Harry Potter and the Copyright Lawyer
Use of Popular Characters Puts 'Fan Fiction' Writers in Gray Area
Ariana Eunjung Cha
While J.K. Rowling was finishing up her latest Harry Potter sequel these past three years, so was Christina Teresa.
From her third-story apartment here, Teresa typed out a 250-page novella that she posted on the World Wide Web. In the world she created, the dreaded Professor Severus Snape -- the greasy-haired, big-nosed misfit who is Harry's nemesis -- turns out to actually be a good guy trying to infiltrate the evil forces that threaten the wizarding world. The story, posted on Sugarquill.net, was an instant hit, attracting thousands of readers from around the world.
As fans await the June 21 release of Rowling's fifth novel about the magical boy with the trademark lightning scar on his forehead, they can find tens of thousands of stories online about what the boy wizard is up to next.
In the past few years, a curious literary genre known as "fan fiction" has been flourishing. The term refers to all manner of vignettes, short stories and novels based on the universes described in popular books, TV shows and movies. Similarly derived works are appearing in music, where fans are using their computers to mix songs from popular artists into new works that they call "mashups." Movie fans are taking digital copies of films such as the "Star Wars" epics and creating alternate endings or deleting characters such as the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks.
The explosion of these part-original, part-borrowed works has set authors of fan fiction against some media companies in a battle to redefine the line between consumers' right to "fair use" and copyright holders' rights to control their intellectual property.
"We don't grow up hearing stories around the campfire anymore about cultural figures. Instead we get them from books, TV or movies, so the characters that today provide us a common language are corporate creatures," said Rebecca Tushnet, an assistant professor of law at New York University who has written extensively on intellectual property.
Fan-fiction creators say their work represents the emergence of an art form that takes advantage of all that the Internet was built for. They invoke the First Amendment and say that under fair-use laws they have a right to create what they want as long as they are not trying to profit at the expense of the original material. But some book, music and movie houses argue that fan fiction is more plagiarism than high art and have demanded that operators of Web sites remove the offending material.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jun17.html
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CA Readies All-Purpose Security Tool
Countering spam, filtering web site access, and blocking peer-to-peer file sharing. CA's new Secure Content Management claims it can do it all.
Ellen Messmer
Computer Associates International plans to ship security and policy-enforcement software this year to fight viruses and spam, filter web content, and block peer-to-peer file sharing.
CA's eTrust Secure Content Management marks the first time CA has sought to integrate security for the web, email and file transfers into one software package. The software will run on Windows platforms and will include CA's desktop antivirus product.
Ian Hameroff, CA's business manager for security solutions, said eTrust Secure Content Management would cost US$55 per seat, but only half that for users of CA's antivirus products that want to upgrade.
"That does sound appealing, and we're going to take a look at it and see if it works in our environment," says Dave Lydick, Windows NT administrator at a Pennsylvania-based retail chain which uses the CA eTrust antivirus products. His company has over 7,500 employees and 270 stores.
"We're going to be a beta customer because we do want to do content filtering, especially the peer-to-peer (P2P) applications like Kazaa," says Lydick. "P2P poses the danger of copyright violations. We'd like to be able to set a policy in place at the gateway and try to stop P2P use."
The management console for eTrust Secure Content Management will "give a bird's-eye view" of the antispam, antivirus and content-filtering activity through the gateway, said Hameroff. "There will also be a user self-service [feature] so the user can decide which e-mails are spam and which are not when the mail is blocked and held at the gateway."
This will alleviate the need for the administrator to look at all the quarantined mail, said Hameroff, adding the Secure Content Management reports can be set up to be delivered to the administrator on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Hameroff declined to say how many messages eTrust Secure Content Management might be able to process per hour to filter out spam or malicious code, noting that the product was still under development and wouldn’t ship until nearer the end of 2003. But he said that CA itself, with 16,000 employees, was now beta-testing the product.
http://www.techworld.com/news/index....ews&NewsID=179
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Nintendo Wins Piracy Case
Reuters
Game publisher Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday it has won a series of judgments against a Hong Kong company that sold devices capable of copying its games and putting them on the Internet for limitless downloading.
Kyoto-based Nintendo described the rulings against Lik Sang International as one of its ``most significant anti-piracy judgments ever.''
A Lik Sang representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
In the most recent ruling, a Hong Kong judge ordered Lik Sang to pay an interim amount of HK$5 million (US$641,000) in damages late last month, Nintendo said.
The game maker had sought US$20 million in damages in its original complaint for lost revenues in 2001 and 2002.
The device at the heart of the complaint costs about US$45 and is capable of bypassing security features in Nintendo Game Boy games to extract their software, said Jodi Daugherty, director of anti-piracy for Nintendo of America Inc.
Once the software is extracted, it can be put onto cards for use in other Game Boy consoles or uploaded onto the Internet for limitless downloads throughout the world, she said.
Copied games typically sell for anywhere from US$5-15 each, compared with US$25-45 for legal products.
Following the rulings, Nintendo believes the devices, which were manufactured in China, are no longer on the market, Daugherty said.
"This was an important case for Nintendo in battling Internet piracy at its source,'' she told Reuters in a phone interview from the United States. "We're continuing to take aggressive actions in China.''
Nintendo estimates that it and its partners lost about US$650 million in sales last year due to piracy, while the entire industry lost more than US$3 billion.
Daugherty said China is one of the world's biggest bases for the manufacture, assembly and distribution of pirated video game products, both hardware and software, while Hong Kong is a major centre for copying.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS...nintendo.reut/
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New Bill Injects FBI Into P2P Battle
David Becker
A bill introduced in Congress on Thursday would put federal agents in the business of investigating and prosecuting copyright violations, including online swapping of copyrighted works.
HR-2517, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, instructs the FBI to develop a program to deter online traffic of copyrighted material. The bureau would also develop a warning, with the FBI seal, that copyright holders could issue to suspected violators. And the bureau would encourage sharing of information on suspected copyright violations among law enforcement, copyright owners and ISPs (Internet service providers).
The bill bears the names of two legislators who have been prominent on intellectual property and copyright issues--Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Howard Berman, D-Calif. Berman gained attention last year with a bill that would have allowed copyright holders to hack into peer-to-peer networks believed to be distributing protected materials.
The new bill also calls for the Department of Justice to hire agents trained to deal with computer hacking and intellectual-property issues, and it requires the Attorney General, in conjunction with the departments of Education and Commerce, to develop programs to educate the public on copyright issues.
A lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the bill includes a number of troubling aspects, particularly the blurring of distinctions between official prosecution of criminal acts and civil enforcement of copyright provisions.
"It's doing a bunch of things to get the FBI more involved with private enforcement of intellectual-property rights," said Wendy Seltzer, staff attorney for the EFF. "It gives them a chance to scare a lot of users into thinking the government is after them."
Seltzer said the provision for ISPs to cooperate with police and copyright holders is particularly troubling from a privacy standpoint. "That would probably authorize them to tell ISPs, 'You also need to give information on users to the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) whenever they ask,'" she said.
The RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America applauded the bill. "The Smith-Berman legislation will strengthen the hand of the FBI and other federal law enforcement officials to address the rampant copyright infringement occurring on peer-to-peer networks," Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said in a statement. "This common sense, bipartisan bill will help ensure that federal prosecutors across the country have the resources and expertise to fully enforce the copyright laws on the books--especially against those who illegally distribute massive quantities of copyrighted music online."
The bill comes just days after Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised alarm by suggesting that copyright holders should be allowed to remotely destroy the PCs of music pirates.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1019811.html
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Beyond Kazaa, a Grand Plan
Executive Seeks Partnership With Showbiz
Jonathan Krim
Nikki Hemming, who runs the world's most popular service for sharing online music and other files, has a message for the people who hate her most: Kazaa, infamous for enabling users to swap music and videos without paying for them, wants to be the official online distributor for the entertainment industry.
