FBI Questions UNCC Student For File Sharing
File sharing fight varies at different universities, official policies in place
Elizabeth Thomas
The FBI was on UNC Charlotte’s campus last week, and the agency wasn’t giving presentations to criminal justice classes.
According to police records, UNCC police officers assisted the federal agency with the service of a search warrant last Monday for stealing intellectual property.
Major William Harper, interim director for University Police, could not comment on details regarding the incident, citing his agency was merely assisting the FBI in their investigation.
"They just recently put together a task force dealing with copyright infringment," said Harper.
He did say the FBI confiscated the student's computer from one of the campus dorms.
"We do not actively investigate copyright infringement on the campus network unless we are notified by the Motion Picture Association of America and various other agencies on alleged music, video or software policy copyright violations," said Carter Heath, security administrator for UNCC's Information and Technology Services.
Carter said the University's dealings with the FBI on copyright infringement are a rarity.
"The only time we're contacted by them is within the constraints of a criminal investigation," said Heath.
Chief Information Officer Karin Steinbrenner, in an interview with NinerOnline.com last year, said she would receive two or three messages a week from the recording or video industries regarding illegal activity of UNCC students.
UNCC’s Information and Technology Services determines the IP address of such students and turns them over to the Student Affairs office. Discipline can range from the limiting of one’s computer privileges to expulsion.
In the wake of several rounds of lawsuits against illegal file sharers, colleges and universities around the country are taking steps to curb the practice among students.
According to the 2003 nationwide Campus Computing Survey, nearly two-thirds of schools who participated reported having institutional policies in place designed to reduce students’ illegal downloading of copyrighted music and movie files.
The policies differ among universities. Schools like the University of Rochester and Pennsylvania State University have provided students with a university-supported legal alternative to file sharing that allows students to download and purchase MP3s.
Other schools simply have policies that comply with the law, under which sharing copyrighted files is completely illegal without compensation. According to the survey, almost four-fifths of universities -- 80.9 percent of public universities and 77.5 percent of private universities – have campus codes of conduct that focus on downloaded commercial content.
Despite these statistics, there is no official policy against file sharing at Penn. "We try to stay away from technical details in our policies because technology changes so rapidly," said Dave Millar, Penn’s information security officer.
http://www.nineronline.com/vnews/dis.../408ecabb37098
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'Critical' Windows Hijack Flaw Reported
Ryan Naraine
Security researchers have discovered a serious boundary error vulnerability in multiple versions of Microsoft's Windows platform and warned that attackers could hijack systems via Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer (IE).
Rodrigo Gutierrez, a researcher with Trustix AS, notified Microsoft of the flaw with a warning that it could be exploited by malicious attackers to cause a buffer overflow and lead to system takeover.
Microsoft confirmed Gutierrez's findings in an advisory and recommended users install the latest service packs for Windows XP and Windows 2000. The software giant said the hole was fixed in the service packs but independent security consultants Secunia said the vulnerability "has been confirmed on fully patched systems running Windows XP and Windows 2000."
Secunia rates the flaw as "highly critical" and urged Windows XP and Windows 2000 users to restrict traffic in border routers and firewalls as a temporary workaround. Users could also disable the "Client for Microsoft Networks" for network cards to impact file sharing functionality.
The flaw also reportedly affects Windows 95, 98, and Me and Secunia said it was unknown whether Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2003 were at risk.
According to the advisories, the boundary error issue is triggered via Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer when connecting to a file server. This can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow by setting up a malicious share with an overly long name (about 300 bytes) containing no lower case characters.
"Successful exploitation may potentially allow execution of arbitrary code on a user's system but requires that the user is either tricked into connecting to a malicious file server, visit a malicious website, or follow a specially crafted link," Secunia warned.
The Secunia alert listed the affected Microsoft operating systems as Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Millenium, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Affected software include IE versions 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0.
http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/se...le.php/3345871
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Scam Sites - A New Threat to P2P
Thomas Mennecke
The RIAA and MPAA have been a constant threat in the P2P world. While they pose some danger to the activities of online users, it is one that can be sufficiently handled with the proper application of intellect. Even to new comers in the file-sharing world, it is hard to escape the media blitz the RIAA's lawsuit campaign is receiving.
Looking to avoid potentially devastating RIAA lawsuits, many individuals have been duped into paying for P2P software that is already free. The most infamous of these scams is Kazaa Gold. Kazaa Gold is basically the Kazaa Media Desktop Pro version that someone downloaded, then offer the software for a ridiculous price of $39.95.
While Kazaa has been corrupted most frequently by unscrupulous individuals, other P2P software such as WinMX has also been bastardized. If you follow the link, one will notice that one can pay up to $22.95 for access to already free networks such as eDonkey2000, Morpheus, Grokster, Limewire. These website are also cunning as they display shameful quotes such as "The real legal download source on [the] Internet", or "100% legal". While file-sharing software is indeed legal, the copyright variable is typically tucked away.
So far, the only P2P network to make any kind of effort to eliminate this deceptive software is Sharman Networks. Last year, Sharman sent Google a DMCA violation notice to remove links to Kazaa Gold. The effort was initially successful, however if one was to conduct a search for Kazaa Gold today, numerous results to this ghastly software still exists.
WinMX has become perhaps the second most violated program. Considering the lack of updates and little information on the official WinMX website, those looking for an update may easily fall for one of the many scamware sites. The link in this paragraphs' example is available for $14.95. Unfortunately, FrontCode Technologies (the legitimate intellectual property rights owner of WinMX) has made zero effort to combat this issue.
The most frightening aspect of these scamware sites is their proliferation. As more people become aware of the RIAA's lawsuits, individuals are becoming victim to the allure of such phrases as "100% legal."
With Google’s “hear no evil, see no evil” policy, the only way these programs can be combated is by the P2P developers. P2P United, who claims to stand up for the file- sharing community, can make tremendous strides in gaining public favor by aggressively pursuing such scam sites that victimize not only the users, but also the members of this lobby group. It is indeed an odd situation that Sharman Networks has been the only file-sharing company to make any kind of effort in this arena.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=462
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LimeWire: Gnutella Grows Up
For people looking to trade music in the post-Napster world, the Gnutella network is the best alternative. Unlike Napster, Gnutella has no central server. Also, it allows the sharing of any type of file, not just MP3's. That means videos, still images, and even programs can be swapped.
Gnutella no longer offers its own software, but there are many programs, called clients, available to make use of this vast network. One of the best Gnutella clients is BearShare, but LimeWire may be better still.
What makes LimeWire special? It's written in Java, and will run on any machine with an Internet connection and the ability to run Java version 1.1.8. In plain English, this means you can download versions for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, or a basic Java application that will run on many platforms.
The current version is 1.4, and many improvements have been made since the first release. So, how do you get started? Just go to the LimeWire downloads page and choose your platform. LimeWire is a bit larger than previous Gnutella clients and ranges in size from 3.3 to 10.7MB, depending on the platform. Still, it packs a lot of features. The installation process is painless, and during the install you can specify the folder you wish to share.
Launch the program, it will immediately try to connect to the Gnutella network and you can monitor the progress in the bottom window next to the Connect/Disconnect button. Don't be surprised to see thousands of hosts, a billion or so files, and several terabytes (TB) of data available!
There are five tabs: Search, Monitor, Connections, Community, and Library. The most useful is Search, where you can type in what you are looking for. A unique feature of LimeWire is the ability to specify type of file - audio, video, programs or images. Once you have found what you are looking for, you can judge the quality and reliability of the connections by the number of stars assigned.
The Community tab is not for chat, as you might expect. It is so you can log in to specific content areas and geographic regions.
"Monitor" allows you to see what others are searching for, "Library" lists the files you are sharing, and "Connections" shows the number and addresses of the servers to which you are connected.
I could go into great detail about the various features, but this program is so easy to use that you will enjoy figuring this out yourself.
Is this legal?: While the legal and ethical debate rages on, file sharing continues. Peer-to-peer networks offer great promise, but are also open to abuse. Be aware that much of the material being shared violates copyright. You can find some great, unknown gems. If you like the music you find on the Net, support the artists by buying their music!
