships. Even without appearances on the network, the band's new double album, "Red, White & Crüe," composed primarily of previously released songs, has sold a surprising 349,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Still, when the ban went into effect, just before the release of the album, it "was a tender, important time for them," Mr. Miller said. "NBC's action was overkill."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/ar...ic/25motl.html


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Infineon to Explore New Computer Memory
AP

Chip maker Infineon Technologies AG said Monday it has formed a joint research initiative with IBM Corp. and Macronix International Co. to examine the potential of a new computer memory technology called phase-change memory, or PCM.

The research work will be conducted at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and the IBM Almaden Research Lab in San Jose, California. Between 20 and 25 workers from the three companies will be involved in the project. Macronix International is based in Hsinchu, Taiwan; and Infineon Technologies, in Munich, Germany.

PCM is a new technology in which data is stored using a special material, which changes its structure from an amorphous to a crystalline structure, instead of by using electrical charges as is usually the case.

Though it's in early stages, the technology has the potential for high speed, high density storage of data, including keeping the data active and available even if the power is interrupted or turned off.

Ideally, it could be used in dozens of applications, ranging from computer servers to consumer electronics.

Shares of IBM rose 10 cents to close at $76.51 in Monday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...05-23-17-09-03


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I.B.M. Software Aims to Provide Security Without Sacrificing Privacy
Steve Lohr

International Business Machines is introducing software today that is intended to let companies share and compare information with other companies or government agencies without identifying the people connected to it.

Security specialists familiar with the technology say that, if truly effective, it could help tackle many security and privacy problems in handling personal information in fields like health care, financial services and national security.

"There is real promise here," said Fred H. Cate, director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University. "But we'll have to see how well it works in all kinds of settings."

The technology for anonymous data-matching has been under development by S.R.D. (Systems Research and Development), a start-up company that I.B.M. acquired this year.

Much of the company's early financial backing came from In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm financed by the Central Intelligence Agency that invests in companies whose technologies have government security uses.

S.R.D., now I.B.M.'s Entity Analytics unit, has worked for years on specialized software for quickly detecting relationships within vast storehouses of data. Its early market was in Las Vegas, where casinos used the company's technology to help prevent fraud or employee theft. The matching software might sift through databases of known felons, for example, to find any links to casino employees.

By the late 1990's, United States intelligence agencies had discovered S.R.D. and the potential to use its technology for winnowing leads in pursuing terrorists or spies. After 9/11, the government's interest increased, and today most of the company's business comes from government contracts.

The new product goes beyond finding relationships in different sets of data. The software, which I.B.M. calls DB2 Anonymous Resolution, enables companies or government agencies to share personal information on customers or citizens without identifying them.

For example, say the government were looking for suspected terrorists on cruise ships. The government had a "watch list," but it did not want to give that list to a cruise line, fearing it might leak out. Similarly, the cruise lines did not want to hand over their entire customer lists to the government, out of privacy concerns.

The I.B.M. software would convert data on a person into a string of seemingly random characters, using a technique known as a one-way hash function. No names, addresses or Social Security numbers, for example, would be embedded within the character string.

The strings would be fed through a program to detect a matching pattern of characters. In the case of the cruise line and the government, an alert would be sent to both sides that a match had been detected.

"But what you get is a message that there is a match on record Number 678 or whatever, and then the government can ask the cruise line for that specific record, not a whole passenger list," explained Jeff Jonas, the founder of S.R.D. and now chief scientist of I.B.M.'s Entity Analytics unit. "What you get is discovery without disclosure."

To date, the software for anonymously sharing and matching data has been tested in a few projects, but I.B.M. is aiming for day-to-day use in several industries.

In health care, for example, more secure and anonymous handling of patient information could alleviate privacy concerns in the shift to electronic health records, potentially increasing efficiency and reducing costs, analysts said.

The technology, specialists noted, could also reduce the risk of identity theft, especially if personal data held by companies were made anonymous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/te...gy/24blue.html


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iPhantom
Press Release

The iPhantom is a comprehensive Internet security device for your PC that is lightweight, portable, and easy to use. The iPhantom is the first of its kind to make enterprise network security available for your PC at the hardware level. The iPhantom™ incorporates a state of the art hardware architecture that provides high-end security effectively without compromising your Internet speed. With hardware accelerated encryption and Freescale™ Coldfire™ Architecture, the iPhantom™ is unparalleled in the industry.

How it Works...

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Specifications

Warranty

Guarantee
Key Features:
100% Anonymous and secure web access Works with all major file-sharing programs
Strong AES encryption Spyware and Adware protection
Firewall protection Anti-virus protection
Small, lightweight, and portable Works with all major operating systems
Plug-And-Play No software installation
High performance architecture

http://www.iphantom.com/product.html


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P2P United Informs Users of P2P Risks

Adam Eisgrau, executive director for P2P United, said the organisation had been working with the FTC to "debunk the outrageous claims" made by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America about the dangers of peer-to-peer programs.

P2P United , the U.S.-based trade association representing some of the leading peer-to-peer networks, has announced a new cyber-safety initiative, informing users of the risks associated with peer-to-peer programs.

The move comes after an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) refuted record and film industry allegations that P2P United members committed "false and deceptive practices" by installing spyware and viruses with their products.

However, the FTC added that peer-to-peer providers should be doing more to notify users of the potential risks that might occur from using peer-to-peer software.

Under the initiative, warnings will be displayed on peer-to-peer Web sites, software installation screens and on the user interfaces of peer-to-peer software.

They will explain the dangers of viruses, spyware, pornography and copyright infringement liability.

Adam Eisgrau, executive director for P2P United, said the organisation had been working with the FTC to "debunk the outrageous claims" made by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America about the dangers of peer-to-peer programs.

He said, "Peer-to-peer is neither more nor less risky than using the Internet. We will continue to work with government on these issues."
http://www.toptechnews.com/news/P2P-...d=12200C7X5PRU


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How the Law Is Shaking the Net
Recent court outcomes are transforming the online business landscape, as will several key upcoming cases
Scott Kessler

In a previous life, I went to law school and later practiced law. Afterward, having become an equity analyst covering an area that isn't heavily regulated (the Internet), I figured I wouldn't have to spend much time thinking about things legal.

