[JackSpratts]

Windbags on parade.

My fellow Americans, this threat is almost as serious as Open Source…

Congress calls to arms against pirates
Declan McCullagh

Now it's official: Congress really doesn't like Internet piracy.

Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives are creating a new congressional caucus devoted to combating piracy and promoting stronger intellectual property laws.

A letter sent to some members of Congress last Friday by Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., warned of the threat of "ever-changing technologies" and asked colleagues if they would like to join the caucus. "The concerns of the thousands of Americans whose livelihoods depend on intellectual property protection are not being fully debated or addressed," said the letter, which was obtained by CNET News.com.

A representative for Wexler said on Monday that planning for the caucus--formally titled the Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention--is still in its early stages. "We literally just submitted the papers at the end of the last week, so it's just in formation," the representative said, adding that many possible Republican members have not yet been contacted.

Wexler co-sponsored a bill last year, backed by the major record labels, that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file-trading. He also serves on the House Judiciary subcommittee that writes copyright laws.

It's unclear what immediate effect the caucus will have on new laws aimed at peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates, although one likely outcome is a new focus on what has emerged as a hot topic in the 108th Congress. The founding of the caucus comes as Congress is spending more time scrutinizing peer-to-peer piracy. One recent House committee hearing blamed P2P networks for spreading illegal forms of pornography, while another fingered universities as hotbeds of widespread--and felonious--copyright infringement.

Joining Wexler as co-founder of the caucus is Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who helped author a note last fall to 74 fellow Democrats assailing the Linux open- source operating system's GNU General Public License as a threat to America's "innovation and security." Smith's Ninth District includes the Seattle surburbs near Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters. The third founder is Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., a first-term congressman and former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who was once Gov. Jeb Bush's running mate.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1007908.html

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Profits At EMI Music Up more Than 15%
Gareth Mackie

DOOMSAYERS have been predicting the death of the single for many years, and it appears their forecasts are being borne out in the latest official music industry figures, which reveal sales fell more than 40 per cent in the first three months of this year.

And despite yesterday posting a 15.7 per cent rise in full-year profits, the world’s third-largest music group, EMI, said sales of its recorded music fell 12.6 per cent as it struggled against rampant piracy.

Now it seems computer maker Apple could have hammered the final nail in the single’s coffin with the launch earlier this month of its iTunes Music Store, which allows users in the United States to legally download tracks over the internet for around 61p each.

Since the service became available, more than two million tracks have been purchased and downloaded - an impressive statistic when one considers the service is currently only available to Apple users, who make up less than five per cent of the total PC market.

And Alan Poustie, retail manager of Edinburgh-based Apple retailer Scotsys, believes the iTunes Music Store will prove just as popular when it is made available to UK users, despite the current scarcity of broadband internet access.

"In the US, there is wider use of broadband internet access, but the difficulty with Europe is we don’t have the same coverage so download times will be a lot longer," he says.

"Over the last few months, broadband access in the UK has been increasing, but it’s only just starting to blossom."

Mr Poustie says those most likely to download music will do so at work, where internet access is generally faster than at home.

"But the mass market, say the 14 to 20-year-olds, mainly don’t have broadband access. Until they do, I don’t see iTunes taking off in the same way it has in the States."

He believes Apple decided to initially launch the service in the US alone because the California-based company has agreed deals with several major record companies - including BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner - which would have to be negotiated on a country-by- country basis across Europe.

"But in order to recoup their massive investment they’ll have to roll it out worldwide at some stage," Mr Poustie adds.
http://www.edinburghnews.com/business.cfm?id=573862003

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Want To Know If That Album’s Label Is An RIAA Member? Now you Can
Jack Spratts

How many times have you wondered if that excellent new Indie band is signed to a label in the dreaded RIAA evil empire? If you’re like me, too many. Since I make it a point to avoid purchasing music that will benefit the RIAA and their oppressive tactics, it's something I take seriously - but I’ve had little to go on when it came to finding out if my money would wind up in their pockets – until now.

A new product called RIAA Radar has been released that claims to detect RIAA member labels with a simple click, as long as you’re checking at Amazon.com.

“The RIAA Radar is a tool that music consumers can use to easily and instantly distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America,” says the site magnetbox, and they continue, it’s easy to use too,

“1.Add the RIAA Radar bookmarklet to your bookmarks/favorites list.

2. Go to any album's detail page on Amazon.com you would like to check.

3. Click the "RIAA Radar" bookmark!”

Since the RIAA controls about 90% of the music most people purchase the odds are stacked against you that your new discovery isn’t on a member label. However, there’s always the nice surprise when you find one that's not - and you don’t have to feel culpable about buying the CD and supporting them.

Now if the database worked on the P2P's too...

http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16390

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Microsoft Documents to be Shredded in Utah
AP

Three million pages of paper from those big lawsuits against Microsoft are in Salt Lake City.

