Woodstock Systems Introduces a Breakthrough in Music & P2P Software
Non-Sharable Downloads
Pres Release
The Woodstock PDSTM is the first all in one music application that provides consumers with a breakthrough way to legally and ethically play and lend their digital MP3 music.
New York, New York - February 11, 2003 - Woodstock Systems, LLC, the New York- based software development company, announced today the launch of its revolutionary new music software. The Woodstock PDSTM is the first software combining a full-feature media player with powerful Peer-to-Peer file lending ability. Users of the Woodstock PDSTM software can easily play digital music, convert their CD’s into MP3’s, or listen to thousands of the best Internet radio stations. In addition, the Woodstock PDSTM incorporates a unique, patent pending, file lending method that allows consumers to legally and ethically remotely access and lend their digital media files.
Woodstock’s approach dramatically differs from the Napster and Kazaa like forms of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software. Those products are purposely anonymous in nature, promote open file copying and have come under aggressive attack from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Woodstock’s alternative promotes the concept of P2P networks among groups of friends, family, and co-workers. In addition, the Woodstock PDSTM uses a method of file lending versus file copying. This method “lends” access to a file to a user, while at the same time restricting others from accessing that file. The patent-pending “lending” system neither requires nor permits copying of the file. Thus the original file never leaves the possession or control of the user serving the content. To read more about our approach to file lending, go to:
http://woodstocksystems.com/release-2-11-2003.html
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AOL's Jekyll and Hyde act
The world's biggest Internet provider is also the world's biggest media company. As the entertainment industry prosecutes users who share music, will AOL take a stand?
Farhad Manjoo
One day last summer, a person using Verizon to access the Internet logged on to Kazaa, a popular peer-to-peer music-swapping service, and started downloading MP3s. It was the sort of thing that millions of people do every day; the only difference this time was that an analyst at the Recording Industry Association of America was monitoring the action.
The RIAA's efforts to obtain this single Verizon subscriber's identity has ballooned into a major courtroom battle over the scope of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that outlines protections for online content. The litigation has split the ranks of Internet service providers and content companies: ISPs, who say they worry about their subscribers' privacy, have generally sided with Verizon, while copyright holders have supported the RIAA.
But stuck in the middle of this fight is a firm that is both a huge copyright holder as well as a huge Internet company -- in fact, it is the leading company in each industry. This is AOL Time Warner, a neither-fish-nor-fowl hybrid of copyright and consumer interests, a combination that has left the company pretty much speechless on a case that could determine the privacy rights of its more than 30 million subscribers, not to mention the rest of us. While other ISPs are running scared, AOL, the biggest ISP of all, is keeping mum.
In January, after months of legal back-and-forth in the Verizon-RIAA case, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled in the recording industry's favor, ordering Verizon to hand over the Kazaa user's name and address. Internet service providers, privacy advocates, and people critical of the growing influence of copyright owners were devastated by the Bates opinion. The ISPs are worried that they'll be flooded with requests for their subscribers' information, and that they'll have no way to determine the accuracy of these claims.
"You could simply walk into a courthouse, sign a form, and send us a subpoena," says Les Seagraves, the chief privacy officer of EarthLink. "We would have to turn over the name and address of that user. And of course that could get abused -- and there's really nothing we could do about it. The volume of these things would increase, and we'd find ourselves in the subpoena-compliance business, not the Internet business."
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...ing/print.html
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Web Radio Royalty Debate Resumes
David McGuire
The multi-year legal struggle between upstart Internet radio operators and record companies over music royalties kicked off anew Thursday, when the U.S. Copyright Office issued an order that could send the combatants back before an arbitration panel.
Web radio operators and music industry representatives must brief the Copyright Office by March 5 on their efforts to hammer out a compromise on royalty payments. If the negotiations are unsuccessful, the Copyright Office will restart the process to establish the royalties that "webcasters" must pay to artists and record labels.
The outcome of the debate -- which is slated to come before arbitrators in August if no agreement is reached -- could determine whether online radio has a future, observers said.
The royalty debate has been down this road before. Just last year, arbitrators capped more than three years of wrangling by setting a per-song royalty rate for webcasters.
That rate -- which was adjusted and approved by the Library of Congress -- expired at the end of 2002. Neither side was pleased with the rate, and representatives from both said they wanted a private settlement so they could avoid another arbitration round.
But record companies and Internet radio stations disagree on what constitutes a "reasonable" royalty rate, and members from both camps are gearing up to plead their cases to the arbitrators, anticipating that the private negotiations might fail.
Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said record companies are optimistic that they can reach private agreements.
"We are still in the process of private negotiations and hope that those will bear fruit so we can avoid" arbitration, he said.
Kevin Shively, vice president of business affairs at online classical radio station Beethoven.com, said that the record companies "still are holding onto positions that would potentially bankrupt the industry."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
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Questioning the Economic Justification for (and thus Constitutionality of) Copyright Law's Prohibition Against Unauthorized Copying: §106
Mark S. Nadel. Related Publications 03-1. Jan 2003.
This article questions the economic justification for copyright law’s prohibition against unauthorized copying. Building on the thesis of Stephen Breyer’s 1970 Harvard Law Review article, "The Uneasy Case for Copyright," it contends that not only may copyright law’s prohibition against unauthorized copying (17 U.S.C. §106) not be necessary to stimulate an optimal level of new creations, but that §106 appears to have a net negative effect on such output! It observes that the higher revenues that §106 generates for popular creations are, in the lottery-like entertainment markets, generally used for promotional efforts (rent seeking), and that such marketing crowds out many borderline creations. The article also identifies and explains how new technologies and social norms provide many viable business models for financing new creations relying on only a heavily abridged version of §106. Hence, the article questions whether the current §106 could survive the intermediate scrutiny standards of the First Amendment, given the lack of evidence that the benefits of §106 exceed its costs.
http://www.aei.brookings.org/publica...ct.php?pid=302
314k PDF File
http://www.aei.brookings.org/admin/a...7&aei_brooking
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White Stripes Battle Piracy With Vinyl
The White Stripes have sent out copies of their new album to a select few on vinyl, but fret not, come tax day, you'll have your Elephant spinning in your CD player.
While other bands have toyed with everything from watermarked CDs to hermetically sealed CD players to keep their music from leaking to the Internet, the White Stripes took a decidedly more retro approach when sending out advance albums to critics, the logic being that any music journalist worth their weight in free CDs owns a record player.
"[Frontman] Jack [White] wanted people to hear the music the way it was meant to be heard, which is on vinyl. [He wanted them] to listen to it as [we] used to listen to records," V2 Records president Andy Gershon said. "In addition, it just creates one extra step before someone can put it up on Limewire or KaZaa."
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/145...headlines=true
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Video-on-demand anxiety
Lisa Singhania
Fed up with driving to the video store in the cold of winter, Beverly Boyarsky thought she had found the perfect solution: video on demand.