Boy, was I wrong. From patent matters to civil suits to Supreme Court cases, legal issues have significantly affected many well-known Web companies. Just take a look:

• eBay (EBAY ; S&P investment rank: 3 STARS, hold; recent price, $36) has been wrangling with a private company called MercExchange over patents related to online auctions and fixed-price sales. A court essentially affirmed a $25 million judgment against eBay in March, 2005, and at that time, we estimated that additional damages could approach $100 million. In May, 2005, the Net auction outfit was granted a stay in the case, pending a prospective review by the Supreme Court.

• RealNetworks (RNWK ; 4 STARS, buy; $5.25) has spent more than $16 million pursuing an antitrust case against Microsoft (MSFT ; strong buy; $26). The company's complaint alleges that Microsoft illegally used monopoly power to restrict competition, limit consumer choice, and attempt to monopolize the digital media segment. When it filed the lawsuit in December, 2003, RealNetworks opined that Microsoft could be liable for damages exceeding $1 billion.

• Yahoo! (YHOO ; buy; $37) has been actively enforcing its claims to sponsored-search-related intellectual property. Google (GOOG ; buy; $239) settled patent infringement and other claims with Yahoo by issuing 2.7 million shares to the company now worth some $645 million. Yahoo is also engaged in patent litigation with FindWhat.com (FWHT ; not ranked; $5), whose stock surged 9% the day a mistrial was announced in mid-May.

BIG DECISION. Notwithstanding the importance of these matters, we at Standard & Poor's believe decisions from the Supreme Court (one recent and one forthcoming) could have an even more dramatic influence on the Internet industry and many of its businesses.

In mid-May, the Supreme Court ruled that state governments cannot prohibit their residents from ordering wine directly from out-of-state vintners (based solely on locations of the would-be consumer and winery in different states). Roughly half of the states restrict such purchases (see BW Online, 5/17/05, "A New Age for Wine Sellers"). We believe this decision will contribute to greater e-commerce opportunities for wineries and should aid outfits like privately held Wine.com. Interestingly, Wine.com announced a partnership with Amazon.com (AMZN ; sell; $35) earlier this month.

We believe this judgment could lead to greater online sales not only of beer and spirits, but also cigarettes, contact lenses, cars, and even real estate (which are all heavily regulated by state and local governments). Reduced distribution costs and regulation would also bolster the profitability of these sales, in our view.

P2P PROBLEMS. As a result, we think Internet companies that could benefit from this decision include publicly traded 1-800 Contacts (CTAC ; not ranked; $20), Autobytel (ABTLE ; not ranked; $4.10), eBay, Homestore (HOMS ; not ranked; $2.15), and IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI ; buy; $24). 1-800 Contacts and eBay are members of NetChoice (a coalition that filed an amicus brief in the wine case and whose goal is to promote convenience, choice, and commerce on the Internet).

Next month, the country's highest court is expected to issue a decision regarding the future of file-swapping networks. Media concerns want the court to rein in peer- to-peer (P2P) systems and software, which are frequently used for illegal downloads of copyrighted music and video content.

Many technology companies consider file-sharing networks a compelling innovation that should not be eliminated simply because they're sometimes used for unlawful purposes. We think the Court may try to pursue a middle ground by taking aim at peer-to-peer services that encouraged illicit activity.

STABILIZING SITUATION? We believe Internet businesses that provide legal online music services, like Apple (AAPL ; buy; $37), Napster (NAPS ; not ranked; $4), RealNetworks, and Yahoo (following its recent introduction of a subscription and download music service), are going to be the most affected by the P2P decision. If the court moves decisively to curtail illegal activity on file-sharing networks, we believe these companies would benefit significantly. If the decision doesn't call for notable changes to at least some kinds of usage of P2P systems, we think they would be adversely affected.

(As an aside, I wanted to point out Baker Capital, which has two portfolio companies that have been front and center in the two Supreme Court cases described above. The private-equity firm's major investment in Wine.com was announced in September, 2004, months before the court decided to allow more interstate sales of wine. In April, 2005, Baker bought MusicNet, a leading business-to-business provider of online-music services. A month later, Yahoo introduced its consumer music offering, which is enabled by MusicNet.)

I've been covering Internet stocks for more than five years and cannot remember a time when legal disputes and resolutions were having a greater impact on the industry and its companies. Perhaps this is indicative of a segment that's becoming more stable and mature. Maybe the legal activity evidences the growing importance of intellectual property in the Net area, as companies increasingly employ it to establish and extend competitive advantages. We at S&P do think the Internet field is more crowded than it was a few years ago, and players are striving for proprietary differentiation.

The world's largest Web companies and at least one equity analyst who covers them are taking notice. Today's competition is taking place in the marketplace and in courtrooms. Corporate success for online businesses seems predicated on both good products and services and associated legal protections. Perhaps there's a certain logic to having a former lawyer trying to make sense of this stuff after all.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...41.htm?chan=db


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ILN News Letter

Universities Grapple With Internet Publishing

A pair of articles examined changes facing publishers and the inconsistent approach of universities. The Wall Street Journal carried a front page story on university pressure to free-up scholarship by turning to web-based journals, while Business Week focuses on university press opposition to the Google Print for Libraries program. Business Week article at <http://tinyurl.com/c33y5> WSJ article at http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...640247,00.html


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Students Sued For File-Sharing
Tom Senn

As part of its ongoing campaign to curb music piracy on college campuses, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed federal copyright lawsuits in April against 25 Princeton students accused of illegally trading music files on the high- speed Internet2 network.

A total of 405 students at 18 colleges nationwide were targeted for lawsuits.

The RIAA initially sent 39 "pre-subpoena" notices to Princeton in late March, but later announced it would sue no more than 25 students at any one college.

"There are 14 lucky students who will have escaped a lawsuit and 25 who will be sued," industry president Cary Sherman said in an April 12 conference call.

Those students facing litigation were notified by the University April 19.

The RIAA's lawsuits targeting Princeton students — collectively known as BMG Music et al. v. Does 1-25 — were filed in New Jersey District Court.

Since the suits were filed using the IP addresses of 25 "John Does," the individuals being sued were not identified by name. The RIAA subpoenaed the University April 18 to officially obtain the identities behind the addresses.

