Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – May 31st, '03

[JackSpratts]

Pssst, Wanna Buy An MP3?

Mark your calendar music historians, this is the week the other shoe drops. Reports have rolled in that Big Music finally responded to the market, as opposed to trying to legislate into oblivion, and dropped the price of copy able downloads.

If you remember the original download prices on sites like CDNow, it was a stratospheric $2.99 per 128k MP3. Put together a 13 song compilation album that way and you’re paying $39.00 for a platter of highly compressed music files using your own blank CD, jewel case, artwork and printer, not to mention your time. It was a price only a record exec could love (1/10th the tunes for 3 times the cost!). Then came Apple with its fairly liberal digital rights management and a comparatively reasonable download and copy price of 99 cents. Yeah the sound wasn’t perfect, the album ran you 10 bucks and you still had to make your own packaging and use your own bandwidth (who do the record companies think they are anyway?) but OK, it was a step in the right direction. Still and all record clubs were a much better deal - but talk about jurassic.

Well into this fray leaps Listen.com’s Rhapsody service. Established in 2001 but clearly taken aback by Apple’s instant success, the struggling $10.00 a month subscription plan has taken the MP3 by the tweeters and done Apple better by twenty percent, dropping the price for a burnable download to 79 cents. While still a far cry from where the market is, which I figure to be in the 10-15 cent range, Listen.com is clearly on to something here and where goes one so goes the rest. I mean why use another site when you’ll save two dollars for every 10 downloads? Well, you won’t. So down will come Pressplay, Apple and all.

Course the overwhelming majority of downloaders are getting files from people they meet at the Peers, but that’s what happens when you ignore reality and your customers. Note to record companies: try spending some time with them (hint - they’re not in Washington). Let the lawyers out for a walk. Take them to the zoo. Leave them there. And get back to what you should be doing; nurturing talent and getting it out to the people. Even at 10 cents a pop you’ll still make millions. G’wan, give it a shot. Ya wanna stay in business don’t cha?








Enjoy,

Jack.







Price war!
BBC

The cost of downloading songs from the internet has been cut in the first round of a price war.

Listen.com, which provides internet radio broadcasts for $9.95 (£6 ; 8 euros) a month, is slashing the price for burning music onto CDs from 99 cents to 79 cents (48 pence).

This comes just a month after Apple Computers launched its online iTunes music store, which allowing Mac users to download songs for 99 cents with no monthly subscription fee.

The Apple service has been far more popular than expected, with two million songs downloaded in its first 16 days.

Listen.com will continue to charge a monthly subscription fee for access to online radio stations, playlists and other programming.

It claims to have tens of thousands of subscribers, but is hoping for more by lowering the fee for burning CDs.

Chief executive Sean Ryan said the company decided on the 79 cents fee after a six-week experiment in which Listen.com charged 49 cents a song.

He said the move attracted more subscribers and boosted music downloading.

Listen.com is currently being bought by Seattle-based Real Networks.

It is also offering the 79 cents CD burning fee as part of its Real One service.

Michael McGuire, an analyst with Gartner G2, said the key would be which company regularly offered the best and most updated mix of music.

The music industry wants to persuade people to pay for music over the net rather than downloading songs from the sort of file- swapping service made popular by Napster.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2944982.stm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Faceoff In Online Music
Lauren Barack

In digital-music land, some things are still free.

But that is about to change - for the better, say online radio owners, who are planning to add paid digital downloads to their services within the next nine months.

The change will make MusicMatch and Radio Free Virgin, two companies who will add this feature, direct competitors with iTunes Music Store, Music Net and the current pressplay, among other services.

Music Match and Radio Free Virgin claim to have unique listeners in the millions. Radio Free Virgin cites 2.8 million unique listeners in a month, and Music Match claims to have an estimated 2 million unique listeners for the same time period.

That is a significantly larger user base than the 200,000 - 300,000 people who use all of the digital music services combined, said Phil Leigh, a digital music analyst with Raymond James.

"What they want to do is emulate as close to Apple as they can," said Leigh.

Apple's iTunes Music Store is the new standard most consumers want - and the direction analysts and industry experts claim the rest of the digital music arena is heading.

The service offers unlimited burns of a song, the ability to move music to Apple's portable iPod and to three different computers, and the choice of buying a single song without a subscription fee.

iTunes, however, is only available to Macintosh users - which make up just 3 percent of all computer users - and may be why the five music labels agreed to offer a less restrictive service.

Some analysts doubt whether the five labels will allow the same lack of restrictions to a service that will reach a larger user base - and therefore put their content at more risk for copyright infringement.

Hackers who have found a way to "steal" the music without paying for it have infiltrated even Apple's service.

"The labels have been focused on protecting their content then on creative business licenses," said P.J. McNealy, an analyst who monitors the digital music space for Gartner G2. "And to see a day when all the five major labels are selling unencrypted files would be a surprise."

Music Match and Radio Free Virgin, however, are betting on securing those rights.

"There's no system that's 100 percent secure," said Christopher Allen, senior vp of marketing and strategic planning at Music Match.

But he claims to be chatting with all the labels, and said they were "very interested," in working out a deal.
http://www.nypost.com/business/76540.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Microsoft Prepares Reply to iTunes
Evan Hansen

While Apple Computer grabs publicity for its new 99 cent music download store, Microsoft is quietly preparing for a counterattack by improving its own technology for supporting subscription music services.

Services such as Pressplay, which uses Microsoft technology, have been put on the defensive with news that Apple has sold more than 2 million downloads since April 28, the day its iTunes Music Store launched. But Microsoft is betting that new security enhancements planned for later this year could make renting music, rather than owning it, more attractive to consumers.

Microsoft said it is developing software that makes it easier for subscription services to transfer music to portable music players. These services now provide unlimited downloads of hundreds of thousands of songs to a PC for a monthly fee, but they typically do not allow files to be moved around much. Microsoft said it will soon address this shortcoming with technology that will allow unlimited downloads to a portable device--a dramatic improvement.

"We can already support unlimited downloads tethered to the PC," said Jonathan Usher, director of Microsoft's Windows Media division. "The next step is enabling access to unlimited downloads on consumer devices."

After years of delays, the record industry is experimenting with services to combat the wide availability of free music brought on by the MP3 file format and file-swapping software such as Kazaa. Record labels and retailers have tried to lure paying customers by offering singles for sale as downloads for less than $1, and also for rent through monthly subscription services.

Microsoft has been a key player in developing the technologies behind many of these trials, but its partners so far have failed to hit on a formula that rivals the early success of Apple's music store. Record label-backed services such as Pressplay do not disclose their subscriber rates, but estimates for sign- ups hover in the tens of thousands--far short of the numbers that would suggest significant consumer interest.

Microsoft originally planned to announce the security enhancements in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But it missed that deadline, giving Apple the opportunity to take the offensive by launching the iTunes Music Store first.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1009794.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Labels Warm Up to MP3's
Bill Werde

WHILE the record industry sweats over how to prevent consumers from transferring music from commercial CD's to digital files and swapping copyrighted material online, two labels are exploring a different approach to the format battle.

In early April, the Palm and Mute labels began to release discs that include unprotected MP3 files along with conventional CD audio tracks. Palm, working with a small independent label, Kemado, released "Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid" from the New York band Elefant; fans can listen to all 10 tracks on a CD player or in MP3 format, and the disc includes a bonus song available only in MP3 format.

Mute, well known among fans of electronic music, released a double album of techno tracks, "2 CD's & MP3's." The album has 12 MP3-only cuts in addition to 16 tunes in both formats.

Representatives of the labels say the decision to include MP3 files on the CD's does not reflect a surrender to illegal file traders, but rather, pragmatism.

"We're just acknowledging the way our fans like to listen to their music," said Dan Cohen, head of marketing for Palm. "The idea of doing this isn't to say to kids, 'Hey, swap our files.' We're saying: 'Thank you for buying the record. We want to give you something.' Maybe that's saying, 'You'll burn this onto your iPod anyway; well, here - it's high quality, it's sanctioned by the artist and we're cool with you having it on your player.' And if a few people trade it, well, we're hoping they'll like it enough that they'll go buy it."

Mr. Cohen said the Elefant album had sold just under 2,000 copies in six weeks, exceeding its 90-day sales goal. Palm has since released three more MP3/CD albums; a fifth is coming in August.

Seth Hodder, the label manager at Mute, said it, too, was seeking to meet the demand of its customers.

"We spoke with some of the D.J.'s we work with, and it became clear that more and more of them were abandoning vinyl for programs such as Final Scratch and Traktor, and playing digital files," Mr. Hodder said. "It just made sense to include them on the CD."


Richie Hawtin, Mute Record’s
Plastikman (nyt photo)

In early May, Mute's star D.J. and techno composer, Richie Hawtin, drove home the point in a promotional appearance for Apple Computer. At Apple's Manhattan store, he spun a compelling set of music using five iPods.

Hilary B. Rosen, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization behind recent lawsuits that took aim at file-swapping consumers, offered a cautious endorsement of this latest marketing tactic. "If companies want to save people the trouble of ripping their files to an MP3 format, that's fine," she said. "Our view has always been if the copyright holder wants to give away their product, it's fine. The key issue is that it's their choice to give it away."

Including unprotected digital files on a CD is little more than a gesture, because it takes only a few minutes to convert the tracks on an unprotected CD to MP3 files anyway. But in the context of the rocky relationship between record labels and music consumers over the last few years, Palm and Mute and the artists they represent are wagering that the symbolism won't be lost on fans.

"This is about artists trying to get closer to their audience," said Mr. Hawtin, who, performing as Plastikman, contributed "Afrika," a track of clanging drums, to the Mute compilation.

"Maybe this CD is only giving people what they could already have, but it shows a good attitude from the label toward the consumer," he said. "These labels understand what's happening and want to be part of the digital revolution."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/te...ts/29tune.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Telcos counter Net phoning with TV plans
Ben Charny

Major U.S. telephone companies have plans to pump video and TV services into homes via their lines, countering recent moves by cable providers to sell Net-based phone services over their systems, telephone executives said Friday.

"We know video's important, we want to have it," said Selim Bingol, a spokesman for telecommunications giant SBC Communications.

For months, SBC has been investigating offering a service--probably cablelike television subscriptions and movies on demand. The company also made an ill-fated attempt recently to buy satellite television company Hughes Electronics. According to sources, Qwest Communications International and BellSouth are now testing video services.

The move is necessary because of a new practice among cable and telephone companies to use bundles of steeply discounted services to attract and keep customers, telephone executives said. Cable companies sell TV and broadband access at discounted rates, but only when bought as part of a package of services. Telephone companies offer similar deals on telephone and broadband connections.

Until recently, telephone companies didn't worry about cable companies adding voice services to their bundles. But the growing sophistication of voice over IP, which turns voice calls into digital packets for dispatch over the Internet, lets cable companies sell telephone service, cable programming and broadband connections on one bill.

"There must be a video service in our bundle in (the) future," SBC Chief Executive William Daley told analysts earlier this week at a Banc of America Securities conference. "How we get there is the question."

But it could take up to 10 years before the major telephone companies have improved their networks enough to match the picture quality that cable now offers, a severe disadvantage that might make them rethink their current plans, said Rick Black, senior telecommunications analyst at Blaylock & Partners.

Also, major telephone companies have already tried, and failed, to offer video services. The most recent high-profile attempt involved AT&T's acquisition of the assets of cable provider TCI, which it sold in 2002 to cable provider Comcast.

Major phone companies are "not good in content," Black said. "They are more of a distribution arm."
http://news.com.com/2100-1037-1009622.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dell may join HP in Linux laptop drive
CNET Asia

Demand for the Linux notebook launched in Thailand last week has been so high that other companies may have to be brought in, according to the daily newspaper Bangkok Post.

Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry, which is behind the drive to increase computer ownership, is said to be in talks with Dell Computer and the Association of Thai Computer Manufacturers, among others.

Thailand's information ministry is concerned that Hewlett-Packard, the original contracted maker of the low-cost "people's notebook," may not be able to deliver units fast enough to meet demand, the Bangkok Post said.

HP is producing the low-cost "people's notebook," which is loaded with Linux TLE, the Thai-language version of the Linux operating system, to support a Thai government drive to increase computer ownership, reported the Post earlier this month. The laptop features an 800MHz Intel Celeron processor, 128MB of RAM and a 20GB hard disk, it said.

According to analysts interviewed by CNETAsia, the Thai government expects that around 300,000 notebooks will be sold in the current phase of the program, along with another 700,000 desktop PCs. Local computer makers Belta, SVOA and Computec will make the desktop models.

The government is subsidizing the cost of the hardware, and will also provide service and support for the notebook.

In addition to the bare-bones $450 model currently on sale, the Thai government wants to offer a higher-end version that includes a CD-ROM drive for $595 (25,000 baht), the Post report said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1044-1009546.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

House panel: Net tax ban is forever
Reuters

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee voted on Thursday to make permanent a ban on Internet-specific taxes, shrugging off attempts to link the ban with a more controversial effort to allow online sales taxes.

The Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law passed a measure by voice vote that would make permanent a ban on "multiple and discriminatory" taxes on Internet access fees and online traffic due to expire in November.

Senior Bush administration officials last week urged Congress to extend the ban before it expired, saying new taxes could slow the adoption of high- speed Internet access.

The ban does not address online sales taxes, which are currently prohibited under a 1992 Supreme Court decision that forbids states from taxing catalog, telephone and other remote sales.

Cash-strapped states, brick-and-mortar retailers and other advocates of online sales taxes have sought to tie the two issues together, hoping to link the politically popular moratorium with the more controversial right to impose sales taxes on the Web.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Chris Cannon said the two issues should be dealt with separately.

"I think we've come to a point where we understand what we're doing with the moratorium, and we want to make it permanent," the Utah Republican said.

Cannon said his committee would hold a hearing to examine state efforts to simplify their sales-tax codes, which would make collection of such taxes less difficult.
http://news.com.com/2100-1019-1009460.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music Labels Shun Online Distribution
Brian Garrity, Billboard

Suddenly, the major labels have a new mantra about digital distribution: Let someone else do it.

That's the lesson industry insiders are drawing from the surprise decision by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group (UMG) to sell their service, Pressplay, to Roxio.

"The marketplace has changed," Sony Music executive VP Robert Bowlin says. "We are in the content business. We don't have to own the highway necessarily unless it is strategic to do so."

Sources say that the move is neither a direct reaction to the early success of Apple Computer's new iTunes service nor a response to a recent court decision allowing the Grokster and Streamcast peer-to-peer (P2P) services to continue operating.

But they agree that both the Apple launch and the court decision will likely influence the futures of both Pressplay and another Internet service, MusicNet. The MusicNet digital venture involves Real Networks, Warner Music Group (WMG), EMI Recorded Music, and BMG Entertainment.

Among other things, the move also should ease the concerns of independent labels, technology companies, and even some legislators on Capitol Hill.

For the past two years, they have worried that the world's five largest record companies were attempting to corner the market on selling music to consumers with Pressplay and MusicNet.

The ability to profit from online music, however, is proving to be a greater allure to the industry than controlling it.

"It's pretty clear that want to step out of the management role and just hold an equity position," Jupiter Research analyst Lee Black says.

For the major labels, their venture into digital music has proved to be a costly lesson as well. Building the business has been neither cheap nor easy.

Sony and UMG have pumped an estimated $60 million into developing Pressplay since its 2001 launch. A similar amount has been spent on MusicNet.

But the services have only an estimated 100,000 customers between them and virtually no name recognition among music fans.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2813795

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ISPs caught in middle of the hunt
Patrons' service, privacy is at risk
Chris Flores

Not long ago, Internet service provider UUNet received a threatening e-mail letter asserting that one of its customers had violated a Warner Brothers copyright by downloading the film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Coming as it did in the midst of the entertainment industry's heightened crusade against the illegal swapping of songs and movies, the letter demanded drastic remedies.

Warner Brothers wanted UUNet, a subsidiary of MCI, to cut off Internet access and terminate the account of the suspected infringer. But there, the studio's case quickly unraveled. The file carried the .rtf suffix, meaning it was a word file not moving pictures, which are classified as .mpeg or .mov files among others. The file was also less than one-millionth the size of a normal digital recording of an entire movie.

And then there was the file's full name - "harry potter book report.rtf." Recognizing they were dealing with a school project, instead of a pirated movie, officials at UUNet in Fairfax ignored the studio's demands.

But threatening letters like the one sent by Warner Brothers are increasingly swamping Internet service providers, or ISPs. And they are increasingly worrisome to civil libertarians, computer users who download songs, librarians - and even domestic abuse groups - who fear the notices could easily become subpoenas aimed at surreptitiously seeking personal information off just about any hard drive.

Those fears intensified after a judge's ruling last month against Verizon, which will force administrators of local college networks and ISPs serving Hampton Roads and elsewhere to turn over their names if copyright holders want them. The judge rejected Verizon's arguments that a 1998 Internet copyright law doesn't allow this, and that the law violates due process and free speech.

Internet users in Hampton Roads who have illegally downloaded copyrighted songs or movies may suddenly find out this fall that their ISP cut off their Internet access and gave their name, address and phone number to entertainment industry lawyers.

Entertainment companies say wrongful accusations, such as the Harry Potter case, will be rare, easy to fix and a necessary byproduct of a hunt for Internet copyright pirates that are costing the industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Critics say Congress and the courts have given unprecedented rights to copyright holders to obtain the identities of Internet users and harass them without consequence. ISPs are worried about the time and expense of ensuring that requests for their customers' personal information are not coming from overzealous representatives of copyright holders, pedophiles or wife-beaters.