"Realize that this technology is inexorable, and come to the table" is what Hemming said she would say to chief music-industry lobbyist Hilary B. Rosen and Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America.
It's a statement of characteristic cool for Hemming, who spoke by telephone from her home in Australia hours before Kazaa took another flogging on Capitol Hill this week.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) testified that peer-to-peer networks facilitate "a new era of easily obtainable pornographic material." Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said research shows that some users of file-sharing services unwittingly expose private information on their computers, including tax returns, social security numbers and medical records.
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a musician himself, said that if nothing else could stop people from stealing copyrighted works, he would support using programs to damage the computers of those who do.
As chief executive of Australia-based Sharman Networks Ltd., which owns Kazaa, Hemming has heard it all before.
Kazaa and other file-sharing services have weathered blistering legal and public relations campaigns by the entertainment industry, aimed at shutting down their businesses or at least undermining consumer confidence in them.
Yet file sharing is flourishing. The Kazaa Media Desktop software, which is free, has been downloaded more than 240 million times. Software from Morpheus, a similar service, has been downloaded more than 111 million times. Other services, including Grokster and LimeWire, also have grown remarkably.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jun18.html
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Imprisoned for posting democracy article.
Vietnamese 'Cyber-Dissident' Jailed
Correspondents in Hanoi
VIETNAMESE cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son was jailed for 13 years on spying charges relating to an article about democracy he posted on the internet. The 34-year-old doctor was convicted on espionage charges after a half-day trial at the Hanoi People's Court. He was also ordered to be kept under house arrest for three years after his release from jail. Son was arrested in Hanoi on March 27, 2002, a few weeks after translating into Vietnamese and publishing online a feature entitled "What is democracy" extracted from the US State Department's website.
The case has cast unwanted international attention on Vietnam's human rights record and on Wednesday foreign diplomats were barred from entering the court.
News of the sentencing came as no surprise to the diplomatic community in Vietnam, where most trials, and particularly those involving political and religious dissidents, are off-limits to diplomats and foreign journalists.
"We knew the minimum sentence was 12 (years) and the maximum was the death penalty," one western diplomat said. "The sentence is hardly surprising which does not mean it is right."
Diplomats from the United States, Canada, Australia and several European Union countries had tried in vain to gain access to the proceedings after tabling a formal request with the Vietnamese authorities. But security officers prevented the diplomats from entering the building and plainclothes officers could be seen filming the stand-off.
"We had sent a request to the authorities and did not get any answer," explained another diplomat. "These things have happened before."
The London-based rights group Amnesty International blasted the court yesterday, saying the Vietnamese government had taken advantage of vague legislation to convict Son.
"Once again the Vietnamese authorities are showing blatant disregard for freedom of expression and fundamental human rights. To accuse Dr Pham Hong Son of espionage is a travesty of justice", the organization said in a statement.
A document presented as the indictment in the trial and obtained by AFP accuses Son of contact with "political opportunists" and "reactionary forces overseas". It also says Son obtained information from "articles describing distorted policies of the Communist Party as well as slander against the government". The authorities confiscated a computer and seized numerous emails from "reactionary forces overseas", a term used to describe Vietnam's enemies abroad. He was also accused of collecting money from abroad for dissidents.
"This is yet another outrageous example of Viet Nam using loosely-worded national security legislation to criminalize activities which are regarded as perfectly legal under international law and in most countries of the world," Amnesty said. Aside from Amnesty International, Son's trial has attracted strong criticism from human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
His arrest was part of the government's ongoing crackdown against intellectuals and dissidents who use the Internet to circulate news or opinion banned from the tightly controlled state press. About a million Vietnamese are estimated to have regular access to the web, mainly through internet cafes, but many sites such as those of exiled opposition groups are firewalled. In November last year cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang, a computer instructor, was jailed for four years for posting essays critical of the communist regime on the internet.
He was one of a long list of activists who have been silenced by the authorities in recent months.
Human rights groups have long accused Vietnam of smothering all dissent and routinely jailing democracy activists, critics of the regime and church leaders who do not recognise the state's authority over them.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...nbv%5E,00.html
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Senator OK With Zapping Pirates' PCs
Declan McCullagh
Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday backpedaled slightly from his suggestion a day earlier that copyright holders should be allowed to remotely destroy the computers of music pirates.
In a brief press release, Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that he suggested the idea at Tuesday's hearing
"I think that industry is not doing enough to help us find effective ways to stop people from using computers to steal copyrighted, personal or sensitive materials," he said.
But Hatch noted that his proposed law permitting wide-scale destruction of computers used to download illicit files from peer-to-peer networks was still on the table. "I do not favor extreme remedies--unless no moderate remedies can be found," Hatch said in the statement.
Because Hatch oversees the Senate committee responsible for writing criminal laws, and because he has taken a personal interest in copyright legislation, his suggestion raised eyebrows and some alarm in Washington. It represents the most radical proposal to date in Congress, going even further than a bill introduced last year by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., that would have permitted copyright holders to disable or block a P2P node that they suspected of distributing their intellectual property without permission.
During a hearing that Hatch convened Tuesday on the "national security risks" of P2P networks, he asked a witness, "Can you destroy their set in their home?" referring to a home PC.
Randy Saaf of MediaDefender, a secretive Los Angeles company that works with the recording industry to disrupt P2P networks, replied by saying "nobody" is interested in that approach.
"I am," Hatch said. "I'm interested in doing that. That may be the only way you can teach someone about copyright...That would be the ultimate way of making sure" no more copyright is infringed.
Hatch suggested that Congress would have to amend laws restricting computer intrusions. "If it's the only way you can do it," Hatch said, "then I'm all for destroying their machines...but you'd have to pass legislation permitting that, it seems to me, before someone could really do that with any degree of assurance that they're doing something that might be proper."
Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department prosecutor who is an associate professor at George Washington University law school, says Hatch's idea "would not only be a bad idea, but an extremely bad idea. The cure would be worse than the disease."
If Hatch's proposal were to be written into law, Kerr said, it would have to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal computer crime statute. "It would give an exception to copyright owners who are taking reasonable steps to disable acts of copyright infringement," Kerr said. "The trick is that all of these (disruption or disabling) offenses are crimes under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."
In the past, Hatch has chosen sides carefully in copyright tussles. He commended the Justice Department for arresting Dmitri Sklyarov, a Russian programmer charged with criminal violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and he claimed in 1999 that the controversial law "laid the cornerstone for a rich and more vibrant Internet." But a year later, Hatch split with the Clinton administration when it sided with the record labels against Napster, and a former top Hatch aide, Manus Cooney, left to become Napster's chief lobbyist.
On Wednesday, Hatch came under attack for allegedly being a copyright pirate himself. His hatch.senate.gov Web site's menus use JavaScript code created by the U.K. company Milonic Solutions. Milonic Solutions charges between $35 and $900 for the right to obtain a license number for its JavaScript menu, but Hatch's site does not include a license number. Instead, this comment appears in the site's HTML code: "i am the license for the menu (duh)."
Hatch's proposal for legislation left public interest groups puzzled and alarmed. Mike Godwin, an attorney at Public Knowledge, said, "Much as I respect Sen. Hatch, he is virtually alone in believing that the destruction of computers could even be a last-ditch remedy for copyright infringement."
"I wish he hadn't said that," Godwin said. "And over time I suspect he'll wish he hadn't said that either."
Hatch is a conservative Mormon and former church bishop who was a presidential candidate in 2000 and is an amateur songwriter.
A Hatch representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1018845.html
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Bringing Down The House
In CMJ’s continuing quest to solve the music industry’s financial woes, we have assembled an all-star cast to address the downloading issue.
Why don’t people see downloading music as stealing?
RAMIREZ: I think it’s hard to argue that, by now, there are people out there who don’t see downloading music as stealing.Whether or not people agree with the argument that downloading is stealing, I think most people know that, if they do it, that they’re doing something wrong.
KATZ: I’m not sure the premise of the question is correct. I think most folks are honest and don’t necessarily realize all the ramifications to the artist community.