For about $80 a month, the Huntington Station, N.Y., woman could order movies and premium programming over digital cable. She figured she'd be able to watch whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
Two months later, Boyarsky's enthusiasm is gone.
"There are movies four, five, six years old that are shown on regular TV and I don't feel a need to pay for," she said. "If they're going to offer movies they should show movies that are more recent."
Boyarsky's frustrations reflect the concerns of media companies, who are afraid the combination of digital and on-demand technology will make their movies and TV shows vulnerable to piracy and render them less lucrative platforms for advertising.
"For the most part content providers are not licensing their content," said Yankee Group analyst Aditya Kishore. "There's a lot of risk for them, and most of them aren't in a rush to do this."
The cautious approach might work as long as the number of digital and video-on-demand customers remains low.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ndemand10.html
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Sarnoff’s Invisible Digital Cinema Watermarking Survives Camcorder Capture and Data Compression
Technique Can Trace Illegal Copies Of Movies Back To Source Of Piracy
Press release
Sarnoff Corporation today announced a breakthrough approach to digital cinema watermarking that will let a movie studio reliably trace a pirated copy of a film back to its source, even after the copy has been captured by a camcorder in a theater and then compressed at low bit-rates for illegal digital redistribution, such as over the Internet. The technique was presented at the 15th Annual Symposium on Electronic Imaging Science and Technology in Santa Clara, CA, by its chief developer, Dr. Jeffrey Lubin, Senior Member of Technical Staff.
The watermarking technique was developed in part under an Advanced Technology Program funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the Department of Commerce, with Dr. Lubin and Dr. Jeffrey Bloom, Technology Leader, as co-Principal Investigators.
According to Dr. Lubin, this new technique embeds digital codes in the on-screen image that can identify individual distributors or exhibitors of a film. Tests using expert viewers and Sarnoff’s Emmy®-winning JNDmetrix™ tool for measuring human perception show that these codes are invisible to the human eye.
“Just as crucial for studios and other content creators, it’s almost impossible for pirates to detect and defeat these watermarked codes,” said Dr. Lubin. “If they try, they’ll get an image so degraded it’s likely to be unacceptable to the average viewer.
“So not only is it hard for pirates to cloak their identity, the very attempt to do so makes their product unattractive to buyers. It’s a double deterrent to piracy.”
http://www.sarnoff.com/news/index.asp?releaseID=116
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Tracking tag for Net music unveiled
A music industry trade body launched on Monday electronic identity tags to keep tabs on Internet music sales in a bid to compensate musicians and song writers as more of their works become available online.
The Global Release Identifier, or GRid, is a code akin to the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code found on a CD or cassette tape in stores. The aim is to track each time a record label, online retailer or distributor such as Microsoft's MSN or Italian Internet service provider Tiscali sells a song in the form of a Web stream or download.
Such tracking initiatives are considered vital to an industry that is reeling from lost sales compounded by a slumping global economy and the growth in online music piracy.
With the GRid initiative, resellers would be charged an annual fee of about $245, for which they can issue an identity tag to millions of songs sold online. Each track will be distributed with an individual GRid serial number. Like a bar code, it will be reported back to rights societies and collection agencies so that artists can be compensated for sales.
International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have been developing the standard for the past two years. "If this is done properly, the artists and authors of music will be paid adequately for the sale of their works online," said Paul Jessop, chief technology officer of the IFPI. He added the GRid initiative is a voluntary system, and that the fee would, initially at least, be covered by the resellers.
Jessop cautioned that GRid is not designed, nor is it intended for, keeping track of songs that wind up on online file-sharing networks, a major source of music piracy. The music industry blames the popularity of such networks, including Kazaa and Grokster, where millions of consumers swap songs for free, for the decline in recorded music sales. On Monday, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) reported a 3.7 percent decline in recorded music sales in the fourth quarter of 2002, traditionally the strongest selling period.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...ut/index.html#
Mr. Altnet
New Kazaa software released
Dawn Kawamoto
Sharman Networks released a new version of its Kazaa file-trading software Thursday, adding new features and advertising partners the company hopes will aid in its legal struggle for its life.
The new software adds little to the basic functions of the Net's most popular file-swapping program. However, Kazaa users will see an increase in the proportion of advertiser-paid, copy- protected search results as they hunt for their favorite artists or movies, the company said.
Sharman, which is fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit mounted by the record and film industries, touts Kazaa's role as a distributor of content as a cornerstone of its legal defense. In a recent court filing, the company contended that people download more than 15 million copy-protected files a month through the Kazaa service and its Altnet affiliate, which provides that content.
Kazaa "users have shown great interest in premium Altnet content," Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming said in a statement.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-984525.html?tag=fd_top
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P2P virus fakes nude Zeta Jones pics
John Leyden
A virus posing as racy pictures of Oscar-nominee Catherine Zeta Jones, or other well-known celebs, is doing the rounds on the Net.
Users of file sharing networks are been lured into opening a file that promises compromising pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones and other celebrities such as Britney Spears, Sandra_Bullock and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Instead of cheap thrills, these files offer a poisoned payload.
Users who open the infectious file activate Igloo, a backdoor Trojan horse and Internet worm which spreads via file sharing on KaZaA networks and via IRC channels. Igloo is the latest in a line of worms to target file-sharing networks.
The supposed photos of Catherine Zeta Jones are being used to spread a virus at the same time the Welsh actress is in the courts fighting Hello! magazine over the unauthorised publication of wedding snaps.
The worm has not spread very far as yet, according to AV vendor Sophos.
Nonetheless standard precautions apply. Users should update their AV packages to detect the latest threat and attempt to practice safe computing practices, the most relevant of which here is never to trust potentially executable files of uncertain origin.
http://212.100.234.54/content/56/29323.html
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SBC moves in to scupper Murdoch
SBC Communications, one of the US’ biggest and most powerful telecommunications companies, is moving to acquire General Motors’ DirecTV, the nation’s second biggest pay-TV provider, according to a report in the New York Times.
If SBC is successful in acquiring DirecTV, the deal would scupper Rupert Murdoch’s long-held ambition to enter the US satellite market. Murdoch’s hopes of acquiring DirecTV had previously been dashed after General Motors agreed to sell DirecTV (along with the rest of its Hughes Electronics division) to EchoStar Communications in 2001. That move was blocked by antitrust authorities, however.
According to the New York Times, SBC may be willing to pay out more than E9bn (USD10bn) in order to buy the pay-television provider. Analysts suggest that SBC is looking to secure its position in a market where its core activities are increasingly under threat from mobile and cable operators. SBC currently specialises in local telephone communications, an area that is being increasingly outflanked by cable operators who frequently bundle their digital television packages with telephone service provision.
Acquiring DirecTV would give SBC an strong weapon in fighting back against the wide-range of service provision offered by cable operators.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14835
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Yamaha Pulls Out Of CD Burner Market
Mark Hachman
Yamaha Electronics Corp. has bowed before the decline in the CD writer market and will exit the business, company executives confirmed Monday.