"There's no due diligence and care," said Sarah Deutsch, a Verizon attorney and vice president, and subpoenas are a lot more severe than a cease and desist letter "because privacy is violated and they want you to disconnect the customer's service."

Deutsch said the Recording Industry Association of America did not dispute in court that they intend to send out hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of subpoenas. She thinks they will build a database of names, warn some people, sue egregious offenders and tell ISPs to terminate accounts of repeat copyright infringers.

Matt Oppenheim, recording association senior vice president for business and legal affairs, said the organization plans to issue a lot of subpoenas, but it hasn't yet because it would rather educate the public about the problem, and wants to finish the court process. He won't say how many subpoenas it will issue or when it will happen.
http://www.dailypress.com/business/l...ess-localheads

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grabbing A Movie Is A Piece O’ Cake
AP

Illegally downloading movies off the Internet used to be difficult, something for people with sophisticated computer skills. Now its as easy as using an Internet search engine.

Jeff Sjogren, and millions like him, can just type in the name of the movie they want and click on it before going to bed. In the morning, the movie is ready for viewing.

I usually do a search and take as many as I can get, and then I let it run overnight, said Sjogren, who is 36. It doesn’t take a whole lot if you can run Windows, you can run one of the downloads.

With a high-speed Internet connection, CD burner and DVD player, anyone can watch a pirated movie or TV show from the couch on their living room TV sometimes even before its released.

Even with only a fast connection, people can watch the movie on their computer screens.

A file-sharing service based in Australia called Kazaa (pronounced Kah (ZAH)- is by far the most user-friendly. It works much like its predecessor Napster, which folded under legal pressure from music companies.

For example, 23-year-old college student Rob Fowler searched for the movie Daredevil and found 197 results. A query for episodes of the TV show The Sopranos returned 242 results.

Double-clicking on any of those files starts the download, which can take as little as 30 minutes.

Its the simplest thing I’ve ever done, Fowler said. I can’t even count how many movies I’ve downloaded. I’ve got them all on video now.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap...y.asp?ID=10220

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How Big Are Ringtones? Huge. Maybe Even Bigger Than That
Steven Patrick

KUALA LUMPUR: Ringtones have become big business, especially with youthful cellphone users who like to customise their devices with a tune that marks their individuality or pays tribute to their favourite musical artiste.

However, many of these musical ringtones may be unlicensed, and therefore illegal.

It's a worldwide problem. A recent report by CNET Asia said that as many as 65% of all ringtone companies are unlicensed, thus depriving the copyright owners of siginificant revenues.

The senior vice-president for new media at music label EMI Group Jay Samit reportedly estimated that earnings from ringtones would account for 10% of the recording industry’s earnings in coming years.

However, the music industry is having problems collecting the relevant copyright fees for downloadable ringtones. A 2001 CNN report quoted British-based Internet monitoring company Envisional's chief executive officer Brian Earle as saying that this ringtone copyright infringement could be costing the music industry as much as US$1mil (RM3.8mil) a day.

The ringtone music copyright issue has been eclipsed by the industry's ongoing battle with peer-to-peer (P2P) networks like Kazaa, in which whole songs are swapped between users.

In 2001, a high-profile case involved EMI Publishing in the United States suing Yourmobile.com for US$45mil (RM171mil) for copyright infringment.

Yourmobile.com has since got the proper licensing for its downloadable ringtones. British intellectual copyright lawyer also told CNN that the most recognisable melody of a song, even if it is only 10 seconds out of three minutes, is considered "substantial copying."

Some companies have even identified downloadable ringtones as a major revenue stream in a market that is less receptive to dotcoms since the Internet bubble burst.

Singapore-based Soundbuzz (www.soundbuzz.com), which initialy wanted to sell music on the Web, now sees more than 50% of its business coming from ringtones rather than digital downloads per se.

According to its chief executive officer Sudhanshu Sarronwala, 10 to 20 million ringtones are downloaded a month in Asia alone, excluding South Korea and Japan.

In fact, the ringtone business looks so lucrative that there are certain US musicians that earn money translating top 40 hits and television themes into ringtones.
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/sto...sec=technology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another spin on digital music
University offers antipiracy plan
Chris Gaither

At a time when college administrators are coming under fire for students illegallly downloading copyrighted songs, the president of one major university is urging schools to launch their own digital music services as an alternative to digital piracy.

Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, wants colleges to license songs and charge students to listen to them online. He has proposed that schools increase each student's tuition or fees by perhaps a few dollars in exchange for unlimited listening, though the ability to burn songs onto a CD might cost extra.

The idea is still in early discussions and faces considerable skepticism from the recording industry. Yet Spanier, cochairman of a national committee of university and entertainment leaders that discussed the proposal in Washington, D.C., last week, says he expects pilot programs to begin at some universities by the start of classes this fall.

If schools can negotiate licensing deals, they would enter into direct competition with digital music services from companies like Apple Computer Inc., RealNetworks Inc., and Roxio Inc., which last week acquired Pressplay from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group with plans to relaunch it next year as a paid service under the Napster name.

But the ultimate goal of a university-run music service, Spanier says, would be to reduce the number of songs downloaded from file-sharing services like Kazaa, whose popularity on college campuses has swamped computer networks and administrators who field complaints of copyright infringement from the entertainment industry.

''If the service is good enough, offers enough songs, has high reliability, and is user-friendly, it can compete with Kazaa and similar programs,'' Spanier said in an e-mail interview.

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, downplayed the idea, calling it ''Graham's opening thoughts at the beginning of a dialogue.'' He said many questions remain about the proposed service -- such as whether songs would be available for download or streamed over the Internet, how the songs would be protected from illegal copying and distribution, and whether copyright holders would grant permission for such broad use -- but praised it as a starting point.

''I think it's a very good step to try to find new ways to provide music legally to college students,'' said Sherman, who is cochairman, along with Spanier, of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities.

Each digital media company would create its own product and negotiate terms with individual universities, Spanier said. He said he anticipates some trial runs by this fall, though his own top technology administrator, J. Gary Auguston, in a phone interview called that ''a pretty aggressive schedule.'' Penn State has not even begun negotiating with any content providers, Auguston said.

Two business students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Galper and Vince Han, say their venture for streaming music and movies over the Internet to college students is among the candidates to run test programs at Penn State and other universities.

Sherman said universities might find it easier to negotiate licenses for limited test programs, thanks to the early success of Apple's iTunes Music Store. But network administrators say services like Apple's have done little thus far to slow the illegal exchange of songs by students.

''I really don't think they understand or believe that illegal file-sharing is the same thing as going into Tower [Records], grabbing a CD off the rack, and running out the door with it,'' said Scott Hervey, chairman of California Bar's cyberspace law committee.

That's one reason why Spanier wants to charge each student for music. If they're already paying for the service, they just may use it instead of Kazaa, protecting themselves -- and, potentially, their colleges or universities -- from liability for piracy. ''It would make legal what is now illegal,'' he said.

But students would still use file-sharing programs to download songs, movies, and television shows not included in a university's catalogue, said James Bruce, MIT's vice president for information systems. Spanier's proposal also raises questions about whether parents would pay higher tuition so their children can listen to the latest 50 Cent hit. Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., charges all undergraduates in its residence halls $120 a year for access to 20 cable channels streamed over the Internet. Students approved the fees in a referendum. But administrators at public universities in cash-strapped states say fee hikes for digital music would be poorly received.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/14...l_music+.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Studios tighten security to battle piracy
Jack Valenti lays it on thick.

The Matrix Reloaded downloaded? X2: X-Men United hijacked? With film piracy increasing exponentially, the US studios behind this northern summer's biggest films are taking aggressive new steps to combat the sale of counterfeit DVDs and videos in stores and on street corners, and to thwart illegal versions on the internet.

"America's crown jewels, its intellectual property, are being looted," Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, warned at a congressional hearing on copyright piracy in March. "Organised, violent international criminals are getting rich from the high-gain/low-risk business of stealing America's copyrighted works."

While inferior-quality video copies of films have been available on the street for years, often within days of a film's release, "DVD piracy didn't exist for our industry as recently as 1999", Valenti said. Last year, he said, the film industry seized more than seven million pirate DVDs worldwide.

Because of high interest in the summer season's mega-films, security at pre-release showings is conspicuously tighter. At recent screenings of X2 and the romantic comedy Down With Love, guards hired by the films' distributor, 20th Century Fox, frisked members of the press to check for hidden recording and transmission devices. Mobile phones, which could be recorders in disguise, have been prohibited.

At non-media events, such as test-market and radio-station promotional screenings, ticketholders have gotten the same treatment.

At X2 and Warner Bros' The Matrix Reloaded, they had to walk through metal detectors as well as check their phones. And printed invitations to Down With Love
screenings warned bearers that they were subject to a physical search of their "belongings and person".

After the lights dimmed, studio security with night-vision binoculars have also scanned crowds for the telltale blinking red lights of furtive digital recorders. A spokeswoman for Sony Pictures recently told the film industry newspaper Variety that the studio caught someone with a camcorder at a screening of Anger Management.

"It's unfortunate, but you almost have to hire the Secret Service to make sure that the film is protected," said Gary Gray, director of the Mark Wahlberg-Charlize Theron heist actioner The Italian Job, which will open May 30.

"I've been a victim of piracy really bad," he lamented, citing bootlegs of his hits Friday and A Man Apart.

With The Italian Job, Paramount Pictures is taking "the same measures (as the studios for Matrix Reloaded and X2) to make sure that the film is protected."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...801370247.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Foiling music pirates
Michael Booth

The dormitory enforcers at Colorado State University have a clear list of violations to pursue:

Drinking. Smoking. Rioting.

And now, downloading.

The recording industry is hitting hard against music piracy, trying to stop the heaviest traders of illegal song copies while they are
still young and impressionable.

This is no fishing expedition: Four or five times a day, college computing administrators receive a message from recording-industry download police giving the specific computer, song and time of a rogue copy made by a student in campus housing.

At CSU, director of academic computing Pat Burns must pass the message on to a dorm rules enforcer, who in turn must unplug the computer in question and scold the owner that trading in copyrighted songs over the Internet is against the law. Strike two means a formal meeting with a disciplinary officer.

Strike three at CSU means the student is denied access to the Internet as long as the wrongdoer remains in campus housing, for the rest of the student's college career.

"I think word is getting around," said Burns, who handled 100 such cases in March but saw violations decline in April.

The recent past has been terrifying to the recording industry. Its sales fell 10 percent in the first quarter of 2003 from the same period a year ago, and executives claim three years of steady declines. Blank CD sales shot up 40 percent in 2002 from the year before.

Hilary Rosen, chairwoman of the Recording Industry Association of America, testified before Congress in late February that 2.6 billion songs are illegally traded on the Internet every month; the industry claims those downloads now drain billions of dollars in sales each year.

Music executives believe it will only get worse, because their best customers are the ones now training themselves for a lifetime of file sharing.

"There is an alarming disregard among students for Internet theft," Rosen told Congress. Recent polls back her up, showing a majority of younger music fans have little hesitation in downloading music, even though the great majority know it's illegal.

"I don't go to work and expect nothing in return; I expect a paycheck," said Dave Chartier, a University of Colorado at Denver student who has about 2,500 songs on his computer from the popular services like KaZaA and Napster. "So I understand the basic fact that using these services, essentially stealing music, is illegal and wrong. I equate it to walking out of Barnes & Noble with a book under your coat."

Rather than focus on a winning site that might reverse the piracy flow, most of the industry still pushes for prosecution. The RIAA grabbed the kind of click-discouraging headlines it was aiming for in early May, when four college students who helped run huge local file-sharing networks settled copyright-infringement complaints out of court and agreed to pay $15,000 fines.

The actions brought "making an example" to a new level: Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, the industry originally sought $150,000 for each file traded by one Michigan Tech student, who allegedly had 650,000 files on his list.

Prosecution also avoids a bigger, unanswerable question: Is it piracy or just bad music that's crippling recording sales?

Listeners to eclectic music say that what drives them is variety and curiosity. Radio, meanwhile - the place most Americans still hear new songs - has narrowed down to be dominated by a few major owners sticking to genre playlists and repetition.

Putting the entire 50 Cent album online for free would certainly kill some of the pop-rapper's sales. But many Web surfers would argue that they're just as likely to come across a song by a lesser-known artist, appreciate it, and go buy one of the musician's albums.

Some artists are already adapting, taking ownership rights back from music companies and finding new ways to make sales, through smaller labels or by encouraging downloads that lead to more sales. The popular Boulder-based jam band String Cheese Incident encourages taping of live concerts and sharing of its music across all formats. They are not for piracy, but for artistic freedom, said band publicist Carrie Lombardi.

"They think sharing music should be the artist's decision, not the record label's decision," Lombardi said.

"I have daughters who grab legal free stuff off the Internet, get interested in those artists" and then are willing to pay for more, said CU's Maloney. "The marketing model needs to change. Printing CDs and putting them in nice cases and selling them at Target is not the model."

Big company doomsayers have repeatedly argued, wrongly, that easy copies are the death of one medium or another, noted Dave Kerr, music buyer for independent music store Wax Trax. Videotaping was going to kill TV and the movie business, he added, but look at Blockbuster and the DVD boom. Blank cassette tapes were going to kill album sales - but "home taping did not kill music," Kerr said. In fact, the later introduction of CD technology pumped up sales of old and new music alike.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...09754,00.html#

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"By not buying them, the prices will have to come down."

Malaysian Minister Urges Consumers To Boycott CD’s, DVD’s
Jassmine Shadiqe

KUALA LUMPUR, May 27: Deputy Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk S. Subramaniam today advised the public to temporarily stop buying original CDs and VCDs, a move he said would force producers and distributors to reduce prices.

He said despite appeals by the ministry, the producers and distributors had refused to reduce prices, thus encouraging consumers to go for pirated ones.

Subramaniam said the industry players had often cited various reasons to charge a high price for their products, including cost of administration, research and development, production and royalty.

"By not buying them, the prices will have to come down." Consumers, he said, opted for pirated versions because they were cheaper.

Subramaniam said this after launching the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations' essay writing and poster drawing competition in conjunction with Malaysian Consumer Day and Week 2003 at the Legend Hotel here today.

"There are some new local movie releases that are priced at RM10. The VCDs are affordable and not bootlegged by illegal manufacturers. Those priced at RM30 and above are normally the ones that get pirated. This proves that the price factor is the main reason why consumers buy pirated CDs and VCDs." Subramaniam said court action would be taken against illegal manufacturers but consumers could help combat the problem by not buying pirated CDs and VCDs.

Fomca president Professor Datuk Mohd Hamdan Adnan said peddlers had a better marketing strategy compared with authorised dealers.

He said the peddlers provided more information and their goods were easily available and cheaper.

He said based on his own experience, the bread vendor in his hometown also sold pirated VCDs because there was demand for them and the commission was good.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/N...074052/Article

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Community Support - Essential for P2P Success
Thomas Mennecke

There are those networks that make tremendous strides and those who disappear without a trace.

Network populations only demonstrate so much about a P2P community. For example, lets examine FileNavigator. While this community has certainly stood the test of time, it has yet to make any lasting impression in the P2P world. Despite its impressive 10,000-user population, few actively show "die-hard" support.

Conversely, if we examine a comparably populated network such as Ares, we notice something very interesting. While the user base is nearly the same, Ares contains nearly 10 times the amount of information. At the time of this writing, Ares had nearly 26,000 gigs of information, while FileNavigator only had 2,500 gigs. This situation exists despite having nearly 1,000 fewer users, further compounded by recent gateway problems (should be solved by now.) FileNavigator has simply lingered in the file-sharing scene. With few innovations, and little community support, this network will probably maintain its mediocre status quo.

Lets take a retrospective look at P2P history. Remember the days of Scour, Napster and AudioGalaxy? How about the quirky CuteMX? All three of these networks enjoyed tremendous success simply because of the content of their networks, rather because of the solid community support that surrounded them. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, as demonstrated by success of these networks. While Napster was a unique situation because of its innovative qualities, the other three produced their own distinctive experience. RIP Scour.

Being unique in the P2P world has become just as important, if not more so, than the amount of users on ones network.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=162

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AOL to Sell Majority Stake in China TV Firm-Source
Reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner is close to selling a controlling stake in its Mandarin TV station to Asia's richest man, a source close to the deal said, a marked about-face less than two years after winning rights to broadcast in China. Talks on a sale are relatively advanced, and would give a majority of Chinese Entertainment Television (CETV) to Li Ka-shing's acquisitive Hong Kong media firm tom.com, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Cable Companies Seen Staying Ahead on Internet

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Baby Bells sacrificed profits by cutting prices for high- speed Internet services in hopes of sparking customer-growth and thwarting competition, but cable television companies are expected to maintain their lead in the residential Internet market without rate cuts. 'Although telecom operators turned in their strongest quarter of sequential and annual growth, cable operators did even better,' UBS Warburg analyst John Hodulik said in a recent research report.

U.S. Security Plans Threatens EU Privacy-Watchdog

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. plans to set up a system of global electronic surveillance to fight terrorism in the Internet age threaten the basic privacy rights of European Union citizens, the EU's top privacy watchdog told Reuters. Hoping to prevent attacks such as those which demolished New York's World Trade Center on September 11, the United States is developing a project -- recently renamed Terrorist Information Awareness -- that would enable U.S. authorities to scan a wide range of public and private data.

Microsoft CEO Ballmer Sells Some Stock

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is selling some of his holdings of Microsoft stock in order to diversify his financial assets, the company said on Friday. 'Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion,' Ballmer said in a statement. 'I remain excited about the potential for our technology to change people's lives, and I remain as committed to Microsoft as ever.'