Three million pages of Microsoft documents, once part of a suit against the software maker, are being shredded and are destined to become toilet paper.

The 937 boxes of court-ordered documents had been safeguarded by Redman Records of Salt Lake City since the mid-1990s as part of Caldera International's unfair-competition lawsuit against Microsoft.

That suit was settled in January 2000, and Caldera -- now The SCO Group -- was paying up to $1,500 a month to store the documents. In October, the company persuaded U.S. District Judge Dee Benson to order their destruction.

Shredding of the Microsoft archives was a major undertaking for Recall Secure Destruction Service's Salt Lake City plant, facility manager Cathy Keetch said. Once the final, box of files is processed, her staff will have destroyed 37,480 pounds of records, packing the shreds into 1,400-pound bales.

"We broker the bales out to the highest bidder, and they are shipped to a pulp mill. There, they dump them into vats that remove the ink and break it down into a mix material," she said. "Ninety-nine percent of our shreddings are made into toilet paper."

http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=29450

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Labels crank up fight, suing file-swapping students, sites
A. Tacuma Roeback

Record labels, which blame sinking CD sales on piracy run amok, are now using everything from litigation to covert sabotage to track down people illegally pulling songs off the Internet without paying for them.

They have sued Internet sites that allow song swapping and threatened to embed software that will destroy computers. But most specifically, they are targeting individual students who use their college computers to swap stolen songs by the billions.

''Yes, we are downloading copyrighted material; yes, we are participating in what can be considered an illegal act,'' Vanderbilt University junior John Harmon, 20, said.

He is just the kind of student who now has a freshly painted target on his back.

This year, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued four college students for running ''peer to peer'' file-sharing services, with which users directly swap music files without going through a centralized database. And it is suing to get one Internet service provider to cough up the name of a suspected song stealer who was swiping 600 songs per day. With the RIAA's input, colleges are cracking down.

''Right now, the recording industry is playing whack-a-mole,'' said Jonathan Band, a Washington, D.C.-based copyright lawyer, referring to the popular arcade game in which a different mole pops up after you smash one down.

The battle has raged for years. Now the war is getting bloody. Stakes are high.

''We've got to look at who's zooming who, here,'' Harmon said.

There is a belief that no one really is being hurt, experts say.

''Students think that the only thing that's harmed when you download music is this multinational corporation or some rich diva,'' Middle Tennessee State University recording industry professor Richard Barnet said.

But the cost of music is not the only reason for music piracy, said Harmon and Matt Walberg, an MTSU student and musician. They think the free downloads make people want to buy the CD.

''Some people use it as a tool to preview artists,'' Walberg said.

''People aren't downloading free music to get over, but because they love music,'' Harmon said.

For example, he has downloaded songs from pop-rocker Avril Lavigne. But then he bought her CD, he said.
http://www.tennessean.com/local/arch...nt_ID=32886599

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“Multicasting is the only answer to your bandwidth problem.”
Michael Hoch

While unicasting a simultaneous broadcasts to hundreds of users incurs a high bandwidth cost, multicasting is not the only — or often even the best — answer. Multicast-enabling your network requires (1) time and (2) costly hardware and software upgrades. Instead, consider whether the video or audio must be broadcast live. If it can be time shifted by even a few minutes, store- and-forward and managed-delivery strategies are a faster and cheaper option. Also, solutions that use distributed delivery or peer-to-peer can dramatically cut bandwidth costs without requiring multicast.
http://www.streamingmagazine.com/vie...s&TI=thismonth

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Upload Leads To Record Contract
Anjunabeats signs “Rusch & Murray”

Rusch & Murray ‘Epic’ is an interesting collaboration between two producers who have never met in person, only in Cyberspace.

Set for a July release date, ‘Epic’ came about when Swedish producer Christian Rusch emailed some melody ideas to Leeds-based UK producer (and traditional furniture maker!) Greg Murray, after the two had become acquainted through a music website.

Over the weeks that followed, the pair exchanged ideas and midi files over the web until they were happy with the track. Epic went on to become one of the most popular downloads on filesharing software programs and the boys sent CD’s to many of the world’s leading trance labels.

‘Epic’ came to the attention of the Anjunabeats collective following an afternoon spent listening to a pile of demos that had accumulated in the studio. The tune was immediately signed up for a release on the label, and Above & Beyond were persuaded to dust off their synths and knock up a remix.

Speaking about the tune label boss James Grant expressed a real enthusiasm for the record “The track stood out from a lot of the demos we get sent and has a cool, melodic feel that fits perfectly with what we're trying to achieve.”
http://residentadvisor.com.au/news.asp?id=3412

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Two million homes with broadband says Oftel

The number of homes and businesses in the UK with a broadband internet connection has passed the two million mark, telecoms regulator Oftel has confirmed.