The University complied with the subpoena, releasing the students' identities on the deadline of May 9, University spokesman Eric Quinones said.

Though the penalties for copyright infringement are high — up to $150,000 for each act — lawsuits filed against file-sharing students are typically settled out of court for around $3,000.

One of the targeted students, Chad Smith '08, said in an interview just after the lawsuits were filed that he planned to settle with the RIAA, but wouldn't mind taking the matter to court.

"I'll probably end up [settling] because it's practical," he said. "But, in principle, if I had the time and money, I would love to pursue it."

New tactics

In this latest drive against campus file-sharing, the RIAA took aim at students downloading music on Internet2, a high-powered research network operated by 206 universities and affiliated institutions nationwide.

Sherman said Internet2 is a promising network that allows students and educators to work efficiently, but that it has been hijacked for illegal purposes.

"Internet2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students seeking to steal copyrighted songs and other works on a massive scale," Sherman said in the conference call. "We simply cannot allow Internet2 to become a zone of lawlessness where the normal rules don't apply."

The file-sharing program i2hub, which runs on the Internet2 network, was previously thought by many students to be safe from the industry's legal grasp.

"I2hub has, for some reason, been thought to be a safe zone to engage in illegal activity," Sherman said, "and what we wanted to do was puncture that misconception and let people know that when you are on the Internet, there's really no such thing as a safe zone for lawlessness."

Sherman refused to say how the RIAA gained access to the ostensibly private network.

Reaction from University

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Hilary Herbold said in April that the University is committed to addressing the problem of music piracy.

"Each of the residential colleges has offered programs on this issue, featuring members of OIT, our own legal counsel, and in some colleges also representatives from the recording industry," she said. "The deans and directors of studies also talk about it in their address to the freshmen each fall."

In announcing the latest round of lawsuits, RIAA president Sherman called on college administrators to address file-sharing on their campuses and encouraged them to explore technical measures such as filtering.

The University is open to the idea of a filtering mechanism, but such a device could not interfere with legitimate Internet activity, Quinones said.

"Generally, we're not aware of any effective technology that is out there that would block someone from sharing copyrighted material but that at the same time would allow legitimate material that would be used for academic work," Quinones said.

MPAA threat

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also took steps recently to discourage file-sharing on campus.

In a letter to President Tilghman dated April 19, MPAA President Dan Glickman expressed concern about illegal movie downloading on the University network and attached a list of 66 IP addresses associated with alleged acts of infringement, according to Quinones.

The letter did not indicate whether the MPAA intends to sue any of the 66 individuals, but the targeted students were notified that any alleged infringement should cease, Quinones said.

At a May meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), OIT policy adviser Rita Saltz said the movie industry has sent similar infringement warnings — commonly referred to as "takedown notices" — to University administrators for several years.

Recalling her reaction to the news that the MPAA might follow the RIAA in suing students, Saltz said, "My heart and viscera just shrank and chilled."
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/arc...ws/12998.shtml


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Loud, Proud, Unabridged: It Is Too Reading!
Amy Harmon

JIM HARRIS, a lifelong bookworm, cracked the covers of only four books last year. But he listened to 54, all unabridged. He listened to Harry Potter and "Moby- Dick," Don DeLillo and Stephen King. He listened in the car, eating lunch, doing the dishes, sitting in doctors' offices and climbing the stairs at work.

"I haven't read this much since I was in college," said Mr. Harris, 53, a computer programmer in Memphis. And yes, he does consider it "reading." "I dislike it when I meet people who feel listening is inferior," he said.

Fortunately for Mr. Harris, the ranks of the reading purists are dwindling. Fewer Americans are reading books than a decade ago, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, but almost a third more are listening to them on tapes, CD's and iPods.

For a growing group of devoted listeners, the popularity of audio books is redefining the notion of reading, which for centuries has been centered on the written word. Traditionally, it is also an activity that has required one's full attention.

But audio books, once seen as a kind of oral CliffsNotes for reading lightweights, have seduced members of a literate but busy crowd by allowing them to read while doing something else. Digital audio that can be zapped onto an MP3 player is also luring converts. The smallest iPod, the Shuffle, holds roughly four books; the newest ones include a setting that speeds up the narration without raising the pitch.

"I wish I had had this feature while listening to 'Crime and Punishment,' " said Lee Kyle, 41, a math teacher in Austin, Tex., who now listens in bed instead of reading. It's more relaxing, he said, and he doesn't have to bother his wife with the light.

Audio books, which still represent only about 3 percent of all books sold, do not exactly herald a return to the Homeric tradition. But their growing popularity has sparked debate among readers, writers and cultural critics about the best way to consume literature.

"I think every writer would rather have people read books, committed as we are to the word," said Frank McCourt, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir, "Angela's Ashes." "But I'd rather have them listen to it than not at all."

To make the audio version of his books more tolerable, Mr. McCourt said, he insists on narrating them himself. "Actors are always doing this phony breathing," Mr. McCourt said.

Among the questions facing audio book connoisseurs are: Which is better suited to the format, fiction or nonfiction? Can a bad narrator ruin a great book? If you've listened to a book, have you really "read" it?

Rich Cohen, the author of "Tough Jews," has found short stories are best while walking his dog on the Upper West Side, because of the likelihood of distraction, and the difficulty in rewinding.

"Sometimes your dog will attack another dog, and you're pulled completely out of the book," explained Mr. Cohen, who has experimented with various genres since discovering he could purchase audio books from Apple's online music store.

A book about string theory by the physicist Brian Greene proved entirely unable to hold Mr. Cohen's auditory attention, as did "Hamlet." With "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," however, he had the multitasking satisfaction of digesting a book he had always been curious about but did not want to devote the time to actually reading.

David Lipsky, another New York writer and frequent dog walker, said he often "shuffles" music on his iPod, and has similarly come to enjoy jumping among chapters of, say, James Joyce, Martin Amis and Al Franken as he circles the block.

Charlton Heston reading "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" proved a dud, even if it was sandwiched between Jeremy Irons reading "Lolita" and Robert Frost reading his own poems. "You keep waiting for him to announce that Kilimanjaro's been taken over by damned dirty talking apes," Mr. Lipsky said. "Now it's hard to read 'Kilimanjaro' without hearing Heston's voice."