A final caution: Like all file-sharing software, this is not for children since most any search will turn up some pornography. Just be aware of this, and you will find something worthwhile.
http://mp3.about.com/library/weekly/aa052101.htm
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Securing Wireless Connectivity Through Virtual Networking
Hasan S. Alkhatib
Computers in a virtual network can connect from anywhere to anywhere securely. No physical network reconfiguration is required. No change to firewall security policies is required. And, no cumbersome administration of parameters in every computer is required. The result is unconstrained secure connectivity.
As wireless networking begins to deliver on the promise of untethered, ubiquitous connectivity, a variety of security concerns associated with wireless technology present critical challenges to the enterprise. Traditional security solutions have failed to deal with these challenges in a comprehensive, economical and scalable fashion.
From the enterprise perspective, security challenges are centered on how to authenticate and authorize users to access enterprise resources with an economical and scalable solution, while blocking unauthorized users. An enterprise often has many geographically dispersed access points throughout its campuses. Information communicated over the RF channels has to be protected too.
Firewall and VPN vendors often recommend connecting wireless access points outside the firewall. Such solutions are expensive and require either building a dedicated network for the wireless access points or placing a firewall behind every access point. In addition, point solutions for securing physical links do not scale either.
VPN vendor solutions for securing wireless connectivity come with a heavy price, since they don't scale. Furthermore, traditional VPN solutions force all wireless traffic to go through the bottleneck of a VPN gateway.
For end-users, there are additional security and accessibility challenges. Users want to enjoy ubiquitous access using any wireless access point, whether it belongs to their enterprise, another enterprise, or a wireless service provider. The problem here is that point solutions to secure physical links often are not available to the user; hence, user communications are left fully exposed.
http://cio-today.newsfactor.com/stor...tegory=wlsnetw
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Cublicle Pirates
Office Workers Rival Teens in Digital Download Frenzy
Elizabeth Armstrong
Teens and their insatiable appetite for free music have highlighted the legal problems of sharing audio, video, and other files online. But there is mounting evidence that adults may be breaking the law just as frequently.
Many adults who download files — which are often pornographic videos — do so on their company networks, according to new studies, consuming sizable chunks of bandwidth and other resources and putting their companies at risk of lawsuits for copyright infringement.
Already, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are dropping subtle hints that corporations may be the next target of an already massive lawsuit campaign against file-sharers.
"To date, we have not taken actions against individuals the way the music industry has, but we don't rule out anything," says MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor. "We have arrows in our quiver, and we'll do what we need to."
Download While You Work
In one of the first studies of its kind, Blue Coat, a network monitoring company in Sunnyvale, Calif., reported last week that 39 percent of employees who use file- sharing services do so on company networks. That kind of activity can easily consume a third of a company's bandwidth, according to Blue Coat.
But wasted bandwidth may be the least of a company's worries, according to the Blue Coat survey of 300 respondents from public and private firms. Peer-to- peer downloading also consumes network storage, can result in lower worker productivity, and poses considerable legal risks.
"We've always assumed this is a youth thing," says Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, an online media measurement firm in Los Angeles. "But … the motivation that drives the kids in dorms is the same motivation that drives the overgrown kids in cubicles."
Both groups get free access to high-speed Internet and vast storage capacity for their files, he adds.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/busin...es_040428.html
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Stories from the NYU Nine
One CAS Junior Sued By The Music Industry Explains How She Fell Into Her Life Of Crime
Tim Farnam
Like most of us, Isabella has a lot on her mind: finals, a job search, an apartment for next year, a stolen wallet, school loans, law school, a kidney infection.
Oh, and she's getting sued for up to $1.5 million by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Of course, it's unlikely the College of Arts and Science junior, who asked that her real name not be used, will have to pay that much.
"I am really struggling to make a future for myself," Isabella said. "I can't let it be the end of the world."
Isabella is being sued for sharing music on her computer over the peer-to- peer network KaZaA. It is something many, many students have done, but Isabella is only one of nine members of the NYU community being sued by the RIAA.
The RIAA does not yet know the identity of the nine, just their IP addresses, which is why she insisted her name be changed.
Isabella didn't even know that her computer was sharing the songs that she downloaded. Even songs loaded onto the system years ago, before she came to NYU, were available to other people.
"I wasn't purposely trying to share these things," she said. "The people that are out there downloading and downloading and downloading are knowledgeable enough not to get caught."
Ironically, users can't download songs unless other people are willing to share them.
"I am the one that is caught, basically because I was naive," she said.
If Isabella didn't know she had the program, she probably wouldn't be liable for sharing the music, said Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at the NYU School of Law specializing in intellectual property law. But, since Isabella did know that downloading copyrighted music was illegal, she is probably in trouble.
"The courts are unlikely to slice the salami that thin," Tushnet said. "If she knew she was using KaZaA, she had to know that she was doing something that was unauthorized."
Downloading music has become a ubiquitous part of college life, a crime that is nevertheless socially acceptable among young people - even more so than underage drinking.
"Everybody just got wrapped up in it," Isabella said.
Isabella's friends and roommates would frequently download music on her computer. She had three roommates in her suite at University residence hall last year, but she was the only one with a CD burner. Her computer quickly became the entire room's source for free music, she said. Isabella said she personally had only downloaded five of the 10 songs mentioned in the lawsuit.
There was such a feeling of community in her dorm that she didn't think twice about it, Isabella said.
"You don't even lock your door," she said.
Isabella was at home in Long Island when she got an e-mail from NYU telling her about the lawsuit.
"I was hysterical," she said. "That week my wallet had been stolen."
The RIAA claims that downloading music hurts record sales, music stores, musicians and record companies. The organization collects royalty payments of $2 for every CD burner sold in the country and 2 percent of manufacturing sales of blank media, including MiniDiscs, DATs and CDRs.
Internet piracy grew undeterred until 1999, when the recording industry first sued down Napster, the first popular file-sharing network. Other networks that built on Napster's success were also sued by the RIAA, including AudioGalaxy, Grokster, KaZaA and Morpheus.
In 2003, after the industry lost its suit against KaZaA, it changed tactics in its crusade against Internet piracy and began an attempt to discourage individual users: by sending messages warning users their activities were illegal, by putting up bogus material on the networks and by bringing individual users to court.
The tactics have begun to have an effect but have made relatively little headway into the illegal online music trade, according to a study by Pew Internet & American Life Project, a part of the Pew Research Center.
The largest legal outlet, musicmatch.com, had 5.3 million users in March, compared to about 20 million for KaZaA, according to the study.
The numbers for KaZaA have dropped from a high of around 35 million in June 2003, when the RIAA announced it was preparing to sue individual file- sharers, according to the report.
The tactics might be effective, but they are devastating to those individuals that become their target.
"I am the one struggling to go to school," Isabella said. "Missy Eliott and OutKast are not."
http://www.nyunews.com/news/campus/7420.html
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Online File Sharing Has Increased
p2pnet.net News
If a new report is correct, despite the fact that Big Music's ongoing sue 'em all campaign is failing to stop Americans from downloading music and sharing files online, its relentless victimization of people who swap music is still having an effect.
The Big Five record labels - EMI (UK), UMG (France), BMG (Germany), Sony (Japan) and Warner (US) - are suing anyone they can identify whom they claim is sharing copyrighted music files without their permission, and the FBI has recently begun acting as the labels' enforcer.
In the US, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has, on behalf of its owners, the Big Five record labels, sued 1,977 people.
Victims always settle out of court rather than risk potentially huge financial penalties if they lose to the labels' bottomless pockets and endless, highly-paid music industry legal teams, and of the 532 suits brought a while back, 432 have been 'settled'.
It would be really interesting to know how much has been garnered to date, and where the money goes.
Be that as it may, millions of people around the world - including, of course Americans who are constantly bombarded by the RIAA's disingenuous statements routinely re-issued by the mainstream media - are under the entirely false impression that Big Music is taking people to court and winning.