KENNA: I think that everyone knows it’s stealing, but who’s going to stop them at this point? Not me. It’s Lord Of The Flies... we’re all basically evil.
How much would consumers be willing to pay for downloads?
LEE: I suppose it depends on variables ranging from how efficient it is to download to the quality of the song.
KENNA: Why pay? It’s free! I think Apple has it right. Make it seem cheap even if 12 downloads equals the cost of the CD anyway.
FRATT: It looks like 99 cents. It’s ironic — you can buy [albums] online for less, considering albums list at $19 with 10 to 15 tracks on average. You can bet label heads and their accountants were salivating just a few years ago thinking they could sell downloads for $1.50 to $2.50 per song. They also thought they would do it themselves and make all the money, but they’re learning the hard way now.
Is it possible to stop file-sharing?
KATZ: Piracy in one form or another has always been around. Hopefully, a higher percentage of people who obtain music online will migrate to services where the artists and others who work with them get paid.
LEE: I don’t think so.We may see it transformed as technology moves, but the idea itself is an ancient one.
RAMIREZ: No. As long as the industry focuses on putting all their work into the single, then the need for file-sharing will never stop. But if you work on making a full album, of which the music, format and artwork all work together to form the greater piece of art, it then becomes something that you can’t download.
FRATT: Is it possible to stop people from masturbating? They do it by themselves, just like file-sharing. You’ll never be able to stop one-to-one P2P. Nor should you. Turn a friend on to some music. That seems like a good thing.
Are enhanced features (such as DVDs, music videos, digital passcodes to secret Web sites, etc.) the key to bringing people back into record stores?
WALTERS: No. What keeps people coming to record stores is the support for their favorite artists and the joy of owning the “full” record. These are things that cannot be recreated digitally unless there are enhanced functions on that end. This still matters to some people.
RAMIREZ: More often than not, enhanced features are more of a burden then a selling point. I absolutely hate double CDs. I hate putting a CD in my computer and having to wade through some half-assed program to get to the music.
KENNA: Content is king. I don’t know if it brings people back to the stores, but it keeps the people with the artists. With songs so easily downloaded, it is imperative that artists pay attention to fans by making more and giving more.
FRATT: They certainly help. A DVD is valuable to consumers. But this won’t work for an unknown artist — only for established artists. However, right now, price is still the most important feature, because consumers are getting these “added-values” for $10 due to predatory pricing from the mass merchants. So, you can’t really say the added values eclipse or negate the high list price when the damn thing is still priced at $10.
How much does record pricing factor into people’s decision to download an album online?
LEE: I think a great deal. One major difference between downloading an album and buying an album is the experience of the CD as an entire artistic project. Artists who object to downloading albums say that it eviscerates it in that sense. People then, are downloading albums either because they don’t care to see the entire artistic project, or because they can’t afford it. So if record prices were lowered, the incentive to buy it in its entirety may be increased.
RAMIREZ: I don’t think that high record prices were the cause of the dramatic increase of downloading in 1999. Instead, I think that people were amazed by the fact that they could download that one song that they had been hearing on the radio or on MTV and not have to buy a whole album to get it.
KENNA: Everyone knows that the President’s focus on crap geo- political agendas is for the sake of personal financial gain. It’s no wonder our economy is in such a shambles, and people are without discretionary funds to spend on music. Of course they will download it. Prices affect everything.
FRATT: It plays a big role with younger consumers, especially since most think the non-radio tracks suck, when in some cases they just don’t have the attention span to absorb a whole album. It plays less of a role with older consumers who cannot get away with downloading for hours at work or don’t have the time at home. But Norah Jones and John Mayer owe much of their success to below $10 list prices. So pricing is important, especially with developing artists.
http://www.cmj.com/articles/display_...e.php?id=39347
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Ween Developing Peer-To-Peer Software
Jonathan Cohen
Ween is developing a "handy-dandy" computer software application dubbed "WeenAmp" that will allow fans one-click access to the band's online radio station, official Web site, message board and chat rooms, and its own peer- to-peer service for trading live concerts. The group hopes to make the software available on copies of its upcoming Sanctuary album, "Quebec" or its Web site. "Quebec" will now arrive Aug. 5, two weeks later than its original July 22 date.
"It is great timing for such an application," the band says on its site. "With our current post-Elektra free agent status, we now have ownership and control of our music again. Just as an example -- say we were to record a [Christmas] song, we could have it in your hands immediately if you're running this application. The taping community [has] always done a great job in circulating shows and this should really pull everyone into one central location to trade good sounding shows and other MP3s."
The band says "WeenAmp" will allow users to view cybercasts of concerts from Ween's upcoming tour, including one "all-request" show where fans can vote for songs in advance. The trek begins July 24 in Pittsburgh and will likely encompass four separate legs of three-to-four weeks in North America, followed by international shows. Dates are expected to be announced shortly.
"Quebec" is Ween's first studio album since 2000's "White Pepper," which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1915809
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Senate Committee To Address ISP Subpoenas
Debate rages over copyright violaters
Grant Gross
The chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has promised to hold hearings on a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that allows copyright holders to subpoena the names of alleged copyright violators from Internet service providers without even having to talk to a judge.
Senator John McCain, committee chairman and an Arizona Republican, promised hearings on the issue Thursday after Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, withdrew an amendment related to the DMCA's subpoena provision, tacked onto a bill reauthorizing the powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Brownback's amendment would have required such subpoenas to be issued only when the copyright holder is engaged in a pending civil lawsuit or other court action. Right now, the DMCA allows copyright owners to subpoena personal information of suspected copyright violators through an order issued by a court clerk.
Earlier this month, Verizon Internet Services was forced by a court to turn over the names of four suspected music downloaders to the Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA). In April, after Verizon challenged the DMCA's subpoena in court, a U.S. District Court judge upheld the legality of the administrative subpoenas, which are issued by the clerk of a court at the request of a copyright holder.
The RIAA has argued that these administrative subpoenas are a good tool in helping it combat the continuing problem of unauthorized music downloads through peer-to-peer services. Critics, including Verizon, said the DMCA makes it too easy for anyone claiming to be a copyright holder to claim a suspected violator and get the name, address and phone number of an ISP subscriber. The DMCA provision could be misused by stalkers or kidnappers to track down the names and addresses of victims, Verizon has argued.
Brownback, in the Senate Commerce Committee session, said no judicial checks and balances exist in the current law. "This is not about piracy, this is about privacy," Brownback said. "I support the protection of copyright, but this is a big privacy issue."
Brownback withdrew his amendment, saying senators may need to study the issue more. But he urged McCain to hold hearings on the DMCA subpoena process.
"Nothing in this quasi-subpoena process prevents someone other than digital media owners -- you could be a stalker, you could be a telemarketer or a spammer -- from using this quasi-subpoena process to (gain information) on an Internet subscriber, including our children," Brownback said. "I have no interest in us shielding those who have committed piracy. My concern ... is the clear threat of unintended consequences."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...Nispsub_1.html
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Fans Have The Muscle To Shape The Movie
Scott Bowles
When Ang Lee, director of The Hulk, hinted last year that the title character might not wear his trademark purple pants — or any pants at all, for that matter — comic book devotees broke into a Bruce Banner-like rage on the Internet.
Movie fans are flexing their muscle on the Web to influence how movies like The Hulk will look.
They filled up fan Web sites and warned Lee and Marvel studios chief Avi Arad not to stray from TheHulk's illustrated origins. They threatened to bad-mouth and boycott the film, which opens nationwide today.
In the final version, the monster does indeed sport purple trousers. He's in the buff briefly, thanks to some menacing dogs. And although executives stop short of crediting Web surfers with altering the final product — the movie breaks from the comic book to alter the Hulk's power source — they concede that film fans are exerting pressure moviemakers have never seen before. (Related link: Chat with comics2film.com founder Rob Worley, read transcript.)
