[SA_Dave]

Hi Jack!

I must say that I find it interesting that most Australians seem to have steadfast and very practical viewpoints! That's a good thing, as some first world government has to take a firm, contrariwise position before any progress can be made in the "battle for consumer rights." Anyway, them Australian ISPs, record labels and consumer-rights activists deserve commendation.

Piracy not the burning issue in CD sales slide: ARIA
ARIA chief executive Stephen Peach conceded that the industry had recorded a decline as recently as 1996, followed by some flat years since. On top of that, mobile phones and gaming systems have become expensive rivals to the music industry's crucial teenage market.

"I think it's important to recognise that there are other legitimate commercial pressures [on music sales]," Mr Peach said.

We all know it's true. Considering that revenue is still in the billions, it's ridiculous that the industry has the cheek to chastise and police their customers, whilst refusing to offer any value-for-money alternatives. They deserve to be worse off than they are! Let's hope that the industry will have as "successful" a year as AOL/Time Warner did...

EFA outraged over possible ISP liability changes
"In the four years since the DMCA became law in the United States, it has become a tool of censorship and harassment in the hands of big business," said EFA board member Dale Clapperton.

"By making ISPs legally liable unless they comply with demands to remove material from their networks, it encourages a 'delete first, ask questions later' policy, which can sometimes see entire web sites deleted on the basis of frivolous, vexatious or unjustified complaints."

The EFA said recently major US chain stores, including Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart, used complaints under the DMCA to have merchandise pricing for their Thanksgiving sales removed from a web site.

"ISPs are not experts in copyright law, and should not be required to make judgements on the merits of a claim of copyright infringement, especially where inaction could mean a lawsuit against the ISP itself," Clapperton said.

"There exists ample recourse under existing Australian copyright law for intellectual property holders to prevent the publication of material which they claim violates their rights. The proper venue for these types of complaints is a court of law, and the proper remedy is an injunction against publication of the content."

This DMCA situation is completely ludicrous. Clapperton's completely correct in that the media giants are seeking to censor and control digital distribution channels, bypassing due process mechanisms to boot! The whole point of the DMCA is that it was meant to be a compromise, no matter how flawed, between ISPs and the media cartels. Taking the law to this extreme is desperate, and the copyright Nazis should be punished for their lack of foresight, not rewarded.

I had to laugh when reading the Recording industry shows some cunning article. They may have some legal and intimidation tricks up their sleeves, but they're completely clueless when it comes to the technology of p2p. I found the wired article on Sony quite interesting. In contrast, Sony seems to have the right ideas, but sadly the old fogies in the boardrooms don't see eye-to-eye with the technologists of today.

It's evident that the war for consumer-rights is beginning to heat up. Copyright decision scores against music performers and After high court ruling, erosion in public domain feared (BTW if you have a working link to the full nola.com article, I'd appreciate it. I couldn't find it anywhere on the site. ) outlined some more of the downsides to the CTEA. The Canadian system seems much more logical and it's a pity that cases such as Golan's haven't been combined into a class-action litigation. New group wants Congress to oppose Hollywood technology mandates is an excellent article! I'm surprised that Jack Valenti has barely even batted an eyelid about it, considering that Microsoft, the BSA, IBM and digital consumer groups are all on the same side! {Although I shouldn't really be surprised considering that Mr. Valenti isn't an admirable human specimen, if he is one at all! )

Connect, They Say, Only Connect
Network scientists study networks: collections of people or objects connected to each other in some way. Think of the 1.5 million Manhattan residents or the 30,000 genes inside a human cell. Such networks, scientists argue, behave in ways that can't be understood solely in terms of their component parts. Without knowing what every single person or object within the network is doing, they say, it's nevertheless possible to know something about how the network as a whole behaves.

The approach of looking at the behaviour of the whole, while understand the components, reminds me a bit of lattice theory (eg. in salt crystals.) It's a very interesting concept.
Similarly, understanding and cataloguing every peer interaction in a p2p network would be futile and resource intensive. Being able to interact with a small subsection thereof (preferably a relevant one) and having the ability to view the whole is a much more important and attainable goal.

Developer to revive iTunes P2P
Speth also said that the new version will be open source under the General Public License, the same license used by the GNU/Linux operating system. Open-source software can be freely modified and redistributed, as long as the modified code is returned to the community.

"I'm going to get the basics of the next version done, then get it out the door, with source. Hopefully, from there it will take on a life of its own and get even better," Speth said in the message.

Good news! Mac users are traditionally left with limited choices when it comes to p2p, even though the situation has improved somewhat.

Software innovator David Gelernter says the desktop is obsolete
''Instead of information management growing from the machine up, Mirror Worlds wanted it to grow from the user down. I want my information management software to have the same shape as my life, which is a series of events in time. I do something and then something else. I want the story of my life to be in software. I want the flow to determine the shape of the picture I see on the screen. I don't want to worry about directories, subdirectories or devices,'' he said.

...But, he noted, the company is looking at beta versions of desktop stream software with a P2P capability. ''In the long view, we see the stream running on a lot of machines around the world simultaneously.'' This would let you look at documents that represent a community of which you are part, he said.

Do you sense the possibilities here TankGirl? Are you tingling with anticipation like I am?

One step Closer To Teleportation
Light Particles Are Duplicated More Than a Mile Away Along Fiber
The experiments are a primitive realization of the transporter in the "Star Trek" television series that beams people from starship to planet. In coming years, it may be possible to use teleportation to imprint the exact quantum configuration of one atom to another. But teleporting something from the everyday world like a person that contains more than a trillion trillion atoms is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

Even with the light particles, photons, about one in a thousand were received at the other side.

"You're not very sure to arrive," a researcher, Dr. Hugo Zbinden, said about human teleportation.

LOL. I'd hate to be the guinea pig for any "organic trials."