The number of people who share music through the p2pnetworks has actually increased from an estimated 18 million to 23 million since the Pew Internet & American Life Project's November-December 2003 survey, it says a new report.
However, it also says more than 17 million people (14%) of "online Americans" say at one time in their online lives they downloaded music files, but now they don't do it any more.
"A third of the former music downloaders, close to 6 million Internet users, say they have turned away from downloading because of the suits brought against music file-sharers by the Recording Industry Association of America.
"The retreat is particularly pronounced among online men, Internet users between the ages of 18-29, and those who have broadband connections at home.
Of Net users who have never tried to download music, 60% say the RIAA lawsuits would keep them from trying it in the future, says Pew, going on that women with Net access are more likely than online men to "say they're deterred by the law suits".
New data from comScore Media Metrix show continuing declines or stagnancy in the number of people with popular peer-to-peer file sharing applications actively running on their computers, Pew goes on.
"Since our last data memo on downloading, in which we reported comScore data gathered between November 2002 and November 2003, the KaZaa user base dropped most notably. Between November 2003 and February 2004 alone, comScore estimates that over 5 million fewer people are actively running KaZaa."
One wonders if this might be as much due Kazaa's continuing efforts to become part of the commercial music industry, turning it into a bete noir to millions of former users, as to any effect the lawsuits may be having.
This thought might be supported by Pew's statement that according to comScore data, there's been growth since last November in usage of some of the smaller file-sharing applications such as iMesh, BitTorrent, and eMule.
"The number of those who say they download music online remains well below the peak levels that we tracked in the spring of 2003, but there was some growth in those who reported music downloading in our February survey," says Pew.
In the most recent survey, 18% of Internet users said they download music files, a "modest increase from the 14% of Internet users who reported in a survey just before last Christmas that they downloaded music files online. But it is still considerably below the 29% who said they had done this when we surveyed in the spring of 2003."
Among current music downloaders, 38% say they are downloading less because of the RIAA suits. In the pre-Christmas survey, 27% said they'd throttled back because of the RIAA suits and, says the report, "That represents a significant jump in just two months."
About a third of current music downloaders say they use p2p networks. Another 24% say they swap files using email and instant messaging; 20% download files from music-related Web sites such as those run by music magazines or musician homepages.
But while online music services are "far from trumping the popularity of file-sharing networks," overall, 7% of Net users say they've bought music from them at one time or another, including 3% who currently use paid services.
Online video downloading
Some 15% of Internet users report they have downloaded video files onto their computer, up from 13% who said they had done so in our November-December survey, says Pew and, "Online men are twice as likely as women to have done this. And young adults (those ages 18 to 29) are twice as likely as older Internet users to have done this. However, as bandwidth constraints become less of an issue for users, it is likely that video downloading will become significantly more widespread."
Sharing files online
Those who say they share files from their own computer, such as music, video or picture files, or computer games rose slightly to 23% in the February 2004 survey. In our November-December 2003 survey, 20% of all Internet users said they shared files with others online.
http://p2pnet.net/story/1302
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File-Sharing Lawsuits Have Mixed Effect
AP
NEW YORK - Driven largely by fears of copyright lawsuits, more than 17 million Americans, or 14 percent of adult Internet users, have stopped downloading music over the Internet, a survey finds.
But the overall percentage of people who say they currently do so has inched back up since November, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in a study Sunday.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4830480/
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Movin’ on up.
The Pew Report – Latest Survey
Jack
They ask, people answer – or do they? File swapping down from last years’ all-time high, so they say.
But up 28% recently. Read all about it
here.
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Ten million albums per year.
iTunes Clocks 70 Million Downloads
Correspondents in Washington
APPLE said customers have downloaded 70 million songs since it launched its online music store a year ago, and claimed the service still had strong momentum.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs , speaking to reporters on the anniversary of the iTunes Music Store, said the figures show it is "the number one online music service in the world" with some 70 per cent of the market for legal music downloads.
"We currently (sell) 2.7 million songs per week, that is a rate of 140 million songs per year, so we feel we have a lot of momentum," Mr Jobs said, adding that the service posted "a small profit this past quarter".
Mr Jobs said that iTunes "has exceeded our wildest expectations during its first year, charting a new direction for the music industry".
To kick off its second year, Apple launched a new version of iTunes with additional features and a bigger selection of songs.
"We started with 200,000 songs, we now have over 700,000 songs, and expect to have over a million songs by the end of the year," Mr Jobs said.
Apple was the first to launch the US99c ($1.38) song download on the US market, spawning dozens of others offering a similar formula, helping computer users shift from illicit music-swapping to a legal download endorsed by the major record labels.
However, the company refuses to reveal when and if the service may become available in Australia.
Apple said it was making some changes in the rights for users who download from its site. The number of times a user can burn the same playlist onto CDs is being reduced from 10 to seven.
But at the same time, users will be allowed to listen to the downloaded songs on five separate computers, up from three.
Another new feature will allow iTunes users to convert songs from the Windows Media Audio format to Apple's AAC format so they can be played using iTunes software or downloaded onto the iPod music player.
Mr Jobs said reports that Apple was preparing to boost its price were unfounded.
"The prices will remain 99c per song and any rumours to the contrary are not true," he said.
Mr Jobs said the music sales have helped spur sales of its music player and probably helped boost its Macintosh computer sales. But the company last year broke tradition and created a version of iTunes for Windows to allow access to those using PCs of its longtime rival Microsoft.
"The unbeatable combination of iTunes and the market-leading iPod offers music fans a seamless experience for discovering, buying, managing and enjoying their music anywhere," he said.
In the first quarter, Apple sold 807,000 iPods, a tenfold increase from the same period of 2003.
Recent surveys indicate that illicit music-swapping may be fading somewhat following an industry crackdown on the practice, with authorised sites like iTunes showing rapid growth
The Pew Internet and American Life Project survey released Sunday found that 14 per cent of US internet users said they had once downloaded music files, but have stopped.
However, the number of people who say they download music files increased from an estimated 18 million to 23 million since the between November 2003 and February 2004.
This increase is likely due to the combined effects of many people adopting new, paid download services and, in some cases, switching to lower-profile peer-to-peer file sharing applications, the researchers said.
A survey by comScore Media Metrix showed five million fewer people are actively running KaZaa, the most popular file-sharing service, compared with a year ago.
The report indicated that more than 11 million US internet users visited six major paid online music services.
These services, such as Apple's iTunes and a new Napster - which in contrast to the former Napster is a legal, paid service - "have made great strides in relatively few months in drawing millions of consumers to a new breed of online alternatives," said Erin Hunter, senior vice president of comScore Media Metrix.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html
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Online Music Sales Could Be Sad Song For Big Record Companies
A year after Apple Computer Inc. launched iTunes Music Service, the online music industry is selling songs by the millions - and that might not bode well for the major record labels.
Online services account for just a fraction of overall music sales, but they're growing rapidly. And the new choices they give consumers threaten to remix the recording industry's traditional revenue streams, pumping up the volume of singles and subscriptions and turning down album sales.
Customers at three of the leading online services - iTunes, Musicmatch Inc.'s Musicmatch Downloads and RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody - buy about 10 times as many singles as they do albums. Offline, people buy 50 times more CDs than singles.
The shift to online shopping could be lucrative for the music industry if the flexibility and convenience lead more people to spend more on tunes. But some industry executives and analysts said they fear the singles trend could accelerate, with music lovers passing up $15 CDs in favor of the one or two 99-cent songs they heard on the radio.
And some industry veterans said they worry that moving to a singles-oriented business could lead to fundamental problems for artists and labels.
"There's no money to be made from singles," said entertainment lawyer Gary Stiffelman, whose clients include rapper Eminem. "Unless you can sell an album, you can't really afford to launch the artists. The whole economics are driven by some sort of critical mass of product."
But the new distribution system of the Internet is changing demand. Songs from virtually every album are available for illegal downloading through unauthorized file-sharing networks. People can buy tracks and play unlimited songs from authorized online jukeboxes.