"I used to hate the Internet," Arad says. "I thought it was just a place where people stole our products. But I see how influential these fans can be when they build a consensus, which is what we seek. I now consider them filmmaking partners."
Internet sites have been a tool for movie marketing for the past half-decade. But special-interest sites such as SuperHeroHype.com and DarkHorizons.com are giving a powerful voice to tech-savvy fans of fantasy, horror and comic-based films. Online fanatics have helped propel tiny films to greatness, such as The Blair Witch Project, and stopped franchises in their tracks, including Batman.
A handful of Web editors wield cachet in Hollywood with Internet sites that boast followings as rabid as those for the movies they honor — or attack. Studios that once battled to shut down fan Web sites now woo those who created them, flying them to red-carpet premieres and offering exclusive promotional material once reserved for the mainstream press.
When New Line Cinema learned that Erica Challis was snapping pictures from the set of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in New Zealand for tiny J.R.R. Tolkien tribute site TheOneRing.net, it cracked down. "They sent a bailiff to my home and served me with a trespassing notice," she says.
But as the site grew to as many as 20 million visits a month, the studio reversed course and offered her set visits in the hopes of some positive buzz.
Now she knows stars Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen. "I initially thought (the site) would just be a cool thing to do," says Challis, 38. "We had no idea how big this would become."
Analysts say a handful of self-professed film geeks not only influence how well a movie does; some also affect the way the films are made. Liv Tyler's character was cut from a scene in the second Lord of the Rings after thousands of online fans protested the original script, which had her character appearing in a battle that she was not part of in the books.
And when Arad decided to give last year's Spider-Man organic web shooters instead of the man-made devices his alter-ego, Peter Parker, used in the comic book, he had to plead his case to the Internet community to stop a revolt.
"We went to the Web sites and explained," he says. "But it worked. Comic fans are open-minded if you listen to them and treat the characters they love with respect."
Arad laughs. "Who would have thought studio executives would ever have to do that?"
The relationship with the Internet elite still has its kinks. Last week, a bootleg version of The Hulk hit a few obscure Web sites to savage reviews before the sites were shut down. Universal Pictures, which distributes The Hulk, was quick to condemn the piracy but careful not to alienate audiences. The studio spent more time emphasizing that thebootleg was a rough, unedited version than it did threatening to prosecute.
The most influential movie sites receive more than 5 million visitors a month and feature chat rooms, message boards and often early peeks at movies still in production. Arad says he is using fan sites to gauge the interest in two upcoming comic films: Hellboy, starring Ron Perlman and due May 28, 2004, and The Punisher, scheduled for release next year.
"The sites are great for casting help," Arad says. "These are people who grew up with their heroes in mind. You won't ever get everyone to agree on one actor, but they can tell you if you're going in the right direction."
The superfans have "changed the way we do business," says Evan Astrowsky, producer of Cabin Fever, a teen horror film that caught the attention of Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews.com. He gave it a rave review. By the time Fever hit the Toronto Film Festival last year, it was considered a hot ticket and was purchased for $16.5 million by Lions Gate Films. It's due on more than 2,000 screens Sept. 12.
"It's hard to underestimate the influence these guys on the Net are having," Astrowsky says. The sites "may be relatively new, but they're creating real players in the movie business."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/...s-cover_x.htm#
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Free's Better Than 99 A Song At UT
Students using fast campus connections resist efforts to deter file-sharing of music
Erik Rodriguez
For the latest in jazz, hip-hop and independent music, Joe Buglewicz doesn't have to go any farther than his keyboard.
Armed with a lightning fast Internet connection in his University of Texas dorm and a file- sharing program called Soulseek, Buglewicz can type in the names of the songs he wants, mostly from obscure or lesser-known bands. His PC will connect to another computer in cyberspace and download the songs in seconds.
"With the bands I'm looking for, the best thing for them is getting the music out," Buglewicz, 18, said last week.
Across the country, millions of people, mostly college students, use programs such as Soulseek, Morpheus and Kazaa to download digital copies of copyrighted songs, movies and television shows. That software replaced Napster, the revolutionary file- sharing program that drew more than 50 million users before lawsuits led to its demise in 2001.
Now, opponents of file-sharing are pointing to new pay services such as Apple Computer Corp.'s iTunes Music Store, which allows music lovers to legally download songs for 99 cents each, to help discourage illegal file-sharing on university campuses.
Federal lawmakers also are applying pressure to university administrators to crack down on digital music pirates.
Students don't seem to be fazed by threats of litigation, and few think their peers will embrace the new Apple service, at least for now.
"As opposed to what they're doing now?" asked Cody Yocom, 21, a government student. "I don't think they'll use it."
UT administrators say they can't prove that students are abusing their college-provided Internet access. Despite efforts to discourage illegal file-sharing, the number of copyright complaints regarding music, movies, television shows and pirated software has climbed from 76 complaints from copyright holders in 2002 to 110 from January through May of this year.
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/...7b1b300fa.html
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Cher Farewell Grosses Confound Biz
Deborah Wilker
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - During one of the more playful moments in Cher's long-running farewell concert tour, the redoubtable Oscar winner cracks a ringmaster's whip and issues a stern warning to would-be successors "J. Lo, Britney and Christina," challenging them to "top this, you bitches."
Turns out she needn't have given those ladies a second thought.
While formerly hot sellers like Mariah Carey have scaled down this summer because of poor sales, and others such as Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake aren't doing quite the hoped-for business, promoters continue to wring far more out of Cher's farewell than they -- or she -- ever could have imagined.
After more than 140 shows, Cher's Living Proof Farewell Tour has grossed $130 million and enters its second summer as one of the season's strongest draws; her new greatest-hits CD, "The Very Best of Cher," just hit 1 million in sales and spent two improbable months in Billboard's Top 10; on July 6, NBC will rebroadcast the concert special that was a ratings-grabber in April; ABC's "Prime Time Live" just refreshed a 2002 interview for the third time with new footage; there's a concert DVD due in August; and Warner Strategic Marketing is also readying a long-awaited music video package on DVD for Oct. 28.
"Hundred-million-dollar tours don't come along every day," says Ray Waddell, a senior writer at Billboard who tracks the touring industry. "Last year, she was the second-highest-grossing tour in the world, behind Paul McCartney." As for the hot album, Waddell says, "Sometimes the public just rediscovers (the music). She's riding that wave right now."
The strong box office is clearly due in part to some fans attending more than once, the result of modestly priced tickets ranging from $32-$75 in the majority of markets. (Only in a few big cities do tickets exceed $75.) While some icons routinely charge prices of $200 and up, Cher and others like Bruce Springsteen -- also capped at about $75 -- are relative bargains.
While the star and her handlers may be happily startled by this latest peak, there's at least one industry observer who isn't.
"You can never be entirely certain about how the public's going to react," says veteran chart-watcher Geoff Mayfield of Billboard. "It also speaks to who's buying records. It's an older audience that has not been as diluted by peer-to-peer file-sharing and CD burning. You're talking about a consumer who doesn't mind going out and buying a CD. That Cher would be successful with a hits package that gets different corners of a career represented in one house, that's not a shocker."
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=2955756
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1.5Mbit ADSL drops below $120
Dan Warne
Competition is becoming savage in the broadband market, with price leading ISP Netspace releasing a 1.5Mbit ADSL plan with 8GB of data for the jaw-dropping price of $119.
A 'flat rate' version of the plan is available for the same price, allowing customers to continue using their connection at 56Kbit speeds, even if they have reached their 8GB limit.
The aggressive move by Netspace is likely to trigger a price war at the high end of the ADSL market. Other ISPs are already coming close to Netspace's leading price, with plans ranging from 3GB to 10GB of data from $125/mth upwards.
Netspace Managing Director Stuart Marburg told Whirlpool the plan was profitable, but did not include a 'lot of fat', due to Telstra's high pricing for the physical 1.5Mbit connection.
"What we are really trying to do with this plan is provide options for people who want a fast link, but don't necessarily need huge amounts of data -- although 8GB is quite enough for a lot of people," he said.
