Dewey Decimal Sues New York Hotel
A global computer library service is seeking one heck of a fine against a New York City luxury hotel.
The Library Hotel, overlooking the New York Public Library, opened in August 2000 as an homage to the Dewey Decimal system of classifying books by topic.
Each floor is dedicated to one of 10 Dewey categories. The 60 rooms are named for specific topics, such as room 700.003 for performing arts, with appropriate books inside.
Trouble is, the classification system isn't in the public domain.
Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization based in this Columbus suburb, acquired the rights to Dewey Decimal in 1988 when it bought Forest Press.
The system is continually updated, with numbers assigned to more than 100,000 new works each year as soon as they are cataloged by the Library of Congress, according to the OCLC website.
Now the library group is suing the Library Hotel, accusing it of trademark infringement.
The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus on Wednesday seeks triple the hotel's profits since its opening or triple the organization's damages, whichever is greater, from hotel owner Henry Kallan.
"I would term it straight-out trademark infringement," said Joseph R. Dreitler, a trademark lawyer with the Columbus office of Jones Day, which represents the Online center.
"A person who came to their Web site and looked at the way (the hotel) is promoted and marketed would think they were passing themselves off as connected with the owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification system."
Melvil Dewey created the most widely used library classification system in 1873. Each of 10 main categories, such as social sciences, mathematics or the arts, has thousands of subcategories, designated by decimal points.
The center charges libraries at least $500 a year for its use.
The center also provides computerized services such as cataloging materials, locating reference books and arranging interlibrary loans to more than 45,000 libraries in 84 countries.
Similar unauthorized uses of the Dewey system mostly have resulted in out-of-court settlements, Dreitler said.
The lawsuit said the center sent three letters to Kallan from October 2000 to October 2002, asking for acknowledgment of Online's ownership of the Dewey trademarks, but the hotel owner didn't respond.
Hotel general manager Craig Spitzer and OCLC spokeswoman Wendy McGinnis did not return phone messages Saturday requesting comment on the lawsuit.
Dreitler said the center is willing to settle with the hotel's owners.
"At a minimum, if they want to continue to use it, there certainly has to be some sort of a license to the Library Hotel," he said. "We're not interested in putting the hotel out of business."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...-regional-wire
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Old Hitler Article Stirs Debate
Chris Ulbrich
A fawning 1938 article by Homes & Gardens magazine about Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat remains widely available on the Web, even after the discoverer and original poster of the article took it off his site when the magazine demanded its removal.
The three-page article, "Hitler's Mountain Home, a Visit to 'Haus Wachenfeld,'" first appeared on Words of Waldman in early August. Mirrors of the page quickly sprang up across the Web, including one on the website of a well-known Holocaust revisionist.
The article depicts Hitler in glowing terms, such as the "Squire of Wachenfeld," and extols him as a talented architect, decorator and raconteur who "delights in the society of brilliant foreigners, especially painters, singers, and musicians."
Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing for Guardian Newspapers, came upon the article while flipping at random through a back issue of Homes & Gardens. He was immediately intrigued.
"We hear a lot about how the British upper and upper-middle classes felt that 'That Hitler chap had some very good ideas' ... but it's only when you see it in this almost comically fawning form that you realise how someone who can seem utterly abhorrent with hindsight can appeal to people at the time," he later wrote on his personal blog.
Waldman scanned the article and posted the images to his blog. Within weeks, his traffic had spiked to 10,000 impressions a day, with the vast majority of visitors downloading the article.
Waldman e-mailed the magazine's editorial director, Isobel McKenzie-Price, to ask whether she had a copy of the article. McKenzie-Price replied in a politely worded e-mail: "While I personally do appreciate the spirit in which you sent it to me, as a representative of IPC Media I am concerned to prevent the unauthorised reproduction of IPC's material, whenever it was originally published.... In the circumstances I must request you to remove this article from your website."
IPC Media, which is owned by AOL Time Warner, publishes 76 magazines in addition to Homes & Gardens, including the U.K. editions of In Style, Marie Claire and Family Circle.
Last Monday, Waldman removed the scans and posted a reply: "I believe that as I'm not making any money out of this, I'm not depriving you of any money, no-one can make any money from the scans (too poor quality), and no-one has said or inferred anything damaging about Homes and Gardens ... you're being slightly over the top."
He continued: "These are interesting and important historical documents. As you are clearly aware. They should be widely available for as many people as possible to learn from them."
McKenzie-Price did not respond to a request for comment.
Waldman later said that he had "no real issue with IPC's decision to enforce their copyright," and conceded on technology expert Joi Ito's blog that the scans probably violated copyright. Nevertheless, he continued to link to mirrors of the article.
British revisionist historian David Irving, who maintains an index of Hitler-related content on his website and believes that the Holocaust never happened, suggested he would be more intransigent if challenged.
In a letter sent to Wired News, Irving wrote, "If I suspect that an attempt is being made to suppress an awkward item -- which I suspect may be behind the Homes and Gardens effort -- then I would dig my heels in rather more, and hold out as long as I could."
He said he would argue that posting the material was protected under the First Amendment and the public interest.
Laws of the United Kingdom do not, however, recognize the First Amendment.
Peter Jaszi, professor of law at American University, said Irving's other defenses likely wouldn't succeed. American law recognizes a "fair use" exception to copyright, which permits limited reproduction for critical, satirical or educational use, where copying would not affect the market for the original work. U.K. copyright, however, recognizes a related concept called "fair dealing," which Jaszi said tends to be interpreted much more narrowly than its American cousin. He added that the "public interest" exception is more of a theory than a reality in current U.K. law, and probably would not apply to this case.
Waldman said he thinks the article has a lot to teach the contemporary world.
"These days we often find ourselves confused by the moral rights and wrongs of foreign policy," he said. "All too often, it is never clear who is the good guy and who the bad. With the vanity of the present day, we assume this is something that is new to us. This document tells us it was ever thus."
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60523,00.html
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EU Amends Software Patent Directive (Suggestions)
Hemos
jopet writes "The EU has amended its draft proposal for a directive on how to handle patents on "computer-implemented inventions'. Several harsh points have been dropped and clarifications on what is patentable at all have been added. Good to see that protests and petitions can make a difference." YHBT. These are the suggestions from June.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/09/22...&tid=98&tid=99
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Turn On. Tune In. Download.