"Consumers have moved on," said analyst Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research. "The idea that they have to consume music by the album is something that many music consumers have left behind."
The authorized services' growth the last six months didn't seem to hurt offline CD sales, which have rebounded about 8% from last year, after a lengthy slide blamed largely on illegal downloading.
The online music business dates to the mid-1990s, when a handful of technology companies developed ways to sell downloadable songs. The first few waves of start-ups crashed and burned, largely because of onerous restrictions and high prices imposed by the major record companies.
In the meantime, online music piracy exploded. Dozens of free networks emerged to let people copy songs from one another's computers, drawing an estimated 63 million users in the United States alone by mid-2003.
The first breakthrough for commercial services came a year ago Wednesday, when Apple launched iTunes Music Store. Pressed by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, the major labels enabled Apple to make a significantly simple and attractive offer to customers: 99 cents per song, with no real limits on CD burning or transfers to Apple's iPod portable music players. Apple said the service sold its 50 millionth song March 15.
Since the debut of iTunes, a rival business model - selling subscriptions that let customers play unlimited songs or specialized radio stations on their computers - has carved out a foothold. RealNetworks reported 450,000 subscribers as of March 31, up 80% in six months. Add in MusicNet on America Online, Musicmatch's premium radio services and other online subscriptions, and the total approaches 1 million.
Some online music companies continue to struggle, but the sector is growing rapidly and steadily. Analysts estimated that the services' revenue will grow from about $65 million last year to $250 million in 2004, with $120 million or more from downloadable singles and the rest from subscriptions. CD sales totaled $11.2 billion in the U.S. last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
So far, at least, online customers are buying a much broader range of music than is being sold in stores.
General Manager Ellie Hirschhorn of MusicNet, which operates a subscription music service for AOL, said about 75% of the paid downloads aren't in Billboard's Top 200, and about 60% are "catalog," or older, tracks. According to Nielsen SoundScan, more than 63% of the CDs sold in stores last week were new releases.
That's significant, she said, suggesting that online services lead to people to buy music they otherwise wouldn't. The music industry's hope is that paid downloads and subscriptions will attract people who haven't been buying CDs.
Sean Ryan, head of music services at RealNetworks, said Rhapsody customers spend about $150 a year on music, far above what the average American spends on CDs.
Even if Rhapsody prompts its customers to buy fewer CDs, Ryan said, the labels can still come out ahead because it costs virtually nothing for them to distribute music through Rhapsody. "Essentially, they send us spreadsheets, we send them money," he said.
The labels' wholesale price for CDs is about $10, and they collect about 70 cents per downloadable single; there are generally 10 to 16 tracks on a CD. Payments from subscription services depend on how much music users play, but typical amounts are around $5 per subscriber per month.
For years, the financial structure of the music industry - from artist contracts to manufacturing - has rested on sales of albums that can contain 16 or more songs.
Companies typically sign new acts to potentially lengthy contracts that let a label pick up options for five or six more albums if an artist's first album succeeds - or drop the act if it doesn't.
Music companies relied heavily on sales of singles in the 1950s and even earlier, when technology limited recording capacity.
Some record executives said that returning to a singles-driven business is an inescapable reality of the Internet era. The major labels have started to adapt: They've laid off thousands of workers to slash costs. Some are also talking about recording singles, not albums, with new artists and paying them smaller advances.
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/tech/news/apr04/225616.asp
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Apple Disables iTunes Song-Swapping Tool
Ina Fried
Among other additions Apple Computer made to its iTunes software, the Mac maker has plugged a hole that allowed some people to download music from another computer.
Apple's iTunes allows Macintosh and PC users to play music stored on other PCs on a network. The music is streamed off the other computer. But file-swapping enthusiasts quickly created other programs, such as MyTunes, to capture the songs and allow them to be saved to the computer's hard drive.
With the latest iteration--version 4.5--Apple appears to have plugged that hole.
An Apple representative on Wednesday confirmed that with the new version of iTunes, the company has "strengthened" the music-sharing feature to make sure that song sharing is limited to personal use and that only another copy of iTunes can access the music stream.
Also, once iTunes users have upgraded to the newest version of the software, they are no longer allowed to stream music from computers running older versions of iTunes.
Apple imposed a similar restriction earlier, after some people used the music-sharing feature to swap files over the Internet.
MyTunes creator Bill Zeller said he was somewhat surprised by Apple's move.
"It seems like a big step to make all previous versions incompatible," Zeller said in a telephone interview. "It was nice while it lasted."
The Trinity College sophomore said it appears that Apple tweaked its communications protocol to prevent MyTunes from capturing the song streams.
"I would assume that they changed the protocol in some way, which would make it not work," Zeller said.
Although someone could create an updated program that tries to capture the streams, Zeller said it won't be him. Last month, a massive computer crash took with it his only copy of the MyTunes source code.
"Someone else could come up with a program to get around the restriction," he said.
The iTunes content protection technologies have been the subject of continual attacks by programmers looking to evade Apple's restrictions on sharing.
While Zeller's program took advantage of the software's streaming capabilities, other programmers have worked to strip out the anticopying features, called FairPlay, included with every song purchased from the iTunes store.
Several programmers have created software that does appear to remove the FairPlay protections altogether, allowing the purchased songs to be distributed without restriction. Jon Johansen, the Norwegian youth who first released the DeCSS DVD-copying tool online, has led this drive, with the tools he has developed winding up in several other pieces of software.
While Apple has worked to keep some of these applications, including the recent anonymously released "PlayFair" offline, some record label executives have said the impact has been low, because consumers can still burn CDs from iTunes songs and re-rip them into unprotected MP3 form. Johansen said the project has been worthwhile, however.
"Burning a CD and ripping the music back to a compressed format takes time and results in loss of quality," Johansen said in an e-mail interview, noting that Apple's restrictions on copying remained a deterrent to iTunes purchases for some people. "Using a decryption utility like PlayFair takes only a few seconds per song and does not result in loss of quality."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5201781.html
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Darpa Looks Past Ethernet, IP Nets
Rick Merritt
In a handful of high-level programs, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is pushing beyond Ethernet and Internet Protocol to hammer home the message that peer-to-peer networks—intrinsically more efficient than end-to-end topologies—are the future, and the future is now.
Darpa is pushing toward a world of ultralow-cost, low-power, ad hoc mesh networks. The programs are part of a broad military drive toward ubiquitous computing based on next-generation networks, including RFID and wireless sensor nets.
At the Wireless Ventures conference here last week, Preston Marshall, a program manager in Darpa's Advanced Technology Office, moved the spotlight away from the rise of today's 802.11 networks in the business world, saying in keynote that an improvement of five orders of magnitude is needed. "We get trapped by the vision of Internet Protocol like its some sort of theocracy when in fact there are much better models," he said.
Marshall's contrarian note resonated amid predictions like the one by a venture capitalist that Wi-Fi nets will ultimately surpass even cellular as both race toward the consumer broadband era.
But such networks are grossly inefficient for sending small amounts of data that will be the hallmark of future machine-to-machine networks of embedded devices, Marshall said. An 802.11b network could take as many as 12,480 bits and 57 acknowledgments to send an 80-bit data packet, a 0.65 percent efficiency rating.
"This is five orders of magnitude from what we can do. This is like selling cars that get 10 inches per gallon," Marshall said. "We need to think as a community how we can get that efficiency up."
Darpa's vision is to create a new kind of peer-to-peer network for "edge-driven computing." Unlike Ethernet, that network will not depend on packets or predefined client/server topologies with guaranteed end-to-end connections. Instead, it will forward data one hop at a time over a distributed network of autonomous nodes using new and more reliable and efficient schemes.
Darpa is doing its part in at least four major programs now under way. One program is developing so-called connectionless networks using new physical layer chips and protocols that could reduce the energy requirements for communications three-hundredfold. The program includes experiments using silicon-on-sapphire technology to reduce energy requirements in oscillators and mixers.
