Quotes Of The Week
"We do not like peer-to-peer." - Ambuj Goyal, IBM
"A growing body of empirical work shows that users are the first to develop many, and perhaps most, new industrial and consumer products." - Eric von Hippel
"It's not like a virus where you can do something to protect yourself, it's about someone else exposing your e-mail address." - Eran Reshef
"Peer-to-peer is neither more nor less risky than using the Internet." – Adam Eisgrau
"I’m getting in trouble for having a Janet Jackson song and Usher. Usher is walking around with my college tuition on his wrist!" – Sued student
Music makers watch lawsuit
Ban On Peer-To-Peer Networks Might Cut Into Audience
Robert Morast
Sioux Falls bands The Spill Canvas and Nodes of Ranvier have built big fan bases using Internet music downloading. But a case before the Supreme Court could threaten the future potential for local bands to thrive using the Internet the way they have.
“File sharing has helped pretty much every band I was in,” said Jon Parker, guitarist for the metalcore band Nodes of Ranvier. “When I was in Edict of Milan, we didn’t have any discs out, so we used file sharing to get the music out.”
Because the band has a record label, Facedown Records, Parker said a win by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who brought the suit, would have less of an effect now. But, he said, “If we had no record label, I would be distraught over that because I would be working my butt off to get our music on file-sharing servers.”
Thousands of musicians in South Dakota and across the nation use online peer-to-peer (P2P) services to distribute their music. The services allow a band to make their music available online for others to hear and download, essentially to create a copy of the song on their own computer.
And that’s exactly what the suit before the high court aims to eliminate. MGM is suing Grokster for creating the software that allows Internet users to download music, photo, game and movie files.
And while observers don’t expect a ruling until June or July, they already are preparing for the worst, saying the decision could eliminate all P2P Web sites.
“We have reason to believe that it could become a real bloodbath,” said Annalee Newitz, media coordinator/policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based donor-funded organization intent on protecting civil liberties in the digital world.
“It’s basically censorship in advance.”
In effect, such a ruling would undermine the court’s 1984 landmark copyright “Betamax decision,” which allowed inventors to create technologies capable of being used for infringement, such as the VCR, photocopiers and iPod.
In the Betamax case, the Supreme Court ruled that a company was not liable for creating a technology that buyers might use for copyright-infringing purposes, as long as the technology is capable of substantial non-infringing uses.
Discovered online
Many unsigned or unknown bands make their music available on the Internet through services such as Grokster and Kazaa.
“I know record labels like Roadrunner, they use file sharing to (scout for bands),” Parker said. “Bands have gotten signed that way.”
The local emo-rock group The Spill Canvas was discovered by One Eleven Records when label president Brad Fuschetti heard the group’s music on MP3.com. He signed the band in 2003.
Spill Canvas members were unavailable for comment this week because they were in a Kansas studio recording an album with producer Ed Rose.
But in the past, Spill Canvas frontman and songwriter Nick Thomas has talked about how file-sharing aided his career.
“I know it helped me with being discovered through my music,” Thomas told the Argus Leader in 2003 when MP3.com was shut down.
Numerous local groups used MP3.com for similar purposes. And before that, now defunct bands such as Billy Music and Spirit of Versailles floated their music through Napster. It may be one of the reasons Spirit of Versailles had a German fan base.
“I think (P2P sites are) really good for smaller bands,” said Ryan Gage, a local promoter and member of the band CSNVTT.
“This is bad for independent musicians,” Newitz said from her office in San Francisco. “It’s hard for them to get airplay on the radio. For many bands, even big bands like Wilco, having peer-to-peer networks out there to distribute their music, it’s helped ... them get people to hear their music who hadn’t heard their music before.”
And, there’s a real possibility that the young technology could be eliminated within months.
“I don’t pretend to predict the Supreme Court,” said Doron Ben-Atar, a history professor at Fordham University and author of the book “Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power.”
But, he said, “I suspect Grokster will be defeated.”
One reason is because it is illegal to trade copyrighted material on P2P networks. Such logic made it easy for a number of states’ Attorney’s General to attach themselves to MGM’s plaintiff stand.
South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long said it only made sense to side with MGM.
“We’re law enforcement officers. The bottom line is that’s what we do,” he said.
“Grokster is producing a product that is basically a tool to allow violation of the copyright laws of the United States,” Long said. “And it facilitates massive amounts of illegal conduct. And that’s wrong. It’s wrong legally. It’s wrong morally.”
Long said he understands there are legal applications of P2P services that can help local musicians. But he also pointed to the fact that P2P networks often harm many full- time musicians who have no other form of income.
“Underlying all of (the music industry) is the assumption that the copyright laws are going to reward or protect ... the people who invest the time or money in that,” Long said.
‘Buy some records’
Hard rock guitarist Zakk Wylde, best know for his work with Ozzy Osbourne, understands how P2P services can help unknown musicians. But he’s more worried about the illegal applications that harm professional artists.
“There has to come a point where this is how these guys make a living,” said Wylde, who will perform at the Oaks Hotel and Convention Center on April 26 with his band Black Label Society. “You got to support the band. Buy some records.”
That’s a common argument against P2P services. But Parker talks about how file-sharing can lead to band income.
“To this day, when somebody wants to hear our stuff, I say, ‘Go and download it, and if you like it, buy it,’ ” Parker said.
He recalled a Dashboard Confessional concert in Sioux Falls years before the group became an MTV staple and frontman Chris Carrabba was called “the next Bob Dylan.”
“He said, ‘You don’t have to buy my record, just go download it,’ ” Parker said. “It didn’t hurt him. It hasn’t hurt me. It didn’t hurt any of us.”
Should MGM win and reverse a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif., Grokster and similar P2P services will be shut down. Yet, that doesn’t mean file-sharing will die.
Ben-Atar said if the decision is able to stifle burgeoning technologies, it will hurt the nation’s economy. But he doesn’t think it will stop the file-sharing of copyrighted material. Inevitably, someone will come up with a new peer-to-peer file-sharing program, he said.
“It will have no effect on piracy. It’s never going away.”
“These people are just way too flippin’ smart,” said Rich Show, a local musician and leader of the group Violet. “There’s no way you can stop it. I think you almost have to embrace it instead of fighting it.”
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.../50418001/1001
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Latin Music Sales Surge
Thomas Mennecke
Over the course of 2004, several interesting things happened. One, it was perhaps the most active file-trading year to date. Two, the RIAA reported that mainstream music shipments increased 5.3% in 2004. Three, the RIAA is now reporting that Latin music shipments have increased substantially from 2003.
To break things down, first let us take a look at the growth of some of the major files sharing networks. eDonkey2000, the second largest P2P network behind BitTorrent, has almost doubled in size since this time last year. In April of 2004, eDonkey2000 averaged 1,740,659 users. As of April of 2005, it now sustains an average of 3,309,662 users. This represents an increase of approximately 49%.
In addition, the Gnutella network has also grown remarkably. Currently, Gnutella contains just over 1.3 million users, while this time last year had little more than 250,000 - a impressive near 80% growth.
Although no concrete data exists for the BitTorrent network, all indications suggest this community is alive and well. According to bandwidth consumption statistics from CacheLogic, BitTorrent has seen no appreciable decline in usage since the MPAA began its campaign in December of 2004.
The RIAA contends the proliferation of P2P networks and file-sharing causes detrimental effect on CD and music sales. Five years ago, when Napster was the only P2P network of consequence, its 1.5 million users was poised to completely destroy the music industry. Of course this never happened. What did happen was that Napster imploded, and the P2P community simply found a new home.
Today, there are a combined 10+ million individuals trading files online at any given time - approximately 6 times the amount during Napster's reign. According to the music industry's logic, the RIAA's corporate headquarters in Washington should be nothing more than a smoldering heap of rubble at this point, right?
Hardly. In fact, things couldn't be better for the music industry. As reported in March, mainstream music shipments have increased by 5.3% in 2004 (which equates to 2.7% value.) iTunes sales have passed 350 million and are expected to reach 1 billion by years end. Just when you thought things couldn't look any rosier, it gets even better.