The popularity of broadband - which speeds up connection times dramatically by giving customers a permanent link to the web - has gathered pace with 35,000 new connections every week, the regulator said.

The figure, based on information from network operators, means that the number of people using broadband has doubled since October, when an estimated 20,000 new homes and businesses were connecting every week.

Director general of telecommunications David Edmonds said: "Oftel research shows that many broadband connections are people upgrading from narrowband, as they recognise the benefits of fast, always-on Internet access.

"It took two years to reach one million connections, but only seven months to reach two million, as increased competition and lower prices have boosted connection rates."

Earlier this month E-commerce Minister Stephen Timms said the Government was stepping up its efforts to speed up the roll-out of broadband across the country - with every school set to be connected by 2006.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ews.technology

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Americans lap up broadband

Americans are embracing high speed net access, according to a report by a leading US think tank. The Pew Internet and American Life project found that nearly a third of US citizens with a home internet connection have converted to broadband. This represents 16% of the total population of the country.

The number of Americans connected to broadband has increased by 50% compared to last year as surfers see the value of a fast net connection. However the survey, which questioned 1,495 Americans, also found that take-up of broadband could be slowing. Fewer dial-up internet users, the prime candidates for upgrades, said they wanted broadband compared to a year ago. And those most keen to get their hands on broadband tend to live in areas that cannot get the technology.

In the US, cable accounts for the lion's share of the broadband market with around 67% of connections. DSL - access via the phone line - accounts for around 34% of broadband connections. Cable passes around 90% of US homes with the excluded 10% confined to rural areas.

In Europe, analysts predict that broadband take-up will overtake that in the US by 2008, with 48% of European households online with a fast net connection compared to 46% in the US.

By 2008, Jupiter Research predicts the UK will have eight million broadband connections. In Europe only Germany will have more, with 12.2 million.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3039841.stm

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Steve Jobs' half note
Evan Hansen

Buying music online got a lot easier with Apple Computer's new music store. It's a promising sign of things to come in the music business. That said, the service feels like half a loaf--it only begins to offer the music experience that is possible with the Internet.

Apple negotiated some great licenses from the record labels, and there's genius in that. Others tried and failed to get similar rights, so Apple CEO Steve Jobs deserves to gloat a little. But in the end, iTunes Music Store is just a music fulfillment service. It has done little or nothing to change the ways people explore and learn about the music that they eventually buy, and that's a disappointment.

If online music were approached in the right way, it would have the power to transform and enrich an industry that historically has courted consumers with a blunt marketing instrument.

Currently, a mere 2 percent of releases account for 80 percent of music industry sales. Online distribution could help rebalance that ratio, building careers for hundreds of artists who now linger in obscurity, and drawing in millions of new fans bored and alienated by the industry's star-making machinery.

The key is getting more and better information to consumers. The music store of the future can and should be a primary force in making that happen.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-1008063.html

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New ReplayTV Models May Skip Some Features
Franklin Paul

ReplayTV on Wednesday said it would likely leave untouched for now some controversial features on its home television recording machines but may strip them from new models.

ReplayTV, the digital video recorder maker purchased last month by Japan's D&M Holdings Inc. 6735.T from bankrupt SONICblue Inc. SBLUQ.PK , said it is mulling the fate of ReplayTV's features, which include the ability to skip commercials, and to send saved programs over the Internet.

"We want to respect the intent of copyright, and give consumers everything that they can get, but we want to do it in a way that is complementary and cooperative," Jim Hollingsworth, President of ReplayTV, told Reuters.

That take represents an about-face from previous management at SONICblue, which took on Hollywood with an in-your-face brashness. In 2001, then-CEO Ken Potashner said, "ReplayTV ... is so good the networks don't want consumers to have it."

Hollingsworth added that ReplayTV models selling today still include "Commercial Advance" and "Send Show" options, but the company has not made up its mind about including those features in future products.

"We are looking to a work within the industry bounds to make sure that we have a solution that everybody can endorse," he said.

Two years ago when ReplayTV introduced its 4000 series of digital recorders, those services upset major media players such as Walt Disney Co. DIS.N , Viacom Inc. VIAb.N and the TV networks, which filed lawsuits against SONICblue claiming that ReplayTV violated copyright laws and robbed them of ad revenue.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=2788992

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National Survey Results Reveal Consumers Want More Choices When Purchasing Ink And Toner Cartridges
Press Release

In a recent Harris Interactive survey, 82% of Americans say they want the right to purchase aftermarket toner and ink cartridges that work with brand name printers -- often at a considerably lower price.

The survey -- sponsored by Rhinotek, a leader in the computer consumables industry -- was taken from a nationally representative sample of US citizens ages 18 or older and was prompted by the trend for the big brand-name printers installing technology that disables printers when a consumer tries to use an inkjet cartridge that is not the printer manufacturer's.

The world market for these computer consumables was worth $ 41.4 billion last year, according to Lyra Research, which tracks the industry.