Netspace has become popular with the file sharing community due to its free peer- to-peer data.
However it only provides one email address with its broadband services. Mr Marburg said this was under active review at Netspace, but that their team had been focusing on getting the new plan out the door first.
The new Netspace plan may be of interest to customers wanting to migrate off cable, especially Optus users who finally lost NetStats in the last 3 months. The new plan offers the closest speeds possible to cable and 5GB more than Optus or Telstra offer.
Internode also recently boosted value at the low end of the market, bumping up its sub $50 plan to match Netspace's 1GB of included data. It also released a 2GB plan for $59.95, providing a welcome intermediary step between its low end plan and its 4.5GB plan. Netspace offers a similarly priced 2GB plan, but with a bonus 2GB of data to be used in off peak times.
http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1144
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Orrin Hatch Supports Terrorism
Dana Blankenhorn
What do you call someone who advocates the destruction of the property your livelihood depends on to fight a crime you may not consider a crime, and may not in fact be guilty of?
I call him a terrorist, too.
What do you call someone who says your life, liberty, and happiness should be determined, not through a system of laws, but arbitrarily, through raw power?
I call him an anarchist, too.
Now, what if this someone is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/20030601.shtml#40320
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Macrovision Splits Into Two Units
Lisa M. Bowman
Digital rights management company Macrovision is splitting into two business units that will focus on either entertainment or software- protection products.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company on Tuesday said the Entertainment Technologies Group will include video and music technology and the part of its consumer software division that handles its SafeDisc protection technology. The company's Software Technologies Group will comprise its enterprise software division and SafeCast protection technology.
Macrovision, which makes copy-protection software, said it decided to reorganize because entertainment and software companies have different protection needs.
"With this reorganization, our heightened focus and seasoned management team can accelerate our ability to deliver seamless, robust copy protection," company CEO Bill Krepick said in a statement.
Macrovision Chief Technology Officer Steven Weinstein will serve as general manager of the Entertainment Technologies Group. Dan Stickel, who led the enterprise software division, will serve as general manager of the Software Technologies Group.
Macrovision says its anticopying protection has been applied to more than 100 million CDs. In April, the company struck a licensing deal with Microsoft.
Macrovision's software also has come under fire. In May, Intuit announced that it would discontinue using Macrovision's product-activation technology, which locks software to a specific PC, because of customer complaints.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1018215.html
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Contract Trumps Copyright—Again
Donna Wentworth
Disappointing, but important to note: the Supreme Court recently denied the petition for cert in Bowers v. Baystate. Via the invaluable digital-copyright list, the Tech Law Journal:
6/16. The Supreme Court denied certiorari, without opinion, in Baystate v. Bowers, a patent, copyright and contract case involving CAD software....This denial lets stand the January 29, 2003, revised opinion of the US Court of Appeals (FedCir) which addressed federal preemption, shrink wrap contracts, and reverse engineering. Basically, a shrinkwrap contract barred reverse engineering of a software program. A divided Appeals Court held that the Copyright Act does not preempt state contract law that allows parties to impose a ban on reverse engineering.
http://www.copyfight.org/20030601.shtml#40574
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Music Industry Down So Long It's Singin' the Blues
Merissa Marr
This year's top-selling album from bullet-ridden rapper 50 Cent could easily be the motto for the struggling music industry -- "Get Rich or Die Tryin."'
Despite scoring big time with the rap hit, the world's biggest music company Universal Music signaled this week that the industry is limping more visibly than many expected, putting added pressure on labels to cut costs and do deals to survive.
The industry gloom is bad timing for the music giant which is being considered for sale as part of an auction of parent Vivendi Universal's U.S. entertainment assets.
It also does not bode well for smaller companies such as Warner Music and BMG. Sources close Rto the companies said the two were pushing on with talks to merge their recorded music arms and Warner Music is also seeking to wrap up a deal to sell its CD/DVD manufacturing unit in the next month or two.
The industry has seen three years of decline, ravaged by a lack of hits, fans downloading music for free and an obsolete business model that relies on rolling the dice for mega hits.
Universal Music, also home to U2 and rapper Eminem, estimates industry sales sank 12 percent in the first quarter, dashing hopes for a less steep decline in sales this year.
Admittedly, the release of new albums was thin in the quarter -- normally a weak period after a busy Christmas, making it an unreliable indicator of the rest of the year.
All the same, it has not been a good start and Universal's figures suggest the industry could top the five percent decline in sales predicted by industry body the IFPI in April.
"I would think a fall of about eight percent this year was more likely. This is a market in historical decline and the decline could accelerate this year," said Phil Hardy from Music & Copyright which publishes market share data.
First-quarter figures from individual countries indicate the world's biggest market, the United States, declined just over eight percent, British sales slid 13 percent, Japan fell 12 percent and Germany is expected to have topped them all.
The big five -- Universal, Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music and BMG -- have been hit particularly hard and almost all of them have been slashing costs and exploring deals to survive.
Spooked into action, the smallest -- EMI, Warner and BMG -- have been in on-off talks, the most serious so far being a Warner/BMG combine, sources close to the companies say.
"The talks are on. Whether the two sides will be able to see eye to eye on valuation is another thing," said one source.
But sources say EMI has also held talks with Warner and BMG. While industry insiders say they expect some sort of deal this year, they say it's hard to predict who will pull it off.
"There clearly needs to be more mergers between these companies, primarily because it provides the opportunity to streamline their operations and focus on their spending on what matters most, which is music and the promotion of music," said Michael J. Wolf, managing partner of McKinsey's media practice.
In the meantime, jobs, acts and labels are being cut to limit losses. British-based EMI, home to the Rolling Stones and Norah Jones, managed a profit last year despite losing market share -- only after slashing thousands of jobs and acts.
"This year doesn't look like a cracking year and we are sure to see more attempts to cut costs," said one industry executive.
(additional reporting by Reshma Kapadia in New York)
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2956496
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Western Europe
Sweden's Get Tough Copyright EUCD Proposal
Now once the EUCD legislation is starting to getimplemented in various different European Union countries, people are beginning to wake up and oppose the changes. Unfortunately this is too late now. The EUCD, European Union Copyright Directive was approved by the EU parliament already in 2001 without virtually anyone noticing it.
EUCD simply states that all European Union member countries (and those joining to EU next year) need to implement the directive into their national laws. The original deadline for doing so was in December, 2002 but as always, all countries missed the deadline. Now, the EUCD legislation is active in handful of EU member countries -- and once again, most of those living in these countries don't even know about it. Some of the countries that have -- as far as we know -- implemented the legislation already are Germany and Denmark.
So, what EUCD requires? It very clearly states that all tools and software that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms (whether built by programming or by mechanical means) will be banned within the European Union. The directive doesn't specifically make it illegal to use such tools, but makes it illegal to distribute, sell and advertise such tools. Prime example of such tools are DVD rippers. So, if a site is located within the European Union, it can't distribute DVD rippers (if its national country has already implemented the EUCD).
As a direct result of Germany's EUCD legislation, the most popular DVD ripping pack for Linux, dvd::rip had to be modified so that it doesn't include any parts that allow circumventing the CSS copy protection.
Now Sweden has announced its proposal for implementing the EUCD into its own legislation. Sweden has obviously decided to take things a bit further than EUCD would require. In addition to banning distribution of copy protection circumvention tools, Sweden's proposal makes it also illegal to download copyrighted material from P2P networks (traditionally within the EU, downloading illegal material is perfectly legal, but distributing it -- such as sharing the material via P2P networks -- is illegal) and also adds a levy to blank digital media to compensate copyright owners for lost revenue (such levy has existed years in various countries, such as Finland and Canada).
The most dramatic thing is probably the proposed rate for the media levy -- the levy (or stealth tax or whatever you want to call it) would add a decent SEK31 (appx. €3.4 or $4.0) to each blank DVD-RW or DVD+RW disc despite its existing retail price. The proposed levy for recordable discs (whether a CD-R or DVD-R or other digital medium) is SEK0.0025 per megabyte and SEK0.007 for re-recordable discs (such as DVD-RW, CD-RW or DVD+RW).