The RIAA released new statistics today, which report Latin music shipments jumped 25.6% (or 48.5 million units compared to 38.6 in 2003). According to the RIAA, this represents a 21.6 growth in dollar value. The DVD format helped lead the charge, with a remarkable 278% gain in unites shipped and 246 percent increase in dollar value from 2003.
Interestingly, the RIAA makes no mention of Internet piracy in their press release. Rather, the RIAA states its efforts to control and eliminate physical piracy have been the key factor in promoting Latin music sales.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=756
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Comcast Sued for Disclosing Customer Information
Comcast Corp., the top U.S. cable television network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed on Thursday.
In a lawsuit filed in King County, Washington, Dawnell Leadbetter said that she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Leadbetter, a mother of two teenage children, was a customer of Comcast's high-speed Internet access service.
The company, Settlement Support Center LLC, based in Washington state, was using information that the Recording Industry of Association of America (RIAA) had obtained in a Philadelphia lawsuit over the illegal sharing of digital music files, said Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter.
But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its customers, or notified his client that her information had been given to an outside party, Lybeck said.
"Comcast should respect the rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills," Lybeck said.
Comcast said it could not comment on pending litigation.
"We hold our customer's privacy in the highest regard," said Comcast spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick.
The RIAA has filed thousands of lawsuits since September and settled several hundred for about $3,000 each.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=8191226
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P2P United Initiative Informs Users of Risks
New Media Age
Adam Eisgrau, executive director for P2P United, said the organization had been working with the FTC to "debunk the outrageous claims" made by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America about the dangers of peer-to-peer programs.
P2P United, the U.S.-based trade association representing some of the leading peer-to-peer networks, has announced a new cyber-safety initiative, informing users of the risks associated with peer-to-peer programs.
The move comes after an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) refuted record and film industry allegations that P2P United members committed "false and deceptive practices" by installing spyware and viruses with their products.
However, the FTC added that peer-to-peer providers should be doing more to notify users of the potential risks that might occur from using peer-to-peer software.
Under the initiative, warnings will be displayed on peer-to-peer Web sites, software installation screens and on the user interfaces of peer-to-peer software. They will explain the dangers of viruses, spyware, pornography and copyright infringement liability.
Adam Eisgrau, executive director for P2P United, said the organization had been working with the FTC to "debunk the outrageous claims" made by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America about the dangers of peer-to-peer programs.
He said, "Peer-to-peer is neither more nor less risky than using the Internet. We will continue to work with government on these issues."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/security/42451.html
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Congress Confuses File Sharing With Manslaughter
Thomas C Greene
Making a movie available electronically prior to its release can now result in a three year sentence, thanks to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act approved Tuesday by the House. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the final bill is expected to be signed by the President.
The bill also calls for three years in cases where a person is caught recording a movie in a theater with a camcorder - and six years for a second offence. It also indemnifies theater operators against all criminal and civil liabilities arising from detaining suspects "in a reasonable manner." (Welcome to movie jail.)
Since involuntary manslaughter brings, on average, anywhere from 0 to 36 months' incarceration, one might well question the morality of going harder on those who trade files than on those who negligently cut short the lives of fellow citizens. But the 109th Congress is about nothing if not morality, and it understands well the essential sacredness of the nation's ruling cartels.
Previously, criminal laws protecting copyright had been designed to target major, organized bootleggers doing serious damage, not individuals swapping files. The new legislation is designed to broaden the law to where almost anyone can now be treated as a hardcore criminal. And since we have seen the entertainment cartels using the civil courts to conduct a vendetta against file sharers in hopes of chastening them overall, one can expect that the same examples will be made of small fry using these new, quite Draconian, criminal sanctions as well.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/21/p2p_is_murder/
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Police Payoff Probe
Jamie Schram
Two NYPD veterans are being investigated by Internal Affairs for allegedly accepting payoffs from the motion-picture industry to arrest vendors of pirated DVDs, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
One officer, a sergeant on the force since 1992, has been transferred from the Staten Island Task Force to the 122nd Precinct pending the internal investigation.
The other, a cop for five years, still works on the task force.
As members of the unit, the officers, ages 36 and 32, would arrest the sellers of illegal DVDs and confiscate their stock.
Often they would act on tips from investigators with the Motion Picture Association of America, many of whom are former cops, sources said.
There is nothing improper about that practice. But on at least four occasions in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island, the task force officers arrested the vendors, confiscated the illegal movies and then allegedly received gratuities of several hundred dollars from the MPAA itself or its investigators, the source said.
The MPAA strongly denied that the payoffs came from the trade organization.
"We don't give cash to police officers," said Bill Shannon, an MPAA anti-piracy official.
"We work with law-enforcement organizations by providing information and logistical support, and the police make the arrests."
No department charges have been filed against the NYPD officers, and neither is on modified duty.
The Staten Island Task Force last made headlines in 2003, when one of its members, Officer Bryan Conroy, allegedly shot and killed Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed African immigrant, inside a Manhattan storage warehouse.
Conroy and other officers were at the warehouse to bust DVD pirates.
Zongo, who spoke little English, was an innocent bystander. Conroy's trial earlier this year ended in a hung jury. He will be retried this summer.
The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that it loses $3.5 billion in potential worldwide revenue because of movie piracy.
Hollywood has stepped up its effort to bust video and DVD pirates.
An MPAA tip, for example, led to the recent prosecution of Randy Guthrie, the black sheep of a blueblood New York family, who was recently sentenced to 21/2 years in a Chinese jail for selling nearly $1 million in pirated movies over the Internet.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...icepayoffprobe
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UK Court Orders ISPs To Unmask 33 Filesharers
John Leyden
A British judge today ordered five ISPs to name another 33 music file sharers. The individuals concerned had uploaded more than 72,000 music files to the internet, according to a statement by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), which sought the court order as part of its broader legal offensive against illegal downloading on P2P networks.
The ISPs concerned have two weeks to give the UK record companies' trade association the names and addresses of the file sharers. The case brings the number of people in the UK to face legal action for illegal file sharing up to 90. These people will face claims for compensation and the legal costs in pursuing them, the BPI warns.
BPI General Counsel Geoff Taylor said: "This court order should remind every user of a peer-to-peer file sharing service in Britain that they are not anonymous. These 33 people will now face paying thousands of pounds in compensation. We are continuing to collect evidence every day against people who are still uploading music illegally, despite all the warnings we have given. If you want to avoid the risk of court action, stop file sharing and buy music legally."
Today more details of the 31 people subject to the BPI's last round of writs in March 2005 also emerged. Around a third of these defendants are thought to be parents whose accounts have been used to upload music illegally by their children. Eleven of the 31 are from London and the South East. Another file sharer hails from Norfolk while five are from the West Country. Two of the file sharers live in the Midlands, with five from the Yorkshire and the North West. Two of the file sharers are from Northern Ireland, three from Scotland and two from Wales.
Stat attack
A new study commissioned by the BPI shows the supposed extent of the damage that illegal file sharing is doing to the UK recording industry. A two-year study, carried out by research group TNS, on the effect of illegal file sharing on consumer spending in the UK found the downloaders spent a £654m less on recorded music over the last two years than otherwise be the case.
TNS estimates that downloaders' spend on recorded music was around £730m in 2002. Had their habits reflected overall market trends, spending would have increased to £767m in 2003 and declined slightly to £745m in 2004. However, downloaders' spend actually declined by 33 per cent over 2003 and a further 24.5 per cent in 2004 - a spending shortfall of £654m over two years.
TNS data shows that 18 per cent of the UK population aged 12-74 are downloading music from the internet, most doing so illegally from file sharing networks. The failure to differentiate legal and illegally downloading in these figures is a major shortcoming and provides ammunitition for critics who would say it illustrates the musics industry's ongoing inability to understand alternative sales channel.
Nonetheless, the BPI reckons its efforts are turning the tide against illegal file sharing. Of those not downloading, 84.3 per cent said they "would not consider" file sharing illegally. One in seven (15 per cent) of illegal downloaders said they will start to pay for downloads, but 34 per cent are undecided and 51 per cent said they will continue to file share.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04..._p2p_lawsuits/
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UK Online Music Service Readies For Launch Of 99p Movie Downloads
Jennifer Whitehead
Wippit: launching film downloads
Wippit, the cut-price music downloads service, is to add downloadable movies from just 99p a film, starting this summer.