Jerry Chamales, Chairman and Founder of Rhinotek, is not surprised by the survey results. "It's clear that consumers have deep concerns that big name vendors are bullying them into buying over-priced supplies," said Chamales. "It's a battle between the big printer-makers' profits and the consumer right of choice. And this survey supports our contention that the consumer clearly wants a choice when purchasing a printer ink cartridge."

An "ink cartel" of large OEM printer companies have managed for years to keep the price of ink and toner cartridges artificially high, unbeknownst to consumers. These companies have enlisted a number of measures from "smart chips" to misleading rebates in an attempt to lock out remanufacturers such as Rhinotek from producing less expensive cartridges.

One leading printer company, Lexmark, filed a lawsuit against one of the suppliers to this remanufacturing market -- Static Controls Corporation, that makes a special chip called "Smartek" -- saying that the technology of this chip, which enables remanufactured cartridges to override the lockout code Lexmark embedded in its printers, is an infringement of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA).
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2003,+06:01+AM

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Review is on to give copyright laws more teeth
Rebecca Lee

SINGAPORE is reviewing its intellectual property laws to bring it more in line with international practices and requirements in the United States, following the just-concluded free trade agreement with the US.

The review, expected to take six to eight months, is spearheaded by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (Ipos) and targets 15 key provisions.

These include extending copyright protection from 50 to 70 years after the death of the creator of a piece of work.

The changes will also include making it a criminal offence to commit 'significant and wilful' copyright infringements.

This means it will be a crime to wilfully send copies of a work protected by copyright to people even if the sender does not stand to gain financially.

New legislation will also make it illegal to bypass measures copyright holders take to protect digital content, for instance by modifying a DVD-player to watch pirated discs.

Senior State Counsel S. Tiwari explained: 'The knowledge economy relies on creativity... You need a good intellectual property infrastructure ready because if I create something and it is not protected, then I have no incentive to create.'

But, he acknowledged, 'there will be a painful period' where industries will need to adjust to a higher level of protection.

Individuals and firms using illegal software will, for example, have to buy original software.

Ipos director-general Liew Woon Yin said a task force was being formed to reach out to consumers and users, to gather feedback, help them understand the changes and appreciate the opportunities they present.

The proposed changes will, for instance, make it easier for orchid growers who come up with hybrids to register their new varieties.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/sin...190239,00.html

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Cellphone ring tones drum up 7 billion in copyright fees
The Asahi Shimbun

For all its virtues, the Internet hasn't won many fans in the music industry. That's because rampant online pirating has put CD sales on the rocks quicker than a marriage to Jennifer Lopez, depriving copyright holders of bucketloads of income.

But composers and publishers are beginning to change their tune, thanks to prestissimo gains in revenue derived from an unlikely source-downloadable ring tones for mobile phones.

In fiscal 2002 alone, copyright fees paid to songwriters to use their melodies on cellphones in Japan soared to about 7.32 billion yen, nearly double the 3.8 billion yen recorded in fiscal 2001, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) said Wednesday.

Since fiscal 1999, revenue from ring-tone copyright fees has increased more than 20-fold.

It is estimated that more than 110 million melodies were downloaded each month in fiscal 2002. Using Internet services such as NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, cellphone users purchase and download the tunes directly from online music distributors.The melodies are then stored in the phones to act as ring tones to alert the user of an incoming call or e-mail. An average service provides cellphone users with 15 to 20 tunes a month for between 100 and 300 yen.

More than 100 companies act as online music distributors, which pay JASRAC a copyright fee of 5 yen per tune. JASRAC in turn distributes the fee to the song's composer and copyright holder.
http://www.asahi.com/english/busines...052200325.html

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Movie site appeals MPAA victory
Declan McCullagh

Michael Rossi, who runs InternetMovies.com, is renewing his attempt to hold

the major movie studios legally liable for accusing him of copyright infringement and causing his Web site to be yanked by his Internet provider. Rossi's site claimed to offer "full length downloadable movies" but did not; he sued the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and lost when a judge recently granted summary judgment to the studios.

The MPAA had acted "reasonably in communicating the possible copyright infringement" and invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, U.S. District Judge Barry Kurren said. Earlier this month Rossi filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, saying that the MPAA should be required to conduct a thorough investigation before firing off copyright notifications.
http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105_2-1009039.html

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Colorado Governor Vetoes Super-DMCA
Linda Seebach
Colorado governor Bill Owens has taken the Rocky Mountain News' advice and vetoed his state's Super-DMCA bill.

In his veto message [Owens] said the bill "could also stifle legal activity by entities all along the high tech spectrum, from manufacturers of communication parts to sellers of communication services."

He urges the legislature, if it returns to this topic in the next session, "to be more careful in drafting a bill that adds protections that are rightfully needed, but does not paint a broad brush stroke where only a
tight line is needed."