Rob Walker
Pretty much from the moment that music ''file swapping'' made its way into the public consciousness by way of Napster, there has been a vaguely ''Reefer Madness'' quality to the discussion of what the practice has meant to its college-age-and-younger participants. We have heard again and again that this new generation is coming to believe that music is something you don't pay for but rather simply take. That idea is in the air again since the major recording labels recently started filing what they say will be thousands of lawsuits against people who have used file-sharing software like KaZaA to download songs they have not paid for.
And the implication of that argument is ominous and meant to alarm us: file sharing is like a gateway drug that will make users unlearn their willingness to pay for movies, video games, books. What the music industry is doing might be thought of as administering a dose of tough love, an intervention that will remind wayward youth not just that stealing is wrong but also that we have a system here wherein goods and services carry a cost. It's called capitalism, kid, and chances are very high that your favorite recording artist -- and every other cultural figure you admire -- loves it. Better to learn this now and kick the download habit before it leads to harder stuff, like a general unwillingness to pay for material goods of any kind, or a failure to grasp the magic of a great brand. If these consumer delinquents don't get scared straight back to the mall, the cost to us all will be much greater than lost revenue for the music business. The very morals of a generation are at stake.
For that to be the case, a couple of underlying assumptions must be true. One is that file sharing is at its heart a problem of reckless youth who simply do not understand that what they are doing is wrong and dangerous. Another is that the habits of college are the habits of a lifetime.
We can dismiss right away the notion that most file swappers would stop if only they understood that what they're doing is wrong. One of the most amusing research results from the various studies of music piracy is the finding that most file sharers apparently don't care if they're violating copyright laws. But this attitude doesn't mean disdain for the marketplace. Earlier this year Forrester Research surveyed 12-to-22-year-olds and adults 23 and older and found that while about half the kids had downloaded songs in the past month (compared with 12 percent of the grown-ups), nearly half of the young downloaders said that they were buying as many CD's as ever. (Members of what Forrester dubs Young Samplers on average bought 3.6 CD's in the past 90 days.) What's more, while 67 percent of the young cohort think ''people should be able to download music for free,'' the same percent claim they are very likely to buy a CD as a result of a recent download.
If there isn't much evidence that young people are not having their acceptance of the free market permanently unwired, then why do they seem to dominate the download phenomenon? No doubt a facility with technology really does set this generation apart. But other, probably more important factors are not new at all. Younger people with fewer responsibilities have much more time to devote to pleasure seeking of all sorts than they have disposable income to pay for it. And at college especially, they are part of a tight-budgeted community, and the culture of sharing is stronger at this age in their lives than it will ever be again.
But the biggest factor, as any baby-boomer politician will tell you -- in fact, as most baby-boomer politicians have already told you -- is that youth is a time of experimentation. If everyone carried their college-age behavior patterns into adulthood, then half our elected officials would be current recreational dope smokers. Which is probably not the case. Certainly we have all absorbed the lesson by now that it's possible to party, get crazy and shrug off responsibility all through college and still grow up to be president.
The lawsuits do make downloading riskier, but a major component of youthful experimentation is a liberal attitude toward risk that mellows over time. Just as important is run-of-the-mill rebellion. An unnamed 16-year-old female in Forrester's report summarizes her defense of downloading this way: ''RECORD COMPANIES ARE UNFAIR AND ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM, GO AGAINST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!''
Well, sure. Who didn't feel that way at 16? On the other hand, how many people feel that way forever? And even now, it's worth pointing out, the radical anti-system ethos that supposedly underlies file sharing is not all it's cracked up to be. The fact is, most participants do a lot more taking than ''sharing''; one study found that nearly half the songs accessible through major peer-to-peer networks are contributed by just 1 percent of users, and nearly 70 percent of downloaders do not share a thing. One of the more revelatory aspects of the record industry's strategy is that it's picking targets based less on how much music they've downloaded than on how much they are offering up to the world. (Of course, this won't do much to counter the industry's reputation as the architect of an Evil System -- nor will the fact that the most prominent of the early targets was a 12-year-old honors student.)
The urge to cast downloading as a kind of black-and-white moral issue that simply needs to be made plain to the kids so that they will knock it off is understandable, but it's also wishful thinking. An estimated 60 million people have downloaded songs illicitly, which makes the phenomenon bigger than a youth fad. It's more like speeding or marijuana use -- activities that many people in a wide range of ages know are ''wrong'' in a technical sense but not in a behavioral sense. By now, even if the music industry is right on the legal argument, it can't win the moral one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/21/magazine/21WWLN.html
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Open Codex culture :: copyright-as-property-history
The History of Copyright as Property
Joseph Reagle
Elsewhere, in the 2nd of a 3 part essay on propaganda and the copyright, I discussed the myth and history of copyright as "property", and have since recommended that the most appropriate term is "intellectual monopoly right." However in looking at the new wordpirates site that attempts to "reclaim" various words in the contemporary discourse, I'd caution against claiming that the term "property" has only recently arrived to the discussion. Shortly after the issuance of the Statute of Ann (1710), often referenced as the first copyright law, we can see debates invoking the concept of property. In Donaldson v. Beckett, Proceedings in the Lords (1774), one can note:
"... he then dwelt much upon the sense of the word 'property,' defining it philosophically, and in the separate lights of being corporeal and spiritual; the term Literary Property, he in a manner laughed at, as signifying nothing but what was of too abstruse and chimerical a nature to be defined."
"... Was learning encouraged by depriving learned men of a property they had for a perpetuity, and vesting it in them for a term of years only? The supposition was absurd; and yet if the Act by some certain privileges not enjoyed before, did not encourage learning, a statute of the legislature was suffered to be published with a direct falshood for its imprimatur..."
"... what property can a man have in ideas? whilst he keeps them to himself they are his own, when he publishes them they are his no longer. If I take water from the ocean it is mine, if I pour it back it is mine no longer."
Discussions on the character of the limited monopolies of copyright and patent have historically relied upon "property" for comparison, but did not yield to equivelance. The balance has been that these monopoly rights, granted for the advancement of learning, is in some ways like property and in someways not. This understanding of difference and balance is what has been lost in contemporary discourse. Simply ignoring something is much more effective than the coercive pirating of it, as demonstrated when Eisner (of Disney) had to resort to an out of context quotation from Abe Lincoln, while ignoring the elegant sense of balance from another president, founding father, and head of the U.S. patent office, Thomas Jefferson:
"... That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation...."