Citing uncharacteristically rapid price erosions, continuing market difficulties, and the highly volatile competitive environment, Yamaha Electronics Corporation stated that the company is discontinuing its sales and marketing of computer-based CD-RW recorders, effective immediately.
Since compact discs can only be spun up to a certain rotational speed without damage, makers of CD burners have said that the current generation will be the end of the road. Hewlett-Packard, in fact, reached this conclusion in late 2001.
Yamaha will continue to market its other multimedia offerings, including computer speakers, computer receivers, headphones, and CD-R/RW media, and provide CD-RW drives for music and audio applications, the company said.
Technical support and warranty service for all Yamaha CD recorders will continue uninterrupted for the full warranty period, Yamaha added.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...,880541,00.asp
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SubPop, other indies, hook up with Pressplay
Reuters
Online subscription music service pressplay said on Monday it has reached agreements with a number of independent record labels that will add artists like Frank Zappa, Nirvana and Nelly Furtado to its catalog.
Pressplay, a joint venture of the music arms of Japan's Sony Corp. 6758.T and France's Vivendi Universal EAUG.PA , said it signed deals with DreamWorks, Palm, Ubiquity, Rykodisc/Ryko Label Group and Sub Pop, bringing its total available songs to about 250,000.
The company also said that, starting with the Feb. 14 launch of version 2.5 of its service, it will add interactive features to its radio service allowing users to create customized radio stations.
The company will also offer 47 years' worth of music chart data from industry magazine Billboard as of the launch of version 2.5.
"It's a terrific way for people to discover and rediscover music that was a part of their lives over time," Mike Bebel, the chief executive of pressplay, told Reuters.
Pressplay, which offers unlimited streaming and downloads starting at $9.95 a month and licenses content from all the major record labels, has been making progress in converting trial users to paying subscribers, Bebel said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2203321
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How the record companies made the world a worse place for everyone, including themselves
David Toomey
Imagine yourself as a record company with a large steady stream of profit coming in. Then one day, someone appears to try to take some of that stream away from you. What is probably your first reaction -- to go after whoever is causing the trouble. Simple, primitive, but generally effective for dealing with such situations.
This probably isn't too far from the mindset of record companies around the end of 1999. Napster appeared on the scene, record companies felt their profits threatened, and consequentially they launched a full out assault against Napster.
However, the situation was much more complex than Napster just causing the record companies some trouble. The files supported by Napster, mp3's, had been around for some time. Mp3's were popular not only because they were easy to transfer over computer networks, but also because people could turn their computers into supercharged jukeboxes with mp3's, adding things like visual effects and crossfading. Plus, mp3's could be used on portable devices that were quite a bit more convenient than discmans.
Mp3's, or something very similar, was bound to be the way that music would go for a large portion of the population. The problem for the record companies, though, was the ease with which these files could be transferred between individuals, as this would potentially result in fewer record sales.
Before Napster, mp3 trading was decentralized. Most trading took place using FTP servers. With such decentralized trading, there was essentially no way that record companies could have extracted any profits from these trades.
http://www.omniscienceisbliss.org/record_companies.html
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Free music offered to net users
Customers of Tiscali are getting six months of free digital music included with their standard net service.
Tiscali's dial-up and broadband customers will get access to a large library of digital music files as well as special content such as concerts, interviews and radio programs. Customers will be given credits that they can trade in to listen to tracks or burn the music they like to a CD. The European net firm has signed a deal with music distribution firm OD2 and software giant Microsoft to set up the service.
The free music downloads are available from today to every existing Tiscali customer and gives them access to 150,000 tracks by 8,500 artists Tiscali currently has about 7 million active subscribers in 16 countries. The library of music, including artists signed up to Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal, is being supplied by OD2, the online music firm backed by ex-Genesis front man Peter Gabriel.
Dial-up users will get 50 credits per month over the next six months that they can trade in to listen to 300 tracks streamed to their computer or to download 30 music files to their home computer.
Broadband users will get credits to listen to 400 tracks over the same period and will be able to cash in 100 credits at a time to burn music to a CD.
Keen music fans will be able to buy more credits or upgrade to a pay service. "To show there's a compelling alternative to piracy, we need to publicise the growing digital music catalogue available through legitimate channels," said Charles Grimsdale, chief executive of OD2.
The popularity of peer-to-peer file swapping services such as Kazaa is posing problems for music firms who are keen to stop people sharing pirated pop.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2752355.stm
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More ISPs 'to impose download limits'
Graeme Wearden .
The widespread and growing use of peer-to-peer networks is likely to force broadband operators to restrict the amount of data their subscribers are allowed to download, according to analyst group Jupiter Research.
Jupiter Research warned this week that file sharing is growing "at a phenomenal rate", and that the sheer volume of music and movie files being transferred between users is putting a huge burden on broadband service providers. According to Jupiter, some broadband ISPs in Europe are finding that over 50 percent of the traffic on their networks is caused by P2P file-sharing.
"Although not the only factor in driving Internet users to broadband, file-sharing has proven to be broadband's first 'killer application,'" said Dan Stevenson, analyst at Jupiter Research, in a research note. "As well as being a big problem for record labels and the Hollywood studios alike, Internet service providers are beginning to suffer too -- under the heavy weight that file-sharing imposes on their networks."
As a result of the increased traffic, these operators will probably be forced to limit the amount of data its broadband customers are allowed to download from the Net. Should they exceed this limit, they will be charged extra.
"Not wanting to take on the file-sharing networks in court, the best solution for broadband service providers to address this issue would be to impose monthly data limits on their subscribers," Stevenson advised.
Jupiter predicts that by the end of 2003 such data limits will be "the rule, not the exception."
Such a move is likely to prove unpopular with broadband users, though, who are likely to feel that data limits are at odds with the idea of an unlimited, always-on service.
NTL caused a large amount of controversy over the last few days after introducing data limits for its broadband service. It plans to target people who regularly download more than 1GB of data per day.
Back in October 2001, BT also caused a storm of protest when it blocked the ports used by some peer-to-peer applications. It said the move was an attempt to ensure it offered a decent service for all users, but did back down after many customers complained.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t26...zdnetukhompage
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New ADSL chipset enables speeds of 20Mbps
Might take a while before you can get it at home
Arron Rouse
BROADBAND CHIPSET MANUFACTURER Centillium Communications has launched a new ADSL chipset that will make the Net fly. The company's new Palladia 210 chipset for ADSL modems can reach speeds of up to 20Mbps.
It will probably take a while to filter down to the average end user but the new chipset points the way that Internet connections are headed. It was only a few years ago that 10Mbps was the speed of a normal LAN. The downside is that telcos will have to install new kit at your local exchange before you can get it.
The new chipset is an all-in-one design with USB, Ethernet and ADSL built onto a chip with a MIPS processor. The processor allows the use of an embedded version of Linux to control the ADSL modem. Depending on the end customer, the chip can be used to make a USB modem or an ADSL Ethernet router.