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000392.html

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Library Groups Support Verizon in Fight Against Recording Industry
Andrea Foster

Academic-library groups have joined 33 other organizations in filing a legal brief in support of Verizon Communications. The company is trying to conceal from the recording industry the names of music fans who have used Verizon telephone lines to trade copyrighted material illegally.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America in its suit against Verizon. In two separate rulings, Judge John D. Bates has said that Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits a copyright owner -- in this case, represented by the recording-industry group -- to send a subpoena ordering a communication-service provider to reveal information about a subscriber. Under the law, the subpoenas can be issued by a court clerk without any approval from a judge.

Verizon is challenging those rulings before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Among those supporting Verizon's appeal are the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of Research Libraries.

Campus-network administrators have been tracking the case because if the recording industry prevails, they fear that the industry could present similar subpoenas to colleges demanding that they identify students who illicitly swap music online (The Chronicle, January 29).

The brief, which was filed on Friday, says that Section 512 of the digital-copyright law threatens consumers' privacy and fails to honor the constitutional right to free speech.

"If the court upholds the Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena provision, it will create a new, easy way to silence controversial speakers online," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The San Francisco-based organization, which promotes civil liberties in cyberspace, joined the library groups in the brief.

The brief also says the Recording Industry Association of America has already shown clumsiness in ferreting out people who download music illegally. The brief observed that the industry group mistakenly claimed that a computer server in the astronomy department at Pennsylvania State University at University Park was being used to illegally download copyrighted work by Usher, a rhythm-and-blues artist. A Penn State manager who investigated found no illegal music on the machine -- but did find a directory named for an emeritus professor who happens to have the same last name.
http://chronicle.com/free/2003/05/2003051901t.htm

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TVMW: Video on Demand and DVD – Complimentary or Competitors?
Leigh Phillips

Video on Demand (VOD) services have begun to reach a mass market recently, with a number of European and
international roll-outs. This has certainly not come too late for many of the debt-ridden cable operators, telcos and DSL providers, who hope to increase ARPU from the service. However, what are the platforms that will prevail in the marketplace, cable/satellite or IP? Moreover, with DVDs exploding onto the marketplace, is this ‘purchaseable’, ‘ownable’ format a threat to VOD?

Retail DVD market $14bn in revenues
Stelio Tzonis, the founder of Swiss market research firm Digital Strategy, explored the recent history and possible futures of the two formats. As the home video segment of a movie’s lifespan is roughly 58 per cent – longer than the theatrical release, pay-TV, airline and hotel incarnations of the movie-viewing experience, getting this segment right, particularly as the formats used in this segment are in tremendous flux at the moment is vital to all of the stakeholders involved.

DVDs have been genuinely embraced by the consumer: DVD player owners buy on average 22 DVDs a year, with the little discs bringing in a whopping $14bn a year already. 28 per cent of that retail figure comes from US retail giant Wal-Mart alone.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16427

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Golden Oldies important to music services, report
David Minto

Record companies have been shocked by the findings of a recent digital music study that claims almost a quarter of those downloading songs over the internet are 45 years or older

The research was conducted by legal music download service MP3.com, owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal. MP3.com found that whilst its largest individual group of users were under 18, this number was not substantially greater than the 23 per cent of its customers aged 18-24, the 25 per cent of its customers aged 25 to 44 and the 24 per cent of customers aged 45 and above.

The extent to which older people are using download services, could have consequence in the type of songs such services seek to offer: if Golden Oldies are surfing the web, perhaps it’s Golden Oldies they’d prefer to listen to rather than the traditional offerings of Eminen and Limp Bizkit?

Leanne Sharman, vice president of sales and marketing at MP3.com Europe, drew a different conclusion, however, telling the Guardian: "This is good news for record labels and consumer brands because it shows consumers are retaining youthful interests as they grow older - effectively extending core marketing demographics."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16370

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Games Prove a Hassle for Web Pirates
Alex Pham and Jon Healey

Video game publishers say piracy costs them billions of dollars in lost sales every year, but the industry is unlikely to suffer the widespread online theft that record labels blame for decimating CD sales.

Game and console makers go to extreme lengths to ensure that their wares are tough to crack. Bootleg copies of popular games can be found on file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus. But online "piracy is much lower for games than it is for music," said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with market research firm GartnerG2. "Orders of magnitude lower."

For starters, illegally copying a song is much easier and faster than pirating a video game. Even over a high-speed Internet connection, downloading a game can take hours. A compressed song can take less than a minute. And because games are purely digital, even a minor hiccup in the download can corrupt a file and render it unusable.

"When the download time is more than an hour, people have very low tolerance for errors," said Nathan Solomon, director of business development for retailer Electronics Boutique, which experimented with selling downloadable games. "They figure they can spend that hour going to the mall and buying the game."