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/cultur...operty-history
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Reality Sets in on Elite “Warez” Server
Cory Higgins
German authorities moved in under the cloak of darkness and carried out raids at Global Access Telecommunications, and up to eight individuals residences. The target of the raid was a server know by the pirates who frequented it as “Unreality”. This massive sever had the ability to store nearly 11 terabytes of data. It was capable of pumping out bootlegs of the newest runaway Hollywood blockbusters, at speeds approaching nearly 1 gig a second.
Among the residences raided was that of a suspect identified as only Marco C., and employee of Global Access Telecommunications. German officials claim that the server had been operating as a major hub and distribution point for piracy on a global scale. The server had been operating for nearly 2 ½ years. Around 400 users had accounts to access the server.
"The offenders felt safe due to their secrecy. They never expected to be detected. This case proves our belief in our ability to operate successfully against these sources. We have information about several more servers." Said Bernd Kulbe, the lead investigator. Slyck has learned but been unable to confirm that these release groups where among those who used
“Unreality” as a dump site. PANTHEON , DCN , FTV , Boozers , RORiSO
RiSE , GENESIS , TCF , FTV , FLT , and KALISTO.
These groups are among some of the most active releasers of “warez” onto the internet. TCF (the chosen few), is legendary for it release of first run movies. While FTV specializes in pre-broadcast feeds of television shows. What effect if any this has on the “scene” remains to be seen. It is likely that some groups may at the very least lay low for awhile.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=242
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Being Sued by the RIAA Turns Profitable
Thomas Mennecke
What started off as every P2P users nightmare has turned into a profitable enterprise for 12 year old Brianna LaHara. Like 60 million other American citizens, Brianna’s downloading day started off like many others; launch your Kazaa client and trade away.
Unfortunately for Brianna, she had approximately 1,000 copyrighted songs in her shared directory. Compounding her situation was the type of shared music; mostly top 40, such as Christina Aguilera. This unfortunate combination is exactly what the RIAA automatons are looking for.
Like many other victims of the RIAA's persecution of the American people, Brianna had no idea that she was targeted until reporters started contacting the household. The RIAA quickly brushed off the issue, accepting a minimal payment of $2,000.
While the marginal penalty may seem like a fortune to this low-income New York family, the immediate sympathy and outpouring was undeniable. Almost immediately, P2P United, a trade organization that promote the file-sharing world, sent the family $2,000 to cover the costs.
However, the support didn't stop there.
In addition to the 2 grand from P2P United, Brianna has literally been flooded with donations. The donations range anywhere from $3 dollars to nearly $1,000. Not only has Brianna been able to pay her fine; she's making a profit from her ordeal with the RIAA.
In addition, "Rochester, New York radio disc jockey Brother Wease also offered to pay Torres’ legal bill, and online music retailer MusicRebellion.com said it would allow Torres’ daughter, Brianna Lahara, to download $2,000 worth of free music from its industry-sanctioned site."
What started off as a financial nightmare for the LaHara family has turned into a dream come true. With the $2,000 dollar offer from Music Rebellion, and “floods” of donations where some have totaled near $1,000, we can only speculate that Brianna has managed to make over $4,000 for the LaHara household - and that's a very conservative estimate. Not bad for being sued for copyright infringement.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=238
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A.C.L.U. Goes to College, With Mixed Results
Tamar Lewin
The poster promised a free hip-hop concert and a performance by the comedian Dave Chappelle — but Mr. Chappelle canceled and not many students showed up Thursday night for the Hunter College stop on the American Civil Liberties Union College Freedom Tour.
The event, billed as a concert and a political forum, was an unabashed effort to recruit young members for the A.C.L.U., which received two-thirds of its donations last year from people older than 55.
But the comedy and music, not the politics, were the big draw. "I thought Dave Chappelle would be here, and that's why I'm here," said Nia Ferguson, a 19-year-old Hunter student. "The A.C.L.U.? I've never heard of it."
The A.C.L.U., a nonprofit activist organization founded in 1920, is staging an eight-campus tour, its first national effort to reach college-age students and convince them that the group's bedrock mission, the defense of individual liberties, is more crucial than ever in the post-9/11 political climate.
"We're trying to show that this is not your father or mother's A.C.L.U.," said Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.'s 37-year-old executive director, chosen two years ago with a mandate to bring younger members into the organization.
Attendance at the Hunter College event may have been affected by Hurricane Isabel, which had threatened to bring wind and rain to the area on Thursday. But hurricane or no, most of those who showed up had no idea what the A.C.L.U. was all about.
"We came for the music," said Aron Phaige, 23, arriving at the concert with Crystal Olmo for their first night out since their 7-week-old son, Jaden, was born. "I've never been introduced to the A.C.L.U. before."
In staging the campus tour, the A.C.L.U. is "trying to make sure students understand that these are today's issues," Mr. Romero said.
Sept. 11 "is to this generation what the assassination of Martin Luther King was to my parents' generation," he said. "There's an incredible opportunity to connect a political analysis of what's happening in this country, and the erosion of core civil liberties, to an event they lived personally."
The message apparently got through to some, even to those who had not been attracted by politics.
"It was interesting," Mr. Phaige said. "I didn't know how secret our government was being after 9/11, how they were going after Muslims so much."
Like some of the roughly 80 people in the audience, the three Guerrero sisters — Karina, 26, Dulce, 17 and Yrma, 16 — were initially disappointed by Mr. Chappelle's absence. But they said afterward that they were interested in the presentations by lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union on post-9/11 civil liberties, reproductive rights and the state's drug laws.
"This is the first time I heard of the A.C.L.U.," Karina Guerrero said. "But I'm very disappointed in how the government is handling things."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/nyregion/22ACLU.html
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Think Debate on Music Property Rights Began With Napster? Hardly
Lisa Napoli
Since Thomas A. Edison recorded the human voice in 1877, the music industry has grappled with the uncertainties wrought by new technologies.
"The form changes, but the issues - who owns the music, what rights pertain to artists, what rights pertain to the companies - these are issues that go way back into the 19th century,'' said Larry Starr, professor of music history at the University of Washington in Seattle and co-author of "American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV'' (Oxford University Press, 2002).
The initial race to create a low-cost way to record and play back sound resulted in a number of competing companies. Many wound up merging forces around the turn of the 20th century, forming a stronghold that for the most part has been the locus of industry power for a hundred years. The RCA Music Group, part of the BMG unit of Bertelsmann; the EMI Group; and the Columbia Records unit of Sony are among the current music companies that have long, historic roots in the business.