ISPs Aim to Cut Hidden Costs of Net Filesharing

LONDON (Reuters) - File-sharing Internet junkies, the scourge of media companies everywhere, have become a headache for Internet service providers (ISPs) too. The proliferation of high-speed broadband Internet access has created an explosion in file- trading, an activity that hogs bandwidth and racks up big network costs for access providers.
http://boston.com/dailynews/146/tech...ake_in_:.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disney Uses Night Goggles to Guard 'Nemo'
Holly McKenna

With the widely anticipated computer animated movie "Finding Nemo" set to debut in theaters on Friday, The Walt Disney Co. has found a novel way to guard against people illegally taping the film in advance showings.

Disney has hired security firm Burns Pinkerton, a unit of Sweden's Securitas AB, to screen audiences using metal detectors and night-vision goggles. The aim is to catch people using video cameras to make bootleg copies of the movie for resale on the black market.

"Most people think the extra security is just for terrorism reasons," said Robert Kendrick, a Burns security guard at a recent screening for "Finding Nemo" in Albany.

The practice is relatively new. Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Ltd.'s Fox Entertainment Group also used night-vision goggles in early screenings of May's "X2: X-Men United" and more recently with "Down With Love," starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.

The heightened measures point to increased scrutiny the studios are taking in early screenings to prevent black market tapes from ending up for sale on city streets around the world.

"It's estimated we lose between $3 billion to $4 billion a year to this problem despite strong anti-piracy actions by the movie industry," said Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America which represents Hollywood's major motion picture studios including Disney and Fox.

A warning about unauthorized recording has been printed on preview tickets for the last nine months telling violators that if they enter with their video equipment they will be denied admission. If the devices are used, they will be confiscated.

In April, a 33-year-old California man was arrested and charged with illegally videotaping movies in sneak previews. If convicted, he faces up to 26 years in federal prison.

Kendrick and his partner first check movie patrons using the metal-detecting wands because digital cameras are small and compact but they do contain metal parts.

Once inside, the guards sit 25-minute shifts monitoring the projection room's camera and the entire theater. The night-vision goggles are used to span the audience to see if there are any strong lights coming from a video recorder.

"These goggles magnify the light and make the image glow," Kendrick said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2848486

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music service sounds right note
Ron Harris

It's too bad 97 percent of you will have to wait until the end of the year to check out Apple's new iTunes Music Store. It
flat out rocks!

For now, the music service from Apple Computer Inc. only works on the relatively few computers running its Macintosh operating system.

But iTunes Music Store proves again that Apple has cornered the market on style and user satisfaction.

The service offers unparalleled flexibility for legitimate music downloads, a beefy selection of musical genres and, best of all, no subscription fee and no limits on burning songs to CDs.

Snagging music from the Internet hasn't been this simple since the Napster days. And now I no longer feel like a scofflaw.

You can search by song title or artist name, or simply browse by genre through the 200,000 tracks Apple already has to offer from the five largest recording labels.

There are nice windows that scroll sideways and display highlighted "New Releases" and "Staff Favorites." I chose to forgo the staff- recommended "Harvest" by Neil Young and search for something with a little more punch -- the rap group Outkast's "Stankonia."

Bingo! In seconds I had a direct hit, and a click later, I was downloading. It took less than 10 minutes using an Apple iBook and a DSL connection at home.

I also compared the Outkast AAC files with a store-bought copy, and I couldn't tell the difference in sound quality.

I'm told that audiophiles pumping compressed digital music files through expensive stereos systems can hear hums, clicks and other imperfections not found on store-bought CDs. So I asked an audiophile acquaintance and fellow newbie Music Store user for a second opinion.

"The quality of the downloaded music is quite good," said Edward Kiruluta of Seattle. Kiruluta burned CDs from the first songs he downloaded with Music Store and played them through his $4,000 Super Audio CD player, part of a $12,000 stereo system. He was quite happy that he could make his own CDs without use restrictions.

The music selection is good but still incomplete.

Using the "power browse" feature, I couldn't find anything from DJ Tall Paul, an internationally known techno music stalwart, or from several other dance music artists. I could send a request to the iTunes team, but it wasn't clear what it'd get me.

Free file-sharing networks like Kazaa and Gnutella still have Apple beat when it comes to selection. For all of Apple's ease-of-use, it may take a much bigger catalog -- including indie-label artists -- if the company wants to attract "switchers."

An example: Kazaa helped me find Tori Amos covering Nirvana.

Music Store didn't.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/business/5942006.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Positive signs for online music
BBC

People are beginning to pay for music on the net but they are more likely to buy CDs online than individual tracks, research suggests.

But figures from internet measurement firm Neilsen/NetRatings found that free download service Kazaa was still the most popular music site in the UK, followed by sites selling CDs rather than digital downloads.

This will come as welcome news to the music industry which has regarded the online delivery of songs as a threat to the sale of CDs.

But the spectre of free file-swapping sites is still looming over both the music industry and websites trying to make a go of paid-for downloads.

Paid-for music sites face an uphill struggle against both free download sites and CD sellers.

"The problem for paid download sites is that while security, legitimacy and convenience are their main advantages over the file- sharing communities, those advantages are also shared by sites which sell actual CDs," said Tom Ewing, analyst with Nielsen/ NetRatings.

There is some hope for paid-for services as music labels such as EMI gradually release the tight grip they have been keeping on their catalogue of popular artists.

And Apple has shown that money can be made from music downloads, with its iTunes venture attracting millions of users.

For the music industry, a new website which claims to have found a legal loophole that allows it to sell music without direct consent is proving the latest in a long line of challenges to its dominance of the distribution of music.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/3047661.stm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arguments made in DVD-cracking case
Lisa M. Bowman

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called DVD-cracking software DeCSS a tool for "breaking, entering and stealing" during a hearing before the California Supreme Court on Thursday.

"The program DeCSS is a burglary tool," Lockyer told the judges, adding that the movie studios lose millions of dollars because of piracy over the Internet.

California's high court is considering whether a ban on the posting of the code, which cracks the content-scrambling system designed to protect DVD movies, violates free speech. Lockyer, who's gearing up to run for governor next year, appeared on the side of the DVD Copy Control Association, which is arguing that the posting of the code on the Net should be banned.

The case, DVD CCA v. Bunner, started four years ago, when the DVD CCA sued Andrew Bunner and hundreds of other people, saying they violated California trade-secret law by displaying links to the code.

A trial court in Santa Clara County, Calif., granted an injunction banning the posting of the code, but Bunner appealed, saying the injunction violated his free speech rights. The Sixth District Court of Appeals in San Jose, Calif., agreed with Bunner and reversed that injunction, so the DVD CCA appealed to the California Supreme Court.

During Thursday's hearing, DVD CCA attorney Robert Sugarman told the seven-judge panel that the software is designed "to allow individuals to steal a trade secret and, by virtue of that, hack into a system that protects the trade secrets of motion picture makers."

At one point, Judge Kathryn Werdegar asked whether DeCSS deserved a strict standard of trade-secret protection since it was already widely distributed on the Internet. Sugarman said that it did.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1011326.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CacheLogic servers target p-to-p traffic
British startup aims to reduce workload
Robert McMillan

CacheLogic, a small startup based in Cambridge, England, next week will introduce a line of servers designed specifically to reduce the growing workload being generated over the Internet by file-swapping networks such as Gnutella and FastTrack.

Aimed squarely at consumer ISPs, which CacheLogic says are now devoting as much as 70 percent of their bandwidth to this kind of peer- to-peer (p-to-p) traffic, the Cachepliance 2000 and Cachepliance 4000 are high performance servers, designed to sit on the edge of an ISP's network where they cache and relay p-to-p traffic in a more efficient manner than Gnutella and FastTrack applications typically employ.

Gnutella and FastTrack are the p-to-p networks used by most popular file- sharing applications, including Kazaa, Morpheus, and Limewire.

The decentralized nature of these networks can make them a nightmare for network managers, said CacheLogic Chief Technology Officer Andrew Parker. When a Gnutella client, for example, swaps a file, it doesn't take into account whether its peer is in the same county or the same continent, he said. The end result is that p-to-p traffic often travels a greater distance on the network than it really needs to. "The bandwidth usage is pretty high," he added.

The Cachepliance "sits on the border between the ISP network and the Internet and effectively restructures the [p-to-p] network to make it more sympathetic to the underlying physical network," he said.

"It's basically a heck of a lot of storage with some routing functionality," said IDC analyst Max Flisi, adding that vendors are only just now starting to come out with these kinds of servers.

The Cachepliance 2000 ships with 700GB of SCSI storage. The Cachepliance 4000 contains 1.45TB.

One ISP that is evaluating CacheLogic products is Britain's Telewest Communications, which will begin testing the Cachepliance in a lab trial over the next few months.

With about half the bandwidth on Telewest's network being consumed by p-to-p applications, the company is searching for ways to reduce the traffic, said Telewest Internet Technical Consultant Fergal Butler.

The fact that the Cachepliance actually caches p-to-p files makes it different from other offerings, such as Sandvine's PPE 8200, said Butler, but the fact that ISPs would be caching music or video files on their own equipment also raises some legal questions.

"I guess we're concerned about the legality in the United Kingdom of these potential solutions," he said.

Butler said that his team would be consulting Telewest's legal department, and that, if given the green light, he hoped to eventually try the Cachepliance on the company's live network.

IDC's Max Flisi says that he doubts the legal questions will stop the Cachepliance from being used. "I don't think they'll run into that kind of a problem," said Flisi. "They're not really endorsing p-to-p traffic."

Both Cachepliance machines, which are available immediately, run dual Xeon processors, with 2GB of memory and a custom Linux distribution with a "heavily modified" Linux 2.4 kernel, said Parker. The Cachepliance 2000 is designed to support 30,000 users, and costs £30,000 ($49,092). The Cachepliance 4000 costs £50,000 and is designed for 50,000 users. Support for either system costs £10,000 per year, he said.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...helogic_1.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Perfect Night

Led Zeppelin’s 3 CD “How the West Was Won”
JS

Every once in a great while it comes together and we share an extraordinary evening. So must it have been in L.A. on that night back in 1972.

This is the concert document Led Zeppelin should have released when new. It replaces the images of bloated, ego driven primadonnas with the sounds of lean and joyful rockers. This album is excellent, and so are the reviews.

“And here, for history, is the best evidence there is likely to be of just how great Led Zeppelin, on a good night, could be. Here too, for pure listening pleasure, is the thrill of arguably the most influential rock sound of the last 35 years carefully, deliriously arriving at itself,” (the New York Times).

“Moby Dick” is well, the big whale but “Going to California” and “That’s the Way” are bite-sized tasty standouts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kazaa to patch 'serious' vulnerability
Patrick Gray

Users of file sharing programs such as Kazza and iMesh are urged to install a security patch following a discovery of a serious bug in their underlying network.

A security researcher recently found a potentially critical vulnerability in the program which drives the FastTrack network. Fastrack is used by peer-to-peer(p2p) software including Kazaa and iMesh. Joltid, the maker of Fastrack, initially said the flaw was not serious, but has since done an about-face and plans to plug the loophole.

The makers of Kazaa will release a patch within the next 24 hours and is urging customers to install it "as soon as possible".

According to the original security advisory, published on the Full Disclosure security mailing list, attackers can take control of or crash the FastTrack "supernodes" that p2p users connect to.

"It's definitely a serious risk. Just ask anyone if executing arbitrary code is a serious risk or not," the researcher told ZDNet Australia.

Identifying himself only by his pseudonym, Random Nut, he said he went public with the vulnerability after waiting nearly two weeks for Kazaa and Joltid to get back to him.

"On Tue 13 May I emailed a guy at Joltid, and about 2 days later I filed a bug report at www.kazaa.com. Yesterday, after reading it on Full Disclosure, someone working for Joltid contacted me. He told me that the guy I emailed had been on a long honeymoon," he said.

Although he has exploited the vulnerability, he will make the exploit code public.

"I haven't released the exploit code. I don't want some little script-kiddie to close down all of the network or parts of it," he said.

A spokeswoman for Sharman Networks, the company behind Kazaa, told ZDNet Australia they had been informed by Joltid the issue is not serious.

"As a licensee, Sharman Networks has been advised that the security of the FastTrack peer-to-peer technology is not under any significant risk," she said.

Kazaa will use information provided to them by Joltid in authoring a patch.

"Sharman Networks has been provided with an update from the FastTrack's licensors which addresses this issue," it said in a statement. "The latest update will be available for download within 24 hours and we encourage users to install it as soon as possible".
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/securi...9133858,00.htm



The PACKET 0' DEATH FastTrack Network Vulnerability
random nut

Vulnerability Overview

There exists a vulnerability in the FastTrack network core that can be used by an attacker to take control of all FastTrack network supernodes. The attacker can either crash all supernodes or insert arbitrary code in each supernode's address space. Crashing all supernodes means that no-one can search for files on the FT network or connect to the FT network.

To protect the FT network from people who wants to reverse engineer the protocol, the owners of the FT network added encryption to all supernode packets. The encryption seems to be made by the FT network creators. Nothing else is encrypted, such as files transferred to other users.

Vulnerability Information

Packet 0 (possibly called "KAZAA_CONNECTION_INFO", but from here on called "Packet 0' death", note the zero) is used to send up to 200 supernode IPs to clients and supernodes. The supernodes' packet 0' death handler (possibly class "supernode_connection_t") is different from the other packet 0' death handlers, and it also contains the buffer overflow bug. The supernode packet 0' death handler assumes only 200 supernode entries can be received, but if you send more you can overwrite the return address and more of the stack.
http://lists.netsys.com/pipermail/fu...ay/009860.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New P2P tools mean quicker downloads
John Borland

A new generation of peer-to-peer tools is gaining traction on the Internet, spelling tougher times ahead for movie studios' attempts to quell online piracy.

Going by names like eDonkey and BitTorrent, many of the latest generation of file-swapping tools have been designed specifically to increase the efficiency and speed of transfer for large files such as movie files. Some of these tools have been in development for several years, but are just now reaching the critical mass needed to make a dent in the file-trading world.

Some in the copyright community say these new tools are finally starting to rival the piracy potential of the post-Napster generation of swapping services.

"We see people downloading like crazy," said Mark Ishikawa, chief executive of BayTSP, a Silicon Valley company that monitors file-swapping networks for movie studios and record labels. "eDonkey is passing Gnutella, and is even on its way to passing FastTrack." FastTrack is the technology behind Sharman Networks' Kazaa and Grokster.

File-swapping tools such as Kazaa and Morpheus are still enormously popular -- indeed, on Friday, Kazaa passed ICQ instant messaging software as the most-requested technology ever on Download.com, a software aggregation site owned by CNET News.com. Kazaa has been downloaded more than 229 million times, according to that site.

The new generation of tools has been designed much like the old, by individuals or small teams of programmers working to correct the perceived shortcomings of earlier software.

eDonkey is largely the product of programmer Jed McCaleb of New York. His initial plan was to make file search and distribution more efficient, while keeping the same basic network-searching functions seen in Napster and its successors.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2135249,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Testing with the mess of reality
Christina Dyrness

Amin M. Vahdat came to Duke University as an assistant professor of computer science in 1998, won a teaching excellence award this year and will be granted early tenure in July at the relatively young age of 31. On top of all that, he's taking the wraps off of a new way to test Internet applications before they actually go live on the Web by simulating the kind of random traffic that would be found in the real world. Connect's Christina Dyrness sat down to chat with Vahdat, who received his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, about the testing method, called ModelNet, and the Internet in general.

Q.So what was your reason for coming to Duke in December 1998?

A. There are two answers to that question. Obviously I came here to teach and to do research. But the reason that I came here over other places was the people and the emphasis on education.

Q.So with ModelNet -- the process of testing Internet software before it goes live -- how do you simulate the wild world of the Web?

A.The basic idea is, how can you, on a dedicated set of PCs, emulate the conditions that software would experience running on the Internet? And today, what people do is, they run software in very controlled, idealized environments with very fast computers, very fast networks and no failures. And it's very hard to conclude what the behavior of the system would be in realistic conditions. So they become surprised -- they say, "Well, we tested it and tested it and tested it on our PCs, on our machines." But what's it really going to do? So, what we wanted to do is develop an infrastructure where people can take those same programs that they've done some local testing on --whatever they would normally do -- and subject it to Internet-like conditions: failures, slow- downs, congestion, etc. And then people can gain some confidence that their software is more robust than they otherwise might have.

Q.Have you tested actual applications with this?

A.We have. We're gaining more and more experience with different types of applications. One of the types we're thinking about is peer-to-peer applications, for example a popular peer-to-peer application is Gnutella, a file-sharing system. And we've run a 10,000-node Gnutella peer-to-peer systems and shown how it evolves over time. Another thing we're looking at right now is how so-called malware -- that's a new, hot term for worms and viruses and other bad things -- how they propagate. Studies have shown that a well- constructed worm can affect all Internet posts in under an hour. How do you combat that?

http://newsobserver.com/business/sto...-2386711c.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruling does not affect students' downloads
Although a judge ruled in favor of Morpheus and Grokster, University students' file sharing has not increased
Ali Shaughnessy


File-sharing services have come a long way since the start of Napster in 1999. Since then, both the recording and movie industry have been looking for ways to stop it, and students have been looking for ways to expand it.

The latest battle resulted in a victory for file sharing when a Los Angeles judge ruled file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster could not control what is traded using their respective programs and therefore cannot be held liable. The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America filed the lawsuit and have vowed to appeal the court's decision.

Student use of file sharing programs has not increased at the University, however, despite the ruling in favor of Morpheus and Grokster.