A 32-year-old Kazaa user from Santa Monica who asked that his name not be used agreed that downloading pirated games can be a hassle.

"Usually, the files are broken up and compressed, so you have to decompress and stitch them together," the user, a database engineer, said. "Sometimes, there's missing data."

Even when downloading works, getting to the point where you actually can play the game can require several more steps.

Console games, in particular, contain physical features that make them hard to replicate. Games for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, for example, reside on special two-layer discs, with security features embedded in the second layer.

"A normal DVD burner can't copy two layers," said Andrew Huang, a computer engineer and author of the upcoming book "Hacking the Xbox."
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...2Dtec hnology

Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne

Bursting BigChampagne's Bubble
David Lawrence

Update: [11:13AM PT 5/20/03]: Within moments of this article being published, I received a call from a record executive at one of the big 5 labels, who said, "You are dead on target with this article...[Big Champagne] came to us and presented their wares and it didn't go well. We questioned it from a technical standpoint...you're absolutely right about how you're portraying this...excellent work."

It is troubling that BigChampagne, the file swapping monitoring site, continues to get almost unvarying positive support from the media, when their claims, activities, data and final product are suspect at least, and at worst deceptive. People really want to know what BigChampagne claims to know. And a lot of it centers around the word "download."

We'd all like to know what the most downloaded songs are, right? BigChampagne seems to know. At
least that's what everyone is saying, and Big Champagne does nothing that I can see to correct their impressions. In fact, they don't even seem to correct that impression on their website. Right now, pop over to BigChampagne's site (it's www.bigchampagne.com), read all that you can, and then come back here. Ask yourself if you think that BigChampagne measures downloading of music on the Internet. Chances are you'll answer "yes" to that question. And it appears that that's exactly what BigChampagne wants you to think.

Right off the bat, BigChampagne's website uses a fairly prominent quote from an article in an Atlanta newspaper, right in the middle of their front page, that uses the word "downloading" as if that's what BigChampagne measures. This couldn't be further from the truth, and when pressed, BigChampagne admits it. Their CEO, Eric Garland, while refusing to come on my radio show to discuss what BigChampagne really is claiming to their customers, said about the quote, "Those aren't our words, those are the Atlanta-Constitution's words. We can't help what they say." Maybe not, but they can help what's placed front and center on their website.

Well, here are BigChampagne's words, in the press release touting their new relationship with Premiere:

"BigChampagne has been measuring and analyzing music downloading since the height of Napster's popularity."

http://www.bigchampagne.com/For_Immediate_Release.pdf (page 2)

The use of the phrase "downloading" over and over and over on their website, in press releases, and when talking to the media is, in my opinion, a calculated effort to create an image that BigChampagne knows something that you and I don't about downloading and music. It may, unfortunately, mislead potential customers into thinking that BigChampagne measures the most downloaded songs. In fact, that's not possible. And when asked repeatedly for an indication as to how they were accomplishing that feat, BigChampagne finally sent an email saying, in part,:

"...BigChampagne does not now, nor have we ever measured "most downloaded" songs online..."

[email to author from BigChampagne representative, 4/2/03]

In fact, I'm pretty sure that they do measure something. But what they measure is hardly what people are downloading. They measure what is being OFFERED online, and the statistical and social difference is enormous.

http://onlinetonight.net/archives/001415.html


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Your Right To Hack the Xbox
Tiernan Ray

Video game freaks are strangely at the very center of the biggest computer security battle: control over the product you just bought.

We may someday call it the shot heard 'round the world. On February 17th, the Xbox Linux Project wrote an open letter to Microsoft discussing its desire to run somebody else's software on the company's gaming console.

Microsoft hasn't been too friendly toward those efforts. Last fall, it shut down a maker of "mod chips" -- circuitry that can be soldered onto the motherboard of the Xbox to make the machine run Linux. The letter politely demanded that Microsoft stop "restricting choice" -- and rid itself of the mod market to boot -- by publishing the code required to run unapproved programs without modifications to the Xbox.

Imagine the nerve. There goes your tea right over the side.

Video game enthusiasts have overnight placed themselves at the heart of what is rapidly becoming the second most important security question after the Patriot Act: namely, your right as a consumer to do what you see fit with a product you've paid for. And on Saturday, March 29th, a lone coder, Habibi_xbox, showed that it is possible, if not advisable, to stick a knife in the toaster.

He met the Xbox contest requirements by booting Linux onto an unmodified console using nothing more than a copy of the game cartridge 007: Agent Under Fire.

It's a fascinating convergence of security technology, a lucrative game market and consumer-choice issues. And the reason it's happening is that when you plunk down US$200 for the Xbox, you're not buying a product -- you're buying a distribution channel established by Microsoft.

Microsoft can't allow unmodified games to run on the Xbox because the entire business model is based on sell-through of game software it controls. The console business model -- and you see this with Sony and Nintendo, too -- is based on royalties from game titles and from licenses sold to game developers. The hardware itself is often just an expense to build the channel through which to funnel the royalties and licenses.