To give you an idea of the speed, a modem equipped with the 210 would be capable of downloading files at over 2 megabytes per second. That's a whole CD's worth of information in five and a half minutes or an entire DVD in forty minutes. It brings the possibility of real-time streaming of high quality video, something that movie studios are keen on and video rental companies are frightened witless about.
With some telcos slapping limits on how much their users can download each day, we have to wonder how they will cope when this technology goes online. We suspect that the new technology will only be available to selected users even when the exchanges are upgraded and it's bound to be expensive at first. But these things have a way of trickling down to the average customer eventually.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7759
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“I get for you wholesale!” Song prices finally dropping.
Listen.com discounts CD-copying fee
Reuters
In an aggressive move to boost subscriptions, online music company Listen.com on Thursday cut what it charges subscribers to burn songs from its Rhapsody service from 99 cents to a loss-making 49 cents.
The drastic discount underscores the lengths to which legitimate online music companies will go to jump-start the fledgling marketplace. Their competitors are the still-popular unauthorized services such as Kazaa, which attract millions with offers of virtually limitless content for free.
"We look at this as a limited-time promotion and an effort to get people in the door," said Matt Graves, a spokesman for independently owned Listen.com.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-984455.html?tag=fd_top
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Digital plans for libraries revealed
Richard Agnew
The government has detailed plans to position libraries as the "hub" of new local communities' online activities and e-government services, as part of a new ten-year modernising strategy.
A new framework detailing the government's long-term vision for the future of the library network, includes plans to move beyond its scheme to provide internet access in libraries to the creation of a new raft of interactive services to enhance 'digital citizenship' in the communities they serve.
The document, published this week by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), details plans for libraries to create and host local community group websites and provide access to interactive services developed under the DCMS' Culture Online initiative.
They could also become a physical point of contact for home-based e-learning services provided by broadcasters and through the public programme learndirect.
Under the plans, Resource (The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries), will also act a central agent to broker deals with industry content players to bring services such as classical music downloads to libraries across the UK.
The plans would build on investment made by the government in establishing web-enabled PCs and learning centres in libraries and making staff computer literate, under the UK Online programme.
But the report says the move would see libraries' positioned not just as a centre for providing access to the web and national government services through infrastructure, but as a centre for "collaboration, sharing and peer-to-peer services".
Of the plans, Arts Minister Tessa Blackstone said: "The Government is committed to public libraries and all that they stand for. Our strategy for their future makes promoting reading their key priority. Libraries also have - and will continue to have - a central role in helping people from all walks of life to be part of the communications revolution sweeping the world."
http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/vie...ews_0000048866
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Reliance on a succession of technological measures has proven unavailing. There is no reason to believe that the result will be different next time, or ever
A Full, Fair And Feasible Solution To The Dilemma of Online Music Licensing
Bennett Lincoff
Practically no one is satisfied with the rules governing online use of copyrighted musical works and sound recordings. Rights holders believe that the rules are inadequate to protect their ability to sell recorded music. Information technology firms and consumer electronics makers are concerned that they will not be permitted to develop new media or new markets. Webcasters are being driven out of business by statutory license fees that exceed their gross revenues. Those who survive must operate with unprecedented program content restrictions. And consumers are alarmed that the rules will expose them to liability for enjoying music when, where and how they want.
Despite the growing conflict between the music industry and each of these other groups, their interests are not necessarily incompatible. It is possible simultaneously to protect the integrity of copyrights, promote technological innovation, facilitate the growth of digital audio services, and meet consumer demand
The problem is, however, that because of the Internet it will not be possible to prevent the widespread unauthorized distribution of recorded music in digital form
This, in turn, jeopardizes the music industry's $40-plus billion dollars in annual worldwide revenue from the sale of recordings
The industry has responded with legislative proposals, technological access restrictions and anti-copying measures, and infringement litigation. Nonetheless, digital music piracy is on the increase and CD sales are in decline. It appears that the only effect -- if not the intent -- of the industry’s strategy has been to thwart development of a lawful market for the online use of music
Simply put, the music industry soon may no longer be able to sustain its traditional sales-based revenue model. Neither law, nor technology, nor moral suasion will suffice
An alternative to the sales-based revenue model is needed for online uses of music; an approach to rights management that will not depend on access restrictions or anti-copying technology for its success; one that is structured specifically to accommodate the changed circumstances imposed on the music industry by the emerging global digital network
I suggest this:
http://www.quicktopic.com/boing/D/uhAMNwVb8yfkc.html
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Why are CD sales down?
Kevin Johnson
The music industry frowns on people like St. Louis music fan Evan Hilliard.
Though a devout music lover, Hilliard estimates that last year, he bought a grand total of only four CDs, including India.Arie's "Voyage to India" and Scarface's "The Fix." But he downloaded tons more CDs online, and he has burned numerous copies for friends. He has no qualms about what he's doing. He says that record labels need to lower their prices.
"There's no way I should have to pay $16 or $18 for a CD with only four good songs on it," Hilliard says. "That's really stupid. And some CDs are now coming with only 10 songs on it. That's not getting the most bang for my buck."
Hilliard kicked off his downloading frenzy last year with "The Eminem Show" and has since downloaded CDs from Linkin Park, Brandy, Incubus, Aaliyah and dozens of others - but never St. Louis artists, he swears. He also has pieced together a number of compilation CDs through downloading and burning.
The system isn't perfect. He says downloaded songs are often mere loops. Or he'll think he's downloading one song and actually get another. Still, he figures, "This is easier for me. I like so many different forms of music, but my money doesn't spread so far and wide."
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ent...+sales+down%3F
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Share the files, share the wealth
Sean Piccoli
What is a good song worth? Legend has it that a young, broke Willie Nelson sold Crazy, one of the first hits he ever penned, for somewhere between $50 and $150 to cover a bar tab or to buy groceries. The details change, but the point never does -- that someone acquired an eventual classic for, well, a song.
Willie got paid, as every composer should for work that people enjoy. But considering how beloved Crazy would become with Patsy Cline's 1961 recording, in hindsight Willie also sold himself short.
What he needed was the Internet.
Don't laugh. For all the hand-wringing over music's migration into digital space, and the supposed folly of people swapping digitized tracks, there may be no better measure of a song's true worth than what happens to it once it gets online.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/template...02digitalfeb09
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Of the Pentagon, he said, "They've got some crazy people over there."
TIA Hobbled: Conferees in Congress Bar Using a Pentagon Project on Americans
Adam Clymer
House and Senate negotiators have agreed that a Pentagon project intended to detect terrorists by monitoring Internet e-mail and commercial databases for health, financial and travel information cannot be used against Americans.
The conferees also agreed to restrict further research on the program without extensive consultation with Congress.
House leaders agreed with Senate fears about the threat to personal privacy in the Pentagon program, known as Total Information Awareness. So they accepted a Senate provision in the omnibus spending bill passed last month, said Representative Jerry Lewis, the California Republican who heads the defense appropriations subcommittee.
Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, said of the program, "Jerry's against it, and I'm against it, so we kept the Senate amendment." Of the Pentagon, he said, "They've got some crazy people over there."
The only obstacles to the provision becoming law would be the failure of the negotiators to reach an agreement on the overall spending bill in which it is included, or a successful veto by President Bush of the bill.
Lt. Cmdr. Donald Sewell, a Pentagon spokesman, defended the program, saying, "The Department of Defense still feels that it's a tool that can be used to alert us to terrorist acts before they occur." He said, "It's not a program that snoops into American citizens' privacy."
One important factor in the breadth of the opposition is the fact that the research project is headed by Adm. John M. Poindexter. Several members of Congress have said that the admiral was an unwelcome symbol because he had been convicted of lying to Congress about weapons sales to Iran and illegal aid to Nicaraguan rebels, an issue with constitutional ramifications, the Iran-contra affair. The fact that his conviction was later reversed on the ground that he had been given immunity for the testimony in which he lied did not mitigate Congressional opinion, they said.
Katie Corrigan, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "This is a positive first step toward protecting the privacy of Americans. Congress represents the people's interests and appropriately responded to broad public concern about a program that does not reflect the goals of making us both safe and free."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/politics/12PRIV.html
Anti-terrorism draft could expand spying
'Emergency' surveillance allowed without court order
Grant Gross
A proposal that a government watchdog group said is being circulated in the U.S. Department of Justice would expand the electronic surveillance powers of law enforcement and spy agencies within U.S. borders, and that's raising concerns from civil liberties advocates and at least one U.S. senator.
The Center for Public Integrity, a government watchdog group, posted what it said is a Justice Department draft follow-up to the USA Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law signed by President George W. Bush in October 2001. A PDF (Portable Document Format) version of the draft is available at the center's Web site, and an HTML version is available at
http:// www.dailyrotten.com/source-docs/ patriot2draft.html.
Among the provisions in the draft is a proposal to extend the limits on court orders for electronic surveillance from 30 to 90 days in antiterrorism investigations inside the United States, and the limit on wiretapping devices such as pen registers and trap and trace devices from 60 to 120 days. A pen register is an electronic device that can be attached to a telephone line and record outgoing numbers and information about incoming calls. A trap and trace device can capture the originating number of electronic devices such as telephones.
The draft also would relax the need for court orders for electronic surveillance, allowing surveillance of suspected terrorists without a court order in "emergency situations."
It's not clear how those changes would affect other electronic communications, such as e-mail.
The draft also would eliminate most court-sanctioned consent decrees that law enforcement agencies entered into before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which placed limits on gathering information. Some law enforcement agencies "lack the ability to use the full range of investigative techniques that are lawful under the Constitution, and that are available to the FBI," the draft document noted.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...iterror_1.html
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17 Charged in Satellite TV Case
Barbara Whitaker
Seventeen people have been charged with developing technology used to steal millions of dollars in satellite television service. The charges culminated a yearlong federal investigation into the underground world of computer hackers, the authorities announced today.
One key defendant, Randyl Walter, 43, pleaded guilty to manufacturing satellite decryption devices, admitting responsibility for nearly $15 million in losses to satellite companies like Dish Network and DirecTV. He faces fines up to $500,000 and a maximum of five years in prison. Nine other defendants have also agreed to plead guilty to charges related to significant losses by the companies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/national/12TEEV.html
Indictments to test copyright law
Dawn Kawamoto
Invoking the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal grand jury has indicted six people on charges of developing software and hardware designed to hack into paid TV satellite transmissions.
The defendants allegedly created software and hardware designed to unscramble transmission signals sent by satellite TV operators, such as DirecTV and Dish Networks, said IDC with the computer crimes section of the U.S. Attorney General's Office for the Central District of California.
The defendants allegedly sold or distributed free software and hardware to hundreds of thousands of people, giving them free access to paid subscription satellite TV services, Spertus said. The satellite TV industry and the Motion Picture Association of America lose millions of dollars from piracy, he noted.
Seventeen defendants were indicted in all, but only six were charged under the criminal antidecryption provisions of the 1998 DMCA. The 11 others were charged with breaking federal laws against conspiracy and manufacturing devices for the purpose of stealing satellite signals. The DMCA-related charges were unsealed Tuesday and marked only the second time a grand jury has issued indictments involving the act.
The first case involved the highly publicized arrest of Russian encryption expert Dmitry Sklyarov, and eventual charges against his company, ElcomSoft, which published software capable of cracking the antipiracy protection of e-books. Ultimately, a jury acquitted the company.
"The message we're trying to send out is we have infiltrated the hacking community," Spertus said. "There is massive theft going on, with satellite signal providers as the victims...The FBI investigation into this rampant theft is still ongoing."
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-984408.html
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Rivals of Microsoft File Antitrust Complaint in Europe
Paul Meller
An alliance of technology companies said today that it had filed a new complaint with European antitrust regulators about the Windows XP operating system of Microsoft, just as the regulators were nearing the end of an investigation into earlier versions of Windows.
The alliance, called the Computer and Communications Industry Association, said in a news conference today that Microsoft's dominance was stifling innovation and competition in the development of software for all kinds of digital devices, from computers to mobile phones. The alliance includes Sun Microsystems, a longtime foe of Microsoft, as well as companies like Nokia, AOL Time Warner, Eastman Kodak, Fujitsu and Oracle.
Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said that its competition department would look into the complaint. The alliance filed the 260-page submission at the end of January. She said the new complaint would probably not delay a ruling in the existing five-year investigation of Microsoft, expected by the end of June.
At the heart of that case is the commission's accusation that Microsoft leveraged its dominant position in operating systems software to win advantages in related markets, like network software. It also accused Microsoft of trying to wipe out the market for rivals' audio and video-player software programs by incorporating its own product, Media Player, into Windows, a practice known as bundling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/bu...ss/12SOFT.html
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FRENCH COURT REJECTS SUIT AGAINST YAHOO
Kerry Shaw (NYT)
After a three-year legal fight, a Paris court yesterday rejected a lawsuit by French human rights advocates and Holocaust survivors who sued Yahoo for one symbolic euro. They accused Yahoo of having condoned war crimes when it sold Nazi paraphernalia, including flags with swastikas, on its auction pages. French law forbids the display or sale of racist material, but the items were available to French users who clicked on the American pages. The court said that Yahoo did not seek to "justify war crimes and crimes against humanity" when it sold the items on its Web site. It was the second lawsuit against Yahoo by French human rights advocates; the first was started in 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/te...y/12TBRF2.html
Top Ten Downloads - Singles
BigChampange
Pirates & Paranoids
Recording Restricted
Arik Hesseldahl
Video recording is a convenience that consumers have grown accustomed to since the introduction of the first videocassette recorders in the 1970s. Many consider it an entitlement.