The company is in talks with three unnamed movie distribution firms about providing content, which it says will range from blockbusters and classics, to independent films and hard-to-find rarities.
News of the service comes as other download services, including Napster, look at entering the film market, and film studios look at a way of combating piracy. A recent report said that Britain is the biggest market for illegal downloads of television programmes.
A member of staff at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a production partner of the BBC, was recently sacked after they leaked the first episode of the new 'Doctor Who' series before it was broadcast. The BBC said that it would take legal action against individuals downloading its shows illegally.
Wippit already offers music downloads from 29p a track from a selection of 60,000 tracks, and unlimited downloads for the subscription price of £4.99 a month. It said it plans to add a movie download channel to its monthly subscription offer.
Paul Myers, founder and chief executive of Wippit, said that research had identified consumer desire for movie downloads and that the service would not compete with premium DVD for home cinema.
"We're in talks and are slating a late summer release for Wippit Movies with a great selection of films from the suppliers we are currently in discussion with," Myers said.
He added that the catalogue that being made available to Wippit Movies was a starting point and that Wippit hoped to to enter into discussions with other studios, distributors or production companies.
Wippit has been running for five years, launching it legal peer-to-peer file sharing service in 2004, and introducing legal music downloads in 2004.
http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulleti...vie-downloads/
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Poor Yurick
Danish Court Convicts Eight In Nation's Largest Software Piracy Case
AP
Eight men were convicted Thursday of making and selling illegal copies of copyrighted music, games and software worth 3.4 billion kroner ($585 million) in Denmark's largest computer piracy case.
The group made about 1 million illegal copies abroad and sold them in Denmark on the Internet, the Copenhagen City Court said.
The court did not specify in what country the illegal copies were made.
The pirated copies were made between 1998 and 2002. The group also copied programs by Microsoft, Adobe and Macromedia, the court said.
Two men, who the court said led the operation, were given 12 months and eight months in jail, respectively, for violating Denmark's copyright laws. Four others were given prison sentences ranging between two and four months. The remaining two were given fines.
None of the men were identified by the court in line with Danish privacy rules.
It was not immediately clear whether they would appeal.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11394688.htm
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IFPI Finland Sends 28 Requests For Investigation By Police Over Piracy
In keeping with moves in several other countries, steps are now being taken by Finnish authorities to stamp out illegal distribution of copyright music material via the Internet.
Suomen Ääni- ja kuvatallennetuottajat (ÄKT, the Finnish Branch of IFPI) have sent police requests for investigations of 28 individuals who they would like to see brought to justice for net piracy through the peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
ÄKT wants prosecutions brought against persons who have been spreading music through file sharing applications such as BitTorrent, KaZaa, eDonkey, and eMule.
The intention is not apparently to target those users who have been downloading small quantities of music for their own use, but individuals who have offered up files for thousands to download. ÄKT argues that these persons are guilty of illegal distribution of music that is subject to copyright, and that the time has come to put a stop to the practice, through the courts if need be.
In cases elsewhere in the world, fines have usually been handed down for persons found guilty. In May 2001 a 25-year-old man from Jyväskylä was obliged to pay fines and compensation totalling FIM 32,000 (EUR 5,400) in a similar case.
The requests to the police represent the first concerted Finnish involvement in an extensive international operation targeting illegal file sharing and safeguarding authors' rights and the legal end of online sales.
Cases have already been brought against users of peer-to- peer networks in the United States, Denmark, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Aside from Finland, countries such as Iceland, The Netherlands, Ireland, and Japan have now come on board.
This week a record number of 963 cases have been launched, and in all nearly 12,000 such cases are being heard.
In the background to the dispute over file sharing are the fears of the music industry, which has seen a decline in sales worldwide of around 20% over the past five years.
Last year alone, legal sales of recorded music in Finland fell by 12.5% in value terms.
Film producers, manufacturers of computer games, and software suppliers are equally dismayed and angry at the free distribution of their wares among potential paying customers.
The increasing public awareness of the illegality of the activity has had some effect.
Apparently the number of users of one such peer-to-peer arrangement, KaZaa, have declined from 4.2 million to 2.3 million, in spite of an increased number of people now enjoying the broadband connection speeds that facilitate large downloads - for example entire feature films, often available illegally online before they reach the cinemas.
However, if KaZaa's popularity is waning, it has been replaced by another application, BitTorrent.
Sites using BitTorrent have been forced to close by action from authorities in several countries, Finland among them. In December of last year, the country's largest file-sharing server was forced to go offline following a request to police from the Business Software Alliance
http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/engli.../1101979127547
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P2P Heads for Finnish Line
Techtree News Staff
Viralg, a Finnish anti P2P company, is claiming to have come up with an algorithm that renders a file downloaded off a P2P network useless.
The company has been working with BMG Finland to protect local music releases on file-swapping networks for more than a year. The principle used, involves getting onto a file swapping network which is capable of allowing downloads from several sources at once. It then mimics the digital signature of a desired song, movie or game, and then adds junk data into the download stream, corrupting the file.
According to a release by the company, "The technology 'virtual algorithm' mixes together files in P2P networks in a way that the illegal downloader will end up downloading useless garbage instead of real music, movie or game content. Our technology is capable of destroying already-shared functional files from peer-to-peer networks."
Viralg is also responsible for clogging the Kazaa, with numerous fake files and decoys. The company says its technology can be used on any of the existing P2P networks without damaging the networks, any ISPs or the downloader's PC as it'll simply corrupt the downloaded file so it cannot be viewed.
The company is keeping a low profile for now, though it is seeking international clients and investors. Viralg's marketing director declined to give the names of the founders or executives, or to reveal the size of the company.
The company says the technology has been used successfully by BMG's Finnish subsidiary, BMG Finland and it is seeking new clients in the entertainment industry.
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...p?storyid=3347
http://news.com.com/Finns+tout+new+a...3-5676756.html
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J’accuse
Videotron Ready To Name Music Swappers
Canadian Press
Producing the identities of Internet users alleged of wrongdoing happens so regularly, says a lawyer for Videotron, that he's bewildered as to why other ISPs are fighting a motion from the music industry to hand over the names of people who share large volumes of songs on-line.
"We do it on a regular basis. It's not very complicated," said Serge Sasseville, following the conclusion of weighty Federal Court of Appeal hearings about file-swapping, which could lead to the start of lawsuits against so-called music pirates.
Headed by Chief Justice John D. Richard, the three-judge appeal panel adjourned late Wednesday after lengthy arguments about the applications of privacy and copyright law.
The judges will now review the case. There is no scheduled date for a ruling although some expect a decision by late summer.
Lawyers for the Canadian Recording Industry Association argued they need the identities of 29 people deemed "large scale uploaders" in order to charge them with copyright infringement.
The five Internet service providers named in the case — Shaw Communications, Rogers Cable Communications, Bell Canada, Telus Communications and Videotron — can't divulge the information without a court order because privacy legislation requires them to keep customer information sealed.
One of the major issues is determining whether making songs available on a peer-to-peer network contravenes Canada's Copyright Act.
Videotron is the sole ISP not fighting the request to turn over the names. The other ISPs argue they are simply looking out for the interests of their customers. Some argued that an IP address doesn't necessarily lead to the actual person doing the alleged uploading since it only reveals the account holder. Many people could be using the same computer, they say.
There's also been some question about how the music industry group linked on-line nicknames of Kazaa users to actual IP addresses.
"We just want to make sure CRIA proves its case ... not just merely allegations that something has gone on," Jay Thomson, the lawyer representing Telus, said Thursday.
"We're not in a position to make a determination if some activity is legal or illegal. Certainly if the court determines that it's illegal [to upload to Kazaa] we will respond to it."
Videotron has aligned itself with the music industry's motion saying it agrees that putting songs in a shared directory on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa and IMesh constitutes copyright infringement because it allows users to copy and download the material for free.
It's peculiar, added Mr. Sasseville, that the ISPs are fighting the order so fiercely since many of them own entertainment subsidiaries that produce TV and film content that's increasingly being downloaded on-line for free. Some, such as Bell, are even part of coalitions lobbying for stricter rules against TV show and film piracy on the Net, he said.