Another program aims to create systems that automatically scan the airwaves in real-time for available spectrum in which it can set up and tear down ad hoc networks in hundreds or even tens of milliseconds. The project includes development of a machine-readable policy language as the basis for its software.
"This opens up hundreds of megahertz of new spectrum without new licensing," said Marshall, adding that the Darpa program is working in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission's efforts in so-called cognitive radio.
A parallel project is exploring delay-tolerant networks based on work at NASA. In this scheme individual nodes collaborate to form complex relationships forwarding data reliably but without knowledge of the overall topology of the network.
http://www.commsdesign.com/showArtic...cleID=19201035
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Franz Ferdinand Star Lectures On File-Sharing
Franz Ferdinand star Alex Kapranos has given a lecture on file-sharing in Edinburgh.
The singer, who has spoken out in favour of file- sharing in the past, has spoken to students at Edinburgh University (April 29).
Alex had earlier told BBC news: "To be honest I'm all for song swapping online. Downloading music from the Internet is something I do myself and something that I'd be keen to encourage.
"From my experience it isn't necessarily the musicians themselves that are against it, but those companies involved in the music industry.
"The way the music industry is trying to regulate online sites at the minute is very heavy-handed - fining kids for downloading songs is just crazy.
"File-sharing is something that has really helped us as a band in getting established. When Franz Ferdinand played a gig in New York for the first time, a lot of people there already knew our songs and were singing along.
"For us it has been global word of mouth that has helped our progress, not hindered it. I don't think it is damaging musicians at all. Downloading music is as revolutionary an invention as the gramophone and I'm all for it."
18 year-old Chris McCall from Edinburgh University was at the lecture. He told NME.COM: "He was quick to establish his opinion on the record companies handling of music, saying how Internet downloading wasn't the musicians' problem, and that it was the industry’s problem to sort it.
"He seems to care very passionately about the subject, stressing that he knows plenty of musicians who use the Internet a very useful tool to hear and distribute their own music.
"When asked if he was bothered about the money it cost him, he replied that any real musician should be in it for the music, and you had to question the motives of certain groups and singers who were up in arms about music downloading."
The band are currently on a sold-out tour, which visits:
Edinburgh Liquid Room (29)
Manchester University (30)
Oxford Brookes University (May 1)
Bristol Anson Rooms (3)
Portsmouth Pyramid, (4)
London Astoria (5-6)
London Coronet (7)
Franz Ferdinand are also on the cover of this week’s NME, dated May 1, which is out now.
http://www.nme.com/news/108349.htm
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Record And Playback High Definition TV Signals
EatingPie
Want to enjoy HDTV, but haven't forked over the $21,999 for that 82'' LCOS Rear Projection HDTV yet? (Or even know what the heck that is!). Fear not, because with just about any Panther-capable Macintosh, you can enter the world of high definition recording and playback without breaking the bank... or buying a single new piece of hardware!
This 21st Century Holy Grail comes in the form of a recent FCC regulation requiring all cable companies to provide a Firewire-enabled Cable box to any customer who asks. (Yes, some government agencies are still on our side after all!) This law went into effect April 1st, and by now most Cable companies have complied.
Unlike regular TV, you cannot record HD with an analog VCR -- or even a standard issue Tivo. You must have a Firewire connection ... the very same Firewire that ships on every modern Mac. (bet you see where this is headed). You have the Mac, now all you need is the cable box and a pair of free programs: VirtualDVHS for recording, and VLC for playback!
Step 1 - Get the Cable Box!
If you have cable, your first step involves calling your provider and requesting a new "Firewire capable" or "IEEE 1394 enabled" HDTV cable box. Even if you don't own an HDTV, all these boxes have S-video out and work perfectly with regular TVs. Most cable companies charge a nominal monthly fee for the box, and provide local stations in high defenition for free (this is the only cost involved). For example, I am on Time Warner Cable, and I pay about $8.00 extra per month, which includes PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS and Discovery HD Theater. Plus, if you subscribe to any premium station, like HBO or Showtime, that price includes the high definition version!
Once your provider delivers the box, you just need a Firewire cable long enough to reach your Mac. Any Firewire cable (with the right connectors) will do. I actually used one of Apple's dainty-thin white iPod Firewire cables, and it worked like a charm when run to my Aluminum 15" PowerBook.
Step 2 - Get the Recording Software
VirtualDVHS. Remember that name! A free little piece of software that you can find in two different places. If you have the Developer Tools, VirtualDVHS comes in the Firewire SDK, available at Apple Developer Connection.
Far more conveniently, ninjamonkey provides a (very slightly) modified stand-alone version of VirtualDVHS [305KB download]. You probably won't notice any changes to the program, but not having to dig through a bunch of developer tools make this my favorite option for download.
Step 3 - Run the Recorder
You can follow the instructions on ninjamonkey's site, but since the software is really a developer example (not even beta quality), pay attention to these few pointers. First, create a new folder to store the recorded files into. Drag and drop this folder onto the D-VHS icon. You MUST do that drag and drop step, or your recordings will inexplicably fail. While presenting a somewhat daunting interface, just pay attention to the transport controls on the top right. The biggest trick is selecting the correct Firewire Channel for input. Most cable boxes will transmit on channel 63 (that's the "broadcast channel"). Also try channels 0 and 1 if 63 fails. To see if your channel works, just press the record button, and the "Bitrate" field takes off ... along with the recorded file size!
Step 4 - Playback
One word: VLC. Even if you don't plan to watch HD content, get the VideoLan Client. It rocks (beside the fact that it's free and open source)! AFAIK, VLC is the only client that can replay full-resolution high definition content in transport stream format -- what you get from VirtualDVHS.
If you're one of the lucky few and have an HDTV with a Firewire port, you can also use VirtualDVHS to play back directly to the TV. Just select the file, and use the transport controls on the left side of the interface. It's that easy!
A Few Caveats
Some cable companies encrypt HD content for copy protection. I put this caveat first because it's the biggest. Basically, if the content is encrypted, you cannot play it back. However, it's illegal for Cable companies to encrypt broadcast stations. So at the very least, you can record NBC, CBS, ABC, WB, UPN and PBS. If those are encrypted, a quick call (or two) to your cable provider should take care of it. If you're lucky, you will get subscription content like HBO in the clear ... but enjoy it while it lasts, because all Cable companies WILL implement copy protection sooner or later!
Now just a few notes on a bit more mundane issues...
HDTV basically comes in two resolutions: 1920x1080 and 1280x720. PBS, and most sporting events show at in 1280x720 (known as 720p). HBO, Shotime and broadcast stations like NBC and ABC use 1920x1080 (1080i). The Tonight Show was one of the first programs broadcast in HD, and if you're looking for a good test, that's your best bet.
VirtualDVHS stores files in MPEG2 Tranport Stream format. In the Windows world, this has an extension of ".ts" rather than the ".m2t" that VirtualDVHS uses. Transport Stream differs from standard MPEG2 files, like decrypted DVD (known as Program Stream), because it's packetized for transmission over a network.
HDTV recordings get huge. HUGE! Suffice it to say these constitute the largest single files I've ever worked with -- or seen!
Last but not least ... You MUST store your recordings on an HFS+ formatted volume. UFS has a 4GB limit to file size, while standard HFS is similar (2GB I believe). Plain and simply, anything over 15 minutes will overflow this limit. For example, my copy of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones clocks in at 12GB. And that's not even my biggest file!
Recording HD content has been one of the coolest things I've ever done on my Mac! It's awesome, and if you're friends don't have Mac envy yet, wait till they see a movie playing back on your G5 at 1920x1080 resolution!
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...40426151111599
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Crippled External Hard Drive for DVRs
Ernest
A number of gadget websites have noted what sounds like nifty new technology, an external hard drive especially designed for Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). The device, from hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, connects to an existing DVR to provide up to an additional 160 hours of recording capability. Read the press release: Maxtor Expands QuickView Outside the Box.
What the press release doesn't tell you:
The first devices will be available in the summer of 2004 and have an eSATA interface. Maxtor is exploring USB 2.0 and FireWire/1394 connections. Good enough.