To a point, it is. The U.S. Supreme Court, in fact, said so: In 1984, in the landmark Betamax case, which pitted Sony against Universal Studios and The Walt Disney Co. , the court ruled that recording television programs for private viewing in homes does not infringe on copyright protections.
However, the rights handed down by the court don't seem so clear now. When the videotape in the VCR is replaced by a hard drive so that the copy made is as good as the original and can be shared over the Internet with a multitude of people, the right to record looks more--at least in the view of several media companies--like a license to steal.
The recording industry's legal victories over the music-sharing service Napster and some of its emulators has emboldened media companies eager to protect their TV programming from a Napster-like fate. For consumers, the basic convenience of recording television would start to erode, especially as they navigate the transition to digital and high-definition television (HDTV).
For one thing, what media companies such as Viacom and Disney want sounds innocuous enough. It's a few bits of code embedded into the signals of the programming they send. These "broadcast flags" would give broadcasters the ability to prevent certain programs from being copied and shared over digital networks.
And late last year, consumer electronics manufacturers, among them Hitachi , Royal Phillips , Sony and Matsushita's Panasonic, announced a major agreement with cable companies such as AOL Time Warner's Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications . The crux of the deal focused on eliminating digital set-top boxes. But the deal also included an agreement on proposed "encoding rules."
Under the proposed rules, most regular TV shows available for free from the major networks would fall under the "copy freely" category, while pay- channel programs on networks such as HBO or Showtime might fall under "copy once" that would allow recording but restrict sharing. Pay-per- view and video-on-demand programs would likely be tagged "copy never."
But copying and sharing programming over a network is at the heart of what many consumer electronics and PC manufacturers want to pursue. If the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is any indication, manufacturers such as Sony and Hewlett-Packard and even software giant Microsoft showed off product concepts that would allow consumers to record a show from a TV in one room to a hard drive, and then watch it later on any TV or computer screen in the home. And all of those networks were in turn connected to a broadband line to the Internet.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/200...artner=newscom
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“Creativity has never been more controlled in our history – ever”
Copyright defender advises Number 10
Bill Thompson
Net freedom fighter Lawrence Lessig has urged the UK Government to ensure that laws designed to prevent digital piracy do not trample over the right of fair use. On his recent visit to the UK, the Stanford University law professor held a private meeting with government media policy advisers at Number 10 Downing Street.
The meeting, organised by Damian Tambini, Director of the Program for Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at Oxford University, was attended by Ed Richards, the prime minister's media policy adviser and the man behind the recent Communications Bill.
At the meeting professor Prof Lessig spoke about ways in which the UK Government can ensure that new laws protecting digital information from piracy do not result in the erosion of the public's right to share and use intellectual property.
His views may influence the government's approach to proposals to change the Patent Act to implement the European Union Copyright Directive. These were so widely criticised by copyright campaigners that the original timetable for implementation was put back by three months.Prof Lessig's intervention at a senior level may result in a rethink of plans to make it illegal to use a multi-region DVD player or copy DVDs for personal use.
He explained how a reader of the Adobe eBook version of George Eliot's Middlemarch is only allowed to cut and paste 10 sections of the book every 10 days, even though the work is out of copyright.
By contrast, no cutting and pasting is allowed of the eBook version of his latest book, The Future of Ideas, even though both UK and US copyright law would allow quoting from the book in a review or academic study.
The problem arises because the technology used to protect the material from copying - in this case Adobe's program code - is itself protected by law. In the United States the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it an offence to break the protection even if the purpose is to do something allowed by copyright law.
Soon we may have a similar law here under the European Union Copyright Directive.
Prof Lessig pointed out that this means that unregulated use of copyright material becomes impossible, "entering the jurisdiction of the law because of an accident of design".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2743961.stm
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New Finnish industry coalition formed to fight internet regulation
A number of Finnish telecom and media companies have formed a coalition to fight against proposed government
legislation that they say would stifle freedom of expression on the internet.
The new coalition delivered a statement to the Finnish Parliament late last week stating, "excessive domestic regulation of internet content will create significant uncertainties for business and have a chilling effect on commercial communication."
According to Marja-Liisa Virtanen, of telecom operator, TeliaSonera Finland, one of the companies to dispute government plans to censor internet message boards, illegal and offensive material is already deleted from most message boards - mostly upon request of visitors, but also, to some extent, on the webmaster's own initiative.
"In proportion to the mass of messages received, there are very few problems on the message boards," she said.
If passed, the law would force liability of content onto newspaper website owners who allow for message boards – just as in the form of letters to the editor to print media publishers.
The campaign is supported by ICC Finland – the Finnish affiliate of the ICC – who represents the interests of both small and large business organizations and whose members include Nokia and Kone.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14833
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Companies warned over music piracy
Workplace music piracy is hurting the record industry
Hundreds of large companies are being sent a guide by the music industry warning them that staff are downloading music illegally over the internet. The guides, sent out by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) on Thursday, show companies how to prevent staff from downloading tracks using office computers and networks.
The global campaign has been started to try and curb the massive amounts of music being downloaded during office hours. Such copying "can tarnish corporate reputations, increase security risks for computer systems and put organisations at risk of legal prosecution," an IFPI statement said.
A US company got fined $1m for staff swapping illegal music
The record industry says such downloading deprives it of billions of dollars in revenue.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/2757185.stm
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U.S. telecom regulators split over state role
Spat delays crucial vote
Andy Sullivan
U.S. regulators have delayed a crucial vote on rules for local telephone competition because they cannot agree on the role state regulators should play, sources close to the negotiations said on Tuesday.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has run into resistance from three of the agency's other four commissioners, who do not support his plans to relax rules that require local-phone giants like Verizon Communications to share their networks with AT&T and other competitors, industry sources said.
Republican commissioner Kevin Martin has joined the commission's two Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, in proposing an alternative that would give state regulators more say in determining when Verizon and other "Baby Bells" could be freed of the network-sharing requirements, industry sources said.
The FCC has delayed its decision by a week until Feb. 20 to reach a consensus on the issue, which is expected to reshape the telecommunications industry for years to come.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...fccvote_1.html
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I Know That Song!
Sebastian Rupley
In an effort to provide an open standard for recognizing and identifying digital music files, MusicBrainz, an
open-source metadata service, has unveiled a new music-recognition service. Working with partners who've developed technology that can recognize file tags associated with digital music files, MusicBrainz is aiming to create a complete public database of tagged music files that allow for easy identification, searching, and sorting. This database could, for example, help online music sites provide automated song recommendations.
Since 1998, MusicBrainz has, with the help of a community of 2,000 contributors, been building an archive of over 650,000 music tracks. Each track is tagged so that client software can recognize the song. The technology that MusicBrainz uses to recognize digital songs through these tags comes from a partner company, Relatable. Another company, AgentArts, provides the technology used for data mining of the information in the MusicBrainz database.