"There has always been a tendency for several large companies to dominate the actual production and distribution, just because of how difficult it is,'' said Steven E. Schoenherr, professor of American history at the University of San Diego. "It takes a huge capital investment.''
Recorded music shifted the balance of power from sheet music publishers, which dominated the early music business, to record producers. But the reaction to technical innovation - whether radio in the 1920's, cassette recorders in the 1960's or MP3 players in the 1990's - has been consistent. "It's nothing new to say the recording companies are scared,'' Professor Schoenherr said. "They've always been scared.''
Now that the threat emanates from the computer and the Internet, though, the fear has taken on a new proportion for the recording companies, whose capital resources and established production and distribution systems may give them no particular advantages in the future.
"The Web eliminates two-thirds of the cost factors,'' said Richard Kurin, director of folk life and cultural heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. "You don't have to produce a hard product and you don't have to pay a middleman. The prospect is for greater dissemination, but also for greater participation. The Net has tremendous implications. The big industry question is, How do you handle those implications?''
Though no one can predict precisely how the music industry will evolve, many experts agree that a change in industry structure seems inevitable.
"Whatever the industry is going to be, it has to take a different form,'' said Christopher Waterman, dean of the school of arts and architecture at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Professor Starr's co-author. "This is raising basic questions about property. Music has been turned into information, and once it is physically pulled away, not embedded in any material object, you're in a whole new world.''
A glimpse of the industry's future might be seen in the early success of iTunes Music Store, the online service that Apple Computer introduced in April, Professor Schoenherr said. "If they continue to innovate,'' he said, "they could make stars on their own.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/te...gy/22tune.html
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Students Shall Not Download. Yeah, Sure.
Kate Zernike
In the rough and tumble of the student union here at Pennsylvania State University, the moral code is purely pragmatic.
Thou shalt not smoke — it will kill you.
Thou shalt not lift a term paper off the Internet — it will get you kicked out.
Thou shalt not use a fake ID — it will get you arrested.
And when it comes to downloading music or movies off the Internet, students here compare it with under-age drinking: illegal, but not immoral. Like alcohol and parties, the Internet is easily accessible. Why not download, or drink, when "everyone" does it?
This set of commandments has helped make people between the ages of 18 and 29, and college students in particular, the biggest downloaders of Internet music.
"It's not something you feel guilty about doing," said Dan Langlitz, 20, a junior here. "You don't get the feeling it's illegal because it's so easy." He held an MP3 player in his hand. "They sell these things, the sites are there. Why is it illegal?"
Students say they have had the Internet for as long as they can remember, and have grown up thinking of it as theirs for the taking.
The array of services available to them on campus has only encouraged that sense.
Penn State recently made the student center, known as the Hub, entirely wireless, so students do not even have to dial up to get on the Internet. In comfortable armchairs, they sit clicking on Google searches, their ears attached to iPods, cellphones a hand away. A swipe of a student ID gets them three free newspapers. They do not need cash — only a swipe card, the cost included in their student fees — to buy anything from a caramel caffè latte to tamale pie at an abundance of fast food counters. There is a bank branch and a travel agency, and a daily activities board lists a Nascar simulator as well as rumba lessons.
Many courses put all materials — textbook excerpts, articles, syllabuses — online. Residence halls offer fast broadband access — which studies say makes people more likely to download.
"It kind of spoils us, in a sense, because you get used to it," said Jill Wilson, 20, a sophomore.
The ease of going online has shaped not only attitudes about downloading, but cheating as well, blurring the lines between right and wrong so much that many colleges now require orientation courses that give students specific examples of what plagiarism looks like. Students generally know not to buy a paper off the Internet, but many think it is O.K. to pull a paragraph or two, as long as they change a few words.
"Before, when you had to go into the library and at least type it in to your paper, you were pretty conscious about what you were doing," said Janis Jacobs, vice-provost for undergraduate education here. "That means we do have to educate students about what is O.K. It's the same whether you're talking about plagiarizing a phrase from a book or article or downloading music — it all seems free to them."
Last year and again last week, the university sent out an e-mail message reminding students that downloading copyrighted music was illegal, and pleading with them to "resist the urge" to download. It also warned students that it had begun monitoring how much information students are downloading, and that they could lose their Internet access if their weekly use exceeded a limit administrators described as equivalent to tens of thousands of e-mail messages sent.
This year, all students had to take an online tutorial before receiving access to their e-mail accounts, acknowledging that they had read and agreed to university policy prohibiting the downloading of copyrighted material.
At the same time, realizing the difficulties of stopping downloading, Penn State's president, Graham B. Spanier, is hoping to try out a program this spring where the university would pay for the rights to music, and then allow students to download at will.
To students, the crackdown seemed like a sudden reversal.
"Up until recently, we were not told it was wrong," said Kristin Ebert, 19. "We think if it's available, you can use it. It's another resource."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/20/te...gy/20COLL.html
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Hitler at Home on the Internet
Tom Zeller
The predominant color scheme of Hitler's "bright, airy chalet" was "a light jade green." Chairs and tables of braided cane graced the sun parlor, and the Führer, "a droll raconteur," decorated his entrance hall with "cactus plants in majolica pots."
Such are the precious and chilling observations in an irony-free 1938 article in Homes & Gardens, a British magazine, on Hitler's mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps. A bit of arcana, to be sure, but one that has dropped squarely into the current debate over the Internet and intellectual property. This file, too, is being shared.
The resurrection of the article can be traced to Simon Waldman, the director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers in Britain, who says he was given a vintage issue of the magazine by his father-in-law. Noticing the Hitler spread, which doted on the compound's high-mountain beauty ("the fairest view in all Europe") at a time when the Nazis had already gobbled up Austria, Mr. Waldman scanned the three pages and posted them on his personal Web site last May. They sat largely unnoticed until about three weeks ago, when Mr. Waldman made them more prominent on his site and sent an e-mail message to the current editor of Homes & Gardens, Isobel McKenzie- Price, pointing up the article as a historical curiosity.
Ms. McKenzie-Price, citing copyright rules, politely requested that he remove the pages. Mr. Waldman did so, but not before other Web users had turned the pages into communal property, like so many songs and photographs and movies and words that have been illegally traded for more than a decade in the Internet's back alleys.
Still, there was a question of whether the magazine's position was a stance against property theft or a bit of red-faced persnicketiness.