"Piracy of music, piracy of TV, piracy of film — it's all the same. It's piracy of intellectual property and cultural products," Mr. Sasseville said Thursday from his office in Montreal. "Nobody gets paid. Not only the big companies but also the creators. It's really important that we protect our culture."
The IP address is a numeric code used to identify a computer when transmitting information on the Net. Internet companies use the figure to pinpoint the computer sending or receiving material.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...21.gtcourt0421
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Music Industry Back In Court To Fight Pirates
Canadian Press
Record labels begin an appeal Wednesday hoping to overturn a Federal Court decision which denied them the names and addresses of 29 people suspected of collectively making 43,541 songs available to the world for free.
It's the first step in the Canadian Recording Industry Association's quest to stop people from swapping songs online by filing lawsuits to recoup the cost of lost music sales to downloading networks like Kazaa and IMesh.
But before the three-judge panel will allow the identities to be disclosed, the association, which represents companies like Universal, Sony-BMG and EMI, will need to prove the lower court judge erred in how evidence and Canada's copyright laws were interpreted.
The case, being heard in Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday, will be watched closely by not only the music industry but those in the TV, film and book sectors, whose bottom lines have also been negatively affected by the popularity of peer-to-peer sharing systems.
In his decision last year, the lower court judge, Justice Konrad von Finckenstein, said he wasn't satisfied with the evidence connecting pseudonyms such as Geekboy(at)KaZaA or Jordana(at)KaZaA to specific IP addresses.
That evidence, collected by New York-based MediaSentry, included screen grabs showing the list of songs placed in a shared folder.
Four of the five named Internet service providers countered saying IP addresses couldn't always be sourced with absolute accuracy to a single computer.
"It would be irresponsible for the court to order the disclosure of the name of the account holder of IP address 24.84.179.98 and expose this individual to a lawsuit by the plantiffs," Von Finckenstein wrote in his 2004 ruling.
The judge also said in his ruling that simply uploading songs onto shared directories like Kazaa or IMesh did not contravene Canada's copyright laws.
"No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings," he wrote. "They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories."
The big legal issue for the appeals court will be to determine how strong evidence against an alleged copyright infringer must be before their online privacy can be overridden, says David Fewer, a lawyer representing the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic in the appeal.
Fewer's group has been given intervener status to represent the general public.
"This hearing is all about the test that the court will apply whenever somebody comes to it alleging copyright infringement," he said from his office in Ottawa.
"The bigger lawsuit will be about file swapping."
Bell Canada, Shaw Communications, Telus Communications and Rogers Cable are fighting CRIA's request saying Canada's privacy laws prevent them from revealing identities without a court order.
Videotron has agreed to comply, saying owner Quebecor is very concerned about piracy in other parts of its business, which includes newspapers, television and CDs.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew..._9/?hub=Canada
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Germany
Linux Programmer Wins Legal Victory
Stephen Shankland
A Linux programmer has reported a legal victory in Germany in enforcing the General Public License, which governs countless projects in the free and open-source software realms.
A Munich district court on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction barring Fortinet, a maker of multipurpose security devices, from distributing products that include a Linux component called "initrd" to which Harald Welte holds the copyright.
In addition to being a Linux programmer, Welte runs an operation called the GPL Violations project that attempts to encourage companies shipping products incorporating GPL software to abide by the license terms. The license lets anyone use GPL software in products without paying a fee, but it requires that they provide the underlying source code for the GPL components when they ship such a product.
The case highlights the ease with which open-source software can spread across the computing industry--but also the growing pains that companies face as they adjust to new legal concepts underlying the collaborative programming approach.
Fortinet, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said in a statement it's addressing the issue but is surprised that Welte resorted to legal action.
"Fortinet recently became aware of Mr. Welte's allegations and has, in good faith, been diligently working with him to resolve this matter outside of the German court system. Fortinet is actively taking steps to ensure that its products are compliant with GPL requirements. Therefore, Fortinet is surprised that Mr. Welte pursued a preliminary injunction against Fortinet in Germany and believes that this is an unnecessary action," the company said. "Fortinet is continuing its efforts to expeditiously resolve this matter with Mr. Welte."
Welte has said he doesn't object to corporate use of open-source software; he just wants it to be done properly. Welte first notifies companies of his accusations before beginning legal action, he said. In the case of Fortinet, the GPL Violations project informed the company of its concerns March 17, but "out-of-court negotiations on a settlement failed to conclude in a timely manner," the project said in a statement.
In March, Welte sent similar letters to multiple companies exhibiting at the CeBit trade show. And a year ago, he won a ruling against Sitecom in a case similar to that of Fortinet.
Fortinet uses Linux in the operating system included in its FortiGate and FortiWiFi products, the project said. "FortiOS is using the Linux operating system kernel and numerous other free software products that are licensed exclusively under the GNU GPL. This information was not disclosed by Fortinet," the GPL Violations project said.
Most actions by GPL Violation have been against European or Asian companies, and the Sitecom and Fortinet cases don't have direct repercussions outside Germany. But the actions this year also have targeted corporations in the United States--an indication that case law around the GPL could also start building soon in the world's largest computing technology market.
"Generally, corporations are becoming more conscious of the issues surrounding the GPL," said Brian Kelly, an intellectual-property attorney with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. "The process of clarifying the terms and limitations of the GPL through litigation will likely seem interminably long to industry watchers, but this latest result suggests that the process in the United States is soon to begin."
There could be several reasons companies don't release source code for GPL software that they include in products. They might not be aware of the GPL's provisions, thinking that software it governs is merely in the public domain. They might have software enhancements they want to keep secret. Or they might simply be using software from a third party and not even know it contains GPL components.
Open education
Activities to inform the computing industry about open-source licenses have become common. Attorneys could get continuing-education credit for two days of speeches on legal matters at the Open Source Business Conference this month, for example, and Linux seller Red Hat has just posted a video of its in-house lawyer discussing various licenses.
However, it's hard to tell whether GPL violations are decreasing, Welte said in an interview. "The number of cases I know about is always rising, but my guess is that this is mainly because the GPL Violations project becomes more known to the community, and therefore I receive more user reports (from people) who find GPL-licensed software in products they have bought."
And Welte said he wasn't happy with the response to the letters he delivered to company representatives at CeBit.
"Most of them failed to create any form of reaction on behalf of the companies. It's very sad to see that in most cases nobody would even start to listen to you unless you sent it via a lawyer," Welte said.
Without access to the underlying source code, Welte often has to work hard to find out if GPL software is used in a product. In Fortinet's case, the use of GPL software was unusually difficult to verify, because the company had encrypted it, Welte said. It took 40 hours of work to ferret out the information, he said.
The next step in the legal proceedings depends on Fortinet's response, Welte said. "If they do not appeal and (begin to) distribute products according to the license, then the case is basically closed, and they will have to pay all expenses. If they choose to appeal, or ignore the court order, then the case will continue," he said.
Initrd is a module essential to the process of starting up a Linux computer. Welte also has helped write the netfilter/iptables software that provides Linux with protective firewall abilities.
Welte didn't write initrd, but author Werner Almesberger transferred copyright on the software to him earlier in 2005, Welte said.
The court said Fortinet would have to pay a fine of five to 250,000 euros and that employees would face up to 6 months imprisonment for violation of the injunction. In addition, the company is responsible for Welte's legal fees.
The General Public License is 14 years old, but its creator, the Free Software Foundation, has begun an effort to modernize it.
Regardless how the Fortinet case turns out, one message is clear, said Mark Radcliffe, an intellectual-property attorney with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and legal counsel for the Open Source Initiative.
"In any case," Racliffe said, "companies obviously need to be more attentive to the possible use of GPL code in their products."
http://news.com.com/Linux+programmer...3-5671209.html
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Study Finds Chinese Internet Filters Sophisticated
AP
The Chinese government has become increasingly sophisticated at controlling the Internet, taking a multilayered approach that contributes to precision in blocking political dissent, a report released Thursday finds.