In the nearly five years that MusicBrainz has been pursuing its goal, intelligent music data-mining has become a Holy Grail for entertainment software developers, device manufacturers, and online music services, all of whom already spend heavily to license metadata services that can recognize songs through digital fingerprints. The explosive popularity of digital music players and online music downloading is driving the need for such data mining. The recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas presented many high-capacity digital music devices that can archive and sort vast music libraries. MusicBrainz has been signing commercial and non-commercial sponsors to help it grow an open-source service that can compete with services that license song recognition technology.
"Currently there is no free and universally accepted digital music metadata available to the online music space," said Robert Kaye, founder of MusicBrainz, "and the very few commercial companies who provide this resource offer their services under highly restrictive and expensive licenses. It is our belief that a universal standard for digital music recognition is simply too important and valuable to all online music services to be monopolized by any one company. We also believe that online music consumers would much rather contribute to a truly open source resource."
MusicBrainz has posted a white paper on the technology and goals behind its effort. MusicBrainz is releasing its dataset of tagged songs into the public domain under the name Creative Commons.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,885830,00.asp
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Smith to lead piracy panel
Gary Martin
Rep. Lamar Smith was named chairman Wednesday of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, the Internet and intellectual property — a panel that oversees high tech issues important to South Texas.
"The issues before this subcommittee are some of the most important facing the nation," said Smith, a San Antonio Republican who was elected to Congress in 1986 and is serving his ninth term.
Also Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn was assigned to a Senate transportation subcommittee that will oversee the reauthorization of a federal fuels tax.
Smith, a lawyer, has chaired other Judiciary subcommittees, including a panel on immigration and another that oversees issues relating to crime, terrorism and homeland security.
The San Antonio lawmaker was tapped for his new assignment by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R- Minn., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
"His dedication and hard work exhibited in other committee leadership positions the past eight years will serve him well in his new post," Sensenbrenner said.
Smith said his subcommittee oversees legislation on digital rights, copyright and patent protections, piracy, e-commerce, cyber security and state sovereign immunity — issues with national and regional implications.
Smith's appointment was applauded by the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents companies with Texas connections, including Austin-based Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola.
Last year, Smith sponsored and passed legislation that addressed the increasing threat of cybertech crime and offered protections for businesses, consumers and government entities.
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.c...180&xlc=935210
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Cox Swings to Profit on Subscriber Growth
Karen Jacobs, Reuters
Cable television operator Cox Communications Inc. said on Wednesday it swung to a profit in the fourth quarter from a year-earlier loss as it picked up more customers for its high-speed Internet and digital telephone services.
The company said growth in those services was mainly driven by the success of its bundling strategy, which seeks to get customers to subscribe to multiple services.
"We continue to prove that the digital bundle is the industry's growth engine," Chief Executive Jim Robbins said in a statement. Cox had 1.7 million bundled customers at the end of 2002, up 53 percent from a year earlier, he said.
Cox had 1.4 million high-speed Internet customers at year-end, including 135,650 added in the fourth quarter, for year-over-year growth of 59 percent. The company said a $5 rate increase in some markets last year had no noticeable effect on penetration rates.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2218223
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BT tests water with rural ADSL project
Tim Richardson
BT is to confirm next month whether it will proceed with a scheme that could bring ADSL to areas currently deemed not commercially viable for investment in broadband.
Last autumn the telco began a trial of a community broadband project, which makes it financially possible to convert an exchange to ADSL with just 16 customers.
The initiative, known as ADSL Exchange Activate or Community Broadband, also uses "sponsors" such as development agencies and local authorities to help subsidise the cost of rolling out the ADSL service.
BT has recently released "indicative pricing" to ISPs and potential sponsors in a bid to test the market and assess whether there is enough interest. If there is - and BT is "hopeful" - then the telco is likely to press ahead with the scheme.
Key to this is the pricing. It's set the price at an upfront charge of £55,000 (ex VAT) per exchange, which will pay for 30 people to get ADSL for three years.
This works out at a wholesale cost of around £50 (ex VAT) per user over the three-year term of the contract. With the ISP's margins on top this could lead to a retail price of between £60 and £70 per user.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/29306.html
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Is ultrawideband too wide?
Ben Charny
The satellite industry and its TV and cable customers say a short-range wireless standard called ultrawideband threatens to interfere with many of their broadcasts.
Ultrawideband, better known as UWB, is something the wireless industry has never dealt with before. Wireless devices almost always operate in a narrow band of spectrum. Interference from signals crossing paths is avoided by assigning each wireless broadcast a certain area of the airwaves.
But UWB operates across a wide range of these so-called frequencies all at once. The "flooding" of the airwaves creates a short but powerful signal--about 100 times faster than Bluetooth, another short-range wireless standard.
Beginning last February, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) let a handful of UWB start-up companies, plus tech heavyweights Intel, Cisco Systems and Texas Instruments, make UWB devices that use the same spectrum satellite companies use. Some of the products are just now being shipped to stores.
But the new neighbors are starting to chafe as they rub bandwidth shoulders, just as the first commercial UWB products are being shipped. A number of satellite companies and their customers, including AOL Time Warner and Viacom, have raised concerns about interference in the past few days. The broadcast TV and cable arms of AOL Time Warner and Viacom use satellites to ferry programming to customers worldwide.
Recent FCC filings made reference to two studies published last month that found UWB poses some interference problems, especially when used outdoors, the companies said. One study was conducted by the Satellite Industry Association, which represents Lockheed Martin, PanAmSat and other aerospace equipment makers.
The second investigation was published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
"Widespread deployment of UWB devices under current technical rules could cause significant disruption to video programming distribution," Steven Teplitz, an AOL Time Warner vice president, wrote to the FCC last week. Viacom filed a similar letter with the same complaints.
Companies supporting ultrawideband, such as chipmaker XtremeSpectrum, say the interference concerns are overblown. The issue could come to a head next week, when the FCC discusses the rules it created last January for UWB.
"The (Satellite Industry Association) has greatly overestimated the effect of handheld UWB systems," John McCorkle, XtremeSpectrum's chief technology officer, wrote to the FCC last week.
Ben Manny, Intel's director of wireless technology development, also played down the impact of UWB on satellites or any other kinds of devices.
He said interference is highly unlikely, but if it were to occur, it would probably create the same level of annoyance as everyday mishaps such as "when I drape my phone cord over my PC."
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-984388.html
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Social networks sturdier than 'Net
Kimberly Patch
Although many types of networks, including biological networks, social networks, and the Internet, have a lot in common, when you get right down to who is connecting to whom, social networks follow different rules.
A researcher from the Santa Fe Institute has found that social networks are assortative, meaning people who are social gravitate toward others who are social. This is very different from many other types of networks.
The nodes of social networks are people. People who already have connections like to associate with other nodes who have connections, said Mark Newman, now an assistant professor of physics at the University of Michigan.
In contrast, non-social networks like the Internet, World Wide Web, and biological networks are disassortative, meaning highly-connected nodes tend to connect to nodes that have few connections, said Newman.