However, the product will not be available in retail initially, but rather via your cable/satellite provider. In other words, you won't own it. Actually, ownership is probably not a good idea because the device will not be portable and will be designed to connect to a single DVR. Moving or switching providers will be fun.
Furthermore, according to Maxtor's press contact:
Due to content protection/privacy, the Expander will not communicate/share files with the PC.
Content privacy? Not sure what that is. Regardless, why are so many new consumer devices being designed deliberately crippled? Why is the United States sacrificing so much potential innovation? Perhaps, Mary Hodder is right and it is time for "Silicon Valley Lamented".
http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/003386.html
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The New Surveillance
SONIA KATYAL
Fordham Law School
Fordham School of Law, Pub-Law Research Paper No. 46
Case Western Law Review, Vol. 54, No. 297, 2004
Abstract:
A few years ago, it was fanciful to imagine a world where intellectual property owners - such as record companies, software owners, and publishers - were capable of invading the most sacred areas of the home in order to track, deter, and control uses of their products. Yet, today, strategies of copyright enforcement have rapidly multiplied, each strategy more invasive than the last. This new surveillance exposes the paradoxical nature of the Internet: It offers both the consumer and creator a seemingly endless capacity for human expression - a virtual marketplace of ideas - alongside an insurmountable array of capacities for panoptic surveillance. As a result, the Internet both enables and silences speech, often simultaneously.
This paradox, in turn, leads to the tension between privacy and intellectual property. Both areas of law face significant challenges because of technology's ever-expanding pace of development. Yet courts often exacerbate these challenges by sacrificing one area of law for the other, by eroding principles of informational privacy for the sake of unlimited control over intellectual property. Laws developed to address the problem of online piracy - in particular, the DMCA - have been unwittingly misplaced, inviting intellectual property owners to create private systems of copyright monitoring that I refer to as piracy surveillance. Piracy surveillance comprises extrajudicial methods of copyright enforcement that detect, deter, and control acts of consumer infringement.
In the past, legislators and scholars have focused their attention on other, more visible methods of surveillance relating to employment, marketing, and national security. Piracy surveillance, however, represents an overlooked fourth area that is completely distinct from these other types, yet incompletely theorized, technologically unbounded, and, potentially, legally unrestrained. The goals of this Article are threefold: first, to trace the origins of piracy surveillance through recent jurisprudence involving copyright; second, to provide an analysis of the tradeoffs between public and private enforcement of copyright; and third, to suggest some ways that the law can restore a balance between the protection of copyright and civil liberties in cyberspace.
This paper was selected as the winning entry for the 2004 Yale Law School Cybercrime and Digital Law Enforcement Conference writing competition, sponsored by the Yale Law School Information Society Project and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=527003
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Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti
Keith J. Winstein
Jack Valenti, the iconic 82-year-old who has headed the Motion Picture Association of America for the last 38 years, spoke at the MIT Communications Forum last Thursday. The MPAA offered The Tech a chance to ask Valenti questions after his talk, and -- as a former Tech news reporter interested in technology and copyright -- I got drafted.
Valenti is an incredibly polished advocate for the movie studios. He has numerous legislative and regulatory successes to his name, and his stated commitment to honest debate (he spoke passionately several times about his commitment to the “ideal of civic discourse” and his disgust at Washington, D.C.’s lack of it) is admirable.
But we don’t have a real debate on copyright issues. We have rival camps that rarely understand each other. Virtually everybody I know and encounter on the Internet thinks Valenti’s signal accomplishments are bad. He can claim credit for the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which make it illegal to build your own DVD player and well-nigh impossible to watch DVDs legally under the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as the Federal Communication Commission’s Broadcast Flag, which will make it illegal or virtually impossible to build your own digital television receiver or, again, watch HDTV under Linux.
Everybody in Hollywood, and everybody in Congress, seems to love these things. There is little compromise, meeting of the minds, or mutual understanding, between these two sides.
Three years ago, I organized an MIT IAP class and invited Valenti to come. (He politely declined.) When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with him for ten minutes last week, I finally had my chance to take a shot at reaching some tiny mutual understanding.
I found Valenti woefully unfamiliar with the arguments of “our side” -- the same arguments that “we” wank about every day on Zephyr, on Slashdot, and in 6.805 (Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier), the class I TAed for Professor Hal Abelson.
A compromise, or at least a solution to these issues that doesn’t involve outlawing all tinkering and all independent engineering, seems to be possible: we’re just not getting through to each other. The dystopia of Richard Stallman’s “The Right to Read” at
www.gnu.org/ philosophy/ right-to- read.html is not an inevitability. But if we can’t manage to have a real conversation with “the other side” -- and a longer one than my ten minutes with Valenti -- that’s where we might be headed.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation:
The Tech: You’re described by various people as the best lobbyist ever. Do you have any tips for the other side, about how they can achieve better victories in the legislative area?
Jack Valenti: I hope that I’m a good persuader, that I’m able to make advocacy of a cause that people say, “You know, that makes sense.” ‘Lobbyist’ has a connotation to me that gives me little shivers. But I like to believe that I try to make things simple to understand. And frankly, if I can understand it, then I figure everybody else can understand it, because I am not a technologist. ... But I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think that helps you persuade other people.
TT: Everybody I know thinks the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Broadcast Flag are awful. And everybody in Congress disagrees. This does not lead to good debate and good public policy, when people can’t even talk to each other. How can we have a good debate on these topics?
JV: I don’t know. I go on forums, and panels, and Rich [Taylor, an MPAA spokesman] does the same. We’re available to anybody. I never believe in hostile debates. That’s not my style. I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it. I think for anything that I’m advocating, I’m willing to be in an open debate with anybody about it. Because if my ideas have no bottom, then they ought not be even heard.
The broadcast flag -- if you are in your home, then you can copy anything that’s on over-the-air television to your heart’s content. The only time that you will know there’s a broadcast flag is if you try to take one of those copies and redistribute it on the Internet. Then, the flag says, ‘No, you can’t redistribute it.’ But you can do everything you’re doing right now -- you’ll never know there’s a broadcast flag. Well, why would people object to it?
TT: I’ll tell you, because I’m an engineer, I’m an engineering student, and this year I built a high- definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
TT: Well, I’m talking about engineers.
JV: Let’s say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can’t have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can’t do it that way.
TT:Okay, let’s take a different example. Four years ago, you said that people who use Linux, which is about a million to two million people, who want to play DVDs, should get licensed DVD players and that those would be on the market soon.
JV: And we have those now.
TT: But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux.
JV: I didn’t know that.
TT: So the question is, do you think people who go to Blockbuster, they rent a movie, they bring it home, and they play it on Linux by circumventing the access control, are those people committing a moral transgression?
JV: I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it. For whatever benign reason you have, somebody else has got one even more benign. But once you let one person deal in a digital copy -- and I don’t have to tell you; you know far better than I that, unlike in analog, the ten thousandth copy is as pure as the original -- it is a big problem. So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody.
I don’t want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.
TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?
JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.
TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?
JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.
TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.]
TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.
JV: You designed this?
TT: Yes.
JV: Un-fucking-believable.
TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad?
JV: No, that’s not bad.
TT: Then why should it be illegal?
Rich Taylor, MPAA public affairs: It’s not. ... You could put it in a DVD player, you could play it on any computer licensed for it.
JV: There’s lots of machines you can play it on.
TT: None under Linux. There’s no licensed player under Linux.
JV: But you’re trying to set your own standards.
TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They’re still not available -- it’s been four years.
JV: Well why aren’t they available? I don’t know, because I don’t make Linux machines.
Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, that’s wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can’t fuss at people, because you’re one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can’t believe there’s not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don’t know the answer to that... Well, you’re telling me a lot of things I don’t know.
TT: Okay. Well, how can we have this dialogue?