It was the same when Microsoft acquired WebTV. Partners, such as Sony and Philips, sunk money into the thing on the premise of lucrative content and subscription revenues to come.

The console product is costing Microsoft money about as fast as it brings in sales. Microsoft attributed some of the 10 percent rise in sales in the December quarter of last year -- the second quarter of fiscal 2003 -- to purchases of the console, and said most of the home and entertainment division's 38 percent jump in revenue for the first six months of fiscal 2003 -- an extra $580 million, roughly -- was thanks to the console and related sales. (A good chunk came from Europe, where the console had not been available previously. Europe, the Middle East and Africa jumped 34 percent.)
http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/21356.html

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PC gaining in entertainment value
Sam Diaz

The personal computer is overtaking the television, stereo and other home entertainment devices, now that digital content -- MP3 music tracks, digital photos and digital video -- has become mainstream, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Microsoft.

The survey, which polled more than 2,000 computer users over age 13, found that the computer is redefining how people are entertaining themselves at home. The results revealed that 61 percent view the PC as more important than the home stereo while 43 percent see it as more important than the television.

``We were blown away with the number of people who are using the computer as their center of entertainment,'' said Hal Quinley, group president at Harris Interactive. ``These results indicate people look to their computer as a TV, DVD player, stereo and CD player combined.''

The survey is important for Microsoft because it offers a glimpse into consumers' minds about not only what they're doing with the PC but what they'd like to do with it in the future.

Not surprisingly, teenagers age 13 to 17 were more interested in using the PC for a whole-house experience than respondents age 18 and older.

Among teenagers, 73 percent said they want to access music files on their PC from anywhere in the home, compared with 35 percent of the adult respondents. Likewise, 52 percent of teens are interested in having a home network to connect multiple devices in the home -- such as televisions and stereos -- to the PC, compared with 35 percent of the adults.

``One of the key trends we found was that teenagers are fearless when it comes to technology,'' said Jodie Cadieux, marketing manager for Microsoft's Windows E-home division. ``They're using it to the maximum potential and trying new things.''

Teens, she said, aren't necessarily making the PC buying decisions at home, but are savvy enough to tell their parents that the next PC should have a DVD burner. Parents, however, know the importance of a burner, now that they are closing the gap by becoming digital photo and video enthusiasts much the way the younger generation is enthusiastic about digital music.

For example, 21 percent of adults are uploading digital photos to a PC, compared with 20 percent of teenagers.

While the PC is still predominantly a productivity tool, its use as an entertainment device is quickly catching up, Cadieux said.

``I think we're at that point where it's starting to tip in the other direction,'' she said. ``We haven't reached groundswell but I don't think we're five or 10 years out either. Consumers are still interested and excited about the potential of technology. There is a lot of opportunity for the industry to get into that mindset.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/5920215.htm

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QnA: Correcting the Titles in Your MP3 Library
J.D. Biersdorfer

Q. When I create MP3 files from CD's, I notice that some of the text identifying the music in my MP3 software contains typographical or factual errors. How can I correct them?

A. Most software programs that can convert songs from a CD into digital audio formats like MP3 examine a code on the CD and use it to retrieve corresponding information from an online music database. Such databases are not immune to typographical errors, mistakes in song order or artist, or confusion over different versions of an album. But that doesn't mean you have to live with incorrect information on your MP3 files.

An MP3 file contains information about the song, including the title, artist, album and length, in an area called the ID3 tag. Most digital audio programs will let you edit the text in the tag to correct errors and adjust album titles for better alphabetization - for example, changing The Wild Tchoupitoulas to Wild Tchoupitoulas so that the album falls under W on an alphabetical list.

In many cases, you can also select a song title and change the way it appears in your MP3 program's song library.

To make more elaborate corrections, check the menus of your MP3 program for Edit Tags or Edit Song Info. In MusicMatch Jukebox Plus, for example, you can right-click on a song title in the music library and select Edit Track Tags from the pop-up menu to change the text information attached to a song file.

In iTunes for the Macintosh, you can perform similar tasks by clicking on a title, going to the File menu, and selecting Get Info. The Help area of your MP3 program should provide details about editing track information. More information about MP3 song tags is at www.id3.org/intro .html.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/te...ts/22askk.html

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IE Beta Plugs Document Leaks With DRM
Sandeep Junnarkar

Microsoft released a plug-in for Internet Explorer that is designed to protect sensitive documents from unauthorized editing or copying--an early step in its effort to encourage corporations to use its software to share sensitive information.

The Rights Management Add-on, available in a beta, or test version, allows permitted users to view files, the company said. The Web browser plug-in is meant to help companies protect sensitive documents, e-mail and other Web-based data from being manipulated, forwarded or copied by unauthorized individuals.