If the proposed law passes in Sweden's parliament, it will be implemented as a law by end of the year.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4190.cfm
Speedy Cable Modem In Upc Broadband Application Trials
Joe Figueiredo
Dutch cable company UPC is testing the latest high-speed cable-modem standard, Euro-DOCSIS 2.0, which, according to UPC, can reach a theoretical speed of 10 Mbps, permitting a maximum of six telephone lines and an internet connection with four-times the present cable-speed.
Established as an international standard last year, Euro-DOCSIS 2.0 not only makes cable telephony easier but its increased capacity makes it ideal for web surfing and other innovative broadband applications.
Equally important, the modem trial also demonstrates that the ‘old’ cable infrastructure—a combination of glass- fibre and coaxial—is ready for the future.
The pilot is being conducted in a ‘model’ home (where other domestic technological innovations, like wireless LAN and digital television, are being tested) in the new urban development of Amsterdam Ijburg, and will run until November.
Subscribers to UPC’s Chello internet service, however, will not have access to these high-speed modems as yet. UPC is waiting for modem suppliers to ramp up production before it announces a delivery date.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16784
Irish Schools To Get Broadband Connections
Brian Lavery
The Irish government communications minister, Dermot Ahern, said yesterday that he would provide broadband Internet connections for every school, library and community center in Ireland. Speaking after meeting Estonian officials in Tallinn, Estonia, Mr. Ahern said the connections should not cost more than 30 million euros ($35.4 million), and could be financed by a new tax on telecommunications companies. Despite state efforts to promote the Internet, only 38 percent of the Irish population use the Internet. Brian Lavery (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...y/19TBRF1.html
Yahoo and BT team up to offer bundled broadband
Companies attempt to boost UK take-up
Scarlet Pruitt
British Telecommunications PLC (BT) is teaming with Yahoo Inc. to offer a joint Internet and broadband service to customers in the U.K. in an effort to drum up increased DSL (digital subscriber line) adoption.
The companies said that they plan to roll out a bundled BT Yahoo Broadband service beginning in September, featuring a customized browser, personalized homepage and a variety of other new broadband applications that have yet to be announced.
The partners did say, however, that they are developing new services that will make use of Yahoo's Messenger instant messaging (IM) application, and would provide features such as bolstered e-mail services and streaming news and entertainment.
The offering comes as BT looks to further the rollout of broadband in the U.K. Separately Monday it said it hopes to amass 5 million broadband customers by 2006, translating into £1 billion (US$1.7 billion) of revenue annually, and reaffirmed its financial targets for the coming quarters. BT currently boasts about 1 million wholesale broadband users.
"As broadband moves to the mass market, it needs to offer greater services, content and applications," said BT spokesman Tony Henderson. "This offering with Yahoo lifts the whole broadband experience."
The new service will be priced the same as BT's Openworld broadband offering at £29.99 a month, Henderson said, and Openworld customers will be given the ability to migrate to the joint service in coming months.
The companies will also offer a narrowband version of the bundled service.
Henderson declined to provide further details about the new services and applications that will be offered, saying only that the companies will be announcing them shortly. BT and Yahoo have scheduled a press conference for later Monday to discuss the joint initiative.
http://www.techworld.com/news/index....ews&newsid=170
Gargantuan Campus Hotspot The 'Biggest In Europe'
David Minto
A university in the Netherlands has launched a gargantuan hotspot which is claimed to be the biggest Europe
Built in conjunction with IBM and Cisco Systems, the University of Twente hotspot extends over the entire 346 acres of the campus, supporting 6,000 students and 2,500 staff members, and employing 650 Cisco Aironet 12000 series access points.
Most of the network uses 802.11b, but parts already run on the faster, newer 802.11a standard. Built up over a period of two years, the Wireless Campus project has also employed WAP and GPRS, and in the future plans to roll out UMTS.
University representative Wiebe van der Veen told ZDNet UK that so far the project had been largely trouble free: "Students and staff are quick adopters of these nice facilities," van der Veen said. "The flexible way of teaching that this allows also helps with new students who have experienced new ways of (learning) at school. They're not used to classical ways of knowledge transfer anymore."
According to ZDNet UK, the University of Twente is one of the heaviest users of the internet in the Netherlands. It also hosts a hacking-conference-cum-festival called Hackers at Large.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16776
Industry Group Urges Government To Think Twice On Open Source
Matthew Broersma
A UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government to show restraint in its use of open-source software, particularly software covered by the General Public License.
Intellect, which was formed from the merger of the Computer Services and Software Association and the Federation of the Electronics Industry last year, and represents about 1,000 UK IT companies, said that the requirement of open-source licences for software funded by the government could have a negative impact on competition for contracts, the quality of the resulting software and even the confidentiality of government departments.
In particular, Intellect recommended that the government drop the GNU General Public License (GPL), the licence upon which the GNU/Linux operating system is based, from its list of acceptable default licences for government-funded software, and steer clear of the GPL generally.
The comments appeared in a response paper published last month, but more widely publicised last week. Intellect was taking part in a consultation by the Office of the E-Envoy and the Department of Trade and Industry on the use of open-source software, which has proposed requiring open-source licences for publicly-funded software development.
The OEE and the DTI are considering establishing open-source licence terms as the default for government-funded software, which would apply when no other terms were specified, in order to ensure that publicly-funded software projects can be utilised and built upon as freely as possible.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136285,00.html
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Mary Bono Forms Caucus On Music Piracy And Copyrights
AP
Rep. Mary Bono, who is forming a new congressional caucus on music piracy and copyrights, sought Monday to
defuse speculation over whether she wants to run the music industry's lobbying organization in Washington, saying she isn't actively seeking the job.
Bono, R-Calif., said she hasn't considered whether she would accept a prospective offer to replace the departing chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America but stopped short of denying she was interested.
Her spokeswoman, Cindy Hartley, earlier had described the position as Bono's ``ideal job'' but said her boss wasn't actively pursuing the position and plans to run for re-election.
``I am not actively seeking that job,'' Bono said. ``I have not talked to them, they have not talked to me. I haven't put myself through the mental gymnastics about whether I would or wouldn't take that job. I have my ideal job. I'm very happy where I am.''
Political watchdog groups in Washington questioned the idea of a member of Congress being a possible job candidate for the music industry's lobby and a founding member of a caucus to focus on some of the industry's most important policy concerns.
``It certainly raises eyebrows,'' said Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. ``Angering the RIAA is certainly not going to advance her job prospects, so one must wonder whether her views on this issue are motivated more by personal beliefs or her future career.''
The RIAA represents major U.S. music labels and has aggressively battled the threat facing its artists from Internet pirates offering songs free for downloading using file-sharing software. Its current chief executive, Hilary Rosen, is leaving at month's end after serving as chief executive since 1998.
Bono is among four founding members of a new caucus on intellectual property rights being announced Tuesday on Capitol Hill. She said Monday night she hasn't seriously considered whether she wants the RIAA job.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/6106124.htm
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'Potter' Author Sues Paper Over Leak
NEW YORK (AP) -- The author of the Harry Potter book series has slapped the Daily News with a $100 million lawsuit after the newspaper published tidbits about the fifth novel four days before its official release.
The News said it bought a copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" from a health food store that had mistakenly put the book out for sale Wednesday despite being embargoed until Saturday.
The suit, prepared by lawyers for author J.K. Rowling and U.S. publisher Scholastic Inc., claims the newspaper damaged Rowling's intellectual property rights and harmed Scholastic's $3 million worldwide marketing campaign.
The book -- the fifth installment of the adventures of the boy wizard -- has been under extraordinary security ahead of the release. In a statement, Scholastic said it hoped "this unfortunate situation will not spoil the surprise for millions of children around the country who have been eagerly awaiting the book."