JV: Well, we’re having it right now. I want to try to find out the point you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a reason -- there has to be a reason. I don’t know.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N20/Val...ervie.20f.html
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Giving It Away (for Fun and Profit)
Creative Commons encourages artists to share and distribute their work for free. And that could be the key to a new multibillion-dollar industry.
Andy Raskin
Allan Vilhan is a musician who has yet to hit it big in the United States. In part, that's because Vilhan who records under the name Cargo Cult -- lives in Filakovo, a small town in Slovakia's Cerova Vrchovina highlands. By day, he runs his family's restaurant. In his spare time, he mixes beats. Vilhan calls his music "trip rock" -- it's a kind of spooky, danceable electronica -- but his business model is even more intriguing. A year ago, after completing his first full-length album, he put MP3s of all the songs online and encouraged fans to listen for free. Nevertheless, to date he's recorded a profit of more than $1,000. "About what I expected," he says.
Vilhan is making money because he hosts his songs at Magnatune.com, an Internet music distributor that replaces standard "all rights reserved" copyright language with "some rights reserved" licenses drafted by a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit organization called Creative Commons. Magnatune and its artists make MP3s available for free to play or download. But they still demand payment when the music is used for commercial purposes, such as inclusion in advertisements or in films released to theaters.
In Vilhan's case, a programmer in Alabama downloaded the free versions of two tracks and later paid $450 to license them for use as background music in a videogame; a San Francisco design firm paid $370 to use one of Vilhan's songs in a client's Flash presentation. Magnatune also encourages listeners to voluntarily pay for downloads of Vilhan's music, which brought in $1,487 more. Since Magnatune splits net receipts from licensing and downloads equally with its artists, Vilhan ended up with a tidy little sum. "Creative Commons is like a marketing tool," says Magnatune founder John Buckman, who has grossed $180,000 for 126 musicians since May 2003. "Free distribution generates exposure, and that builds commercial demand, which is where the real money is."
If you have yet to notice a piece of work licensed under Creative Commons -- its logo looks like a regular copyright mark, but with two Cs enclosed in the circle instead of one -- chances are you will soon. Co-founded by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons has been making its boilerplate licenses available, free of charge, since December 2002. The licenses rely on icons to indicate what uses are permissible; click on the license, and the specific terms are spelled out in plain English. Already, artists worldwide have used Creative Commons to relinquish some or all rights to 1.5 million pieces of music, video, text, and digital art.
But what's really interesting is that as more and more artists use Creative Commons to tell the world that it's OK to copy, distribute, and build on their work, the first glimpses emerge of an economy based on the free exchange of digital content. The "sharing economy" is built on a supply-and- demand equation wholly alien to traditional media companies -- the record labels, Hollywood studios, and publishing houses that support strict copyright enforcement. It's powered instead by the Allan Vilhans of the world, digital artists who promote sharing as a means to obtain everything from 15 minutes of Internet fame to licensing deals, job offers, and mainstream publishing contracts. For these artists, rampant Internet file swapping isn't a threat, but a blessing: the cheapest way to move from unknown to known.
The sharing economy is already worth billions of dollars, but its direct beneficiaries aren't mainstream entertainment companies. Instead, they're the likes of Apple (AAPL), Adobe (ADBE), and EarthLink (ELNK) -- firms that sell the hardware, software, and bandwidth required to produce and distribute, say, a Howard Dean howl remix. But for the sharing economy to expand its scope and realize its full potential, it needs a signpost: a branded icon participants can use to tell each other, "Download my work. Modify it. Send it to a friend. Please." Creative Commons aims to play that role.
How much money will unfettered sharing generate? At a minimum, figure that tens of millions of PC owners worldwide, inspired by Creative Commons to make and share content, will spend several hundred dollars more than they otherwise would have on specialized digital tools and services. Then add in license fees and other revenue generated indirectly by unencumbered sharing. Suddenly, you're talking about an ad hoc industry that could one day rival mainstream entertainment -- in theory, at least.
At a cafe near his San Francisco home, Lessig explains the economic logic that underpins Creative Commons. He draws a timeline on a napkin, labeling one point "1888." "That's when the first Kodak (EK) camera was introduced," he says. "And around this time, a legal question arises: Do I need your permission to capture your image? The courts say no, I can pirate your image in most cases." Lessig then draws a line that spikes upward, representing the boom in photo equipment and processing sales that resulted from the liberalization of image content. "Imagine if the decision went the other way, so that I had to get permission every time I took someone's picture," he says. "The growth of the photography industry would have been very different." And much less lucrative.
Lessig, 42, has spent the better part of the last decade battling legal decisions that "went the other way" in the digital age. A specialist in policy development for cyberspace, his career has taken him from the Supreme Court (where he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia), to the University of Chicago, to a tenured position at Harvard Law School, and finally to Stanford, where he founded the law school's Center for Internet and Society. He made headlines in 1997 when he briefly served as a special master in the Microsoft (MSFT) antitrust case. (Microsoft launched a successful appeal to have him removed.)
In the 2002 Supreme Court case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lessig challenged Congress's 1998 decision to extend copyright protection to 70 years after an author's death. In that case, nicknamed the "Mickey Mouse trial" because it coincided with the Disney character's impending transition to the public domain, Lessig argued that most creativity -- including Disney movies like Snow White, which was adapted from a Grimm fable -- builds on previous work, and that the extension hurt society by limiting the amount of raw material available for creative reinvention. He lost.
The defeat triggered a change in tactics. Unable to reform copyright law, Lessig focused instead on facilitating contractual arrangements between sharers that could be implemented directly in HTML. That's the primary tool artists use to attach Creative Commons licenses to their work. Thanks to the Copyright Act of 1976, as soon as an original work is "fixed" -- i.e., takes tangible form -- it's automatically protected by copyright. Absent language to the contrary, distributing, copying, or performing that work without permission then becomes illegal. But with Creative Commons, an artist can place a link next to the work -- or even embed a license in, say, an MP3 or PDF file -- to explicitly grant the permission in advance.
To see how this works in practice, consider the experience of science fiction writer (and Business 2.0 contributor) Cory Doctorow. In January 2003, Tor Books published his hardcover novella, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Simultaneously, Doctorow released the book as a free download on his website, hoping the electronic version would generate buzz and spur bookstore sales. "I didn't do this because I'm a big-hearted slob," he says. "I did it because I saw an opportunity to make more money."
With no formal legal training, Doctorow wanted to tell online readers that he intended to protect his work in a new way. So he linked the online version of his novella to a Creative Commons license. From a menu on the Creative Commons site (see "A Spotter's Guide to Shared Content"), Doctorow chose a license called Attribution-NoDerivs-Noncommercial, meaning that people can distribute his book for free, so long as they credit him as its author; they're not allowed to use it as the basis for derivative works; and to retain his upside potential, such as a movie deal, he requires payment for commercial uses.
In the 15 months that the book has been available online, Doctorow has recorded more than 300,000 downloads from his site. It's impossible to measure the effect that had on book sales, but the initial print run of 8,500 copies sold out, and the title is now out in paperback. Doctorow estimates that the speaking fees he received from people who hired him based on the buzz surrounding the giveaway version exceed the advance he received from his publisher. Meanwhile, after the commercial success of his first book established his credentials as a marketable writer, Doctorow received a much bigger advance for his third and fourth books.
Of course, for many who use Creative Commons to license their works, profit is merely an afterthought. "It gets your name out there," says Adam Conover, a Bard College senior who attached one of the licenses to Dead Puppies, a short film he produced with classmates. Some do it simply to protest the recording industry's hard-line copyright policy. Whatever the reason, every artist who embraces Creative Commons helps to build its brand. It's a classic case of network effects: As more of the licenses appear on the Web, the collective value of the Creative Commons body of work increases, which creates greater incentives for other artists to use the licenses. "Say that someday there are 100 million objects out there that mark themselves with this kind of freedom," Lessig says. "People will begin to build on this in ways we can't even imagine."