Residence Hall Computing Services Coordinator Norm Myers said the recent rulings have not affected the uploading and downloading traffic on campus, adding that because it is close to the end of the school year, fewer and fewer students are uploading.

"We're seeing less because we've talked to so many students already, and they are educated by now," he said. "It's pretty peaceful."

Some say file sharing has become a way of life in the residence halls on campus. University student Erica Reid said she has been using the file-sharing program Kazaa for the past year.
http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/di.../3ed4c9fd56c12

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DHS Revamp on Tap
Caron Carlson

After months of escalating criticism from the IT industry that the Bush administration is devoting insufficient resources and attention to cyber-security, the fledgling Department of Homeland Security is already restructuring to give network safety a higher profile.

The organizational changes, due to take place over the coming months, will show that the executive branch is taking cyber-security seriously, according to Charles McQueary, undersecretary for science and technology at the new department.

McQueary addressed lawmakers here last week at a hearing of the House Committee on Science. The session took on a very un-Washington, almost-surreal quality as legislators chided civil servants for not chasing after enough funding for cyber-security research and development, and civil servants answered that there is plenty of money already being spent.

"We're not lacking for funds," Anthony Tether, director of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, told the committee. "I funded every idea that's come forth in this area this year. We're more idea-limited right now than we are funding-limited."

Acting on ramped-up industry lobbying, legislators took to task the DHS, DARPA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology for not seeking out or setting aside adequate funds for cyber-security. The preoccupation with national security since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was expected to unleash a torrent of government spending on IT goods and services, but the federal funds have not been as forthcoming as the industry had hoped.

According to committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., there have been complaints from throughout the research community that the DHS is not focusing on solving network vulnerabilities and that DARPA is operating under reduced resources.

"It's impossible to conclude that far more needs to be done," Boehlert said, directing DARPA's Tether to "enlighten us as to why we're moving in the wrong direction."

Most of DARPA's resources are directed at classified projects, according to Tether, who said that a peek at the agency's classified budget would make lawmakers more comfortable with the funding level.

"We're not concerning ourselves [with] the commercial networks," Tether said, adding that DARPA is focused on solving problems that the private sector currently does not confront. The military faces threats from "attackers whose life depends on taking the network down," he said, and projects are under way to make those networks increasingly wireless and peer to peer.

"We're really far ahead of the commercial world in this regard," Tether said, adding that a prototype military network with 400 nodes to use for simulated attacks is in the works.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1109434,00.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Yankee Group Says Teens Will Download More Music as Connection Speeds Improve; New Survey Shows Connection Speed, Not Illegality, is the Major Deterrent to Downloading
Press Release

Yankee Group, a global technology research advisory and consulting firm, today reported that music downloading by teens will increase dramatically as broadband penetration increases. According to its recently released 2003 Youth Market Survey, 30 percent of teen respondents not currently downloading music stated that connection speed was a major reason, while only 20 percent of teens stated that illegality was a reason they did not currently download.

"Broadband Internet access via DSL and cable, now present in nearly 20 million U.S. homes, is rapidly gaining ground on dial-up," says Tom Gramaglia, Director of Internet, Media, and Consumer Communications for the Yankee Group. "Our recent survey suggests that peer-to-peer file sharing, using software programs such as KaZaa and Morpheus, will increase substantially as the "speed barrier" diminishes. This is mixed news for the new online music firms such as the iTunes Music Store. Their market opportunity will certainly benefit as broadband penetration overtakes dial- up within the next 5 years, but competition with free services also will increase."

The 2003 Youth Market Survey investigates teen and young-adult habits, influences, and motivations regarding consumer technology and media. More information is available at www.yankeegroup.com/surveys.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/...m&footer_file=

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hunting Subsciber X
Kevin Fitchard

Sarah Deutsch was working part-time for Bell Atlantic in 1995 when the document arrived on her desk. She had quit her job at the Washington,

D.C., intellectual property law firm Morgan Lewis four years earlier to spend more time with her kids, and the job at Bell Atlantic was perfect. She was working the “plain vanilla” practice of electronic copyright in the days before the Internet became what we know it to be today, allowing her to split her time between the home and the office. It's hard to imagine her life being any less hectic. But that was about to change.

The document was a “green paper” — one of those complex reports issued by government offices exploring the ramifications of current law on a particular field or technology. Law offices are flooded with them, and for Deutsch to find one of the reports in her inbox was nothing out of the ordinary.

But this one was different. It was issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Patent and Trademark Office and detailed the spread of new digital copying technology that had begun to seep out over the Internet. With it, people could duplicate copyrighted music and other media for distribution over the Web. Most startling was the paper's conclusion: that the only way to police this new type of intellectual property theft was to make carriers liable for all illegally copied content on their networks.

“It put the burden of enforcing copyright on the carriers' shoulders,” Deutsch said. “I was shocked. Everybody was shocked. That one statement awoke a sleeping giant.”

By 2002 RIAA was fed up, so it decided to go after the one group it had avoided: the file-sharing customers themselves. And to get to them, they had to go through the carriers.

Sarah Deutsch got the subpoena in July 2002. RIAA had identified the IP address of a Verizon subscriber who was suspected of downloading more than 600 digital music files in one day. RIAA wanted Verizon to give up the subscriber's name and address, as well as shut off his access to the Internet.

Deutsch had received dozens of subpoenas from RIAA and other entertainment trade groups, all of them fairly routine requests. But this one was different. Subscriber X wasn't hosting illegal content on Verizon's network; he was a Kazaa client that used Verizon for Internet access, and the disputed content was stored on his hard drive. Verizon had no way of verifying RIAA's allegations. Deutsch refused to give up Subscriber X's name.

“We're not going to become the Internet police for RIAA,” Deutsch said. “There's a delicate balance between copyright holders' rights and our customers' rights that needs to be preserved. RIAA crossed over the line.”
http://industryclick.com/magazineart...75745&SiteID=3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just Another Way to Share
Thomas Mennecke

For veterans of the file-sharing world, this technique is nothing new. But for those looking for a new method of sharing music, you may want to check out the many mp3 lists available through individual’s homepages.

With so many P2P networks available these days, one would think there is hardly any point in sharing files this way anymore. However, for those looking to explore every facet of file-sharing this method is definitely worth a look.

The method is quite simple. Using your average search engine (we recommend Google), type in the song you’re looking for, making sure to add “mp3” in the search string. The returned query generates a wide selection of individual’s web pages offering mp3 lists. Many times, these individuals are looking to share, or even give away, many of the files they have.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=163

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethernet at 30
Nick Tidd

In every century, inventors give birth to ideas that change our world. In 1672, the French sculptor Sieur Guillaume Cassegrain invented the telescope. In 1765, James Watt invented a steam engine. In 1876, Thomas Edison gave us the light bulb and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. And in 1973, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Robert Metcalfe invented Ethernet, the networking topology that revolutionized the communications world.

When companies began using PCs in the early 1970s, IBM's proprietary Token Ring networking system did not allow disparate PC, mainframe, and printing devices to speak to each other. Token Ring, which became an IEEE standard in 1981, perpetuated a "Tower of Babel" office environment where everything was speaking a different digital language.

Productivity was locked up until PCs could talk to each other. When employees wanted to share files, they had to copy data onto a disk and walk it down the hall to a co-worker, or mail it to a different office. The process was, at best, time-consuming and, at worst, expensive and unreliable.

Ethernet was designed to simplify and expand business communications. In contrast to Token Ring, Ethernet was an open, public-domain technology that would allow the economical build up of shared-media networks.

For the next decade, several factors contributed to the adoption of Ethernet as the de facto communications solution. In 1979, Mr. Metcalfe founded 3Com Corp. to build the first viable Ethernet device: the Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC). The NIC allowed different devices - from mainframes to IBM terminals and PCs - to speak to each other. As businesses adopted NICs, they began sharing and printing files for increased productivity and enterprise-wide communication.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...ry/Technology/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MP3 Goes Old School
Lance Ulanoff

I enjoy music as much as the next guy, but I rarely buy CDs, and I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of concerts I've attended. Suffice to day, I'm no audiophile. So I never got very excited about or even involved in the music file-sharing and downloading craze. I think I've downloaded three songs in the past five years. I don't own an MP3 player and I didn't ever really think I would care to.

My lack of enthusiasm for music extends to my Aiwa home stereo system. It's actually older than my marriage. My wife got it from her mother around 15 years ago, and we simply moved it from her house into our apartment and then to our house. The system is so old that it came with an LP player as standard equipment. Over the years, we've listened to records, CDs, and the radio through the Aiwa. When I got my RCA Home Theater television almost a decade ago, we hooked it up to the stereo to take advantage of the television's higher fidelity sound. More recently, I hooked the old horse up to my DVD player for a whopping two channels of sound. Still, the Aiwa speakers have wooden cases (my audiophile friends tell me that's a good thing) and the sound is basically good and well amplified.

Not too long ago, PC Magazine reviewed the cd3o C300 Network MP3 player. The device didn't blow away our reviewer (Contributing Editor Bill Howard gave it a two out of five rating), but it did promise an intriguing level of simplicity. The c300 is a small device that hooks up to your stereo or powered speakers, communicates with your home network via wired or wireless Ethernet, and can then play music from a network PC running the cd3o Control Center music server software.

I have a wireless network at home, so I decided to take a shot at setting up the c300. (The c300 also works on wired networks, as I noted, but I have to wonder how many homes have their stereo near a live network jack—I certainly do not. I was encouraged by the promised simplicity, and I thought that once I got the device installed, it just might be a better introduction to MP3 playback than I had experienced thus far.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1110387,00.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

USR SoundLink
Ian Johnson

Reviewed on: Windows XP computer, home stereo system as well as set of amplified/standalone speakers.
Also available for: Any audio device with a line-out port, set of amplified speakers or stereo system with a line-in port, or FM radio.

The Good: Easy to set up; works with special receiver or with any FM radio; adjustable broadcast gain.
The Bad: Depending on variables such as the type of building you’re in (one with lots of metal girders versus an open-concept home, for example), the distance between the transmitter/receiver and the types of electromagnetic interference in the area, the signal strength and quality can vary from very strong to virtually nonexistent.
The Verdict: An easy and affordable way to send music signals from your stereo, PC or MP3 player to a set of speakers located anywhere in your home - but getting a strong and clear signal can be hit and miss.

Computers with audio capabilities have been around for years, but it is only in recent months that digital audio has really taken off among mainstream users, largely as a result of file-sharing services on the Internet and the advent of tiny, skip-free digital audio players. Many listeners are converting their vinyl, tape and CD-based music collections to MP3 or WMA files (or drawing content from file sharing services), turning their desktop and notebook computers into massive digital jukeboxes.

Digitizing a music collection means you can have all your songs in one place, search your entire collection for a single song in seconds, do a shuffle-play from thousands of titles, and set up custom playlists that suit your mood. The problem is that most people keep their computer in a den or home office, while their stereo system is in the living room.

This is fine if you only want to listen to your digital music while you work or play on your computer. But it is a problem if you want to run those tunes through a main stereo system for the home, or listen to them while you work in the garden. Even if you have everything stored on a notebook’s hard drive, it’s a drag to have to haul it out and hook it up to the inputs on your stereo every time you want to listen to your digitized music collection.

As the popularity of digital music has boomed, though, several companies have come up with devices that bridge the gap between the home/office PC and the living room sound system. The SoundLink from U.S. Robotics is one such piece of audio transmission gear.

SoundLink is a wireless system that uses FM frequencies to transmit sound from any source with a line-out jack (including your computer’s sound card). The package consists of a small transmitter and receiver, along with all the necessary cables to connect one to your sound source and the other to your speakers or stereo system.

The transmitter measures about four inches high and deep, and about five inches wide. The black plastic case has an attractive, slightly funky design, with flashing LEDs that show the audio broadcast level and a short antenna sticks up several inches above the unit. It has a line-in to take input from the audio source, as well as a line-out jack so that you can pass the signal through the transmitter box from your sound card to your computer’s speakers. The transmitter uses an AC power adapter, but can also operate on four AAA batteries if you want to take it on the road or you run short of wall sockets. The broadcast level is adjustable, but the more juice you give it the more likely you are to degrade the signal received at the other end.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...y/TechReviews/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P2Ps to cost ISPs E1.1bn in 2003 claims CacheLogic
David Minto

CacheLogic, a British internet service provider (ISP) start-up, has estimated that the global cost of file-sharing to ISPs is likely to top E1.1bn in 2003, rising to over E3bn in 2004.

Traditionally it has been thought that record companies probably have most to fear from the growth of P2P file- sharing sites, such as Kazaa, where users can download music tracks and other media content for free. However, CacheLogic co-founder Andrew Parker told CNET News that, “What the ISPs are spending on bandwidth is one of their greatest capital expenditures.'

Some ISPs are claiming that as much as 60 per cent of data traffic on their networks is constituted of music, movies and software files being exchanged, a situation that is escalating and which many are now anxious to bring under control. With rather nice symmetry, Jupiter Research claims that 60 per cent of European ISPs have already introduced bandwidth caps or are considering doing so.

However, a delicate balance will need to be reached here as many ISPs continue to market their broadband services on the basis of ‘unlimited’ downloads – a strategy that recently bit NTL in the behind when the cable company somewhat tactlessly introduced a 1Gb per day limit on customers.

Some ISPs, like CacheLogic, are trying to use technology to cut down the problem having developed a new server that places limits on file-sharing traffic flow by limiting P2P activity to users within the same ISP or country. Whether consumers in Europe typically paying around E50 a month for broadband access will tolerate any compromise or limit to their service, however, remains to be seen.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16485

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Return of the Mac
The undeniable success of Apple's iTunes online store has proved the financial viability of legal downloadable music schemes but, asks Iain S Bruce, have record companies missed out by turning their backs on the file-sharing phenomenon?

Even in the world of big business, nothing is forever. Just as Scotland's shipyards withered beneath the merciless glare of changing times, the fishing fleets sail out in ever-dwindling numbers and car manufacturing's giants buckled before an onslaught of Eastern imports, everyone from shop-floor worker to boardroom billionaire must ultimately embrace the beat of a new generation and confront seismic shifts long considered unthinkable.

For the music industry, that time is now. Once invincible, it has come under attack from technological changes that it couldn't -- and can't -- stop. When consumers and entrepreneurs saw the possibilities of digital music, no amount of lawsuits, campus raids, political pressure or 'counter-hack' attacks could stem the tide.

A litany of false starts and failed concepts for legal online music may have barely scorched the backsides of the industry's establishment, but the recent launch of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store has sent a resounding warning to the moguls that they must either meet the 21st century's challenges or face obliteration.

Cranking into life on April 28, the latest venture to emerge from the fevered imagination of Apple chief Steve Jobs has burst the sector into life, firmly establishing that the decade's most fiercely resisted sales strategy is here to stay.

Within days the iTunes service became the world's largest online music store after punters pounced upon the chance to download tracks at 99¢ a throw, purchasing over two million tracks in the first 16 days of operation and kicking off a phenomenon where, just 20 days since opening, the fledgling site's turnover is already in excess of $2.9 million.

The launch of the store has surprised many, especially in the freedom it affords users. Tracks bought can be burnt to CDs, shared between with up to three computers simultaneously and played on Apple's popular iPod MP3 player. The music industry has been exceptionally wary of such services -- their own subscription offerings have been extremely restrictive, with users prevented from burning tracks or using portable players -- and it was already angered by Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn advertisements that extolled the CD- creation features of the Macintosh.

It seems that Jobs's high-profile -- he's the closest thing to Silicon Valley has to a rockstar, and also owns Pixar, the studio responsible for Toy Story -- and charisma have a lot to do with the deals. The US journal Fortune reports that Jobs personally called U2's Bono to explain the service, and he's offered demonstrat-ions to sceptics, including Mick Jagger, Dr Dre, Sheryl Crow and The Eagles. He also negotiated directly with the heads of the 'big five' US record groups -- BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal and Warner for their approval. Even then, however, they limited the contracts to one year.

These giants might take succour from the knowledge that it is still their product the site is shifting and their price it must pay, but privately the industry feels mounting unease. A burgeoning body of executives is realising that years spent actively resisting change has left a major slice of their market up for grabs.

'The unavoidable truth is that the industry's attempts to obstruct the digital movement have allowed it to become a genuine threat to the established players,' said Hooman Majd, vice president of Island Records for 10 years and now operating a New York entertainment consultancy. 'They watched the trend for storing and listening to music on computers from the beginning but thought it was just another fad, refusing to lift their heads from the sand while the online phenomenon exploded around them.'

'Music's big players blew their chance to lead digital distribution from the very start and now can only watch while upstarts grab market share from under their noses. Sony and the rest still have control of the production process and obviously won't suddenly disappear, but with record sales falling and margins tightening, any company not urgently formulating a response to download culture is courting disaster.'
http://www.sundayherald.com/34037

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CNN/Money says iTunes sales figures aren't justified
Dennis Sellers

In his latest column for CNN/Money, Eric Hellweg says that Apple's numbers for its iTunes Music Store downloads "aren't justified."

First of all, he doesn't think the current pace of sales will last, feeling that they'll dip to a trickle -- a "respectable trickle, perhaps, but hardly a revenue stream worth the stock gains the service recently brought the company." Secondly, Hellweg said that Apple's reports of one million songs sold per week isn't that impressive upon close examination.

Apple says that "more than half" of this song total was sold in album format, rather than as singles. Assuming "a conservative 12 songs per album, and one album per person," Hellweg calculated that 500,000 songs would satisfy 42,000 customers. Assuming five downloads per person for the remaining 500,000 songs, Hellweg comes up with 100,000 additional users. That's fewer than 150,000 people using the service, Hellweg concluded.