The novelist Sue Miller said she prefers Henry James on tape because the narrator has untangled the complex sentences for her. But she found D. H. Lawrence unbearable. His notoriously repetitive prose "doesn't lend itself to an auditory experience," she said.

Some critics are dismayed at the migration to audio books. The virtue of reading, they say, lies in the communion between writer and reader, the ability to pause, to reread a sentence, and yes, read it out loud - to yourself. Listeners are opting for convenience, they say, at the expense of engaging the mind and imagination as only real reading can.

"Deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear," said Harold Bloom, the literary critic. "You need the whole cognitive process, that part of you which is open to wisdom. You need the text in front of you."

The comedian Jon Stewart, an author of the mock history textbook "America (The Book)," opens the audio version by lampooning the format. "Welcome, nonreader," he intones. Listeners are advised that the listening experience "should not be considered a replacement for watching television."

Audio book aficionados face disdain from some book lovers, who tend to rhapsodize about the smell and feel of a book in their hands and the pleasure of being immersed in a story without having to worry about the car in the next lane.

Gloria Reiss, 51, of St. Louis, said her officemates correct her when she mentions having read a book.

"They'll say, 'You didn't read it, you just listened to it,' " said Ms. Reiss, who switched to audio when her two jobs and three poodles made it hard to find time to curl up on the couch. Recently a colleague refused her urging to take a Stephanie Plum mystery along on a long drive.

"She goes, 'I like to read my books,' " Ms. Reiss said, "like that makes her better than me."

Most audio book lovers argue that one is not better than the other. Some say it was not until they started listening to books that they realized how much of the language they were skimming over in the books they read on paper. And then there is the sheer pleasure of being read to.

Ms. Reiss's husband, Ken, says he remembers more of books that he hears, perhaps because he's simply wired that way. Levi Wallach, 36, of Vienna, Va., says he's a slow reader, "so it's much more efficient for me to listen while I do other things."

Libraries say the growth in circulation of audio books is outpacing overall circulation. Book clubs are increasingly made up of hybrid listener-readers, and the market for children's audio books is booming. Sales at Audible, the leading provider of digital audio books, surged from $5 million in 2001 to $34 million last year. Half of its subscribers are new to audio books.

Still, a certain stigma lingers. Dan Barber, a chef, said he felt compelled to ask Louis Menand's permission to listen to his book, "The Metaphysical Club," on CD when Mr. Menand dined at his Greenwich Village restaurant, Blue Hill, last month.

Mr. Menand assented, but his dining companion, Adam Gopnik, the New Yorker writer, looked put off, Mr. Barber said. Or maybe Mr. Barber was projecting his own ambivalence about audio, as evidenced by his consumption of Mr. Gopnik's anthology, "Paris to the Moon."

"I read parts of it on tape," Mr. Barber said. "But I also read the whole book - what do you call it? Traditional-style?"

John Hamburg, 34, notes that audio books can be shared in a way that printed ones cannot. Mr. Hamburg and Mr. Barber, high school friends, were both sobbing while listening to "Tuesdays With Morrie" during a drive, Mr. Hamburg said.

Listening to authors read their own memoirs introduces an intimacy that cannot be achieved without the audio, Mr. Hamburg said. He found Bill Clinton's thick autobiography a bit daunting, for instance, but said listening to it "was kind of like being with an old friend."

Mr. Hamburg, a screenwriter, says he limits his audio habit to biography, eschewing fiction out of respect for authors whom he imagines did not intend for their creative work to be read "when you're doing 30 minutes on your elliptical trainer."

But when he came across the audio version of "The Kite Runner" online, it was hard to resist downloading it. The hardcover version of the novel, a coming-of-age story set in Afghanistan, has been sitting unopened on Mr. Hamburg's night table for weeks. It's still there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/fa...s/26audio.html


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Software Antagonists Square Off In European Parliament
David Lawsky

A proposal to extend patent protection in Europe could threaten the existence of open-source software unless the European Parliament amends it, say advocates of freely distributed programs such as Linux.

However, companies such as Microsoft and Apple Computer argue that they need broader patent protection to prevent open-source companies, which give away their software and make money through service, from effectively expropriating their development costs.

A European Parliament committee will debate the issue on Monday, and vote on it a month later.

European Parliament member Michel Rocard, a former French prime minister heading up review of the software patent directive, wants to protect open-source software by limiting the scope of patent protection.

Like all programs, open-source software must interact with a computer's other software to work, such as a word processor running on Windows.

Writers of free software cannot properly design their programs without information on how propriatory programs interact with other software.

Rocard and other advocates of open-source software argue that coding essential for interoperation needs only copyright protection, while Microsoft and others want patent protection for portions of software used to "talk" to other programs.

A software directive lacking Rocard's amendment could "be the death knell for open source software," said Thomas Vinje of Clifford Chance, who represents a number of software groups. Allies include Oracle and Red Hat , a distributor Linux.

Patent holders can license their software but open source software is distributed and redistributed at no cost, so there is no way to collect licence fees.

"If you allow anyone to get this information for free you have no way of having any kind of licence," says Francisco Mingorance, director of public policy for the Business Software Alliance trade association, which includes Microsoft and Apple.

The inventors "are deprived of their original investment," he said, expropriating their property.

Patent-Worthy Software

Underlying that issue is another which is even knottier -- determining what constitutes a "technical improvement" and therefore merits patent protection.

The software patent measure is designed to help harmonise rules across the EU for "computer- implemented inventions".

Computer-implemented inventions include devices such as DVD players, mobile phones, engine fuel injection and digital cameras, which need software to run.

Invent a clever new way to make digital cameras take better pictures, not obvious to other experts in the field, and your technical improvement is worthy of a patent.

But how does one decide the issue when two pieces of software are involved? Is that pure software? Or a technical improvement to a computer-implemented invention?

Open-source sympathisers want to tie patents to physical "forces of nature" but their opponents prefer an abstract view.

The issue is a live one in the Microsoft antitrust case. The European Commission found the software giant withheld interoperability information to hobble rival makers of server software, favouring Microsoft's own product.

Abstract definitions would put more interoperability information under patent protection.

Some say antitrust cases should not be confused with the broader issues of patents, which are government grants of monopoly for a set period. Clifford Chance's Vinje says making it too easy to get patents will make antitrust enforcement more difficult.