Britain's Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988 considers use of "reasonable portions" of some copyrighted material to be "fair dealing," provided they are used in private study, criticism and review, or news reporting. Simply posting an article on the Web might not qualify.
Indeed, the Internet has ensured that copyright can never be just about one nation's laws. "All copyright issues are international copyright issues," said Edwin Komen, an intellectual property lawyer in Washington. On the Web, he added, "you become vulnerable to just about any jurisdiction in the world."
For all of that, though, IPC Media's unwillingness to discuss even the content of the Hitler article is puzzling to Mr. Waldman. This skeleton was abruptly yanked from the Homes & Gardens closet, yes, but the article reflects more about the mind of aristocratic Britain in 1938 — well known to have given Hitler the benefit of the doubt — than it does about the magazine itself. Even the American press noted the beauty of Hitler's compound, including The New York Times, which on Sept. 18, 1938, wrote that the chalet was "simple in its appointments" and that it commanded "a magnificent highland panorama."
Posting these pages online "doesn't damage Homes & Garden's reputation," Mr. Waldman said. "In fact, putting them up, along with a letter from the editor explaining a bit about them, could be a very positive thing for them to do."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/21/we...ew/21ZELL.html
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When All Hope Seems Lost, the Disc Data Is Rescued
J.D. Biersdorfer
CD and DVD discs are handy for storing large amounts of backed-up files, but a disc that takes a scratch or nick to the surface can become unreadable, fouling up the best-laid plans. Although such a disc may be damaged beyond repair, CD/DVD Diagnostic from Arrowkey can help recover the data and copy it back to your hard drive.
The program can recover files on discs in the CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW formats, no matter what software was originally used to record the files. In addition to deciphering scratched discs, CD/DVD Diagnostic will try to recover data from CD's or DVD's that were corrupted during the initial recording process, and through a readability test can determine just how damaged a disc might be. The program scans all kinds of discs, including standard audio CD's, DVD video discs, and discs created on Macintosh or Linux systems.
The CD/DVD Diagnostic software works on all versions of Windows. It sells for $69.99 in stores and can be downloaded for $49.99 from
www.arrowkey.com, where a free trial version is also available. Arrowkey offers a money-back guarantee on its software, making it possible that CD's full of freshly recovered data will be the only thing getting burned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/18/te...ts/18disc.html
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Digital-Music Sales Share To Shoot Up By 2008
Macworld staff
Digital-music sales will be worth $1.8 billion by 2008, reports analysts firm Informa Media. The market rises to $3.9 billion when online sales of CDs are included.
While predicting more music piracy ahead, the analysts are optimistic that the market share for legal digitally distributed music sales will rise from 4.5 per cent in 2003 to 11.9 per cent in 2008.
However, CD, DVD, vinyl and cassette recordings will continue to account for most sales until 2008, though combined digital-music revenues will reach $1.8 billion by 2008.
Apple recently announced that its pioneering online digital-music iTunes store sold its ten millionth track.
The firm believes file sharing will continue, as peer-to-peer software appears that places "greater emphasis on privacy and anonymity". The analysts "expect the music industry to have some success in limiting consumer's access to illegal networks", but this will be tempered by the arrival of new, secure peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=6943
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Net Music Piracy Growing, study says
Reuters
LONDON—The expanding market for pirated music will continue to haunt music executives for at least another five years, outstripping sales from the industry's own fledgling online businesses, a study by a British research firm said yesterday. The report by Informa Media said global Internet music sales, which include sales of CDs from retail Web sites such as Amazon.com and song downloads from services such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes, will reach about $5.2 billion by 2008, up from $1.5 billion in 2002. But the value of lost sales due to CD-burning and downloading free songs off peer-to-peer networks such as Grokster and Kazaa will rise to $6.3 billion in the same period from $3.2 billion this year. "The reason we're so downbeat is we think the peer-to-peer problem is going to only get worse. In 2008, broadband will be prevalent around the world," said Simon Dyson, the report's author. The rollout of faster broadband connections has made it more convenient for Internet users to download free music on the Web. Millions of Internet users around the globe regularly log on to the peer-to-peer network to obtain all types of copyright-protected materials, from Eminem songs to films. The industry has responded with fee-based download services of its own, but consumer response has been slow. The major music labels blame Net piracy for triggering a sharp decline in global music sales in the past three years. Dyson said a host of Internet file-sharing services are now beginning to appear in languages such as Russian and Chinese, potentially dashing the industry's hopes of building a loyal customer base in these emerging markets. The music trade body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, reported in July the sale of pirated compact discs has more than doubled in the past three years as costs of CD-burning devices plummet.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...d=968350072197
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Piracy To Haunt Music Biz For Years
Group finds filing sharing will trim sales for at least another 5 years as broadband spreads.
Reuters
The ever-expanding market for pirated music will continue to haunt music executives for at least another five years, outstripping growth for the industry's own fledgling online businesses, a new study said Monday.
The report by Informa Media said global Internet music sales, which includes sales of CDs from retail Web sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN: down $1.31 to $46.27, Research, Estimates) and song downloads from services such as Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL: down $0.51 to $22.07, Research, Estimates) iTunes, will reach $3.9 billion by 2008, up from $1.1 billion in 2002.
But the value of lost sales due to CD-burning and downloading free songs off so-called peer-to-peer networks such as Grokster and Kazaa will rise to $4.7 billion in the same period from $2.4 billion this year, the British research firm said.
"The reason we're so downbeat is we think the peer-to-peer problem is going to only get worse. In 2008, broadband will be prevalent around the world," said Simon Dyson, the report's author.
The rollout of faster broadband connections has made it more convenient for Internet users to download free music off the Web. Millions of Internet users around the globe regularly log on to the peer-to-peer network to obtain all manners of copyright-protected materials from Eminem songs to films.
The industry has responded with fee-based download services of its own, but consumer uptake has been slow.
This one-step-forward-two-steps-back scenario is hardly comforting for the major music labels, which blame Net piracy for triggering a sharp decline in global music sales in the past three years.
Dyson said a host of Internet file-sharing services are now beginning to appear in languages such as Russian and Chinese, potentially dashing the industry's hopes of building a loyal customer base in these emerging markets.
"This is where the industry's growth is supposed to come from," Dyson said.
On a positive note, online sales will account for nearly 12 percent of the entire global music market by 2008, up from 4.5 percent this year. The larger share is due to the industry's recent push to make more products available for download.
It's a rare bit of promising news for an industry that's been ravaged by new technologies.