"Based on these calculations, the download rate isn't as stunning as it first seems," Hellweg wrote. "And I think this rate actually represents a burst of activity that is largely the result of pent-up demand from the Apple faithful. Of the other legitimate digital music services, only the tiny (but great) EMusic offers an Apple version, and only one major illicit file-sharing service, Limewire, is available for the Mac platform."

The columnist quoted analyst Phil Leigh of Raymond James & Associates as saying that "most Apple users had to sit out the digital music revolution until the release of iTunes, causing an initial 'oil well gusher of interest'."

Leigh's analysis seems to ignore the existence of third-party MP3 player applications that were available prior to iTunes' arrival. Hellweg also added that, "according to people familiar with the matter," for every 99-cent download Apple sells, the labels take 60 to 65 cents.

"With that remaining 34 to 39 cents, Apple must shoulder the infrastructure and marketing costs, leaving very little for the bottom line," he writes.

He also questions why Apple isn't releasing sales figures for the iTunes Music Store's third week. (Apple didn't comment on Hellweg's calculations and deductions.)
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/05/27/hellweg/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Highway To $0.99 Hell
Apple's iTunes music store: A rockin' revolution, or same ol' corporate song and dance?
Mark Morford

Damn but how I'd love to believe that a nice hefty portion of the 99 cents I just dropped in the wonderfully simple and elegant and it's- about-goddamn-time Apple iTunes Music Store for Björk's glorious "Bachelorette" is going straight into Björk herownself's orange fur- lined pocket. You know?

Instead of where I know my money is really going, which is straight toward some Universal records exec's Range Rover payments, with the remainder right into the vault inside Steve Jobs' gold-trimmed bedchamber. And most likely not a single dime to the artist who wrote and recorded and sang the actual music.

This is the tragic flaw, the biggest disappointment of Apple's much-vaunted service. It is the underlying unfair evil that, if you're at all aware of the music industry's long-standing vow to gouge your ass to high heaven and screw their own artists out of royalties and keep the prices of antiquated CDs artificially high and continue to promote slick prefab hit makers to the detriment of new, quirky, more talented indie acts, bites your attuned consumerist butt every step of the way. Apple could've gone for revolution. They settled for mild rebellion.

Oh but Apple did a fine job, on the surface. Leave it to a computer company, leave it to Apple, the masters of elegant design and clean interface and friendly user experience, to trump the music biz and launch the first successful pay music site and actually make you feel welcome, and appreciated, and not completely ripped off.

No subscription fee. Any song, any artist, any genre, any length, 99 cents. Entire albums for 10 bucks. Burn and share and transfer. Minimal and easily flaunted copy restrictions. It's genius. It's beautiful. I want to love it. But I can't.

Normally I gush all over nearly everything Apple creates. I worship at the altar of the PowerBook titanium upon which I write this very column. The iPod is the gold standard for kickass gizmo MP3 players. The iMac is elegant design genius.

But not this. This has a decidedly megacorporate taint, a distinctly snarling restrictive bent. Here's why: Most of the money you spend in the store goes straight into the record-biz corporate coffers. Maybe a few cents to the major artists who are lucky enough to have such a profit clause in their contracts, but for the most part, the old business model is still very much the same.

Record companies rule, major artists get pampered, indie music gets ignored, technology barely advances. Sure you no longer have to buy an entire CD to get your favorite song. Very nice. But other than that, the corporate stranglehold largely remains.

Bottom line: Apple's service is almost exactly the same as buying the CD at the store, only a bit cheaper, and more tech savvy. But if the money's still going to the same places, supporting the same outdated system, why should anyone care?

Let's put it this way; If the choice is to download a particular song for free, or spend a buck on Apple's site, I'd probably choose the former. And why? It ain't the money -- it's the sense that the music industry has been ripping consumers like me off for years via inflated CD prices and ancient technology, and that my buck does nothing to change that. It's just like Big Oil -- if you had access to a secret stash of free gas, would you still go to the pump?

And choice? Apple's wonderufully simple and clean site, unfortunately, isn't about choice. So far, they cater only to the most mainstream of music fans. This is the roster of a mere five major labels. There is no alternative music. There are no cool indie compilations, no underground, no small-label genius, no new voices. Hopefully this will change. Dramatically. Soon.

Want the new Ani DiFranco? Maybe the latest sexy chill-out Hotel Costes compilation? Tosca's new "Dehli9"? Something by DJ Cheb I Sabbah or Perfume Tree or Fila Brazillia? Too bad for you. Not a wisp to be found. Gobs of Sheryl Crow and Sting and U2 and Celine Dion and Bon Jovi, though. Yawn.

Claims are Apple's new service sold 2 million songs in its first two weeks of business. Wonderful and good and an encouraging sign indeed that the music biz is finally beginning to see the light of new technology, the potential for change.

But my next dollar eagerly goes to the site that promotes the artist over the label, the music over the industry, a new and fairer business model over one that keeps true music lovers under the heel of litigious corporate hit factories. Simple, really.

My hard-earned columnist money happily forks over to the service that doesn't make me feel like I'm still supporting an industry that treats me like a criminal for recording Net radio and burning my own CDs, that invests its billions in fewer and fewer talented upstart artists and more and more prefab "sure thing" arena acts, that sues the living hell out of a bunch of upstart college kids for running file-sharing servers.

My next buck spent on the site where, say, the artists submit their own music and the service takes a small reasonable cut and the label takes a small reasonable cut and the artist gets a nice big cut and I can get any song for a buck and don't have to wade through the entire Fleetwood Mac catalogue to find it.

Apple, can you? Please? Because everyone seems to like what you've done so far. But you could go much, much further ...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...otes052103.DTL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ska-Punk Band “Jersey” In Anti-Piracy Experiment
Aaron Foster

Ask Radiohead how many thieves have already pirated their newly unmixed album Hail To The Thief from a file-sharing program and it would most likely gross a couple hundred thousand. Maybe even a million — who knows, but either way, a lot of people have heard the record, which doesn’t even hit stores until next week.

Although music piracy is nothing new for Radiohead and most bands these days, an innovative technology called Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS) is. Musicrypt and EMI Music Canada (also Radiohead’s distribution label in Canada) have teamed up to unveil DMDS, an initiative that should help curb the swapping of unreleased material.

The initial goal of DMDS is to completely protect a band from having their new material stolen off the Internet by using an encryption system that makes it impossible for such thievery to take place. It also allows labels to service songs to radio without having to send a physical copy of the record.

The incumbent guinea pigs for the project were Burlington, Ontario ska-punk band Jersey who lent their brand new single, "Generation Suicide," to test out this creative wave of technology. They proved the value of the technology by delivering a freshly recorded punk anthem electronically from EMAC Studios in London, Ontario to the record label (Virgin/EMI), to radio stations via the Internet eliminating the possibility of it leaking to non-secure sources.

A handy side effect of the experiment is that Virgin/EMI get to promote Jersey’s debut major label release, Generation Genocide, which is out on August 5 by letting DMDS try out their concept.

Jersey were formed from the members of emocore outfits Grade and Believe and released their first album, The Battle Has Just Begun (1999) on the Fueled By Ramen label.
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2003/05/2706.cfm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sales Down 18% - Hard Times Have Hit Book Publishers, Don’t Blame Peer-To-Peer
Terence Smith reports on recent trends within the book publishing industry.
PBS

TERENCE SMITH: James Patterson is on the publishing equivalent of a victory tour. >> James Patterson, next on today.

TERENCE SMITH: From the set of the "Today" Show and an audience of millions, to the throngs of adoring readers at a midtown Manhattan book signing. To the venerable confines of the 92nd Street Y for an evening's book chat.

JAMES PATTERSON: I like the idea of writing a fun history.

TERENCE SMITH: The best-selling author is putting in a long day on the road promoting his latest chart-topper, "The Jester," co- authored with Andrew Gross. Patterson is in that most exclusive of book clubs: The blockbuster author who sells millions. He's sold 45 million in North America alone on his past 21 books, and he has been translated into 36 languages. That popular validation, and adulation, never get old.

JAMES PATTERSON: I love to do it. Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. That's what I do.

TERENCE SMITH: Telling stories is big business-- upwards of $26 billion worth of books were sold in this country last year-- but 2003 has brought troubling signs to the industry.

GALE FELDMAN: Sales are stagnant. In fact, they have been going down the past few months.

TERENCE SMITH: Gayle Feldman is a research fellow at the national arts journalism program at Columbia University. She recently released a study about the publishing world.

GAYLE FELDMAN: The book business is in some difficulty at the moment. You can sell huge quantities of something, but there are big distortions in the business and problems.

TERENCE SMITH: According to the Association of American publishers, a leading industry group, sales of adult hardcover books were off a startling 18 percent in the first quarter of this year as compared to last. Gayle Feldman sees a number of explanations.

GAYLE FELDMAN: There is a squeeze on profits. Book publishing -- the big publishers have consolidated so that you have five or six big, big companies that control the biggest books. There are many, many books that do not get marketing or publicity money behind them and they die.

TERENCE SMITH: Even more striking, some of the most bankable authors-- Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton-- have sold far fewer copies of their recent books than had been expected.

CHARLES McGRATH, Editor, New York Times Book Review: It's as if certain brand-name writers-- the Grishams, the Clancys, the Kings of this world-- have hit the wall, which is very surprising.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media...ing_05-26.html


Hardcover sellthrough is down, and the mass market paperback category is also struggling "very significantly."

Hard Times For Book Publishers con’t
Jim Milliot, John Mutter, John F. Baker, Diane Roback and Edward Nawotka

The gathering of industry professionals in Manhattan earlier this month generated an urgent call for action on several fronts. Since that May 5 meeting, the conversation has continued, and in this article we revisit the major themes and extend an analysis of how publishers can better compete in the current marketplace.

John Marmaduke, president and CEO of Hastings Entertainment, was the first speaker at the daylong Publishing Summit that discussed how publishing might survive the current economic malaise, and how books might better compete for America's entertainment dollar. Marmaduke, who was addressing the view from the retail market, emphasized that books have entertainment competitors whose suppliers are doing a better job at servicing retailers and reaching consumers than book publishers. In addition, high prices relative to other forms of entertainment and a "command" marketing approach by publishers are hurting the sales of books.

Every Friday night, Marmaduke related, a kind of competition takes place in Hastings's 150 stores. "Consumers wanting entertainment gather around the 'hot new wall,' " where new products in a variety of categories are on display. "That's where publishers win or lose the battle with the consumer."

Consumers now occupy some 300 more hours per year with "entertainment" activities, compared to 15 years ago, according to Marmaduke. "It's a full plate of entertainment choices," he said. Not surprisingly, consumers have an attention span of "maybe 10 days," which might explain why big authors aren't selling as well as in past years. The public is "increasingly disenchanted earlier, and then rushes off to the next new thing." Consumers are no longer loyal to products or channels, he asserted.

With increasingly short product lifespans, publishers are losing out because they utilize "a 1950s distribution system. You miss sales and deliver only after the consumer is on to the next thing. The ability to replenish quickly is how your competitors are taking market share from you."

Marmaduke urged the book business to "respect and steal from the competition." For example, movie producers lowered prices, and changed DVD and video rental schemes (these products now have a low initial cost, and producers and retailers share rental revenues for six months). He also challenged publishers to take some risks, saying, "I don't know the answers, but publishers do and should try."

He also maintains that book prices are too high ("I think your customers are telling you this"), particularly compared to other forms of entertainment. For example, he said, music companies promote new artists with prices ranging from $6.99 to $11.99, and many "great" DVD and video movies are offered for as low as $7.99. "And you want consumers to spend $29 on a book?" he asked. Wal-Mart has trained consumers, he said, to "look for value. Price is key."

Concerning trends at Hastings, Marmaduke noted that the Christian market has continued to grow, despite the general stagnation of book sales. Right now, many "future book consumers" are spending lots of money on videogames, which have triple-digit sales growth. Videogames, he speculated, may have as much to do with the decline of the music business as file sharing.

Following Marmaduke, Howard Reese, president and COO of Levy Home Entertainment, which supplies books and magazines to many mass merchandisers, groceries and drugstores, said that in the past three years, Levy customers have gotten accustomed to 5%-10% sales growth in books. (In cases where stores "changed the way they present books," he continued, sales were up 25%-30%.)

Now, however, many are struggling to do the same amount of business as last year, and some are down as much as 10%.

http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.... ishersweekly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood
A Civil War in the Digital World

Lawrence Lessig, Founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and Chair of the Creative Commons project, is in the middle of a battle these days. He’s trying to help Hollywood and Silicon Valley put an end to their disagreements over digital rights and come up with a sensible way to liberate more content for all of us. In Part 1 of this two-part series, Professor Lessig talks about how the fight over content is shaping up. In Part 2, he gives us his take on our antiquated copyright laws.

AlwaysOn: You’ve likened the current battle over content distribution to the Civil War.

Lessig: Right. There is this Civil War between north and south—between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The distribution architecture for content can be radically different. We could live in a world of persistent broadband, ubiquitous broadband connection, and nobody is going to want to waste time managing millions of files of all the content that we have in the world. Why would you be a database manager in this context when you can get whatever you want directly? In that world then, you don't have to worry about people hoarding content from files, because it would be like taking a tape recorder around with a radio all the time. So in a net world it would be much easier for people to earn money from offering services which make content available in different ways.

The problem we have right now is that the Southerners are fighting like hell to solve the problem of the Internet by breaking its kneecaps. They see the Internet as a threat, and want to build technologies on to the Internet that would have the effect of destroying the perfect connectivity of the medium. They think that's the only way they're going to survive as a business. But here's a problem where the Coase Theorem applies, in the sense that the IT industry has more to gain than Hollywood has to lose.

AlwaysOn: So how would you apply the Coase Theorem here?

Lessig: The IT industry should just buy off Hollywood. We just say "How much do we have to give you for the next ten years so you'll leave us alone? Let us develop our content, our infrastructure, and let's figure out a way to compensate you for the content that is on that infrastructure." At the end of ten years, then we can worry about what's the best business model and how the law has to protect investments or whatever. But between now and then, the most important thing is just to make sure that the law doesn't get in the way of the infrastructure.

So rather than a war, you've got to find a way for us to buy peace.

AlwaysOn: Let's work this out from a business standpoint. For example, a while back there was a rumor that Apple was considering buying Universal Music. Is that what you mean by buying, basically buying the content rights?

Lessig: There's a private way and a public way this can be done. Historically, it's been public. Congress passes a law that says "You’ve got a new technology, so we'll give you a compulsory license for the content. You distribute the content and you pay this very low fixed rate." Artists get paid; innovators get to take off and develop the content however they want it. Make that rate high enough so that the content industry can reasonably think "Okay, we're just going to sit back and let this live for a while without trying to take steps to break the Internet or to break any distribution models.

I think that if Apple were trying to effect a private version of this—if they created services where content was easily available—they would make more money. So they have a vision of what the future should look like. If they bought Universal, then they could take Universal's content and turn it over to that. That would have been really hopeful. It would have shown people the way to do it. And by breaking one chunk of the RIAA cartel apart from the rest, the RIAA couldn't behave like a cartel anymore.
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comm...?id=P447_0_3_0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Young people 'could not live without their mobiles'
Ananova

Losing a mobile phone would be similar to a bereavement for almost half of young people, according to a new report.

Research among 25 to 34-year-olds found that 46% "could not live without" their mobile, although users were increasingly likely to send text messages rather than make a call.

One in three of those questioned by Henley Management College said they personalised their ringtones, while 12% changed the fascia.

The research, which involved 50 interviews and three focus groups, found three distinctive groups of mobile phone users:

Cyborgs - The generation who could not remember life without a mobile phone and believed the mobile was an extension of themselves.

Prosthetics - Highly dependent on mobiles for organising their public and private lives, but don't see them as part of themselves.

Connected but unattached - Use mobiles mainly for work or emergencies and rarely send texts.

Research author Michael Hulme said: "Over the three years of this research there has been growing evidence of an increased dependency on mobile phones - not just in practical terms, but in an emotional sense.

"People see their phone as reflection of themselves and their status, they use it to communicate how they're feeling, and to improve their everyday experience of life."
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ews.technology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Valley View: File Sharing Battles
Joe and Joseph Lonsdale

Recording Industry companies have recently stepped up their assault on the rampant online sharing of copyrighted music and video, known as "online piracy," and their efforts have caused more than a few casualties in the massive army of file swappers.

Students, a common target of attack, are responding by doing their best to ignore or circumvent the industry's sorties.

"I got an e-mail notice last month to stop sharing a Vin Diesel movie," a Stanford senior studying Economics notes with an air of insouciance. "So now when I download movies or episodes of Family Guy, I move them to another directory (where others cannot then download from him)."

The U.S. Copyright Act enables the music industry to hold Internet Service Providers (ISPs) responsible for content on their users' computers. The relevant clause in Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec. 512(c) states that the ISP is not liable if it: "...upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity."

ISPs thus notified have sent emails threatening to disconnect users unless they stop sharing specific objectionable material or provide countering evidence within a given time period. Stanford University sent this letter to the student above:

"We received a notice from Universal City Studios, Inc. that claims you have electronically downloaded, distributed or made available copyrighted materials to which you do not have such rights, in violation of United States copyright law..."

Some service providers are taking the legal implications very seriously. At University of California-Irvine, "they're pretty good at catching people -- some of my friends have gotten their access cut," says Electrical Engineering junior Cha-Cheng Xie. "The University says internet is for 'academic use.'"

What do students think about that policy?