Copyright, used to protect creative works such as films, music, or writing, is granted automatically. It is a narrow right: two people can write different songs about love without infringing copyrights.

But patents require a process to obtain. Those on all sides say big companies with deep pockets can obtain and defend patents better than others in what sometimes become huge court battles.

Mingorance argues patent protection through a harmonised system would make life easier for small companies, because they would not have to defend the same idea in a several countries.

Not everyone on the European Commission agrees with Mingorance. Said one European Commission official:

"Rich companies gobble up the patents. Patent protection is about financial means. Copyright is the true reward for creativity."

The Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee votes June 20 and Parliament in July. Passage also requires member state approval.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050522/80/fjj3w.html


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Chirac Urges Yes to EU Charter, Polls Show No
Jon Boyle and Kerstin Gehmlich

French President Jacques Chirac made a final plea to voters on Thursday to back the European Union's constitution as new opinion polls put France on course to reject the charter.

Chirac said the futures of France and Europe were at stake and warned the nation in a televised broadcast not to be tempted to turn Sunday's referendum into a plebiscite on his unpopular government.

In a hint that he could sack his prime minister and shift policy, Chirac promised a "new impetus" to his team.

A French "No" could kill the charter, undermine France's influence in Europe and weaken Chirac two years before the next presidential election.

"Europeans would perceive a rejection of the treaty as a 'No' to Europe," Chirac said in a broadcast that amounted to his last roll of the dice to win over at least 20 percent of voters who are still undecided or refusing to say how they will vote.

"It would open a period of divisions, doubts, uncertainties," he said, sitting at a desk in his Elysee Palace in front of the French and EU flags.

Giving his clearest hint that he might respond to calls to sack Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and make policy changes, he said: "During this debate, Europe has not been the only issue. Concerns and expectations have been expressed.

"I am fully aware of this. I will respond by giving a new impetus to our action," he said. He gave no details.

The campaign for the constitution ends at midnight (2200 GMT) on Friday. Two new surveys on Thursday showed French opposition to the treaty had risen to 55 percent. A third put the "No" vote at 54 percent.

The treaty is intended to make decision-making simpler in the bloc following its enlargement to 25 member states last year.

Chirac said there could be no question of renegotiating the charter.

"It's an illusion to believe that Europe would pick up better than ever with another project. Because there is no other project," he said.

Choice For The Future

Thirteen successive polls have put the "No" camp ahead in France. Surveys show rejectionists also clearly ahead in the Netherlands, which votes on the treaty on June 1. The treaty must be adopted by all EU member states to take effect.

Chirac, 72, has put his personal prestige at stake in calling the referendum.

He said the EU constitution would strengthen France's influence in Europe and reinforce the French social model. The EU constitution would help create a European power that could help "humanise globalization," he added.

The president, who has said he will not resign if he loses the referendum, said the ballot should not be used as a vote in favor or against his conservative government.

"It is about your future and that of your children, the future of France and of Europe," he said. "On Sunday, everyone will have a share of the destiny of France in their hands."

Hostility to the charter is strongest among left-wing voters, who have been encouraged by anti-treaty campaigners to reject it and so punish Chirac over high unemployment and his conservative government's cost-cutting reforms.

Treaty opponents say it enshrines economic policies that have failed to stop the loss of jobs to low-wage economies, including countries outside the European Union such as China.

They want a renegotiated treaty that takes better account of social concerns.

Former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who led the team that drafted the constitution, said he thought France would approve it because a majority of undecided voters would back it.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...-FRANCE-DC.XML


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So Long, Garage Jammers. Nowadays Laptops Rock.
David Carr

Sitting in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan last week, Michael Cobden could hardly be blamed for tapping his toe. It was a glorious spring day, and he was playing hooky from his job as a restaurant manager on the Upper West Side. Like a lot of people in the park, Mr. Cobden was enjoying a bit of alfresco media, with a Mac G4 laptop and a set of headphones.

Except Mr. Cobden, 28, was not checking e-mail messages while listening to music, he was creating a pop song called "Bryant Park." In doing so, Mr. Cobden joined millions of people - trained musicians and amateurs alike - who are using powerful laptop tools to produce music that in an earlier age might have wailed out of a garage. "An artist is an artist, even if he is using things he found or stole and arranging them in an artful fashion," he said. "There are many composers who never played an oboe, but they write the music and give it to an orchestra to play." For himself, Mr. Cobden tapped the Mac in front of him lovingly. "I have a computer," he said. (Hear the song he created here.)

"Computers are the new garage," said James Rotondi, the editor of Future Music, a new magazine packaged with enough free software to get any would-be Moby started. "A lot of people who are making music right now have never recorded to tape. The concept is completely foreign to them."

Music recording, an arduous, analog process that has long been the province of musician gearheads and studio savants, is being downsized and democratized by a virtual array of digital sound loops, simulated instruments and the notebook-size means to record them. The growing power of laptop computers and new software means consumers have gone from listening to music at the push of button to creating it with similar ease.

GarageBand, a user-friendly band-in-a-box made by Apple, came preinstalled on 4.5 million Macs sold in the last 18 months. And Mr. Rotondi estimated that hundreds of thousands of copies of Reason, a sound-creation application produced by Propellerhead Software in Stockholm, have been sold, along with many more pirated copies.

Laptop songs are being listened to as well: iCompositions, a Web site for homemade music that is just over a year old, is adding about 36 songs a day to a total of over 11,000 that have been listened to 1.5 million times. It is enough home-brewed music to fill 43,000 iPods to the brim. (MacJams, another online music site, has over 7,500 songs available for the listening.) And several laptop jammers have been signed to major labels on the strength of their digitized output. The line between the music consumer and creator is shrinking to the point where the kid bopping his head on the bus may well be listening to a song he came up with in his bedroom.

"We are in the midst of a true consumer push to create music," said Tim Bajarin, a technology industry analyst with Creative Strategies. "They now have the ability to storyboard a song by dragging and dropping."

The phenomenon appalls many longtime musicians and many of the songs are lame efforts that should remain in the laptop, but there are gorgeous and surprising exceptions. Most of the work seems to fall somewhere in the middle.