The music trade body, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), reported in July the sale of pirated compact discs -- a problem that has dogged the industry for the past decade -- has more than doubled in the past three years as costs of CD-burning devices plummet.
The IFPI represents scores of independent and major music labels including EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music, and Bertelsmann's BMG. Warner Music is a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner (AOL: down $0.28 to $16.00, Research, Estimates), the parent company of CNN/Money.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/22/tech....reut/?cnn=yes
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Soccer Flick Has Legs Online
Katie Dean
Among the top 10 movies downloaded on the Internet in August were the usual blockbusters: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hulk, Matrix Reloaded ... and Shaolin Soccer.
Shaolin Soccer? Huh?
A comedy about a group of Shaolin monks who blend their kung fu skills with soccer is a smash hit with file sharers (watch the trailer). The movie has landed on file traders' top 10 list for the past four months, according to BayTSP, a company that sniffs around peer-to- peer sites for illegal copies of movies and music.
Studios use BayTSP's services to track those Internet users who are violating copyright by passing around unauthorized copies of films. But some say the underground success of Shaolin Soccer shows that BayTSP's data could also be useful to studios in determining what flicks the public wants.
Every other top movie listed is a blockbuster film backed by heavy advertising and marketing campaigns. Yet Shaolin Soccer, a film that debuted in Hong Kong in 2001, has not been released in the United States yet.
Starring Stephen Chow, Shaolin Soccer was a huge hit in Hong Kong. And judging from those who are seeking it online, the wacky flick has sustained its popularity.
"It does have a cult following," said Mark Pollard, founder and webmaster of Kung Fu Cinema, a site that posts news and reviews of martial arts films. "There's been a lot of frustration with these cult fans about Miramax limiting the ability for this film to be widely released in the U.S."
Fans of the Kung Fu genre have been waiting for Shaolin Soccer for months. Miramax has postponed its release
date at least three times. Originally released in Cantonese with English subtitles, the film was dubbed into English for U.S. audiences. Now, the studio intends to release the movie in the original form with English subtitles instead.
A Miramax spokesman said that the company is looking for the right time to release the film to give it the best chance of success in the market. There's no set release date at the moment.
"We were pleased to see that there is interest in the film (online)," the spokesman said. "At the same time, we work with the MPAA and our legal department to vigorously prosecute those who take our property and use (it) for their own purposes."
Since Miramax owns the rights to the film, the studio has restricted retailers from selling copies of the film in the United States. Pollard bought his copy of the movie from an online vendor overseas.
"Because this film is not readily available in the U.S., I think that's a contributing factor to why the file sharing is going on," said Pollard, adding that he opposes file sharing because it is harmful to the industry.
He's not surprised that people are looking for it. It's a hilarious action film, he said.
"It's the college-age kids who are going to enjoy this film the most," he said. "Those are the people who are going online and familiar with peer-to-peer programs.
Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP, said that the company works with three of the seven major movie studios and three of the five big music labels. It snags between 1.5 million and 2.5 million infringements per day, and the vast majority of violations are for songs.
"We search the Internet looking for people who are making available publicly the copyright material that belongs to our clients, then we identify where it's coming from," Ishikawa said. "We gather as much information as we can and then provide it to the client to process. The client then decides what enforcement to take."
He dismissed the idea that studios could use the data on popular downloaded movies in their marketing strategies.
Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, disagreed.
"BayTSP needs to recognize the value that they add is not in antipiracy operations, but instead in gathering information about what's popular, when it's popular and where it's popular," von Lohmann said. "BayTSP is the Google or Nielsen ratings for peer to peer. The sooner they recognize that, the more money they'll make later."
He said that BigChampagne uses similar spidering technology to crawl peer-to-peer sites and locate the most popular songs downloaded. The company bills itself as a market research firm rather than an antipiracy company.
Jason Schultz, also with the EFF, agreed that peer-to-peer trends provide useful marketing data.
"People are voting via file-sharing software and expressing consumer desires much more directly than any other distribution mechanism," Schultz said. "You can't get closer to the pulse of the consumers than peer to peer."
But it's still an open question whether those who seek Shaolin Soccer online will have the opportunity -- or the interest -- to see the film on the big screen.
"If (Shaolin Soccer) is No. 10, there is obviously a serious missed opportunity that (Miramax) should be taking advantage of," Pollard said. "Maybe these studios should be paying attention."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60511,00.html
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Will that be one barrel or two?
Sharman Networks 'Lifts the Veil' on U.S. Entertainment Industry Collusion
Press Release
Sharman Networks, distributor of Kazaa Media Desktop, the world's most popular file sharing software, today announced it has filed an amended counterclaim in the US District Court of California, which 'lifts the veil' on anticompetitive behavior and unfair business practices employed by US entertainment industry players against Sharman Networks, its joint enterprise partner Altnet, and peer-to-peer technology.
The amended counterclaim significantly bolsters Sharman Networks' antitrust case against the US entertainment industry by detailing elements of the industry's concerted scheme to keep Sharman, Altnet and peer-to-peer technology out of the market for licensed digital content distribution. For example, the counterclaim filing details specific instances where Sharman and/or Altnet met with senior level individual industry executives at Universal, Warner Brothers Music and Interscope Music, among others, holding a number of positive and productive discussions, which were later stymied by industry body directives, despite the fact that these relationships were robust, and preliminary agreements had been reached.
In addition, the amended counterclaim details: * The nature of Sharman and Altnet's joint enterprise agreement (JEA) which demonstrates that both Sharman and Altnet are equally affected by the anticompetitive behavior of entertainment industry plaintiffs; * Collusion of the plaintiffs to apply pressure to advertisers, ISPs and business partners of Sharman and/or Altnet; * Public smear campaigns to undermine Sharman, Altnet and peer-to-peer technology; * Restrictive anti-P2P licensing practices by plaintiffs - "Dead End Licenses"- designed to exclude P2P distribution; * Unfair business practices on behalf of the plaintiffs including breach of Sharman Networks' copyright and privacy provisions to covertly gather information about users of Kazaa.
Nikki Hemming, CEO of Sharman Networks, said: "We take little pleasure in moving this next step to place the spotlight on the entertainment industry's behavior. However, the industry has lost its way, choosing a path of endless litigation , rather than accepting a solution to copyright infringement that is available now, and a technology that is inexorable.