There's a "big difference between social networks and all other kinds of networks," said Newman. This was somewhat unexpected, and it has several ramifications, he said.
In social networks, where popular people are friends with other popular people, diseases spread easily, said Newman. At the same time, however, this type of network has a small central set of people that the disease can actually reach. "They support epidemics easily, but... the epidemic is limited in who it can reach," he said.
The opposite is true for the Internet, the Web and biological networks, said Newman. This makes these types of networks more vulnerable to attack than social networks are.
The implications for vaccinating people and for protecting networks like the Internet against attacks are not good, according to Newman. The networks that we might want to break up, like social networks that spread disease, are resilient against attacks; but the networks that we wish to protect, like the Internet, are vulnerable to attack, said Newman.
Social networks hold together even when some of the most connected nodes are removed. This may be because these nodes tend to be clustered together in a core group so that there's a lot of redundancy, according to Newman. This means that vaccination and similar strategies are less effective than in other types of networks.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/0...et_021203.html
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Moving data to a DVD? Here’s a look at the formats
Gordon Laing
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight's big fight. Once again it's the DVD Alliance versus the official DVD Forum for the title of ultimate rewritable champion. Sensationalist perhaps, but it certainly felt that way at this year's Comdex trade show. And a confident outcome to this ongoing situation couldn't happen too soon as, according to countless reports, we're allgagging for a DVD recorder but are worried about investing in the wrong format.
Painfully aware of both this and the fact the competition doesn't appear to be weakening, the two rival camps have come up with the only sensible short-term solution: producing drives that support multiple formats. The DVD Forum used Comdex to launch its long-awaited DVD-Multi drives, which can handle the official DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-Ram formats. The DVD Alliance, meanwhile, was showing off high- compatibility reports of its relatively new write-once DVD+R format.
But all eyes in this pavilion were on Sony's new DRU- 500A Dual-RW drive, the first to support both DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W) formats.
A quick check later though and one thing is obvious: DVD-Multi and Dual-RW drives may support more recordable and rewritable DVD formats than ever before, but there's still no one drive that does them all.DVD-Multi won't do either of the Plus formats, while Dual- RW won't do DVD-Ram. We may be in a more flexible position than 12 months ago, but most people will still be torn between two drives.
Meanwhile, back at Comdex, questions needed answering.
http://vnunet.com/Analysis/1138621
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Blue laser format gets green light
Richard Shim
Manufacturers looking for a higher-capacity recordable DVD format will want to mark Feb. 17 on their calendars.
The nine companies promoting Blu-ray Disc technology--a next-generation recordable DVD format using blue-violet lasers--announced Thursday that licensing will begin Feb. 17. Blu-ray Disc technology allows for 27GB storage capacities on a single-sided 12cm disc. DVDs hold 4.7GB of data. Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson are known as the "Blu-ray Disc Founders" and have been pursuing a broad acceptance of the format.
Blu-ray technology uses a short-wavelength blue-violet laser instead of the red lasers in current optical drives to read data off discs. The higher-capacity Blu-ray discs will enable the recording of high-definition broadcasts, which offer better picture quality than the more broadly available TV broadcasts.
The licensing agreements, which are 10-year renewable contracts, will include the right to use the Blu-ray format and logo as well as the content protection specifications. Licenses for the format and logo will range from $20,000 to $60,000 depending on which products--discs, players or components--manufacturers want to develop. The same is true for the protection specifications, which range in price annually from $4,000 to $12,000.
Companies already have been developing products using Blu-ray technology. Philips has demonstrated a prototype miniature Blu-ray disc drive that uses a 3cm disc that can store up to 1GB of data. Typical CDs, measuring 12cm in diameter, can hold up to 650MB of data. The prototype drive is suitable for use in portable devices such as digital cameras, handhelds and cell phones. Philips has been working to shrink the drive.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony Chief Operating Officer Kunitake Ando said recordable DVD Blu-ray Disc products will likely appear this year, initially in Japan. Ando said the technology is ready, but some licensing issues still need to be worked out.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-984520.html
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Some Rights Reserved
Cyber-law activists devise a set of licenses for sharing creative works
Gary Stix
In a book published in 2001, Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig decried the threat to the Internet from both large media interests and burgeoning intellectual-property laws. In Lessig's view, the Internet should serve as a commons, a medium that encourages creativity through the exchange of photographs, music, literature, academic treatises, even entire course curricula. Lessig and like-minded law and technology experts have now decided to go beyond making academic arguments to counter the perceived danger.
On December 16, 2002, the nonprofit Creative Commons opened its digital doors to provide, without charge, a series of licenses that enable a copyrighted work to be shared more easily. The licenses attempt to overcome the inherently restrictive nature of copyright law. Under existing rules, a doodle of a lunchtime companion's face on a paper napkin is copyrighted as soon as the budding artist lifts up the pen. No "©" is needed at the bottom of the napkin. All rights are reserved.
The licenses issued through Creative Commons have changed that. They allow the creator of a work to retain the copyright while stipulating merely "some rights reserved." A user can build a custom license: One option lets the copyright holder specify that a piece of music or an essay can be used for any purpose as long as attribution is given. Another, which can be combined with the first, permits usage for any noncommercial end. Separately, the site offers a document that lets someone's creation be donated to the public domain.
A copyright owner can fill out a simple question-naire posted on the Creative Commons Web site (
www. creativecommons.org) and get an electronic copy of a license. Because a copyright notice (or any modification to one) is optional, no standard method exists for tracking down works to which others can gain access. The Creative Commons license is affixed with electronic tags so that a browser equipped to read a tag--specified in XML, or Extensible Markup Language--can find copyrighted items that fall into the various licensing categories. An aspiring photographer who wants her images noticed could permit shots she took of Ground Zero in Manhattan to be used if she is given credit. A graphic artist assembling a digital collage of September 11 pictures could then do a search on both "Ground Zero" and the Creative Commons tag for an "attribution only" license, which would let the photographer's images be copied and put up on the Web, as long as her name is mentioned.
Lessig and the other cyber-activists who started Creative Commons, which operates out of an office on the Stanford campus, found inspiration in the free- software movement and in previous licensing endeavors such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's open audio license. The organization is receiving $850,000 from the Center for the Public Domain and $1.2 million over three years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Some legal pundits will question whether an idea that downplays the profit motive will ever be widely embraced. Creative Commons, however, could help ensure that the Internet remains more than a shopping mall. For his part, Lessig, who last year argued futilely before the U.S. Supreme Court against an extension of the term of existing copyrights, has translated words into action. Now it will be up to scholars, scientists, independent filmmakers and others to show that at least part of their work can be shared and that a commons for creative exchange can become a reality in cyberspace.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...E0809EC588EEDF
Until next week,
-
js.
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[i]Recent WIRs -
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15128 Feb. 8th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15063 Feb. 1st
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=14979 Jan. 25th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=14892 Jan. 18th
Current Week In Review
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