Mr. Cobden, who works at Mike's Bistro on West 72nd Street, has created songs with a friend who is a comedy writer and another who is a photographer.

"We get together, we drink and smoke a lot, and then we make music," he said, taking his headphones off to chat. "Everybody sings and contributes, and we end up with a song. It's sort of like an audio photograph of the party."

Although Mr. Cobden is an experienced musician - he plays guitar and was making music long before a studio could be emulated on a laptop - he was more than happy to trade a clutter of equipment for the intimacy and ease of his virtual studio.

"Instead of one band, I can have 10," he said. "Instead of lugging a bunch of equipment to the rehearsal space, I can stay home and make music."

The revolution is still in its nascent stage and has its limits. It is, for instance, much easier to make a synth-based dance track than an off-the-hook rock song, perhaps because there is still no great digital substitute for the bent string of a Fender Stratocaster. But there are people who see value in music that comes out of laptop. "We live in a world of simulation, so no one should be surprised by what is going on," Mr. Rotondi said. "Before, everybody wanted to be a guitar hero. Now they want to be a D.J. or a producer."

A duo from Bellingham, Wash., using mostly free software they found on the Web, produced a record a called "Strange We Should Meet Here." Last year their "band," Idiot Pilot, was signed to Reprise Records. And at the beginning of the month, Trent Reznor, who records as the band Nine Inch Nails, offered a free download of the hit single "The Hand That Feeds" that was broken into multiple tracks, allowing laptop aficionados to mix and mash up their own version of the song.

Mr. Cobden, who has been playing in bands since he was 13, does not see major-label gold when he peers into the Reason 3.0 interface on his desktop, just a way of making music without going through a lot of hoops.

"When musicians get together, there are always a lot of chemistry issues," he said. Using software, if he doesn't like the sound of the bass player, "I just delete him," he added.

Mr. Cobden raced to get a song up and going before he had to go punch in at the restaurant. Though even there, he said, his virtual life as a rock god does not have to end.

"My mom hates my music, but the other night one of the hostesses in the restaurant came in and was rocking out on her iPod and it was one of my songs, which was a big thrill," he said. "Now if I could just get her to throw her panties at me."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/ar...ic/23musi.html


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China Hires 'Cyber-Agents' To Control Public Opinion On The Internet

The Chinese government has started using "cyber-agents" to spread positive political messages on the Internet and better control public opinion, state media reported.

Several cities have set up special "online propaganda troops" who pose as ordinary Internet users in chatrooms and other cyber-forums as they spread favorable spin for the government, the Southern Weekend newspaper said. One example is Suqian city in eastern Jiangsu province, which set up its own 26-member propaganda force late last month, recruiting mainly among officials with previous experience in public relations, according to the paper. "Chatrooms are centers for public sentiment," said Lu Ruchao, a member of the newly established force. "It's very worthwhile for opinion workers to pay attention to these places." The paper cited an example of how the force works in practice, saying it might react to, say, online criticism of the police force by posting positive views on the law enforcers. "The police is working under the threat of knives and guns, so how can people criticize them," said Lu. "Of course we should step in and turn around public opinion on this issue." Suqian is by no means the only place where such online propaganda warriors have been put to work. The paper said that in Jiangsu province alone, the cities of Nanjing and Wuxi had set up similar groups already last year. And by the end of 2004, a total of 127 officials from all parts of China had received special training in Beijing on how to form and steer public opinion on the Internet, according to the paper. The report may indicate a new chapter has opened in the Chinese government's protracted struggle to come to terms with the Internet. The country is estimated to have a total of about 100 million Internet users, meaning an unprecedented number now has access to a relatively free and unrestricted exchange of news and opinions. Although the government has closed down thousands of cyber-cafes, it has realized that choking the Internet is not the answer, since access to online content also has huge advantages in terms of giving people technical skills. Instead officials are resorting to ever more sophisticated methods of controlling the Internet in subtle but powerful ways, as the establishment of the online propaganda teams suggests.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050519/323/fjdun.html


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Korea

Government To Tighten Consumer Privacy
Kim Tong-hyung

The government is drafting new guidelines that ban the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to collect and store information on consumer spending habits.

The Ministry of Information and Communication intends to announce the new guidelines tomorrow, during a public hearing to discuss the issue and ways to implement better privacy mechanisms.

RFID uses a microchip that sends radio waves containing product identification data to an electronic reader.

The technology is designed to improve efficiency in supply-chain management and inventory for companies in the manufacturing and retail sectors, while opening new market opportunities for electronic equipment and semiconductor industries.

Companies such as telecom operators and retailers are expected to be among the businesses most affected by the guidelines.

Electronic tags will be required to hung visibly from items and must be designed to be easily disabled by the consumer after the purchase.

The use of RFID technologies will also be closely controlled, as policymakers are considering completely banning electronic chips from being used to monitor the action of individuals.

"Our guideline was meant as a starting point of debate to address the privacy issue and find better solutions between talks with companies, consumers and media groups. RFID will not realize its business potential and not do anyone good unless the public is comfortable with it," said an official from the ministry's information and communications policy bureau.

The official said that the guideline will not be legally binding at first but will serve as a benchmark when the ministry rewrites the current law to encompass better technology safeguards.

"RFID technology is starting to be introduced commercially but there are currently no laws implemented to control the use of personal information. Right now, there is just so much we could do," said the official.

Last year, the government announced plans to invest 162 billion won through 2010 to support the commercial deployment of RFID technologies in both the public and private sectors.

The government expects the domestic market for RFID will grow to 4 trillion won by 2007 in equipment sales, while generating $760 million in exports.

Some industry watchers have said that the use of RFID could be slower than expected without the implementation of stronger privacy mechanism. Consumer groups and the media have been pressing for government intervention to install safeguards.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/da...0505240030.asp


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Pence Wants Dot-Porn Designation
Elliot Smilowitz

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., thinks one way to keep pornography on the Internet away from children is to segregate it, and he is proposing such sites be confined to a dot- porn designation.

"We've got to be creative within constitutional protections" to prevent minors from accessing pornography, Pence told a recent summit sponsored by the American Decency Association, Kids First Coalition and other family values groups. "The Supreme Court seems more enamored with protecting obscene speech than with protecting everyday citizens."

Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said even innocuous phrases, such as "baseball" and "Pokemon," turn up pornographic results when searched for in Kazaa and BearShare peer-to-peer programs.

"At any given moment, millions of people are using peer-to-peer technology to move hundreds of millions of products," Pitts said. "We simple do not have the manpower and technology to enforce the laws that we have on the books."

Dan Gluckman, a 20-year-old college student from New York and an avid user of the Internet, said he thought the dot-porn idea was a good solution.

"Right now, it's pretty easy to come across pornographic sites," he said, and noted the now-defunct mislabeled porn Web site WhiteHouse.com. "Sometimes, a simple misspelling of a URL will inadvertently bring you to a pornographic Web site."

Gluckman said while dot-porn would make pornography less accessible to children the flip side is "for users who do want to enjoy pornography, it makes it much easier to find the sites."

Pence sponsored the Truth In Domain Names Act in 2003, which made it a crime for a pornographic Web site to be misrepresented as anything else. "There aught to be a standard of integrity of domain names," Pence said.

Also at the summit, Rep. Katherine Harris, R- Fla., warned against the social power of pornography and called it "the malignant desensitizer that changes a person's perception."

"These monsters that prey upon our children can strike anywhere," she said and added there should be stricter penalties against sexual offenders.

Daniel Weiss, of the group Focus on the Family, said that "lax law enforcement" has allowed pornography to take root with many children. "When pornography becomes a filter through which life is viewed, damage occurs," he said.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-break...0248-7958r.htm


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UK

Court Bans Buying Porn Videos Online

Pornographers are breaking the law if they sell adult videos over the Internet or through the mail, the High Court ruled on Monday.

Two pornography companies had argued that a law banning the sale of videos by post was an "unjustified interference with freedom of expression".

But Lord Justice Maurice Kay, upholding a lower court ruling, said it was a legitimate way to help prevent pornography being sold to children.

"We have no doubt that one of the main reasons for the restriction is to ensure that the customer comes face-to-face with the supplier so that there is an opportunity for the supplier to assess the age of the customer," he said.

The restrictions were therefore "lawful, necessary and proportionate" under the Human Rights Act.

The two porn merchants had argued that videos sent out in the post had effectively been purchased from licensed sex shops that dispatched them, but the judges rejected this argument.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050523/80/fjlr0.html


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2005 (202) 514-2008
WWW.USDOJ.GOV TDD (202) 514-1888



FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ANNOUNCES OPERATION D-ELITE,
CRACKDOWN ON P2P PIRACY NETWORK

First Criminal Enforcement Against BitTorrent Network Users



WASHINGTON, D.C. - Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter of the Criminal Division, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Michael J. Garcia, and Assistant Director Louis M. Reigel of the FBI's Cyber Division today announced the first criminal enforcement action targeting individuals committing copyright infringement on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks using cutting edge file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent.

This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. Employing technology known as BitTorrent, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and, in the last four months, allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles-including movies and software-which were downloaded 2.1 million times.

In addition to executing 10 warrants, federal agents also took control of the main server that coordinated all file-sharing activity on the Elite Torrents network. Anyone attempting to log on to Elitetorrents.org today will receive the following message: "This Site Has been Permanently Shut Down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

"Our goal is to shut down as much of this illegal operation as quickly as possible to stem the serious financial damage to the victims of this high-tech piracy-the people who labor to produce these copyrighted products," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Richter. "Today's crackdown sends a clear and unmistakable message to anyone involved in the online theft of copyrighted works that they cannot hide behind new technology."

"Internet pirates cost U.S. industry hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue every year from the illegal sale of copyrighted goods and new online file-sharing technologies make their job even easier," said Assistant Secretary Garcia. "Through today's landmark enforcement actions, ICE and the FBI have shut down a group of online criminals who were using legitimate technology to create one-stop shopping for the illegal sharing of movies, games, software and music."

"The theft of copyrighted material is far from a victimless crime," said Assistant Director Reigel of the FBI. "When thieves steal this data, they are taking jobs away from hard workers in industry, which adversely impacts the U.S. economy. The FBI remains committed to working with our partners in law enforcement at all levels and private industry to identify and take action against those responsible."

Building on the success of Operation Gridlock, a similar takedown announced by federal law enforcement last August that has already led to the felony convictions of three P2P copyright thieves, Operation D-Elite targeted the administrators and "first providers" or suppliers of copyrighted content to the Elite Torrents network. By utilizing BitTorrent, the newest generation of P2P technology, Elite Torrents members could download even the largest files-such as those associated with movies and software-far faster than was possible using more traditional P2P technology.

The content selection available on the Elite Torrents network was virtually unlimited and often included illegal copies of copyrighted works before they were available in retail stores or movie theatres. For example, the final entry in the Star Wars series, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," was available for downloading on the network more than six hours before it was first shown in theatres. In the next 24 hours, it was downloaded more than 10,000 times.

Operation D-Elite is being conducted jointly by ICE and the FBI as part of the Computer And Technology Crime High Tech Response Team (CATCH), a San Diego task force of specially trained prosecutors and law enforcement officers who focus on high-tech crime. Federal and state member agencies of CATCH include the ICE, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the San Diego District Attorney's Office, San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff's Department, and San Diego County Probation.

Operation D-Elite was coordinated and will be prosecuted by the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, with the assistance and support of Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) coordinators in San Diego and U.S. Attorneys' Offices in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Motion Picture Association of America provided valuable assistance to the investigation.

http://www.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/press...rent052505.htm


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Decriminalise Filesharing For Personal Use?
Dela

It's no secret that the entertainment industry has been fighting a huge battle against online file-sharing of copyrighted music and movies over P2P networks. The entertainment industry is hoping to deter people from sharing copyrighted works by suing those who are caught distributing on P2P networks. It is also relying on support from courts to help them to win their battle but in France, they are being met by some opposition.

The president of the French Magistrates Union has openly begun advocating decriminalising file-sharing of copyrighted works for personal use. "We are in the process of creating a cultural rupture between a younger generation that uses the technologies that companies and societies have made available, such as the iPod, file download software, peer-to-peer networks, etc.," Judge Dominique Barella told Wired. "It's like condemning people for driving too fast after selling them cars that go 250 kmh."