"We've spoken to record company executives who recognize that P2Pprovides the most efficient means to profitably distribute licensed music and movie content for a fee over the Internet. It's time for these executives to take their business back from their lawyers and steer it into the future of digital distribution.
"We remain steadfast in our desire to work with the industry to distribute their content securely using our peer-to-peer technology. Thousands of content providers across the music, movie, games and software industries have already profited from working with us."
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2003,+04:51+PM
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Boob Toggle
Annalee Newitz
There is just so much one could say – and should say – about the 261 dangerous, file-sharing, copyright-infringing music junkies being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. One might begin with a sob story (or is that an SOB story?): The RIAA has already settled its first lawsuit, which was brought against Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old girl who lives with her single mom in public housing. It fined her mother $2,000 for honor student Brianna's naughty Kazaa usage. Even supporters of the RIAA have to admit this move doesn't make the record industry look very sympathetic.
Net activists (
www.funkbunny.com/datatype/archives/000076.html) rushed to Brianna's aid, raising $2,000 through PayPal and presenting it to her mother within days of the settlement. Others, like Bill Evans, run Web sites like Boycott-RIAA.com, which keeps people updated on the latest RIAA crackdowns on file traders as well as urges them to buy used music and avoid patronizing labels affiliated with the RIAA.
If you want to see if you're in the music industry's sights, visit John Barry's RIAA's Hit List (
www.riaashitlist.com), where you can search a list of people whose names the RIAA has subpoenaed from their Internet service providers. Barry, whose favorite file-sharing network is Kazaa, says he updates his list daily via a government service that provides online access to information about every subpoena filed in the United States. He's noticed a few patterns in the subpoenas, too. "People using Kazaa are targets. Ninety-nine percent of the subpoenas are for people using Kazaa," he says. "Also, nobody on AOL has been subpoenaed." Barry wonders if there is any political reason why users of the Time Warner – owned ISP aren't on the RIAA's list. Of course, it could just be that people using America Online don't have connections that are fast enough for file-sharing networks.
Like many people protesting the RIAA's actions, Barry thinks the music industry is taking a financial hit right now because when people can sample its wares before purchasing, they realize the CDs they thought they wanted actually suck. "I've stopped buying music because I'll download a song and it's drivel," Barry says. "The best music can't be purchased. So much of it is out of print." If he's right about most file swappers' motives, then what peer-to-peer (P2P) data-sharing networks offer isn't free music but a chance for consumers to avoid paying for works they wouldn't want anyway.
In what seems like an overt attempt to demonize file sharing, Rep. Joe Pitts introduced a bill in late July called the Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography Act (known as the P4 Act). Pitts claims P2P networks aren't just for trading the latest tunes from Justin Timberlake – they're also responsible for circulating pornography (especially ultra-evil child porn) to underage people. Despite the fact that Internet pornography is much more easily accessed on Web sites and in chat rooms, Pitts seems determined to yoke P2P with child porn in the public mind. If passed, his bill would require P2P companies to "give notice of the threats posed by P2P software" and would force P2P vendors to get parents' permission before allowing users to sign up for their services.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16821
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MP3 Lawsuits Don’t Stop the Culture of Piracy On and Off Campus
Matt Wheeland
BERKELEY - To enter one of Berkeley's off-campus student co-ops is to enter the recording industry's nightmare.
Thanks to the House Nerd-- an actual job title-- the residents have access to hundreds, if not thousands, of gigabytes of pirated media.
This summer, they watched “The Matrix: Reloaded” on the house TV before it was released in theaters. They’ve compiled and categorized thousands of albums, and many times more individual mp3s.
Residents feel little need to visit the record store, much less to pay to download songs off the legitimate download sites like Listen.com’s Rhapsody 2.0 or Apple’s iTunes music store.
A culture of, well, piracy pervades the co-op. The walls are covered in murals featuring copyrighted characters from movies and comic books. Students’ rooms are decorated with stolen street signs, and VHS tapes of recorded Simpsons episodes are common but less and less necessary.
If the recent 261 lawsuits against file sharers by the Recording Industry Association of America was intended to intimidate or stop downloading of music, it clearly failed on this campus.
“F**k the record industry!” said Allen, whose name has been changed to protect the guilty. He illustrated his point by opening his network drive on his PC, clicking one of the many server icons, and pulled up the 14 mp3s that make up Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief,” the British band’s latest album.
This reality is without control. A study released in July by the Pew Internet Project found that 35 million U.S. adults regularly download music and other media from the Internet using peer-to-peer (P2P) software like KaZaA and Grokster. Even more alarming for the industry is that 67 percent of these users say they don’t care whether or not the media is copyrighted.
To spend a few hours at the bustling co-op just off campus in north Berkeley is to see the accuracy of that culture. The file-sharing co-op—much like any on campus, has its own style, values, and own music. Lots of it.
Again, thanks to the House Nerd, the co-op has a new central file server that holds 300 gigabytes of data. Here are the numbers that the record industry hates to hear: A four-minute song ripped to MP3 at a medium-quality rate takes about five megabytes of disk space. This means the co-op’s central server could hold about 140,000 pirated songs.
And add to that the roughly 100 computers connected to the network, each with anywhere from 10 to 80 gigabytes of disk space each, and you’ve got enough stolen media to land even Mick Jagger in the poorhouse.
Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA, said that while only a few students were caught up in last week’s dragnet, it’s far from over. “[Students] should not feel shielded, not if they’re downloading or sharing music. There’s a misconception that individuals can’t be identified [on P2P networks]. We can find out who you are. We can and will hold you accountable.”
Despite the tough talk and subpoenas, users at the Berkeley co-op said it’s likely to backfire, and as proof they point to the industry’s suit against Napster. It only brought
file sharing into the public consciousness.
“Every time they pull a boneheaded move like this, [file sharing] traffic seems to go up,” Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster, recently told the Chronicle.
Beth, another co-op resident, is a perfect example. Beth never used the Internet to download music, and still doesn’t.. Instead, she relies on the co-op’s extensive selection of music to fill her hard drive. But she says the lawsuits might make her a KaZaA user after all.
“It makes me want to download more – just to stick it to them. And also in case they do shut it down, I want to get it while I can.”
And she and others at the co-op do.
Just last weekend, they watched “The Hulk,” a widely panned Hollywood blockbuster that still earned over $130 million in the box office. Copied from the network and burned to CD, Allen and Beth screened it in the co-op’s lounge.
“It was pretty f**king bad. I wouldn’t pay $8.50 for that. I wouldn’t even rent it.”