The precision means that China's filters can block just specific references to Tibetan independence without blocking all references to Tibet. Likewise, the government is effective at limiting discussions about Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and other topics deemed sensitive, the study from the OpenNet Initiative finds.
Numerous government agencies and thousands of public and private employees are involved at all levels, from the main pipelines, or backbones, hauling data over long distances to the cybercafes where many citizens access the Internet.
That breadth, the study finds, allows the filtering tools to adapt to emerging forms of communications, such as Web journals, or blogs.
``China has been more successful than any other country in the world to manage to filter the Internet despite the fast changes in technology,'' said John Palfrey, one of the study's principal investigators and executive director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Saudi Arabia, for example, largely controls the Internet by having all traffic flow through a central agency, where it can be monitored. Visitors trying to access a banned site get a message saying it has been blocked, Palfrey said.
``China is much more subtle than that,'' Palfrey said. ``You don't know what you don't know. It's more effective than if you see it but know you can't access it.''
With filters at multiple points, including some search engines, content is simply removed rather than replaced with a notice, he said.
Google Inc. has acknowledged its Chinese-language news service -- introduced on a test basis last fall -- leaves out results from government-banned sites, though the company says that is done so users won't end up clicking on links that lead nowhere because of the Chinese filters.
Palfrey added that Chinese filtering methods are effective because they constantly change, keeping its users off-balance.
China, which has the world's second-largest population of Internet users behind the United States, promotes Internet use for business and education, while trying to curb access to political dissent, pornography and other topics the communist government deems sensitive. Many users do find ways around the controls -- for instance, using ``proxy'' servers that mask a site's true origin.
It is through similar proxy servers and long-distance calls that researchers outside China managed to test what users inside China see. The researchers also employed volunteers inside the country to conduct more extensive testing.
The researchers deployed software and physical equipment called packet sniffers to monitor the flow of traffic and try to gauge where content gets dropped. Palfrey would not elaborate on techniques, other than to say many Internet systems have security flaws through which outsiders can sneak in software.
Funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute, the OpenNet Initiative is a collaboration of researchers at Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto working on issues of Internet censorship and surveillance.
Their testing determined that:
--Though some dissidents complain that e-mail newsletters sent in bulk are sometimes blocked, individual messages tend not to get filtered.
--Much of the filtering occurs at the backbone, but individual Internet service providers sometimes deploy additional blocking. Cybercafes and operators of discussion boards also control content proactively under threat of penalties.
--Filtering tends to be triggered by the appearance of certain keywords, rather than a visit to a specific domain name or numeric Internet address. The keyword-based filters also allow blogs to keep people from completing posts containing banned topics.
``You can filter much more precisely at a keyword level,'' Palfrey said. ``China wants to be able to enable its citizens to use the Internet and grow its economy. Shutting down all blog servers doesn't seem like a great idea, but it doesn't want to let through all forms of political dissent.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11393833.htm
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Two Americans Jailed in China for DVD Piracy
The men were charged with selling pirated DVDs online, published report says.
Sumner Lemon
Two Americans have been sentenced to jail in Shanghai for selling pirated DVDs over the Internet, China's state-run media reported Wednesday.
Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, Cody Abram Thrush, and two Chinese accomplices were charged with selling pirated DVDs for $3 per disc over EBay's auction Web site and another site, called Three Dollar DVD, according to the official China Daily newspaper.
Police had estimated the group had sold 180,000 DVDs worth roughly $845,000 between November 2003 and July 2004, the report said. However, the judge who presided over the case at the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court said evidence presented by police showed the group had sold 133,000 pirated DVDs worth around $398,000 to customers in more than 20 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia, it says.
Based on the evidence presented, the group's profit from these sales was found to be almost $120,000, it says.
Cracking Down
DVD piracy is rampant in China, and pirated discs can be found for sale in shops and on the street in many Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing. The Chinese government has announced efforts to crack down on pirated DVD sales but these efforts so far appear to have had little impact.
Guthrie--who was described in the report as the "prime culprit"--was sentenced to 30 months in jail and fined $60,000 while Thrush and the two Chinese accomplices, Wu Dong and Wu Shibiao, were given sentences up to 10 months and fined between $1200 and $3600, China Daily reported. Guthrie and Thrush will be deported from China when their sentences have been completed, it says.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DOHS), which jointly investigated the case, codenamed Operation Spring, with Chinese law enforcement officials, Guthrie and five other individuals were arrested in Shanghai on July 1, 2004. The arrests were made by officers from China's Ministry of Public Security and the Shanghai Public Security Bureau.
At the same time, Chinese police also seized 210,000 pirated DVDs and $67,000 and 222,000 renminbi (roughly $27,000) in cash, DOHS says.
Guthrie appears to not have tried very hard to hide his activities. A check of whois records for the domain name threedollardvd.com lists an address in Shanghai, a Shanghai telephone number, and a Yahoo e-mail address with the user name "randyguthrie."
Under Investigation
The DOHS investigation was launched in September 2003 by the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Gulfport, Mississippi, and Houston, the department says. American officials approached their Chinese counterparts in April 2004 to assist with the investigation, it says.
DOHS also credited the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), an industry group, with providing "crucial assistance and information" to law enforcement officials in the U.S. and China. MPAA estimated U.S. film companies lose over $3.5 billion in potential worldwide sales due to piracy, DOHS says.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120511,00.asp
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China Suspected In Web Attacks
Correspondents in Tokyo
JAPAN'S police and defence agencies said they had come under cyber attack, amid reports a Chinese website was calling for the jamming of Japanese servers amid a heated bilateral row.
"Access to the homepage of the National Police Agency was hampered" the national police said in a statement.
"We are investigating the cause but it is highly possible that it was a cyber attack in which a large volume of information was sent to the address of the homepage," it said.
Japanese media reports said a Chinese website had urged Internet users to flood Japanese servers with irrelevant data.
A police spokesman said the agency was "aware of the call" from China but had not identified what hampered the access.
Japan s Defense Agency also said its website had been experiencing access problems recently.
"It is hard to nail down the cause immediately ... but there is a possibility" of cyber attack from China, an agency spokesman said.
Tensions have been rising between Japan and China. Japan recently announced that its companies would have the right to drill for oil and gas in an area of the East China Sea bitterly disputed between the Asian economic powers.
Tens of thousands of Chinese rallied at the weekend after Tokyo approved a history textbook that China says whitewashes Japan's bloody wartime record.
The demonstrations were largely organized through the Internet. Chinese web surfers have also been blamed for previous cyber strikes on Japan.
Earlier this year, a controversial Tokyo war shrine said its website was barraged by emails believed to come from China.
The Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated to Japan's war dead, including several convicted war criminals. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to it have enraged China, which has refused any state visits between the countries.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html
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A Crackdown On Online Porn In World's Most Wired Country
AP
The world's most wired country is raiding cyberspace's red-light district in a campaign pitting Confucian morals against modern technology.
Since January, the main prosecutor's office in Seoul has issued arrest warrants for about 100 people charged with spreading obscene material under South Korea's telecommunications law, a crime carrying penalties of up to a year in jail or a nearly $10,000 fine.
In a highly publicized case last month, police in the southern city of Busan arrested the operator of a Web site that offers a forum to arrange swaps of sex partners. The 36-year-old man, whose name hasn't been released, is charged with spreading obscene material and remains jailed while the investigation continues, said Busan police officer Lee Nam-sik, who is heading the probe.
The country is considering a crackdown offline as well, debating whether it will double penalties for crimes related to prostitution, long illegal, but tolerated.
Korea has an active sex trade -- both online and off. According to the Korean Institute of Criminology, the amount spent on prostitution alone amounted to $23.6 billion in 2002, the last year for which figures were available.
At a recent Cabinet meeting, where the campaign against prostitution was discussed, President Roh Moo-hyun stressed the need for establishing a ``healthy consumption culture,'' implying money should be spent on things other than the sex trade.
In a country where more than 70 percent of homes have high-speed Internet connections, access to cyberporn is easy.
That means traditional taboos in Korea's conservative, Confucian-based society have quickly shattered, said Lee Mee-sook, a sociology professor at Paichai University in the central city of Daejeon.
``The code of ethics became weak, and people started satisfying their sexual desires through the Internet -- anonymously,'' she said.