Microsoft recently began a drive to spread the adoption of rights management technology. In a policy e-mail to customers last week, CEO Steve Ballmer outlined plans for digital rights management (DRM) services that could meet mundane business needs as well the needs of the more glamorous entertainment industry.

Over the past few years, DRM technology has been pitched as able to play a key role in the entertainment industry's antipiracy effort as record labels and movie studios have sought ways to prevent their copyrighted music and films from being illegally reproduced. However, the technology offered by a handful of smaller companies did not gain widespread support, whereas Microsoft's DRM technology has slowly made inroads.

Earlier this year, Microsoft released a test version of its Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) security tools for Windows Server 2003. At the time, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said it would launch a test for a wider range of operating systems later.

The corporate-centric RMS product will first be shipped later this year. Initially it will ship separately from the upcoming Windows Server 2003, but subsequently it will be integrated with the operating system, according to Jon Murchison, a Microsoft spokesman. The company has yet to announce pricing for the product.

Using the technology, a business basically can restrict access to authorized individuals or prevent the misuse of corporate information, such as the surreptitiously leaking of sensitive information to competitors.

"As these technologies become widespread, their protection will help encourage wider sharing of information within and between organizations, improving communication and productivity by assuring information workers of the confidentiality of their documents and data," Ballmer wrote in last week's policy e- mail.

Critics from the open-source camp have raised concerns about the possibility that non-Microsoft operating systems, software and tools could conceivably be shut out by the technology. Microsoft tried to downplay these concerns.
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-1009101.html

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RealNetworks adds Playboy to the mix
Jim Hu

If it worked for cable, it might work for RealNetworks.

On Thursday, the streaming-media company added Playboy to the mix of content partners for its subscription video-on-demand service. As first reported by CNET News.com, RealNetworks has been mulling the addition of adult content as a way to draw subscribers to its RealOne service, similar to the way cable networks have offered steamy programs as premiums to their standard fare.

Playboy TV Club will be available only as a standalone subscription, instead of an integrated part of RealNetworks' RealOne SuperPass, Real's video service, which counts CNN, ABC News and Major League Baseball audio as its partners. RealNetworks will manage all technology, billing, customer service and content delivery for Playboy TV Club, which will cost $24.95 a month.

Playboy is one of many partners that have signed on to provide content for standalone subscriptions that RealNetworks calls OpenPass. Just like cable's mixed salad of niche programs, OpenPass channels range from the sensual to the sensational. Partners include "The Hawaiian Network," "JFK: The Truth," "Botbash Network," "Surfing Live" and "Professional Bowlers Association Tour." There's even "Planeta Samba Pass" for "Brazilian culture, music, dance and women."

Each of these channels has its own monthly fees. Subscribers are not required to sign up for the $9.95 a month RealOne SuperPass service.

RealNetworks' objective for OpenPass is to let content partners sell subscriptions using RealNetworks streaming and playback technology, said Dan Sheehan, Real's vice president of marketing. Sheehan said the program lets smaller outlets sell video without the need to squeeze into RealNetworks' primary RealOne SuperPass offering.

Given the nature of some of the partners, Sheehan said, RealNetworks has implemented standard controls to prevent underage access, including credit card verification and parental restriction of content. However, the safety net does not prevent underage viewers from typing in the credit card number of someone of legal age.

"We can't preclude that," said Sheehan. "If that's what kids can do, there's lots of other mischief that they can get into, and it's not something we're in a position to prevent. I think it's the responsibility of parents to keep track of their credit card."
http://news.com.com/2100-1026-1009356.html

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KaZaA - Most Downloaded Software In History
Reuters

Sharman Networks Ltd. on Thursday said its Kazaa file-sharing software was on track to set a record in the next day as it becomes the most-popular free program on the Web with over 230 million downloads.

By hitting that total, Kazaa would surpass the popular ICQ instant messaging program, Sharman said.

Kazaa's growing popularity comes at a crucial time for the music industry as it battles file-swapping services in court and tries to develop commercially viable online music services.

As of late Thursday, the Kazaa Media Desktop application -- a file-sharing software that has drawn the wrath of the music industry by enabling its users to swap songs for free -- had been downloaded 229,150,955 times, as measured by Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks Inc.

Sharman said by midday Friday it expected Kazaa would top the record set by ICQ. As of Thursday, ICQ has been downloaded 229,363,307 times, according to Download.com.

A Sharman spokeswoman said Kazaa has been receiving an average of 366,000 downloads per day, whereas the ICQ application has been receiving an average of 50,000 downloads per day, as measured by Download.com.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2799540












Until next week,

- js.










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Current Week In Review.

Recent WIRs -


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16318 May 17th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16211 May 10th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16135 May 3rd
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16080 April 26th



The Week In Review is published every Friday. Please submit letters, articles, and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Include contact info. Submission deadlines are Wednesdays @ 1700 UTC.