Scholastic provided a copy of the suit to The Associated Press and said it had been filed late Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. There was no way to verify the claim Wednesday evening.
"We will vigorously defend any action and are confident we did nothing wrong journalistically or legally," Daily News spokesman Ken Frydman said.
The News story contained what it called a "brief glimpse into the 870 action-packed pages" of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." An accompanying graphic displayed, with legible text, two of the novel's pages.
The News said the health store owner received a shipment of four books from a wholesaler and decided to put them in the window. The owner told the paper he didn't know he was supposed to wait until Saturday. The paper withheld the name of the store and its owner.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamBooks/jun18_potter-ap.html
Top 10 D/Ls - Singles
BigChampagne
LOTR Book Settlement
After multiple revisions, a chronology of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved three-volume fantasy The Lord of the Rings by a one-man publishing house here has finally passed muster with the English author's estate.
The lawsuit against Michael W. Perry and his Inkling Press, filed in 2002 by Christopher Tolkien for the Tolkien Trust, was dismissed in January by U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein.
No motion to reopen the case was filed within the 120-day deadline she set for settlement negotiations.
"Everything is cleared up," Perry said Wednesday. "The final settlement is signed."
Lance Koonce, the New York attorney representing the estate, declined comment, citing a nondisclosure clause in the settlement.
In a joint statement, the two sides said that "as Mr. Perry has substantially changed the book, the estate has withdrawn its objection to publication of the book, but does not approve or in any way endorse the book as published."
Perry's first effort was titled The Lord of the Rings Diary: A Chronology of J.R.R. Tolkien's Best-selling Epic.
The latest version is titled Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings.
Lawyer Mel Simburg said he helped Perry restructure the book "so that it more closely fit what he was trying to do, which was to create a chronology of fictional events."
Perry has all along characterized his book as a guide to ease readers through the Tolkien trilogy's layers of time and space and myriad characters.
The wondrously complicated Ring trilogy is not written in chronological order, Simburg noted.
"One goal of Perry's was to enable serious readers and fans of Lord of the Rings to be able to tell what was happening at different places in the same time period," Simburg said.
"If the Ring were chronological to begin with," he noted, Perry would have had no legal grounds to fight for his undertaking.
The case appears to affirm that such a chronological reference -- when it includes substantial analysis and commentary -- is fair use, Simburg said. "It leaves open the question if that kind of chronological reference would be fair use without the analysis and commentary."
Perry's publishing operation earns about $500 in a good month. He said he's been approached by two larger publishers about the Tolkien book.
Last year, estate representative Wendy Strothman in Oxford, England, characterized his initial effort as a retelling of the tale and said people interested in the book "should read the original." In the initial exchanges, the estate lawyers' cited "at least $750,000" in potential damages.
Perry's previous works include Stories for Girls, which transforms dense 19th century translations of Hans Christian Andersen's tales into modern English. They've been sold through several publishing channels, including Amazon.com.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamLordOfTheRing...lement-ap.html
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What an ego.
Spat Over Spike TV Costing Viacom Millions
Viacom Inc. said it will lose $16.8 million in the first week after filmmaker Spike Lee's so-far successful bid to keep its TNN cable network from being renamed Spike TV.
Lee, who claimed the name change was a deliberate attempt to hijack his image and prestige, won a preliminary injunction in state Supreme Court last week barring TNN from calling itself Spike TV starting Monday. Lawyers for Viacom, the media giant that owns the CBS network, appealed.
In papers filed at the Appellate Division, Viacom says it stopped displaying the Spike TV logo on TV screens at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when the name change was to occur, because of the lower-court ruling by Justice Walter Tolub.
This created "confusion, expense and disruption" for cable operators and is likely to cause TNN "untold loss of advertising revenue likely to be in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars."
"We have already obtained commitments from advertisers for 2003 and 2004 in excess of $100 million -- specifically predicated on use of the Spike TV name," court papers say. "Should we be unable to use the name, the commitments would be in severe jeopardy."
Clara Kim, TNN's vice-president for business and legal affairs, said in court papers the $500,000 bond the court ordered Lee to post to pay Viacom's expenses in case the company wins "was grossly inadequate." Kim said Tuesday the network's "estimated losses for the first week of the injunction alone are in excess of $16.8 million."
Viacom, which bought TNN in 2000, also owns the Showtime movie channel, MTV, VH1, UPN and book publisher Simon & Schuster. It announced in April that it would change TNN's name to Spike TV to try to attract more men to an audience that's already about two-thirds male.
The channel, which changed its name two years ago from The Nashville Network to The National Network, shows reruns of The A- Team, Baywatch and Miami Vice and sports entertainment such as professional wrestling, American Gladiators, Car and Driver Television and Trucks.
TNN also carries an animated series featuring Pamela Anderson as the voice of Stan Lee's Stripperella, an undercover agent who's also a stripper.
Spike Lee complained that TNN's name change would associate him with the "demeaning, vapid and quasi-pornographic content of Spike TV."
Viacom's lawyers say Spike is a common name that doesn't necessarily prompt thoughts of the 46-year-old film director. They said he's known as Spike Lee, not simply Spike. They also noted that "spike" is a common and frequently used word with many meanings.
Lee, whose given name is Shelton Jackson Lee, has been nominated twice for Academy Awards, for 4 Little Girls and Do the Right Thing. His other films include Malcolm X, Summer of Sam and Jungle Fever.
http://www.canoe.ca/Television/jun18_spike-ap.html
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Among Film's Ghosts, Its Future
Eric a. Taub
HOLLYWOOD -- MISGUIDED tourists regularly troll the seedy sections of Hollywood Boulevard for bits of film industry lore, unaware that the stars and studios left decades ago. But hidden among the homeless and the sex shops is a structure that is as much a part of Hollywood's future as its past.
Behind cast-iron gates lies the Hollywood Pacific Theater, an Italianate palace originally built (but finished too late) for the 1927 premiere of "The Jazz Singer," the first sound film with some spoken dialogue. It has been closed for years, but recently reopened as a test bed for the motion picture industry's next great technical revolution: digital projection.
Where thousands once congregated in ornate halls, today a handful of film executives and technicians use cellphones to communicate across the dark, ghostly space, awaiting the next screening of test images in the otherwise empty theater. On any given day, Shrek and his friends might be gamboling across the screen or Obi-Wan Kenobi might be dueling with his light saber as experts work to devise standards for the movie theater of the future.
The tests are being conducted by the Digital Cinema Laboratory, an organization set up by the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center. A consortium of seven Hollywood studios have contracted with the laboratory to choose the specifications for the equipment and software with which the industry will one day distribute and project feature films without any film at all.
Some of the testing is scientific, designed to measure, for example, the brightness and sharpness of a digitally projected image on a screen. Experts with the Entertainment Technology Center use a 25-foot-tall crane fitted with sensors to measure both transmitted and reflected light as it hits various points on the screen as small as one pixel. "We're still in the calibration stage," said Charles S. Swartz, executive director and chief executive of the Entertainment Technology Center. "We're defining the parameters that are important to measure." But because the movie-viewing experience can be a distinctly subjective one, the Digital Cinema Laboratory is also using "expert viewers," motion picture industry professionals, to evaluate picture quality and is considering forming a viewing panel of college students, too. "Picture quality is not a simple question of numbers," Mr. Swartz said. "We need to understand better how our brains fill in parts of a picture to improve its perceived quality, even if that data is not literally on the screen."
Digital projection potentially offers many advantages over today's film-based system. For the moviegoer, digital prints look as good after the 100th showing as after the first. They appear rock-steady when projected, and don't get scratched or covered with dust and hair.
There are also big economic advantages for the studios. They stand to save $1 billion each year if they no longer have to produce and ship film prints to each of the world's 150,000 screens but instead can transmit them as electronic files through a high-speed data link, or physically deliver them on a hard disk or other storage medium.