On a busy street in the center of the South Korean capital Seoul, ``adult'' Internet cafes aren't hard to find. In the cafes, customers can surf the Web in private booths, as opposed to the open rows of computers found in typical cybercafes.
Authorities ``can't really control it because it's the Internet, it's impossible,'' said Lee, 28, a worker at the Red Box adult Internet cafe, who gave only his last name. ``We should have the freedom to see whatever we want.''
Web operators insist that adult content appearing on mainstream sites has been rated by the Korea Media Rating Board, the agency responsible for setting age recommendations for everything from films to computer games, and complain that prosecutors have overstepped their authority.
``The portal sites are being accused for what they thought was legal,'' said Lee Yeun-woo of Kinternet, an organization that represents popular portals such Yahoo Korea, Daum and Naver. ``The fine actually isn't that much. But we want to prove what those sites did wasn't illegal and want the prosecutors to prove what was wrong.''
To get around laws regulating Web site content, some sex sites are based on Web servers outside South Korea. The Ministry of Information and Communications is asking Internet providers to block access to them as well.
Many Korean Web sites require users to enter their national identification card numbers to confirm their age to access adult content. But tech-savvy children can use programs to create false numbers or simply use their parents' IDs instead.
South Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but contains the caveat that such expression should neither ``violate the honor or rights of other persons nor undermine public morals or social ethics.''
The law doesn't define obscenity, but Jun Ji-yun, a law professor at Seoul's Yonsei University, said it was understood to be something that ``brings sexual disgrace to people.''
Given the sheer volume of Internet pornography, prosecutors realize they face an uphill battle. They are focusing on larger Web portals and other well-known sites first, in hopes that their investigation will draw attention to the issue and serve as a warning, said Kim Dae-hyun, a Seoul prosecutor.
``There are so many crimes and so many pornography sites out there,'' he said. ``We cannot deal with all of them with such a limited amount of people here.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11394681.htm
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Middle East
New Saudi Law To Jail, Lash Cellphone Porn Users
Anyone using camera phones to distribute pornography may face up to 1000 lashes, a 12-year jail term and a 100,000 riyal ($26,670 ($37,000) fine under a proposed Saudi law.
The proposed law comes after a Saudi court in January sentenced three men to jail and up to 1,200 lashes each for orchestrating and filming the rape of a teenage girl using telephones equipped with cameras and distributing the footage via the telephones.
The conservative Muslim kingdom’s consultative 150- member Shura council was expected to endorse the new law soon, local newspapers said.
The state telecommunications regulator earlier this year warned against using third generation (3G) mobile phones for "immoral" purposes.
3G mobile phones can access the internet, which is strictly controlled in Saudi Arabia, and receive high-quality video clips from adult sites.
A ban was recently overturned on the import and sale of mobile camera phones. Religious leaders said they are used to invade privacy, particularly of women.
The use of camera phones has triggered scuffles at weddings and girls schools after handsets were used to film and distribute pictures of unveiled women, newspapers have reported. Under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic rules, women must cover their heads in public.
Saudi Arabia’s rapidly growing telecoms sector is gradually being opened up to competition, ending the monopoly of state-owned Saudi Telecommunications Co.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?...ectID=10121003
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Playboy Pics to Go on Portable PlayStation
Owners of the new PlayStation Portable handheld video game player can now take adult magazine Playboy on the road with them -- and they don't have to bother with the articles.
The online arm of Playboy Enterprises Inc. on Wednesday said it will offer photo galleries and videos shot and edited specifically for the PSP.
Playboy said it has shot a "sci-fi themed" spread of model Amy Cooper that was formatted for viewing on the PSP's wide-angle screen.
Playboy said "PlayboyStation Portable" is available for free, in the form of two non-nude picture galleries and one free video. Subscribers to Playboy's online service can access premium nude content.
The company last year created an "iBod" feature formatted for Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod photo digital music player and picture viewer.
Sony Corp. released the PSP on March 24 in North America, and it sold more than 600,000 units in a week.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=8240515
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Monopoly: good. Competition: bad.
Qtel To Crack Down On Internet Telephony
The Peninsula
DOHA: Low paid expatriates from the Indian subcontinent who rely on Internet-based telephony will soon find the facility extinct.
Qatar Telecom (Qtel), in collaboration with local law enforcement authorities, will shortly conduct raids on shops and other retail outlets operating as unlicensed cyber cafes and offering Internet Protocol (IP) telephony illegally using high-speed Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) connections.
The number of such illegal Internet cafes has mushroomed during the last few months, with Qtel offering broadband access at low rates. Crude billboards stating 'Internet' or 'Internet Phone' and similar words can be seen hung outside some shops in and around the Musheireb and the souq areas.
Low paid expatriates from countries in the sub-continent favour these unlicensed cafes since they can buy a 'phone card' from any international IP Telephony provider for as low as $10 (QR36.50) and talk to their friends and relatives back home for a fraction of what a regular International Direct Dialling call would cost.
IP Telephony on most providers is however restricted to the Simplex mode, which means only one person- either the caller or the called party- can speak at a time, unlike in conventional telephony.
Net static also renders the audio quality poor at times. Such unauthorised Internet cafes charge QR5 per hour from a customer wanting to make a IP telephone call. Qtel charges QR200 for high speed ADSL access, which from today, will be available at a rate of 512 kilo bytes per second (kbps).
Khalil Ebrahim Al Emadi, Executive Director, Wireline Services at Qtel, revealed that the company had drawn a long list of shops and retail outlets such as restaurants who were functioning as unlicensed cyber cafes to offer long distance calls on the IP and were working with local police to conduct raids on them.
The company will also take other action such as denying such persons the access to the services. Meanwhile, Qtel, despite the growing popularity of ADSL, will maintain its dial-up Internet access service, which now has some 26,000 subscribers, in addition to those using the facility with prepaid Ebhar (Surf) cards.
Wireless Internet access to be widely available soon, says Qtel
DOHA: Companies owning villa compounds and residential complexes as well as private entrepreneurs will soon be able to offer wireless Internet access to their tenants and customers: Qatar Telecom is planning to shortly launch wireless Internet access through hot spots run by private companies, Khalil Ebrahim Al Emadi, Executive Director, Wireline Services at Qtel, said here yesterday.
He disclosed, the hot spot service was already being negotiated by Qtel with various local companies interested in providing the facility. Currently, some such Internet hot spots are offered on an exclusive basis at the Doha International Airport, some five star hotels and for internal use, by private companies.
A prepaid wireless Internet access facility, he said, was also planned.
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=88429
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Stupid centralized chat!
AOL Sued Over Chatroom
Kevin Krolicki
A 19-year-old Los Angeles woman has sued AOL saying that a former monitor of its "kids only" chat room seduced her online when she was a lonely teenager, persuading her to send him nude photos of herself and to engage in phone sex.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also says that Matthew Wright sent sexually explicit videos of himself and planned to drive to California to meet the girl for a weekend together on her 17th birthday.
AOL, a unit of Time Warner, said it fired Mr Wright immediately after the company learned of his online relationship with the teenage girl in April 2003.
AOL immediately contacted the FBI in Oklahoma City, where Mr Wright worked in a company call centre, and in Los Angeles, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.
The company also alerted police in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, where the girl, Lesli Reed-Brennan, lived, he said.
Neither side in the lawsuit could say whether Mr Wright, also named as a defendant, had faced criminal charges. He could not be immediately reached for comment.
AOL, the world's largest internet service provider, has marketed itself in part on the strength of what it calls its "state-of-the-art parental controls" for families.
The lawsuit, which was filed on April 1, claims the protection failed. It seeks damages of more than $US25,000 ($32,500) for emotional distress, negligent supervision and false advertising.
Mr Wright, the lawsuit claims, was 23 and married when he began an online relationship with Ms Reed-Brennan, then 15.
According to the suit, the two exchanged explicit photos and ultimately engaged in "orgasmic phone sex".
The lawsuit described Ms Reed-Brennan as "a latchkey kid" whose parents divorced and who grew up "moving from town to town".
She "turned to the internet as a source of continuous social contact with friends around the country," first joining AOL as a subscriber at the age of 10.