"They don't like it," replies Mr. Xie.

And despite what industry would have you believe, students aren't entirely bilking the companies of their sales, and rarely settle for ersatz copies of media they'd like to own.

Discussing his downloading and purchasing habits, the student-pirate warned by Universal City Studios comments, "I've got every episode here (on my computer) ...Did I buy the new Family Guy DVD? Of course I did. Family Guy is f(very) awesome."

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...2-054300-6930r

[JackSpratts]

“I go on Kazaa every week just to see what's happening. And by the way, they were swapping 850 million files.”

Three Minutes With Jack Valenti

The MPAA's main man tells his tactics for fighting piracy (and sometimes the tech industry) and selling movies.
Tom Spring

If you think copying a DVD movie and downloading The Matrix from Kazaa is okay, Jack Valenti wants a word with you.

The 81-year-old president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America is on a mission. Heading the MPAA since 1966, his goal in recent years has been to change people's attitudes and stop piracy of Hollywood content.

Valenti is considered one of Washington's top lobbyists to Capitol Hill on behalf of Hollywood's seven major motion picture studios. During his tenure, Valenti has helped pioneer ratings systems for both film and television and has fought government censorship.

Valenti has also taken heat for his uncompromising positions and support for laws forcing consumer electronics vendors to implement antipiracy technology. Critics contend such provisions would hamper consumers who use the devices for legitimate purposes.

PC World invited Valenti to weigh in on a variety of hot topics, from Kazaa to DVD copy protection and buying movies online. An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

PC World: What are the MPAA's biggest challenges?

Valenti: I'm looking at how to protect valuable creative works in a new world called the digital world that is totally different from the analog world.

Next, we want to offer consumers thousands of titles of movies through their computer or television and pipe it to them over a network, using Wi-Fi--or however. Consumers don't have that possibility now, but we are trying.

PCW: When did copyright protection first get on your radar screen?

Valenti: The copyright issues bubbled up first when the VCR came out. Now there have been a lot of canards about that. At the time we felt we ought to try to put a small levy on blank cassettes and then that would be put into an approved government agency and redistributed to copyright owners in this country.

We felt the best way to get a copyright royalty fee put on blank videocassette tapes was to have the courts declare that VCR machines were copyright infringing. Then you go to the Congress [to impose the levy]. Unhappily, by a five to four decision, the Supreme Court said no.

PCW: Why can't people who legally purchase DVDs make one backup copy? How come the same fair use rights that let you make a backup copy of other media do not extend to DVDs?

Valenti: That question has nothing to do with fair use because a DVD is encrypted and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act says to circumvent an encryption violates that law.

Keep in mind how the DVD came into effect. The DVD was a result of voluntary agreements by the hardware people and by the copyright people. And everybody decided they were going to make machines that only took encrypted DVDs and then they would be decrypted in the machine--all done. And guess what? It's proven to be a bonanza for the DVD machine manufacturers and for the copyright owners. That was done the right way.

Do you know anything else in the country that if something is abused for any reason they'll give you a backup? If I go down to the hardware store and buy an electric lawn mower and I take it home, and three weeks later my wife runs over it in the driveway, I can't take it back and get a new one. I can't get a backup.

PCW: Well, when you buy a software program, aren't you buying the license to use it? You are entitled to make a backup copy.

Valenti: I don't want to deal with software because that's not my field.

If you're allowed to make up one backup copy of a DVD, all of a sudden somebody makes two and gives one to a friend. And next thing you know file-swappers are trading that film online. When I went on Kazaa just last Monday, there were 4,280,000 people in Kazaa at the same time I was.

PCW: What is Jack Valenti doing on Kazaa?

Valenti: I go on Kazaa every week just to see what's happening. And by the way, they were swapping 850 million files. And a lot of it was pornography, some of it was music, but a lot of it was films.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110698,00.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WinMX Speaks
Thomas Mennecke

WinMX has always been at the forefront of P2P development. When its OpenNap support base took a back seat to the WPNP (WinMX Peer Networking Protocol), its popularity and resourcefulness soared to new heights. While the networks' number 1 complaint remains the queuing situation, a grand process is in motion to resolve this and many other idiosyncrasies with the WinMX client. To settle many false rumors regarding the health and future of WinMX, we chatted with Frontcode President, Kevin Hearn. We thank him for taking the time to participate in this interview.

Slyck.com: What news can you give us regarding the latest developments of WinMX?

WinMX: Currently we are in the middle of a FULL re-write of the entire WinMX code base. This means the next version of WinMX we release (probably as v4.0) will be completely redesigned with several major improvements and several new features. While I can't speculate on a completion date yet, I can tell you that we are working as quickly as possible and progress thus far has been good.

Slyck.com: A posting to the WinMX newsgroup, supposedly from Frontcode, stated that development has stopped. This caused some concern because the headers checked out as coming from Frontcodes' IP. What insight can you give us?

WinMX: This is the first I have heard of this. We do not normally participate in _any_ newsgroup in any official capacity, nor do we regularly monitor the WinMX newsgroup. We only release official news on our web site.

Slyck.com: The delay has caused some concern. What can you tell us about this considerably delay?

WinMX:After v3.31 was released we did continue development of the v3 series. In fact, we got pretty far along in this development, almost to the point where we were ready to start beta testing a v3.4. However, during the late development stages it became more and more clear that we eventually needed to scrap the entire v3 core and start fresh, and that's what we did. We've been working on a fresh new WinMX for the past several months now, and it is coming along very well.

Slyck.com: Regarding the next release, what new features can we look forward to? Any radical departures from the current client? Perhaps some resolution to the "queue problem?"

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=165

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free vs. Fee: P2P Underground Still Thrives
John Borland

Mark Ishikawa was eating dinner at the Los Angeles Hilton a few weeks ago when he overheard a couple discussing the virtues of downloading music using free services like Kazaa.

As CEO of BayTSP, a company that tracks copyright infringement on file-swapping networks for record labels and movie studios, Ishikawa had a professional interest in the subject. So when he walked around the corner, expecting to see two college students, he was stunned to find a pair of senior citizens--a sign, he says, of how far the practice has spread.

"File swapping has gotten away from high school and college kids who understand protocols," Ishikawa said. "These were completely mainstream people. The mind-set and availability has gone from someone who has a degree in computer science all the way to this couple."

This is the reality that Apple Computer's new online service and other digital music distributors face as they finally move into the mainstream. Although file sharing is less common on Macintosh computers, iTunes stores still must compete with the millions of people using ubiquitous Windows software who pay nothing for music files that have no restrictions.

Rather than fear their demise, free music services say the large music companies and e-tailers will have no choice but to work with file-swapping technology instead of against it. They say a rise in consumer awareness from paid services, a series of favorable court rulings and a shift in law-enforcement tactics all seem to signal the beginning of a new, third age of file swapping that will postdate the death of Napster and the troubles of its offspring.

"Apple and others are competing with extremely large numbers of people who are using P2P (peer to peer) and other forms of technology to get free content," said Kevin Bermeister, chief executive of Altnet, a company that distributes paid content through the Kazaa file-sharing service. "Unless this is addressed directly, which entails reaching those users, I don't see how content companies are going to get to the masses on the Internet."

http://news.com.com/2009-1027_3-1009541.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CBS Backs Down on Threat to Pull Digital TV Lineup
Jeremy Pelofsky

Viacom Inc.'s CBS television network on Thursday backed down from a threat to pull its digital 2003- 2004 lineup unless federal regulators adopted a mechanism to protect shows from being pirated by this summer.

The Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) has been pushing the television industry, content providers and consumer electronics makers to speed up the transition to higher-quality digital signals and recently asked if the agency should adopt a so-called broadcast flag to protect programs from piracy.

Viacom warned the FCC in December that the network would pull its digital offerings, which include the popular college basketball tournament and favorite shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (news - Y! TV), unless the broadcast flag was adopted and enforced.

"CBS will reconsider its deadline and continue to provide a full schedule of high definition entertainment and sports programming to our viewers this upcoming television season," the network said in a statement.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Fred Upton who chairs the panels communications and Internet subcommittee, had earlier on Thursday written to urge the network to reconsider the threat.

We are "hopeful that the FCC will work to complete the broadcast flag proceeding by this fall, and certainly no later than the end of this calendar year," they said in a letter.

The flag would allow consumers to record broadcasts for personal use but prevent sharing perfect digital copies of the shows over the Internet.

Tauzin plans to introduce a bill in the next two months to address issues complicating the transition to digital, including requiring broadcasters to transmit digital signals by 2006 and end their analog broadcasts by the end of that year.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell (news) also on Wednesday sent letters to the networks, television stations, cable operators, satellite television service providers and consumer electronics makers seeking an update on their efforts to move the digital transition forward.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...evision_cbs_dc

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Starbucks, say it ain’t true?
Lessig Blog

So I have this from an extremely reliable source, who vouches totally for the facts that follow.

Story one: Last month while visiting Charleston, three women went into a Starbucks. They were spending the weekend together and one of them had a disposable camera with her. To commemorate their time with one and other they decided to take round robin pictures while sitting around communing. The manager evidently careened out of control, screaming at them, “Didn’t they know it was illegal to take photographs in a Starbucks. She insisted that she had to have the disposable camera because this was an absolute violation of Starbuck’s copyright of their entire ‘environment’--that everything in the place is protected and cannot be used with Starbuck’s express permission.

Story two: At our local [North Carolina] Starbucks, a friend’s daughter, who often has her camera with her, was notified that she was not allowed to take pictures in any Starbucks. No explanation was given, but pressed I would think that the manager there would give a similar rationale.

I wonder what would happen if hundreds of people from around the country experimented this holiday weekend by taking pictures at their local Starbucks …
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/...5.shtml#001223

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True fakes
Producing copies of art masterpieces is a lucrative - and legal - trade for Hollywood's scenic artists.
Andrew Marton

Tucked in the old Long Island, N.Y., artist enclave of The Springs lies Jackson Pollock's well-preserved home and studio - along with a study center - glorifying the tempestuous painter's work. Not long ago, this modest repository added two new Pollocks to its collection.

Each one of the canvases is a superb, accomplished example of the artist's work. Each is also fake.

Which was fine with Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock- Krasner House and Study Center. The mimicked works were created for the film "Pollock," the 2000 biopic about the abstract expressionist many dubbed "Jack the Dripper." Harrison was so impressed with "Pollock's" "amazing" replicas of the painter's work that she built an entire exhibit around them. And she wasn't the only art aficionado impressed by the works' quality.

"Within the context of 'Pollock,' the paintings were remarkably good, as I definitely knew which real works they were referring to," says Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic of The New York Times. "That the artists had the ability to imitate something like that was very impressive."

So who do Hollywood producers turn to when they need to realistically fabricate some of the most famous art in the world? A legion of people you've never heard of.

Most of Hollywood's scenic artists, supremely gifted brush and chisel copycats, freely admit they were unable to eke out even a Spartan living creating their own art. But though the pay is better in Hollywood, the recognition isn't - even, sometimes, for the art itself.

"As scenic artists, you do your work figuring the camera will linger on every precious stroke of the brush," says Jon Ringbom, charge scenic artist on "Pollock." "Then, of course, you think again and realize that at the last moment, the camera might just decide to shoot the other way."

Nevertheless, over the past decade, art mimics have been in serious demand in Hollywood. More than 110 of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo's works were copied for "Frida," last year's cinematic homage to a famous, tortured artist. A handful of Edward Hoppers, along with some luminous John Singer Sargents, adorned Mel Gibson's swank Manhattan apartment in the 1996 thriller "Ransom." Ignoring art history in his Oscar- winning epic "Titanic," director James Cameron shows Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" going down with the famously doomed ocean liner - leading to a copyright infringement lawsuit from the Picasso estate, which was settled out of court. (Because most great artworks from the 20th century are not in the public domain, studios must seek permission for their reproduction from the estates or legal guardians of the work.)

The trend continues with current and coming movies such as "The Last Samurai," "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," "Down With Love" and "The Boss's Daughter."

For a select few talented, if anonymous, artists and faux-art providers, this can make for a nice living. Born in New York, raised in France and speaking with a trace of a French accent, Christopher Moore has been at the helm of Manhattan-based Troubetzkoy Paintings since 1989. His debut in the movie art duplication business was 1993's "The Age of Innocence."
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/oc...month=5&day=26

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Acclaimed Honda ad in copycat dispute
Claire Cozens

Two artists whose work has been shown at Tate Modern are threatening legal action against Honda UK, claiming the company's hit "Cog" commercial is a rip-off of their award-winning short film.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss say Honda's 60-second commercial, which is already being described as one of the most impressive television adverts ever made, copies key elements of their 30-minute film, Der Lauf Der Dinge (The Way Things Go), which was made in 1987.

They claim the creatives behind the Honda advert must have seen their film, in which everyday objects such as string, soap, balloons and mattresses - fuelled by fire, gas, and gravity - move in a domino-like chain reaction.

Well known in film circles, Der Lauf Der Dinge won awards at the Berlin and Sydney film festivals and was described by the New York Times as a "masterpiece".

Lawyers representing Mr Fischli and Mr Weiss have written to Honda UK complaining about the alleged similarities and claiming copyright infringement.

In an interview with Creative Review, Mr Fischli said he believed they should have been consulted by Honda's advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy.

"Of course we didn't invent the chain reaction and Cog is obviously a different thing. But we did make a film the creatives of the Honda ad have obviously seen. We feel we should have been consulted about the making of this ad," he said.

"Companies and ad agencies have asked us for permission to use the film on several occasions but for this reason we have always said no."

Honda confirmed it had received the letter and said it was "looking into the allegations".

"As far as I know there's no such thing as copyright of an idea," said a spokesman.

The case echoes that of film director Mehdi Norowzian, who took Guinness to court claiming a high-profile commercial for the brand copied one of his short films.

The case went to the high court but the judge ruled against Norowzian and ordered him to pay costs of up to £200,000 to Guinness.

Four years ago artist Gillian Wearing considered suing Volkswagen over alleged similarities between its flashcard adverts and a series of her photographs in which she was pictured holding up signs.

Click here to see the Honda ad in Creative Lounge.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertis...962499,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Electronic Freedom Foundation on Veto of Colorado Super-DMCA
EFF staff

"Governor Owens, in vetoing the Colorado super-DMCA bill, recognized that these bills are bad for innovation, bad for competition, and bad for consumers," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "These MPAA-sponsored bills represent the worst kind of special interest legislation, sacrificing the public interest in favor of the self-serving interests of one industry."

Governor Owens today vetoed the Colorado version of the "super- DMCA," a piece of state legislation being pressed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in state legislatures around the country. A wide variety of groups, including grassroots activists, civil liberties organizations and electronics manufacturers and retailers have rallied to oppose these measures around the country. For more on the status of these bills around the country, visit EFF's super-DMCA resources page.

[bb]TIA Report Shines No New Light[/b]

The Bush Administration released its long-awaited report to Congress
on the "Total Information Awareness" program today. (Now renamed "Terrorism Information Awareness")

"The report is disappointing -- after more than a hundred pages, you don't know anything more about whether TIA will work or whether your civil liberties will be safe against it," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "It's also disingenuous for a report about new technologies for monitoring people to keep saying, 'don't worry, we'll follow existing privacy law.' Privacy law is already behind the technology curve, and the Bush Administration fully understands that TIA will only make the problem worse."
http://www.eff.org/news/breaking/arc..._05.php#000283

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legislature won't vote on cable theft this year
Kathy Carlson

A bill pitting telecommunications and entertainment companies against some of their customers won't come up for a vote in the General Assembly this year, its sponsors said yesterday.

Backers said the bill was needed to update state law on the theft of cable and other telecommunications services.

Opponents — many of them computer professionals and enthusiasts who mobilized via the Internet — said no new law was needed and the measure as originally written threatened privacy and civil liberties.

A hearing on an amended version of the bill had been scheduled for Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, Sen. Curtis Person, R- Memphis, said yesterday that he will introduce a joint House-Senate resolution to send the measure to a study committee charged with reporting back to legislators by Feb. 1, 2004.

The study-committee option will allow more time for discussion, Person said, adding that his aim as the bill's Senate sponsor was to draft a measure that would punish lawbreakers, not infringe on freedoms.

''I'm hoping the study will give us a chance to show the bill does what we say it does, and it's a fair way to deal with an important problem,'' said Bo Johnson, a lobbyist for the cable industry.

Earlier this year, cable companies estimated piracy costs them $6 billion a year nationwide, $100 million-$130 million of that in Tennessee.

Tony Campbell, a Web developer and opponent of the bill, said he welcomed a chance to work with lawmakers to craft a bill that would protect intellectual property rights while allowing consumers ''to use technology the way we want to.''

Opponents also feared that the bill would stifle innovative technologies. Lawmakers and backers of the bill said many concerns had been amended out of the bill.

Late yesterday, the bill's House sponsor, Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, said he ''needed more time to inform others about what the bill actually did,'' and that wouldn't be possible with the session winding down.
http://tennessean.com/business/archi...t_ID=33062618.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DVD piracy case targets free speech
Howard Mintz

In October 1999, San Francisco computer programmer Andrew Bunner, a fan of a newfangled alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating system, posted a clever way to play and copy DVDs on his Web site. Bunner had nothing to do with developing the trick -- indeed, it was devised thousands of miles away in the home of a 15-year-old Norwegian tech whiz.

But that didn't matter to Hollywood. The movie industry came down on Bunner and others who'd exchanged the program, calling them computer pirates for unleashing throughout cyberspace the secrets to copying DVDs for free.