He began his campaign after writing an article in Libération, a French publication, where he explained that lenient rulings by French judges (such as suspended jail time and fines) for individuals who have been caught downloading copyrighted works for personal use was a result of confusion over the definition of the intellectual property protection law. He believes there should be a more appropriate policy adopted in France and in Europe.

His main aim is to protect young people who have become weak targets in the entertainment industries campaign. As you can imagine, the industry is absolutely furious. 20 representatives of France's entertainment expressed their outrage in a letter to the French Minister of Justice Dominique Perben. "We are surprised and shocked that the president of the magistrates union, given the level of influence he has on his (judicial) colleagues, can publish in the press a call to not criminally sanction criminal acts, which contradicts the intentions of government bodies," the letter states.

Barella was not surprised by the letter given the industry's copyright campaign but he believes that futile to criminally prosecute file swappers across Europe accused of trading copyrighted works. "This is a subject that will serve as a source of debate for Europe since … when there is a problem with the application of the penal code on a large scale, the problem must be examined at its source," Barella said. "It is similar to the sociological consequences of the Prohibition period in the U.S. (during the 1920s). Certain laws can have unexpected consequences on society."

He believes the entertainment industry needs to focus more on battling against people who sell pirated works on a large scale than on "a young person who fills up his or her iPod.". "The resources of the police and judges are exhausted by these small cases, and do not take care of the large international (counterfeiting) rings," he added.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6461.cfm


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'Sith' Sharers Not Cutting into Studios' Cash
Jon Newton

Russell Sprague got 130 movies from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Carmine Caridi, who was ordered to pay Warner Bros. a paltry US$300,000 for providing Sprague with the copies. Had someone other than an academy member been caught dishing out 130 Hollywood features, Warner would have demanded millions of dollars in retribution.

Customer service work done right, managed right, and priced right. InternationalStaff.net exports American corporate culture and quality standards in the voice programs, email support, and software projects that we manage overseas. Do what you do best. Let InternationalStaff.net do the rest.

Revenge is sweet.

Record-breaking box-office receipts came in for the opening of the final installment of the "Star Wars" series this past weekend.

Having grossed US$158.5 million from Thursday to Sunday, "Revenge of the Sith" currently stands as online ticket seller Fandango's top-seller for opening weekend sales, according to MarketWatch. And the first two days were Fandango's top-selling 48 hours. Ever.

So where does that leave Dan 'Darth' Glickman, the boss of the movie studio cartel's MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) who's been screaming about the appearance of "Sith" online?

Inside Job

As everyone except the mainstream media knows, "Sith" showed up on the P2P networks the same day it opened in theaters. But the P2P viewing wasn't due to the efforts of an evil file sharer with Sony's (NYSE: SNE) latest pirate camcorder stashed under his/her grubby rain-coat.

Rather, it was because of yet another Hollywood insider leak -- not that it stopped Glickman from ranting about P2P file sharers, BitTorrent and anything else that came to mind.

Of 285 movies researchers sampled on the P2P networks, 77 percent were leaked by industry insiders, says the 2003 AT&T (NYSE: T) Labs report Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities in the Movie Production and Distribution Process.

Actor and studio owner Mel Gibson knows all about that. His Icon company sued a Hollywood post-production house for the online appearance of his "Passion" movie.

Placing Blame

And Russell Sprague got 130 movies from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Carmine Caridi, who was ordered to pay Warner Bros. a paltry US$300,000 for providing Sprague, who died in an L.A. jail cell, with the copies.

Had someone other than an academy member been caught dishing out 130 Hollywood features, Warner would have demanded millions of dollars in retribution and the case would have been splashed, splashed and splashed again by the world media.

But the Caridi debacle didn't receive anything like the kind of mainstream media exposure it warranted.

Meanwhile, although "Sith" was released officially on Thursday, it was already circulating on the P2P networks by Wednesday night.

Cash-Free

How do we know the leak was down to a Hollywood insider? Because the online version was a work print, not a copy made on a hidden camcorder.

Be that as it may, how much did downloaders pay for their private viewings? Not one red cent. No money changes hands on the P2P networks. Nor did it cost Hollywood anything serious in the way of box office receipts.

So will this now persuade the movie studio cartel to stop its ridiculous practice of suing its audiences and shutting down BiTorrent sites? And will the studios put their own houses in order?

Not a chance.
http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/features/43282.html


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File Hoarders Get BitTorrent Win
Dana Blankenhorn

BitTorrent -- now trackerless!

Good news (at least in the short term) for file hoarders.

Given that both sides in the Copyright Wars know about language and framing, I'm urging use of this new term for the heavy hobbyist users on peer to peer networks.

Pirates (the copyright industries' term) is false. There is no economic motive behind most file trades. There is no assurance that, if trading ended tomorrow, sales would rise appreciably.
Traders (the term favored by users) isn't correct either. Most traders are asymmetric. Most are downloaders, not uploaders.

I think the word hoarding says more about the motives of the users, and the way toward ending the practice, than anything else. Thanks in part to the industry's rhetoric, and in part to its actions, many lovers of music and other files are afraid they will lose access to the culture they crave. Thus they demand to have physical copies of its artifacts, and grab all they can. It's classic hoarding behavior.

But time is the limit here, not space. You can only listen to one song at a time, watch one movie at a time. It doesn't matter how big your collection is, the only way to get enjoyment out of it is to play the files.

Many hoarders today already "own" more files than they can play in their remaining lifetimes. When you get your arms around this concept, you begin to see how self-defeating hoarding is.

So how can hoarding be stopped?

One step is already being made, unlimited rentals. Economically this is very similar to the concept being pursued in some quarters of taxing the
media. The industry gets regular income and data that can be used to parcel it out.
Tone down the rhetoric. All this talk about an industry "lock-out" of its users (if this keeps up we'll go out of business) is only increasing hoarding.
Engage the market. The movie industry hasn't even begun to do this. BitTorrent has many legal uses, and could easily be used to take a service like NetFlix fully online. But as of now, while there are many non-infringing uses of BitTorrent we're short of economic models for it.

I'm sure you've got some ideas. If you're hoarding files right now what might cause you to stop? What economic models would you accept?

It's time for file peace, and an end to file war, in order to stop the waste of file hoarding.
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/ar...orrent_win.php