Her lawsuit accuses Mr Wright of committing "one of the most heinous crimes in society today: to solicit sexual favours from a minor - a minor who he was hired to protect".
Mr Graham said that AOL company rules prohibit chat room monitors from interacting with members online.
AOL employees are subject to criminal background checks, some take drug tests, and all face "rigorous screening and training", he said.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html
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It's Moore's Law, But Another Had The Idea First
John Markoff
One of the cornerstones of Silicon Valley will mark an anniversary Tuesday. Forty years ago, Electronics magazine published Gordon E. Moore's celebrated article predicting that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would continue to double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future.
Named Moore's Law several years later by the physicist Carver Mead, that simple observation has proven to be the bulwark of the world's most remarkable industry.
Yet Mr. Moore was not the only one - or even the first - to observe the so-called scaling effect that has led to the exponential acceleration of computing power that is now expected to continue at least for the next decade.
Before Mr. Moore's magazine article precisely plotted the increase in the number of transistors on a chip, beginning with 1, the computer scientist Douglas C. Engelbart had made a similar observation at the very dawn of the integrated-circuit era. Mr. Moore had heard Mr. Engelbart lecture on the subject, possibly in 1960.
Mr. Engelbart would later be hailed as the inventor of the computer mouse as well as the leading developer of many technologies that underlie both the personal computer industry and the Internet.
In a 2001 interview, Mr. Engelbart said that it was his thinking about the scaling down of circuits that gave him the confidence to move ahead with the design of an interactive computing system.
"I was relieved because it wasn't as crazy as everyone thought," he said.
Significantly, the two pioneers represent twin Silicon Valley cultures that have combined to create the digital economy.
Mr. Moore, who co-founded Intel, is an icon of the precise and perhaps narrower chip engineering discipline that today continues to progress by layering sheets of individual molecules, one on top of the other, and by making wires that are finer in diameter than a wavelength of light.
"Gordon was the classic engineer," said Craig Barrett, Intel's chief executive, who had just begun to teach engineering at Stanford University when Mr. Moore made his famous prediction. The chart that accompanied his article was a plot that showed just five data points over seven years and extrapolated out into the future as far as 1975, when a single chip would be able to hold as many as 65,000 transistors. Forty years later, memory chip capacity has gone far beyond one billion of the tiny switches.
Mr. Engelbart, in contrast, was the architect of a passionately held view that computing could extend or "augment" the power of the human mind. His ideas were set out most clearly in 1968, in a famous demonstration in San Francisco of his Pentagon-financed Augment computing system. Many things were shown to the world for the first time, including the mouse, videoconferencing, interactive text editing, hypertext and networking - basically the outlines of modern Internet-style computing.
Mr. Engelbart had an epiphany in 1950, in which he imagined what would decades later become today's Internet-connected PC. He set about building it. At the time he had no idea of how he would build such a machine, but it soon became clear that it would require a computer that did not yet exist.
Later he was offered a job at Hewlett-Packard, but when he learned that the company had no plans to enter the computer business, he went to work instead at Stanford Research Institute, now SRI International.
There he worked with a group of military-funded researchers who were attempting to build magnetic-based computing circuits. The military was interested in the technology because of its potential performance in outer space.
With the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, however, the group realized that its work would soon fall by the wayside.
Thinking about the idea of miniaturized circuitry, Mr. Engelbart realized that it would scale down to vastly smaller sizes than the current electronic comments. He had that insight because earlier he had worked as an electronics technician in the wind tunnel at the Ames Research Center, a NASA laboratory in Mountain View, Calif. There, aerodynamicists made models and scaled them up into complete airplanes.
It was an easy conceptual leap to realize that integrated circuits would scale in the opposite direction. In 1959 he put his ideas into a paper, titled "Microelectronics and the Art of Similitude." In February 1960, he traveled to the International Circuit Conference in Philadelphia. There he explained to his audience that as chips scaled down, the new microelectronic engineers would have to worry about changing constraints, just as aerodynamicists had to worry about the macroworld.
One person who has a clear memory of Mr. Engelbart's description is Mr. Moore, although he does not remember whether he heard him speak in Philadelphia or elsewhere.
"The thing that I remember from it is his question if we would notice anything different if everything in the room was suddenly 10 times as large," he wrote in an e-mail message. "He answered it by suggesting that the chandelier might fall."
Several historians pointed out that Mr. Engelbart's previous observation did nothing to detract from the significance of Mr. Moore's careful plotting of the trend.
"It still should be called Moore's Law rather than Engelbart's Law," said Michael Riordan, a historian of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "Science is still based on theory and experiment."
As for Mr. Engelbart, the 1959 paper convinced him that the Augmentation machine he envisioned would be possible, because computing would be plentiful in the future.
He was one of the first to grasp the implications of the new technology. Years later he recalled in an interview that he told his Philadelphia audience, "Boy, are there going to be surprises over there."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/te...y/18moore.html
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Flash, bang, wallop - Adobe buys Macromedia
John Kennedy
Content software firm Adobe Systems is to acquire the web development software player behind Flash web software, Macromedia, for an estimated all- stock transaction valued at €2.6bn (US$3.4bn). The deal has received mixed reactions from analysts who fear a combined software juggernaut could yet spark anti-competition court battles.
Adobe, which employs 65 people in Ireland, says the combination of both companies will provide its customers – predominantly in the graphic design and web development communities – with a richer, more powerful set of solutions for creating and managing content across multiple operating systems, devices and media.
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange.
Based on Adobe's and Macromedia's closing prices on Friday (April 15) this represents a price of US$41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock. Upon the close of the transaction, Macromedia stockholders will own approximately 18pc of the combined company on a pro forma basis.
“Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications - from documents and images to audio and video,” said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe.
“By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software - along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash - Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform.”
In the new combined operation, Chizen will continue as CEO while the CEO of Macromedia will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations.
The news received a mixed reaction from analysts who cited “positives and negatives” that will result from the combined Adobe/Macromedia graphics powerhouse.
Bola Rotibi, a senior analyst with Ovum commented: “This acquisition is major news for the software industry, although not altogether surprising. Macromedia has regularly been seen as a prime candidate for acquisition.
“This makes good sense from both companies' perspective and this is clearly signalled in the fact that it comes with the blessing of both boards. Adobe has traditionally been strong in the offline graphical design business particularly with respect to desktop publishing in the newspaper and magazine publishing world. The company has also made its PDF reader ubiquitous in the desktop space and has a strong enterprise play.”
Rotibi continued: “Macromedia, on the other hand, has a much stronger presence in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for the desktop with its Dreamweaver and Flash product set. Both companies have made plays into the wireless market with the promise of rich media applications and cross platform access.
“Macromedia, however has made stronger inroads into this market with recent deals with key operators and device manufacturers that will see Flash expanding its reach from the desktop environment to wireless platforms.
“The deal itself is not without issues from a competition standpoint since the resulting business will almost certainly hold a sizeable chunk of the GUI market that would make it difficult for some smaller vendors to play in. The companies have overlapping product sets and a product portfolio that goes in many different directions. That is both a positive and a negative and will need to be addressed, going forward, “Rotibi said.
Rotibi also warned that the transaction could result in anti-competition court cases arising from competitors’ inability to compete against what in effect will be a software juggernaut.
“Adobe's revenues are around $2bn and Macromedia's are around $350m to $400m - the revenue potential of their combined market play and future potential is substantial. The compelling offering of a cross platform play that serves Microsoft's own environment will make it a formidable competitor for the Redmond giant but we think it would have had trouble making its own bid for Macromedia on anti-trust grounds.
“Ultimately both Adobe and Macromedia both have superb cross platform technologies and if they can exploit the ubiquity of the PDF reader and Flash, and really emphasise the "any client anywhere" theme they will be a in a formidable position to dictate industry directions for the future,” Rotibi concluded.
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/...yid=single4694
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How One Pill Escaped the List of Controlled Steroids
Anne E. Kornblut and Duff Wilson
On the shelves of health stores across the country sits a dietary supplement that advertisements boast can "significantly alter body composition" - by converting to steroids in the bloodstream and, for some, helping pump up muscles like traditional steroids do.