Four years later, DVD makers, while still fighting numerous legal battles to prevent copying, have been forced to concede their secrets are out the Internet's barn door. However, their case against Bunner lives on and has been transformed into a precedent-setting conflict between the First Amendment and California's tough trade-secret protections.

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case, which has attracted widespread attention, from leading law professors and civil liberties groups who are defending free speech on the Internet to major corporations such as Microsoft and Coca-Cola that are trying to ensure their business secrets can be protected from being mouseclicked around the globe.

And caught in the cross-hairs of this legal clash -- which many experts predict could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court -- is Bunner, a 26- year-old software programmer who still isn't quite sure what hit him.

``It feels a little surreal,'' Bunner said last week. ``All I did was post some code that seemed freely available and it landed me in court. I think they just want a ruling saying that you can't do this, you can't talk about our special sauce.''

The DVD Copy Control Association, a powerful arm of the movie industry, takes a far more sinister view of the case. Like the music industry's successful legal fight to shut down Napster, Hollywood considers the Bunner case critical to the control of its product and bottom line.

To the industry, the stakes in the state Supreme Court are no less than the ability to keep the Web from becoming a license for digital pirates to distribute free, copied movies with impunity.

``You can't just deliberately stick this on the Web and say, `OK, never mind, we're on the Web,' '' said Jeffrey Kessler, a New York-based lawyer for the DVD industry. ``They have to come up with a standard.''

Hollywood has heavyweight backing in the case, including companies like Ford Motor, AOL-Time Warner and Boeing that warn free speech protections, in this instance, should be trumped by trade secret protections or companies will lose the ability to police their business models, ``even the secret formula for Coca-Cola.''
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryne...al/5950819.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mobile phones to get Palladium-style chips
Matthew Broersma

ARM, the UK firm whose technology is a de facto standard for mobile phones and handheld computers, has introduced a hardware-level security technology for protecting copyrighted content, secure passwords and other sensitive data on mobile devices.

TrustZone, which has some parallels to Microsoft's controversial Next-Generation Secure Computing Base for PCs (formerly known as Palladium), will be built into ARM cores early next year and could begin appearing in products in 2005, the company said. It could help spread the adoption of applications such as m-commerce and corporate mobile computing, by ensuring that important data will not fall into the wrong hands.

ARM said the technology is intended to be far less draconian than Secure Computing Base, which many have criticised as a thinly-veiled attempt to prevent PC users from carrying out activities deemed unacceptable by copyright holders.

"I don't see the same interest from the (mobile phone network) operators in being quite so prescriptive as in the PC world," said Richard York, ARM's secure technologies programme manager. "There is a strong interest in making sure the user experience is positive. If they begin selling services that strongly restrict what you can do with content, I am sceptical they will take off."

TrustZone is a low-level technology that builds security into the processor core itself, and allows operating systems makers, handset vendors and silicon manufacturers to come up with their own security systems based on the hardware platform. York said that a Palladium-style system could be built upon the ARM technology, if a software maker wished to do so. It aims to replace existing proprietary systems that add a security component outside the core, which ARM says can cause problems for mobile device software.

"There are solutions out there already, but they are not very standardised," York said. "The vendors have to rewrite bits of their firmware for different chipsets, and that is a pain for them. This is as much about standardisation as anything else."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2135264,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ARM adding hardware-based security to its processor cores
Tom Krazit, IDG News Service

Chip designer ARM Ltd. will add extensions to its processor core next year that incorporate hardware-based security technologies, the company announced today.

Future versions of the company's ARM core for chips for mobile devices and wireless handsets will contain protected areas for storage of user authentication keys, as well as areas of the processor that are off-limits to unauthorized users, said Mary Inglis, director of operating systems and alliances at ARM.

TrustZone, as the technology enabling the extensions is called, creates a parallel domain where secure applications can run alongside nonsecure applications. The operating system or application vendors set the policies designating what data is secure and what data isn't, Inglis said.

As the computing power of smart phones and other mobile devices grows, users will need to feel secure while making financial transactions, sending e-mail or accessing corporate data for adoption of those devices to become widespread, Inglis said. Crucial software applications often have to be downloaded to a handheld device, which creates a number of openings for hackers or viruses to exploit.

ARM is adding what it calls an S-bit, for security, to the sixth version of its architecture. The S-bit is applied to code that needs to be secure, and a separate portion of an ARM processor monitors and identifies data tagged with an S-bit. That data is run through the processor separately from nonsecure data.

Security extensions were also added to the Level-1 memory system. Most processors have a small amount of memory stored in a cache close to the CPU that is used to store frequently accessed instructions. These memory-level extensions can recognize the S-bit and control the flow of secure and nonsecure data from the memory cache to the CPU.

The operating system on a TrustZone device will also boot from the secure portion of the processor, checking to make sure everything is safe within the operating system and applications before booting the entire device.
http://www.computerworld.com/printth...,81549,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

State of the art: A medium reborn
John Borland, Evan Hansen and Mike Yamamoto

David Goldberg took out a magazine ad this month with a bold promise to make a star out of a little-known singer from Virginia named Jason Mraz.

But Goldberg isn't a record label executive or a Hollywood agent--he's the head of Yahoo's music division. Using online ads, exclusive live videos, and continuous play on the Web portal's radio stations, the campaign is a shot across the bow of the music industry to show that Yahoo can become a hit-making machine to even rival radio giants such as Clear Channel.

"In two years, no, we're not going to match Clear Channel--five years possibly, though that's still a stretch. But we'll be up there," Goldberg said. "At the rate we're growing, we will start to surpass most radio chains in a year."

Yahoo's confidence is just one sign of digital music's long-awaited surge into the mainstream. Years of paralyzing litigation, industry intransigence and failed strategies are finally giving way to promising efforts backed by major labels and artists--most notably Apple Computer's new iTunes Music Store.

Other services have quietly established themselves with mass audiences, too. AOL subscribers tap close to 3 million songs or music video streams a day, as well as listen to hundreds of millions of Net radio streams. On a smaller but growing scale, digital music is being distributed in hundreds of places on the Web, from artists' own sites to retail outlets like BestBuy.com.

If this trajectory stays true, the result could be the redefinition of music that Net visionaries have promised for years. Just as vinyl albums dictated song counts and radio gave rise to one-hit wonders, digital distribution may ultimately help revolutionize the way music is produced, packaged and even created.

Such changes carry broad ramifications for major industries from software to entertainment. Some believe that technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft or Yahoo will challenge broadcast media and the record labels in influence--a prospect that haunts music executives and one of the reasons for their early opposition to digital distribution.

"In the history of consolidation of the record industry, maybe it will be the technology companies that go after the media companies," said Jeff Cavins, chief executive of music encoding service Loudeye. "We saw that with AOL Time Warner. Sony purchased Columbia in 1987. Perhaps it will play out the same way here."
http://news.com.com/2009-1027_3-1009535.html?tag=cd_mh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Real pushes lower-cost Rhapsody
Stefanie Olsen

RealNetworks on Wednesday will cease selling the music-subscription service MusicNet in favor of one from Listen.com's Rhapsody, which also plans to charge a new low of 79 cents per track to rip CDs.

The Seattle-based digital media company is introducing a co-branded subscription service called RealOne Rhapsody, a version of the popular digital- download music product from Listen to run only on Microsoft Windows-compatible machines. In addition, Listen is lowering the cost of CD-burning from 99 cents to 79 cents per track in a move to better compete against Apple Computer's new music-download service, iTunes, among others.

The RealNetworks' product is the first major development that postdates the company's proposed $36 million acquisition of privately held Listen in April; the buyout is expected to be complete by the end of the third quarter. It is also a visible sign that RealNetworks has opted to back Rhapsody as its music service of choice at the expense of MusicNet, the rival subscription service it helped create in 2001, and in which it is still part owner.

MusicNet is a joint venture between RealNetworks, Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner and EMI Group; the service, despite a relatively recent update, has failed to catch on as swimmingly as Rhapsody. Listen licenses Rhapsody to a number of major Internet providers, including Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications and Verizon Online.

With MusicNet, "we were a technology vendor and partner and investor and retailer. After this, we won't be a retailer," said Dan Sheeran, vice president of marketing at RealNetworks. "We felt (we wanted to make) this as easy as possible, with one offering."

With RealOne Rhapsody, RealNetworks aims to round out and bolster its set of subscription services, which has more than 1 million subscribers.

For $9.95 a month, people will be able to access more than 330,000 digital music tracks on demand, with about 200,000 songs available for CD burning at 79 cents per song. The service also combines custom radio and custom-CD mixing features.

Rhapsody is promoting CD-copying by lowering the cost per track because music fans are keen on the capability. The company said it promoted CD- copying earlier this year with 49 cent tracks and found that CD-burning activity increased by more than 300 percent. At the same time, subscribers continued to listen to about 250 songs a month.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1010558.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apple limits iTunes file sharing
Ian Fried

Apple Computer has limited a music-sharing feature from the latest version of iTunes after some Mac owners used it to swap songs over the Internet.

In an update to iTunes released Tuesday, the Mac maker removed a feature that had been exploited to allow Mac users to swap songs over the Internet. Version 4.0.1 of iTunes removes the ability to share iTunes play lists over the Internet, limiting the feature to streaming songs over a local network.

"The new iTunes 4.0.1 update limits Rendezvous music sharing to work only between computers on a local network (its intended use) and disables music sharing over the Internet," Apple said in a statement provided to CNET News.com.

Apple said in the statement that it was "disappointed" that people had used the new feature in iTunes to copy music with strangers.

"Rendezvous music sharing...has been used by some in ways that have surprised and disappointed us," Apple said. "We designed it to allow friends and family to easily stream (not copy) their music between computers at home or in a small group setting, and it does this well. But some people are taking advantage of it to stream music over the Internet to people they do not even know."

The company began distributing the more restrictive version of iTunes on Tuesday to those Mac users who have elected to receive updates automatically, but it is not yet available for download on Apple's Web site. An Apple representative was not immediately able to say what, if any, features have been added to the program in the latest version.

Nonetheless, Apple says "All iTunes 4 users should upgrade to iTunes 4.0.1."

Apple introduced iTunes 4 last month when it debuted the iTunes Music Store.

Although people were swapping their existing music collections using iTunes, Apple said that no one has broken the encryption used with songs purchased from its online store. "The iTunes Music Store has been very successful to date, and the mechanisms we put in place to secure that music against theft are working well," Apple said. "Music purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on up to three authorized Macintosh computers, and there has been no breach of this security."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1010541.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Hacking the XBox' - Cult Classic or Crime?
James Maguire

"Only technology that allows you to hack copyright is covered by the DMCA, not information. If [Huang] were providing a box, then that would be actionable, but information on how to do it is not."
Andrew "Bunnie" Huang's new book may not become a mainstream bestseller, but it quite likely will be a cult classic among hackers -- and that is enough to incur the wrath of the world's largest software maker.

Huang is the author of "Hacking the XBox: Inside the Big Green X." Having recently earned his Ph.D in electrical engineering from M.I.T., he describes himself as "part engineer, part hacker." But "more of a hacker in the traditional sense -- when hacker meant a geek who played with computers a lot, rather than a script-kiddie hacker," he told NewsFactor.

The step-by-step guide explores the security vulnerabilities in Microsoft's XBox. It provides information about mod chips and teaches readers how to replace the XBox's firmware, an upper level hacker's trick. Equipped with the book and a soldering iron, the reader can completely reverse-engineer Microsoft's game console.

"My original motivation was, like, 'Hacking is cool -- I want to explore how to go through secure systems,'" Huang said. "I wrote the book very much as an educational book about reverse engineering. It's like, 'Oh, here's the XBox, here's a common example,' but once you're done with the book, you ought to be able to take your PC apart and do the same sort of thing."

It is safe to assume that not everyone is eager for Huang's guide to home modification of the XBox to gain a wide audience when it becomes available on May 27th.

XBox manufacturer Microsoft, along with Nintendo and Sony, has filed a lawsuit against Lik-Sang, a Hong Kong-based gaming-equipment company that sold mod chips, a device used to play copied games. The company was temporarily shut down and no longer sells the devices.

Faring even worse was David Rocci, who was sentenced to five months in prison and levied a stiff fine for running a Web site that sold mod chips and helped gamers find unauthorized copies of Xbox games to run on their modified boxes.

The book originally was to be published by Wiley & Sons. "Wiley approached me, and said, 'We want to do a hacking line,'" Huang recalled.

But as the project progressed, Wiley got cold feet. "After our review of the initial manuscript of 'Hacking the XBox,'" said Susan Spilka, Wiley's corporate communications director, "we were not comfortable with possible circumvention violations in the text.

"The law in this area is not yet settled, but because Wiley has been a major proponent of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we took a cautious stance," she told NewsFactor. "Nonetheless, we wish Mr. Huang well."

As Huang explained it, "When Wiley dropped the book it became more of a political thing. After investing so much time in doing the book, I wanted to get it out there."

He paid a printer for the initial print run, and is self-publishing the book through his Web site. He also is talking to representatives at Borders and Barnes & Noble to get the book into stores.

"In the United States, you can publish just about anything that teaches people how to break the law," said Parry Aftab, a lawyer who has represented Yahoo, Disney and other major firms in Internet-related issues. "That's the beauty and the problem with the First Amendment."

She does not expect Huang to encounter legal problems from the book's publication, she told NewsFactor.

However, "The difference between free speech and the liability of a publisher is that a publisher is liable for any defamation, any violation of copyrights and everything else," Aftab said.

She would not have expected legal difficulties for Wiley had they published the book, though, she said. "Only technology that allows you to hack copyright is covered by the DMCA, not information. If [Huang] were providing a box, then that would be actionable, but information on how to do it is not.”
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21608.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Microsoft wins in digital media
Evan Hansen

AOL Time Warner's settlement with Microsoft on Thursday brings the software giant a powerful ally in extending its digital media technology--part of Microsoft's plan to keep Windows the world's dominant computer operating system.

The deal allows--but does not require--AOL Time Warner to use Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series software and future versions of the multimedia technology, including its digital rights management (DRM) tool for securing music and video files from piracy.

Despite the open-endedness of the terms, the deal represents an important victory for Microsoft, which has tried for years to overcome reluctance from AOL Time Warner and other media companies to embrace its digital media technology over that of rivals, notably RealNetworks and Apple Computer.

"This is a huge win for Microsoft," Gartner analyst David Smith said.

The deal comes just weeks after Apple opened its iTunes Music Store, selling millions of downloads and putting Microsoft on the defensive.

While AOL Time Warner has announced no specific use for the Microsoft technology in the deal, analysts said it is likely just a matter of time before the company begins announcing products and services that rely on Windows Media--for example, in a digital music download store or in an Internet video-on- demand service. AOL Time Warner owns the Warner Bros. label, one of the five largest record companies in the world.

Broadly, the deal suggests that Microsoft and AOL Time Warner are untangling their competitive interests over technology. In the past, the two have clashed on a number of fronts in this regard, offering competing Web browsers, streaming media technology and instant messaging services, for example. Thursday's settlement lays the groundwork for cooperation in all of these once-contentious areas.

"This signals detente," said Matt Rosoff, analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "The companies are diverging. AOL no longer sees itself as a technology company. It will use whatever products make sense."

Microsoft has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into developing digital media security technology in a bid to convince media companies to adopt its formats for emerging entertainment products and services. The software giant has wooed customers using tried-and-true methods honed during the browser wars with Netscape, including bundling its technology with other products at no extra cost.

Still, it has taken years for the company to chip away at the lead established by RealNetworks in technology for distributing real-time audio and video, known as streaming media. Its Windows Media formats are still only a footnote in the world of music downloads, where the MP3 format rules supreme. And Microsoft has suddenly found itself playing catch-up to Apple in the race to develop commercially viable digital music services.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1011383.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jewel Pleasing Fans Online, On Tour
Troy Carpenter

Atlantic Records is offering something extra to Jewel fans who buy her forthcoming album "0304," due June 3, during its first week of release. Each copy in the first run of "0304" will include a download card with a unique PIN number allowing access to a secure site from which users can download solo live MP3 versions of "The New Wild West" and "Life Uncommon." The promotion runs through June 9.

The bonus site will also allow access to streaming in-studio footage of the artist, tour clips, and live performance videos culled from her last tour, all of which will be available past June 9.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1896490

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All we need to digitize
Paul Gilster

I'm a fast reader, but I've just found a machine that can read faster than me. It simplifies book scanning and could transform how we build digital libraries. Assuming, of course, that we can solve the serious copyright issues that keep digital libraries from happening.

A Swiss company called 4DigitalBooks is behind the device, which is essentially a high-quality, high-speed scanning system with a cradle that handles page turning and protects the book being scanned. The pages are displayed on a nearby screen, where they can be processed in all sorts of elegant ways, from enhancing their images or photographs to smoothing out the curvature caused by the book's shape.
Did I say fast? This machine can process as many as 1,200 pages per hour, turning the pages and sensing when it has accidentally turned more than one, a situation it fixes with a carefully applied puff of air. And it's supposedly gentle enough to handle even rare books.

If a book-scanning robot can do all this, the world of book digitization will be turned upside down. Current projects, such as Carnegie Mellon University's Million Book Project, use manual digitization. Scanning books by hand is often accomplished by cheap labor in places such as India, where the cost of scanning volumes is under $5 a volume, but such scanning can be full of errors, which is why academic projects such as Documenting the American South, by UNC-Chapel Hill, do the work in-house with help from student volunteers.

But special collections are one thing. Documenting the American South, for example, includes about 1,230 books and manuscripts. What about scanning entire libraries? Digitizing out-of-print books would rescue thousands from oblivion, books that are not available in stores but remain under copyright.