To see how that vision can take shape, visit a website called MacBand.com. In January, Apple released a new music-production program called GarageBand. A few weeks later, a group of college students launched MacBand, a site where people can upload and share their compositions. Hal Bergman, one of MacBand's co- creators, wanted to encourage users to allow others to build on their projects. "A lot of people won't upload or download music on sites where everything's copyrighted," he says.
When composers upload songs on MacBand, they're presented with the option of choosing a Creative Commons license. The result is that nearly every song on MacBand functions as raw material for new songs. The sharing not only spurs activity on MacBand, but also builds demand for Apple software and hardware.
Lessig wants to integrate Creative Commons into the tools used to create digital art. The licenses now come in "machine-readable" form, which means that smart CD players can display a song's license as it plays. There is also a plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop that recognizes licenses embedded in image files. The open-source Mozilla project plans to put a Creative Commons search tool alongside one for Google in its Firefox 1.0 browser, due out this summer, making it easy to search the Web for, say, photos of the Empire State Building that are cleared for noncommercial use. A Japanese Creative Commons license is already available, and Lessig hopes to introduce 24 more country-specific versions by the year's end. A $1.2 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation should help the six-person Creative Commons staff complete the project.
Of course, the digital landscape is littered with failed companies that promised to give something away for free and make money down the road. The real potential of Creative Commons is that it could do for content what the open-source movement did for software -- that is, create a parallel sharing universe that even mainstream companies can tap profitably. (There was a day when the idea of IBM (IBM) embracing Linux sounded pretty outrageous too.) As Creative Commons assistant director Neeru Paharia recently asked, "Can you charge more for a Madonna CD that includes the right to make a noncommercial remix?" And if independent artists used this material to make commercially viable remixes, "couldn't this be a great new revenue stream for Madonna?"
According to Steve Fabrizio, formerly the Recording Industry Association of America's chief litigator and now a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, it's far-fetched, but not impossible, to envision a top label embracing Creative Commons. "If Creative Commons builds enough brand awareness and respect for what it means, I see no reason why record companies that want to pre-authorize limited use of a work wouldn't think it was a great idea."
Lessig is doing his part to make the copyright establishment grapple with his views. In March, Penguin Press, part of the second-largest publishing house in the United States, released his third book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. You can buy the hardcover, but, for a limited time, Penguin has also authorized Amazon (AMZN) to offer a free, downloadable, Creative Commons-licensed PDF version of the text. "We could look like visionaries, or we could look like chuckleheads," says Penguin's Scott Moyers, who edited the book. "But I'm confident that we'll see greater book sales."
Inevitably, as more and more digital content is produced by so-called amateurs, sharing will increase no matter how Lessig's book -- or Creative Commons -- fares. As Allan Vilhan puts it, "I make music, and I want people to hear it." Yet if Creative Commons is successful, sharing will become even more pervasive. And a lot more money will be made along the way.
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/arti...608619,00.html
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ACLU Challenges FBI's Request for ISP Records
Curt Anderson
The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the FBI's use of expanded powers to compel Internet service providers to turn over information about their customers or subscribers.
A lawsuit challenging secret FBI national security letters was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in New York but not made public until Wednesday because of its extraordinary sensitivity.
The FBI can issue national security letters, or NSLs, without a judge's approval in terrorism and espionage cases. They require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers.
People who receive the letters are prohibited by law from disclosing to anyone that they did so. Because of this legal gag order, the ACLU was forced to reach an agreement with the Justice Department before a heavily edited version of the lawsuit could be unsealed.
"We believe the public has a right to know much more about this lawsuit," said Ann Beeson, ACLU associate legal director.
Justice Department and FBI officials declined comment on the case.
The lawsuit challenges as unconstitutional one of several types of national security letters used by the FBI in counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations.
The letters in question involve records held by Internet service providers about their clients, including billing information, kinds of merchandise the clients buy online and the e-mail addresses of the clients' associates. The co-plaintiff in the case is identified only as an "Internet access business," with other identification blacked out.
The ACLU lawsuit contends that the Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law passed shortly after the 2001 terror attacks, expanded the FBI's power to use national security letters by deleting parts of an earlier law requiring that there be some suspicion that the subject of the probe was linked to spying or terrorism.
"As a result of the Patriot Act, the FBI may now use NSLs to obtain sensitive information about innocent individuals who have no connection to espionage or terrorism," the lawsuit says.
An FBI guidance document to its field offices acknowledges that the Patriot Act "greatly broadened" FBI authority to use these letters in relevant investigations. But the document says that FBI supervisors must exercise care in their use, particularly because that part of the Patriot Act is set to expire in 2005 unless renewed by Congress.
"Supervisors should keep this in mind when deciding whether or not a particular use of NSL authority is appropriate," the FBI document says.
The lawsuit contends that NSLs are unconstitutional because of the gag order, because a recipient has no way of challenging their validity and because the government is not forced to justify its reasons for not notifying the target about the records being sought.
The ACLU has also filed a lawsuit challenging another part of the Patriot Act that allows the FBI to obtain a variety of records and documents in terrorism and espionage cases by obtaining a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
President Bush has been pushing Congress to renew all of the Patriot Act before it expires next year, arguing that it is one of law enforcement's best tools in preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Apr28.html
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No anchovies!
Missouri Tracks Scofflaws Via Pizza- Delivery Databases
Kelly Wiese
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — It's dinnertime, and you're hungry and tired, so you pick up the phone and order your favorite pizza. But you might have just landed yourself a lot more than pepperoni and cheese.
If you owe fines or fees to the courts, that phone call may have provided the link the state needed to track you down and make you pay.
That's one of the strategies of firms such as a company being hired by the Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator to handle its fine and debt collections.
David Coplen, the state office's budget director, said he discovered that pizza delivery lists are one of the best sources such companies use to locate people.
"There are literally millions of dollars of uncollected fines, fees and court costs out there," Coplen said.
How much?
A sampling in January of just three of Missouri's 114 counties found about $2 million owed to courts by people whose Social Security numbers were known, Coplen said. That finding suggests courts statewide could reap significant revenue once Dallas-based ACS gets to work this month pursuing people using phone numbers and addresses.
Databases compiled by private companies and government agencies are a key tool for firms such as ACS, Coplen said, and "one of the databases they find to be most helpful are pizza delivery databases."
"When you call to order a pizza, you usually give them your correct name, your correct address and your correct phone number," he said.
Just which pizza companies' databases might be mined is unknown.
A representative of Domino's Pizza said the company does not sell its customer information, and other national pizza chains did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Michael Daniels, an ACS division vice president, declined to reveal exactly which companies' databases ACS uses.
Daniels said sifting through private databases, from pizza deliveries to magazine subscriptions, is just one piece of the work the company does to help states collect more money and make the process more efficient.
The company's clients typically see their collections rise anywhere from 33% to 100% in the first year of a contract, Daniels said.
Some details of Missouri's contract with ACS are still being worked out, Coplen said, but the company makes money on court fees by adding a surcharge to the amount a person owes. For every $1 of a court fee it collects, ACS may charge — and keep — a maximum surcharge of 20%.
For handling the fine collection center, which processes citations such as traffic tickets that people pay without going to court, the company is paid per ticket, but the cost is tied to the amount it finds in the debt collection portion.
Coplen said having ACS pursue those who owe court fees and fines will not only bring money into the state but will teach people that when they are fined, they must pay up.
Currently, Coplen said, if an Illinois resident fails to pay a Missouri speeding ticket, a Missouri court can issue a warrant. But sheriffs' offices rarely have time or staff to drive hours away and deliver such a warrant, he said. For ACS, however, there's a financial incentive to go after such scofflaws.
Some privacy advocates say the public should be aware of how databases such as pizza delivery lists may be used.
Chris Hoofnagle, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the use of such seemingly innocuous information is a common strategy.
"The unfortunate reality is even if you are very careful in protecting your personal information, you give it to any business, they can turn around and sell it," Hoofnagle said.
"The first time your baby sitter orders pizza, that pizza delivery company has your phone number, address and name, and they sell it," he added. "They don't have to tell you about it, either."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/in...-privacy_x.htm
Until next week,
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js.
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