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/001112.html
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Recording Industry Withdraws Suit
Mistaken identity raises questions on legal strategy
Chris Gaither
The recording industry has withdrawn a lawsuit against a Newbury woman because it falsely accused her of illegally sharing music -- possibly the first case of mistaken identity in the battle against Internet file-traders.
Privacy advocates said the suit against Sarah Seabury Ward, a sculptor who said she has never downloaded or digitally shared a song, revealed flaws in the Recording Industry Association of America's legal strategy. Ward was caught up in a flood of 261 lawsuits filed two weeks ago that targeted people who, through software programs like Kazaa, make copyrighted songs available for others to download over the Internet.
"When the RIAA announced they were going on this litigation crusade, we knew there was going to be someone like Sarah Ward," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy group in San Francisco that has advised Ward and others sued by the music industry. "And we think were will be more."
The lawsuit claimed that Ward had illegally shared more than 2,000 songs through Kazaa and threatened to hold her liable for up to $150,000 for each song. The plaintiffs were Sony Music, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista.
Among the songs she was accused of sharing: "I'm a Thug," by the rapper Trick Daddy.
But Ward, 66, is a "computer neophyte" who never installed file-sharing software, let alone downloaded hard-core rap about baggy jeans and gold teeth, according to letters sent to the recording industry's agents by her lawyer, Jeffrey Beeler.
Other defendants have blamed their children for using file-sharing software, but Ward has no children living with her, Beeler said.
Moreover, Ward uses a Macintosh computer at home. Kazaa runs only on Windows-based personal computers.
Beeler complained to the RIAA, demanding an apology and "dismissal with prejudice" of the lawsuit, which would prohibit future lawsuits against her. Foley Hoag, the Boston firm representing the record labels, on Friday dropped the case, but without prejudice.
"Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote to Beeler.
The trade group released Zick's letter late yesterday and said it would have no other comment.
It is unclear where the apparent mistake originated.
According to the lawsuit, recording industry investigators tracked the file-sharing activities of a Kazaa user with the moniker Heath7 and found the unique numeric identifier, known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address, that was assigned to the user by the Internet service provider at the time.
The recording industry then issued a subpoena to Comcast, the user's Internet service provider, demanding the name, address, and e-mail address of the person behind the IP address.
Evan Cox, a partner with Covington & Burling in San Francisco who is not involved with the case, said the error most likely happened in one of two ways: Either Comcast matched the wrong customer with the IP address, or the recording industry requested information about the wrong IP address, which is usually more than nine digits.
"If any of those [IP address] numbers are wrong or transposed, you're going to get the wrong person," Cohn said.
Whatever the source of the apparent error, it illustrates how difficult it can be to definitively match a person to an online screen name.
A Comcast spokeswoman, Sarah Eder, would not comment, citing customer privacy concerns. Comcast always notifies its customers after a subpoena compels the company to release information about them, she said.
Mistakes are likely, given the number of cases the recording industry has filed, Cox said. The industry's reputation could hang on how many mistakes surface.
"If there turns out to be a lot of them, it will cast some doubt on [the industry's] evidence-gathering," he said. "They'll have to either strengthen their efforts or back off."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has counseled about 30 of the 261 people sued, Cohn said, adding that some have settled for fear of spending too much money fighting powerful corporations.
Jonathan Zittrain, an associate professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, said the dismissal shows that the record companies may find it tough to prevail if their lawsuits go to court. Their legal strategy assumes that most defendants will settle rather than fight, and the lawsuits are so damaging to their public image that they cannot afford protracted legal battles with alleged file-swappers, he added.
"This is a very high-stakes strategy for the record companies," he said. "It's either going to work in the short term, or they're going to have to pull the plug on it."
http://www.boston.com/business/artic...ithdraws_suit/
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Makers of Kazaa Are Suing Record Labels
AP
Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular Internet song-swapping network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement.
Sharman Networks Ltd., the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to root out users. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online warning messages to users.
Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network.
Sharman's lawsuit also revives its previous allegation that the entertainment companies violated antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson rejected those claims in July but last week allowed Sharman to try again. Sharman is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu with main offices in Sydney, Australia.
The Recording Industry Association of America called Sharman's "newfound admiration for the importance of copyright law" ironic and "self-serving."
Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group declined to comment on Sharman's latest lawsuit.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/709/4115938.html
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SPANISH COURT ORDERS P2P SITE SHUT DOWN
ILN
A Spanish court has ordered donkeymania.com, a site engaged
in peer-to-peer file swapping activity, shut down for six
months. Criminal proceedings were launched by Spanish music
collectives against the site.
From the article:
Un Juez Decreta Por Primera Vez En España El Cierre De Una Web De Intercambio De Archivos P2P
Reconoce que este tipo de plataformas pueden lesionar los derechos de los autores y productores
El juzgado de instrucción número 3 de Madrid ha decretado el cierre cautelar de la plataforma web Donkeymanía (
www.donkeymania.com) por entender que su actividad constituía un presunto delito contra la propiedad intelectual. La página ahora clausurada servía como una red de las denominadas P2P (punto por punto) para el intercambio de archivos entre particulares. Por primera vez en España, un auto judicial reconoce que este tipo de plataformas pueden lesionar los derechos de los autores y productores, al igual que ya se demostró en Estados Unidos con el caso Napster, informa la Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE). La resolución judicial, que tiene fecha del pasado 1 de agosto, es consecuencia de las denuncias formuladas contra Donkeymanía por parte de las entidades El Derecho, la SGAE, la Asociación Fonográfica y Videográfica Española (Afyve) y la Entidad de Gestión de Derechos de los Productores Audiovisuales (Egeda). El auto dictamina que la página debe permanecer sin actividad durante un periodo mínimo de seis meses. Los responsables de Donkeymanía, que operaban en Madrid capital, están imputados por la presunta comisión de delitos contra la propiedad intelectual. A través de "donkeymania.com", cualquier internauta podía acceder a miles de canciones, películas, programas informáticos y bases de datos, entre otros materiales de distinta naturaleza.
http://www.consumer.es/web/es/actual...gias/64972.jsp
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Study Shows Porn Pages Surge
ILN
The Web filtering company firm N2H2 reports that the number of pornography pages on the Internet has exploded to 260 million, or some 1,800 per cent more than five years ago. N2H2 said some the sites are deliberately registered to take advantage of spelling or typographical mistakes when Web users try to obtain a legitimate page.