At the multiplex, films will be stored on a drive, and an operator will simply issue a set of keyboard commands to a server computer to send a film to digital projectors in as many theaters as warranted. Splicing and threading huge rolls of film will be a thing of the past.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19cine.html
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Freedom to Play Music, but Not to Share It
J. D. Biersdorfer
Q I use the iTunes 4 music program for the Macintosh. Do I need authorization from Apple to play A.A.C. music files that I have created myself, or just for the files that I download from the iTunes Music Store?
A. The latest version of Apple's music-management program, iTunes 4, includes the ability to play and encode music tracks in Advanced Audio Coding format, known as A.A.C., as well as in MP3 and other digital audio file types. A.A.C.'s compression technology produces audio files that sound good but take up less space on the computer than MP3 files do.
Apple's new online iTunes Music Store (
www.apple.com/music/store), which sells its songs in the A.A.C. format, adds copy-protection features to prevent purchased songs from being traded freely on the Internet.
Before you can play a purchased song on your Macintosh, you need to authorize the computer to play it by sending a bit of information to Apple over the Internet. You can authorize up to three computers to play purchased songs from the iTunes Music Store, and also record the tracks to a compact disc.
Because there is no copy protection built into files that you create yourself by converting music tracks from compact discs into A.A.C. files, they do not require such authorization.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19askk.html
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Gestar To Quit Electronic Book Business
Brian Lavery
Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., the television programming guide company that once aspired to be the top electronic book supplier, said yesterday that it would quit that business in July. It also said that it had stopped selling devices to read e-books. Gemstar, which had said for months that it would consider options like an outright sale of its e-book business, said it would refund unused parts of prepaid subscriptions. Customers of the service paid to download and read e-books with a portable tabletlike device called a reader. Customers can continue to download books that they have already bought for another three years, Gemstar said. For more than a year, Gemstar has been under a cloud, battered by write-downs for the value of its TV Guide business, losses in major patent disputes and questions over its accounting practices. (Reuters)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...y/19TBRF1.html
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Heavy Rotation At Home, But Not Quite Ready For MTV
Charles Herold
I you have karaoked to your heart's content and are ready to make some music on your own, Music Maker 2004 Deluxe from Magix can help you take that next step. The program is a music workstation that includes all the tools needed to make audio recordings and music videos on your computer.
Well, maybe not all the tools. At a suggested price of $59.99 (available at retailers or at
www.magix.com) Music Maker is a lot less expensive and offers fewer features than programs like Sonic Foundry's Vegas 4.0, which costs $500. But Music Maker 2004 Deluxe includes various synthesizers for such instruments as drums, bass, piano and guitar. And you can tailor your sound by adjusting reverb, pitch and compression on a pop-up master effects console that is designed to look like recording studio hardware.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19musi.html
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Probe finds 'significant misuse' Internet at IRS
AP
Internal Revenue Service employees using thousands of computers accessed prohibited Web sites that included personal e- mail, sexually explicit sites and games. To Treasury investigators, it was a sign that "significant misuse" of the Internet continues after a crackdown a year ago.
"Employee abuse of the Internet is still widespread," the investigators reported.
The results of the Treasury Department investigation disappointed lawmakers who pushed the IRS to revise its Internet policies and block access to prohibited sites after a study in 2001 showed IRS employees spent more than half their workday on the Internet for personal reasons.
"This is a classic case of people getting an inch and taking a mile," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley said Thursday.
"Nobody should collect a government salary to sit on their behinds and play around in chat rooms," said Grassley, R-Iowa, who oversees the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service.
More than 28 percent of the inappropriate Web browsing was traced to 122 computers, leading investigators to conclude that a small number of employees were chronic abusers.
But the investigators found enough evidence that IRS employees accessed prohibited sites to determine that a large number of employees continue to use the Internet inappropriately. The study could not determine the exact number of employees involved.
Personal e-mail topped the list among computers showing evidence of banned Web usage. It was followed by games, chat rooms and sexually explicit sites. Also accessed were music, streaming news and video, and instant messaging.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne....ap/index.html
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Rosen To Catch Air As Pundit For CNBC
Tim Arango
Hilary Rosen, the outgoing head of the Recording Industry Association of America, has landed an on-air gig at CNBC, The Post has learned.
Rosen, who will officially step down from her powerful RIAA post at the end of the month, has inked a deal to be a commentator for CNBC, she recently told music industry executives in an e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
Her gig will begin Aug. 1. According to the e-mail, she will discuss politics on the network's evening show, "Capitol Report," and give commentary on the media industry on the shows "Power Lunch" and "Squawk Box."
"They are looking for me to do the larger picture on some of the content convergence and media consolidation issues and know that I have a point of view on many issues as a longtime advocate," she wrote in the e-mail.
She added that she will assist the network in its coverage of Congress and the upcoming presidential election.
Rosen, who has been the chairwoman and CEO of the RIAA since 1998, announced in January her intention of stepping down.
http://www.nypost.com/business/1319.htm
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Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate?
Leander Kahney
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.
But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
"It's an unlicensed copy," said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. "It's very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made."
Hatch on Tuesday surprised a Senate hearing on copyright issues with the suggestion that technology should be developed to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Net.
Hatch said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights," the Associated Press reported. He then suggested the technology would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."
Any such technology would be in violation of federal antihacking laws. The senator, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested Congress would have to make copyright holders exempt from current laws for them to legally destroy people's computers.
On Wednesday, Hatch clarified his comments, but stuck by the original idea. "I do not favor extreme remedies -- unless no moderate remedies can be found," he said in a statement. "I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies."
Just as well. Because if Hatch's terminator system embraced software as well as music, his servers would be targeted for destruction.
Milonic Solutions' JavaScript code used on Hatch's website costs $900 for a site-wide license. It is free for personal or nonprofit use, which the senator likely qualifies for.
However, the software's license stipulates that the user must register the software to receive a licensing code, and provide a link in the source code to Milonic's website.
On Wednesday, the senator's site met none of Milonic's licensing terms. The site's source code (which can be seen by selecting Source under the View menu in Internet Explorer) had neither a link to Milonic's site nor a registration code.
However, by Thursday afternoon Hatch's site had been updated to contain some of the requisite copyright information. An old version of the page can be seen by viewing
Google's cache of the site.
"They're using our code," Woolley said Wednesday. "We've had no contact with them. They are in breach of our licensing terms."
When contacted Thursday, Woolley said the company that maintains the senator's site had e-mailed Milonic to begin the registration process. Woolley said the code added to Hatch's site after the issue came to light met some -- but not all -- of Milonic's licensing requirements.
Before the site was updated, the source code on Hatch's site contained the line: "* i am the license for the menu (duh) *"
Woolley said he had no idea where the line came from -- it has nothing to do with him, and he hadn't seen it on other websites that use his menu system.
"It looks like it's trying to cover something up, as though they got a license," he said.
A spokesman in Hatch's office on Wednesday responded, "That's ironic" before declining to put Wired News in contact with the site's webmaster. He deferred comment on the senator's statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which did not return calls.
The apparent violation was discovered by Laurence Simon, an unemployed system administrator from Houston, who was poking around Hatch's site after becoming outraged by his comments.
Milonic's Woolley said the senator's unlicensed use of his software was just "the tip of the iceberg." He said he knows of at least two other senators using unlicensed copies of his software, and many big companies.
Continental Airlines, for example, one of the largest airlines in the United States, uses Woolley's system throughout its Continental.com website. Woolley said the airline has not paid for the software. Worse, the copyright notices in the source code have been removed.
"That really pisses me off," he said.
A spokesman for Continental said the airline would look into the matter.
Woolley makes his living from his software. Like a lot of independent programmers, he struggles to get people to conform to his licensing terms, let alone pay for his software.
"We don't want blood," he said. "We just want payment for the hard work we do. We work very, very hard. If they're not prepared to pay, they're software pirates."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59305,00.html
Until next week,
-
js.
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Current Week In Review.
Recent WIRs -
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16638 June 14th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16580 June 7th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16489 May 31st
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16411 May 24th
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