But unlike every other substance in the steroid family, the supplement, DHEA, is not classified as a controlled substance. In fact, the chalky white pills and capsules enjoy a special exemption under federal law, thanks to a bill quietly passed by Congress late last year.
How DHEA, or dehydroepiandrosterone, came to enjoy special legal protections granted by Congress - at the very moment that steroid abuse was grabbing national headlines, and just months before Congress itself held hearings on body-building drug use in professional baseball - is a study in skillful political maneuvering, according to participants in the deal.
Sports officials had favored an overall ban on steroids and related pills, like DHEA, which is banned by the Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the National Collegiate Athletics Association, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and baseball minor leagues.
Major League Baseball is the exception on banning DHEA, and at last month's congressional hearings, the top medical adviser to the league turned the tables on lawmakers, accusing them of failing to write zero-tolerance toward steroids into federal law. Baseball officials complain that the legal loophole has made it harder for them to ban DHEA in their own drug policy, which is already under fire.
"It is difficult, from a collective bargaining perspective, to explain to people why they should ban a substance that the federal government says you can buy at a nutrition center," said Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations at Major League Baseball.
Nevertheless, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a Republican who represents a state where many dietary supplements are produced and a longtime champion of herbal remedies, felt strongly last year that DHEA must be kept legal and available as an "anti-aging" pill. Other lawmakers and staff members said he threatened to kill a far-reaching piece of legislation restricting the sale of other steroids, educating children about the dangers of steroids and increasing penalties for illegal use if his colleagues did not agree to include an exemption for it.
His son, Scott Hatch, is a lobbyist for the National Nutritional Foods Association, a trade association for the dietary supplement industry, and has represented supplement companies themselves, including Twin Laboratories, which sells DHEA. The elder Mr. Hatch said he did not think he had been lobbied by his son, and cited the legitimate uses for DHEA as his reason for fighting for it.
"There is a big argument that DHEA is very beneficial for health and well-being," Mr. Hatch said, noting that he did not believe there was significant opposition to leaving DHEA on the market. "I didn't see much resistance," Mr. Hatch said. "There are always those who are against any dietary supplement or anything not subject to total FDA approval." He was joined in fighting for the exemption by Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, a leading supporter of dietary supplements.
Most DHEA is manufactured in China from the dried roots of wild yam. About $47 million worth was sold in the United States in 2003, the most recent year for which sales figures have been compiled, according to Patrick D. Rea, research director for The Nutrition Business Journal. In humans, where DHEA is produced naturally in the adrenal glands, levels of the hormone usually peak by the time a person is age 25. The synthetic version is primarily marketed as an anti-aging drug.
The F.D.A. banned over-the-counter sales of DHEA in 1985. It reappeared after Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, releasing a flood of supplements classified as foods rather than drugs, and not requiring the F.D.A.'s approval. Senators Hatch and Harkin also led the push for that bill.
Although DHEA advocates say the supplement has a good safety record, there have been only limited studies of its performance and side effects. Its promised benefits, including enhanced mental acuity and slowed aging, have not been proven conclusively, and some scientists say there is still concern it could accelerate cancers.
"There isn't any logical reason it should be exempt," said Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen.
Utah, the home state of Senator Hatch and his son, is a nexus for vitamin and supplement production and distribution and the father-and-son Hatch team have a history of fighting for herbal remedies. The elder Hatch has played a leading role on two Senate committees that have oversight over the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Senator Hatch has also in the past defended the herbal supplement ephedra, which has been linked with more than 100 deaths. He supported a federal ban of ephedra in April 2004 after the deaths were reported. A federal judge in Salt Lake City overturned the ban last week.
Lawmakers in both parties said the unusual exemption for DHEA was created only in order to secure passage of a broader bill, the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004.
The law, which took effect on Jan. 20, expanded the definition of anabolic steroids to include substances like andro, or androstenedione, which turns into testosterone after it is ingested. Andro was made famous by the former St. Louis Cardinals player Mark McGwire, who admitted taking it around the time of his record-breaking home run season in 1998. Andro and other steroids can enhance muscle growth; if abused, they can cause longterm physical and psychological harm.
As the abuse of steroid-like supplements became more widely discovered, athletic and medical groups pressed for stricter legislation, arguing that any substance that turns into a steroid hormone once it is digested should be regulated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
But faced with opposition from Mr. Hatch, lawmakers ultimately decided it was not worth sinking the entire bill to ban DHEA, several said. The law, which was passed without objection, gave the Drug Enforcement Administration more power to ban new steroids, with one named exemption, DHEA.
"We had to make a practical decision to get it passed," said Representative John Sweeney, Republican of New York.
Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, said DHEA was protected "because of the economic pressures from the dietary supplement people that stand to make a lot more money by selling it."
Besides the supplement industry and its select advocates in Congress, Mr. Waxman said: "No one else argued it should be given an exemption. The only opposition came from the supplements industry, and they're making millions off the sale of DHEA supplements."
According to one congressional aide who worked on writing the legislation, in one particularly intense negotiation with Senator Hatch, the Utah senator's staff members "were adamant that they were not going to take out the exemption."
Other current and former congressional staff members - all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about back-room negotiations - gave similar accounts. One senior congressional aide who helped broker the agreement said: "We had to do an exemption for DHEA not because it was the right thing to do, to be perfectly honest, but because it was the politically necessary thing to do."
Congressional aides said they had not dealt directly with Scott Hatch, the senator's son, but had worked with Jack Martin, a partner in his firm, on this and other supplement issues. Mr. Martin is a former longtime aide to Senator Hatch. They did not return calls for comment.
Senator Hatch, in an interview, defended the DHEA exemption, calling it "basically a good dietary supplement." "Andro is an anabolic steroid precursor, and DHEA is far removed from that, from everything I've read and everything I've studied," he said. In fact, DHEA is a first cousin of andro: in the body, DHEA metabolizes into andro and then into testosterone.
Asked whether his son had lobbied on the exemption, Mr. Hatch replied, "Not that I know of."
"In fact, he won't even talk to me. He is that touchy," Mr. Hatch said. "He works the House and does it very honorably. He's very prissy about it, in fact. He doesn't have to be that prissy about it." He added: "His business is his business, not mine."
With andro now illegal, athletes who want to try to get a steroid effect from a legal pill are now more likely to turn to DHEA, according to Dr. Gary Green of the Olympic Analytical Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. Speaking to high school coaches in Texas about steroids in February, Dr.
Green, an adviser to baseball, said coaches should ask why DHEA received a special exemption, which member of Congress was responsible for that, what state he was from and what state DHEA is sold from.
But there is no evidence yet, other than chatter on Web sites, that athletes or young people are turning to DHEA as a replacement for traditional steroids and precursors, despite the fears of some medical experts that the trend will begin now that the law banning other substances has taken effect.
Susan Trimbo, a scientist with General Nutrition Centers, one of the nation's largest sellers of DHEA, said the drug has a good safety record, with side effects including acne and some facial hair issues in women. The drug affects women more than men because women naturally produce less testosterone.
"It's a rather weak steroid, so I don't see it as a good substance for abuse, from my perspective," Ms. Trimbo said.
But some advertisements do take aim at athletes, including promotions on the Web sites
www.teenbodybuilding.com,
www.bodybuilding.com and
www.musclesurf.com.
One ad says: "DHEA is HOT, and you will see why. As a pre-cursor hormone, as it leads to the production of other hormones. When this compound is supplemented, it has been shown to have awesome effects."
Another ad, from AST Sports Sciences, says: "What Can DHEA Do For Me? If you're a bodybuilder, and want to increase in lean body mass at the expense of body fat, studies show this supplement may significantly alter body composition, favoring lean mass accrual."
There have been few randomized, double-blind studies of the effects of large doses of DHEA. One, in 1988, found that DHEA decreased body fat and increased muscle mass in five young men given 1600 milligrams a day for 28 days, compared with five men given placebos.
"Fortunately, reports of serious side effects to date have been minimal," Patricia D. Kroboth, dean at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, wrote in a review article in 1999. But she noted there have been no large-scale clinical trials gathering information on side effects, concluding, "Until we understand the risks and benefits of DHEA administration, its use in other than an experimental setting is not warranted."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/na...17steroid.html