Copyright restrictions are severe in part because of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Passed in 1998 and recently upheld by the Supreme Court, this act extended the term of copyright from the life of the author plus 50 years to the life of the author plus 70 years (with corporate work protected for 95 years).

As a result, tens of thousands of books now languish in a kind of limbo. They are unavailable except through used book outlets. Few of them are likely to see new editions -- in fact, only 2 percent of copyrighted work between 1923 and 1942 is commercially viable. But because of copyright, these books cannot be made available online.

Lawrence Lessig and others have been trying to right this situation with a new bill. Fifty years after publication, the copyright owner would pay a $1 maintenance fee to continue the copyright. Upon nonpayment, the book would automatically pass into the public domain. Lessig, a law professor at Stanford and author of The "Future of Ideas" (Random House, 2001), believes 98 percent of such books would lose their copyright, after which they could be digitized and made available free online.

And why not? The mechanics of publishing via paper and ink make it difficult to issue new editions in tiny numbers, but digital books can be made and reproduced with ease, one at a time. And although authors or their estates could choose to hold onto copyright, the vast bulk of titles don't earn any royalties after that amount of time.

The Public Domain Enhancement Act would help us take advantage of technologies like the robot scanner from 4DigitalBooks. And it would unlock a vast store of learning and raw information that would otherwise languish. No one has yet been found to introduce the bill in Congress, so writing to our lawmakers would be in order. For more information, see the Web site eldred.cc.
http://newsobserver.com/business/sto...-2386660c.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Napster's Rise And Fall--And Its Future

What follows is the transcript of a May 27 online chat hosted by Los Angeles Times reporter Joseph Menn for members of the Forbes.com CEO Network. Menn is the author of the recently published All The Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster (Crown Business, $25).

FDCEDITORS: Welcome everyone. Joseph Menn is here and ready to begin answering your questions, so let's begin.

Frank_Giles: What was so revolutionary about Shawn Fanning's original computer program?

JOSEPH_MENN: Shawn's great insight was that there was no reason that he could not combine the power of a search engine like Google with what is known as "presence-awareness" of instant messaging and other systems. In this way, only people whose MP3 files were available at any one moment would have those files listed for others to find. The other brilliant aspect was that since each music file would be stored on individual personal computers, it didn't take massive numbers of servers--some thousands--to store all of the content.

audenkim: Is Fanning at all involved in their re-launch as a legit service?

JOSEPH_MENN: Yes he is. Roxio had hired Shawn previously as a consultant to advise it on the user interface. Now that Roxio has bought Pressplay and will re-launch it, Shawn will continue to advise them.

SamathaP: Can Napster not rebound by offering a service like Apple Computer, where they charge 99 cents per song download?

JOSEPH_MENN: The new service when it launches will certainly charge for most songs. My personal guess is that by then the 99 cent figure will be lower, both for the new Napster and for other legitimate services. Apple's success shows that there is a broad market for paid music online and underscores how foolish the record industry was for not offering something similar three years ago, a lapse that allowed Napster to become the fastest-growing business in history.

Jasper: What's Shawn Fanning doing now?

JOSEPH_MENN: While Shawn is helping Roxio as it attempts to revamp Pressplay, he's spending most of his time on a new startup. That startup is designed to send music through the Internet on behalf of artists who want their music distributed.

jupiter334: How long did it take Fanning to realize he had come up with something that would turn the music industry upside down? Did he have a clue what he was getting into?

JOSEPH_MENN: Shawn realized very early--within months at most--that his invention would change everything, according to his emails from that period. What he didn't know was that the system would provoke such a backlash and that the record industry would rather fight to the death than buy him off, which is what he and the others expected to happen.
http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/28/0528mennchat.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tipping point
js

soulseek, for readers who aren't regular users, is the closest thing that exists right now to napster. for the regular user it's getting where it's hard not to find what you're looking for. it’s hitting that tipping point where a network stops being a cult service and breaks out wide.

a few weeks ago its days were numbered – i believe the riaa was on the verge of shutting it down - now i'm not so sure. they may not be able to or they may hold back until the grokster appeals are exhausted – but that’s only a guess. meanwhile each day it stays up means its base increases exponentially. if you haven't been on in a while you owe it to yourself to experience this unique application.

full albums, high bit rates, ogg support, great IM and relevant, working chat rooms plus auto resume. it has everything napster did and then some.

this is one hot app. the hottest i think. pass it on.

http://www.slsk.org/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forum Talk

Is this the legal music service we are all waiting for?
Kewbase

Do you remember the Chris Myden Guide to creating amazing mp3’s that was posted some months ago?

I kind of fell in love with the Lame –alt preset standard encoded mp3’s and have found it hard to accept music files that were encoded with an inferior method. But it was some job to join a place where you can download these files. Anyone that ever studied the rules of the Ubernethubs will recognize this. And with the RIAA hunting down DChubs they are not the safest places to hang out.

With all the news about iTunes and Puretunes I decided to evaluate the legal download services. I was happy to see that Emusic is offering mp3’s encoded with Lame and the alt-preset-standard switch. I tried their 14 days trail subscription, but their catalogue is far too limited. Not worth paying 10 dollars a month for in my honest opinion.

I stumbled across a website called AllofMP3.com This website offers downloads of more than 15000 albums. A fair number of those albums can be encoded on request. This service is called Online encoding, You want MP3, AAC. OGG , WMA? Take your pick. That’s an amazing feature already, but what is even more astonishing. You can also choose alt-preset –standard/extreme/insane. Wow!! Looks like a dream come true.

And what does this cost? Just one dollar cent for every Mb you download. For 10 dollars you have the right to download one gigabyte of music. No strings attached, no copy protections!

I have signed up. paid a few bucks and I have to say it’s running smoothly. Great download speeds. Great music. Great sound quality! One easy way to get your albums in high quality audio. I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else. This is the way I will gladly pay for downloading music.

Okay, allofmp3.com is a Russian company but don’t let this scare you off. Just be glad that Russian copyright law makes this possible. Our former ‘enemies’ have become our friends. Itunes, Pressplay and Musicnet eat your heart out.


Begoodbebad responds:

Yes the Chris Myden guide is excellent, the combination of EAC and Lame is possibly unsurpassable for MP3 encoding and his guide is thorough and accessible but to actually join one the Uberfascist filesharing hubs...as far as i can tell it isn't possible. you can meet and/ or exceed all the prerequisites in terms of quantity and quality and format and have a great variety of music to share and on trying to join what happens....nothing...no return e mail nothing...you have to remember you're dealing with the MP3 Pseudo Master Race...excuse me the MP3 Ubermenschen.... So the alternative is to keep ripping and keep sharing your LAME EAC MP3s and *GET THEM OUT THERE*. As for paying $10 a GB.....*no thanks* ..here in UK I can go to the public library, rent a CD for the equivalent of $1 a week and rip it, copy it, share it on Emule or Kazaa...thats $1 to obtain the genuine CD and have 7 days to use it as I please....no fakes no corrupt files no hassle...I get the booklet, artwork everything...and if my local library hasn't got what I want they can obtain it from any other library in UK! So for all the technology of the net and the benefits of Russian copyright law(!) nobody yet has come up with anyhting as brilliant, cheap, accessible and well stocked as the British Public Lending Library! This is file sharing at its beautiful best, subsidised and supported by the taxpayer and approved of by all...and the artists get paid for every one of their CDs that is borrowed. Beat This!
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../05272003g.php

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More PC Music Deals Seen Breaking New Legal Ground
Sue Zeidler and Caroline Humer

A legal dispute that threatened to derail Gateway Inc.'s groundbreaking plan to load music on its computers has been quietly resolved amid growing interest in such offerings by rival PC makers, executives and analysts said on Thursday.

Months after announcing a first-of-its-kind deal in December to preload 2,000 tracks from music subscription service Pressplay onto its PCs, Gateway withdrew the offering for several weeks due to a dispute between Pressplay and music publishers, representatives of both sides said.

The publishers, who own copyrights on songs, had sent a cease-and-desist order saying Gateway's deal did not fall under an October 2001 deal covering publishers' digital royalties.

The crux of the issue was that the earlier agreement between music publishers and labels had been limited to online delivery, on-demand streaming and limited downloads. Gateway's deal to load songs onto a computer was a new form of delivery that required different licensing, the publishers argued.

"We were caught in the middle of it as someone who was distributing the product," Gateway spokesman Brad Williams said of the dispute that was finally resolved earlier this spring.

The tentative deal between publishers and Pressplay -- which this month was purchased by Roxio Inc. ROXI.O and will soon be combined with the assets of defunct music file swap service Napster in a new service -- is expected to serve as a template for other tie-ups expected this year between PC makers and music services.

"We've reached an agreement in principle to solve this (Gateway) matter and are now finalizing a written agreement," said Carey Ramos, a lawyer for the Harry Fox Agency, which represents thousands of songwriters.

Gateway, the No. 3 U.S. maker of personal computers, also promotes the rival Rhapsody service, owned by RealNetworks Inc. No music comes preloaded in that arrangement.

The computer sector is buzzing with talk of such distribution agreements, particularly on the heels of Apple Computer Inc.'s launch of its own music service, which has sold more than 3 million tracks at 99 cents each to Macintosh users.

"I would be surprised if a major PC company was not offering a music service toward the critical Christmas buying season in the fourth quarter," said Peter Kastner, chief research officer at the Aberdeen Group.

"I really think that with Apple shooting off the starting gun ... the rest of the year will be a catch-up scramble to get product to market and grab Windows PC market share at all costs," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=2848773

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Start your own network.

P2P Without an ISP

Green Packet Solution Allows for Peer-to-Peer, Self-organizing Connections In Legend Laptops Without the Need for a Fixed Network
Press Release

Green Packet, a leading developer of intelligent roaming infrastructure and wireless network solutions, announced today that Legend, the leading IT nterprise in China, will bundle Green Packet's software platform SONbuddy(TM) in all its Wi-Fi notebook computers -- the Lenovo A820 and the Lenovo E360.

SONbuddy, an intelligent software platform enabling Wi-Fi-equipped devices to form spontaneous, self-organizing networks (SON), automatically seeks, organizes and maintains a peer-to-peer and peer-to-multi-peer ad hoc community based on user-defined preferred search parameters. These self-healing and self-optimizing properties allow Legend notebook users to communicate even in the absence of any fixed wireless infrastructure such as network hotspots.

"We see Green Packet's SONbuddy as a key element in helping future generations of mobile users to bridge the networking gaps whenever they roam beyond the reach of fixed infrastructure. This is especially beneficial for China where many small enterprises do not have WLAN. With SONbuddy, they can communicate and share the IT resources in the office more easily without the need of investing in WLAN," said Xia Yang, General Manager of Legend Notebook Business. "Apart from mobile computing, we can now offer our customers the added value of creating their own private mobile community network that the user only shares with friends or colleagues, or with other SONbuddy users, upon invitation. This provides a new way for users to network and participate
in other communities discovered in the vicinity."

Green Packet's multi-hop technology allows wireless notebooks and other devices to become personal intelligent routers. When a transmission occurs from device A to device B, it multi-hops over other devices to create a connection. Together with its Internet sharing capability, SONbuddy's multi-hop and self-organizing attributes extend the traditional reach of a
typical wireless LAN network.

"We are thrilled to be teaming with Legend to empower Wi-Fi notebook users with the ability to create or participate in one or more spontaneous interest-based community networks," said C.C. Puan,founder and President/CEO of Green Packet. "As China's leading IT enterprise with a strategic focus on increased mobility, Legend is an ideal partner to help us reach a wide audience of next generation mobile users with attractive SONbuddy applications."

Some of the applications available through the bundled SONbuddy include full-duplex Voice over IP, personal firewall, data authentication and encryption, Internet sharing, file sharing, and instant messaging and chatting.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2003,+12:29+PM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RIAA sues over file-sharing site, but settles suit
Josh Brodie

This past semester, the nationwide debate over file-sharing and online music theft hit the University in a personal way as the Recording Industry Association of America – a trade group representing the interests of the major record labels – sued sophomore Daniel Peng for what could have been billions of dollars.

Peng had been operating a website known as "Wake" — accessible at wake.princeton.edu — which let campus network users search for shared files. The RIAA alleged that this search engine facilitated music theft on a grand scale and that Peng himself had made hundreds of copyrighted works available from his computer.

If he was found liable in court, Peng could have been fined $150,000 for each act of copyright infringement. The suit filed on April 3 alleged that he was responsible for thousands of such acts.

However, after a month of negotiation between lawyers and tense speculation on campus, the suit — along with three others filed against college students for operating similar services — was settled out of court. Under the terms of the settlement, Peng agreed to pay the RIAA $15,000 and take down his site while not admitting any wrongdoing.

According to the University's copyright compliance officer in OIT, Rita Saltz, the University ordinarily receives complaints from industry groups and then contacts the appropriate students — who most often cooperate immediately. In the last year, Saltz's office received about 130 complaints, but she said the suit came as a "terrible surprise."

"I had no idea this was coming," she said.

"The RIAA really wants to send a frightening message," wrote David Dobkin, chair of the computer science department and next year's dean of the faculty, in an email. "These students (Peng et. al.) are being set up to scare others away from doing this.""I'm definitely relieved now that it's all over," said Peng on May 1 after the settlement was announced. He said he was looking forward to getting back to his life as it used to be.

Howard Ende, Peng's lead counsel in the case and former general counsel to the University was satisfied with the settlement and said it "could have been a lot worse."

"In some ways Dan and the others were forced to settle, and [the RIAA] came up with numbers they felt would send a message," Ende said.

RIAA senior vice-president Matt Oppenheim disagreed with the idea that insurmountable legal costs prompted the settlement.

According to Oppenheim, the RIAA never expected to get the billions of dollars implied by the initial filing, but rather, it wanted to send a message to people operating similar file-sharing networks.

Since the settlement, Peng has begun to collect donations through the wake site. To date, he has received more than $1,500. However, that is still far short of his goal of paying of the $15,000 settlement and legal fees.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/arc...ews/8327.shtml

Students satirize University fire policy, file sharing
Kathy Li

Following in the footsteps of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, two University students have chosen to use music to protest power of the music industry.

About two weeks ago, after the news of the crackdown on the Wake file- sharing website within the University network, seniors Matt Gale and Sanjay Varma wrote a little ditty they call "Ode to Fire Safety."

"We wrote it so that people would have something to listen to now that copyrighted music is not the thing to do," Gale said.

Gale and Varma did not write the song specifically to challenge the Recording Industry Association of America — which brought a suit against Wake owner Dan Peng '05 and students at other universities for facilitating copyright infringement.

Gale and Varma were interviewed in a three-way telephone conversation. Their responses came so quickly on the heels of each other, it sounded like a modern day Abbott and Costello. Both students felt that the cases against individual students are somewhat unfair.

"I feel bad for Dan Peng who's getting charged," Gale said.

"Everybody's kind of guilty of it," Varma added.

"It was probably bound to happen eventually," Gale agreed.

In an email to their friends, they contested that "copyrighted music just isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Check it out," they wrote, "and enjoy the guilt-free pleasure of legal music recorded on shareware."

Gale and Varma, both RCAs in Wilson College, have written and recorded several other songs, such as "The RCA Song," which they have put up on the University network.

Gale plays the trumpet, Varma the guitar, and both lend their voices to the cause.

Because they are RCAs, Gale and Varma did not send a link to their song to their advisees.

Neither said he believes they would have been disciplined for doing so, but they wanted to avoid directly contesting University policy.

News of the song "Ode to Fire Safety" spread quickly, however, even reaching the ears of fire inspectors.

"It's unique, and it's comical," said University Inspections Manager Ken Paulaski. "It's like any other item that students write about fire safety, it's always taken with a grain of salt."

But like any good comedy duo, Gale and Varma both perked up quickly.

"[The shutdown of Gank, Sleep and Wake] was good because more people listened to our song than would have otherwise," Varma said.

"MP3s take up a lot of students' time, so there's probably a lot of people with nothing to do now," he continued.

"Yeah, now that we made the only legally downloadable song," Gale added.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/arc...ews/8334.shtml


Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne


RealNetworks to sell songs
Agence France-Presse

REALNETWORKS announced plans for a new internet music download service modeled in part on the new service by Apple Computer, offering subscribers songs at US79c apiece.

The service, however, will require a monthly subscription costing $US9.95, unlike the popular service offered by Apple, which offers downloads for US99c.

RealNetworks, which makes software used for digital audio and video, said its new RealOne Rhapsody would allow users to access "the broadest library of major and independent label music with more than 330,000 tracks available for on-demand listening and more than 200,000 songs available for transferring to CD, aka 'burning'".

In addition, subscribers can "burn full albums or custom mix CDs, build their own custom internet radio stations, listen to professionally programmed stations, and browse extensive music information and editorial recommendations," the company said in a statement.

"We are thrilled to introduce RealOne Rhapsody, which offers consumers what they want - a deep library for on-demand listening, a customisable radio service and extremely affordable burns for those songs they just can't live without," said Merrill Brown, senior vice president of RealOne Services at RealNetworks.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...E15306,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Western Europe

Computer security firm raided for piracy
Jonathan Tisdall

Police staged a major raid after getting tips that computer security firm Eterra, a Merkantildata company, was using its servers to download and distribute copyrighted music and new Hollywood films. The piracy ring involved over 70 employees and charges were filed against four for violating copyright laws.

The downloading and distribution of copyrighted material was performed over an extended period of time, from both within and outside the firm's offices, financial newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv reported.

The raid revealed that one in ten of Eterra's employees were involved in piracy, and police emphasized that the firm itself is not suspected of any wrongdoing.

Inspector Rasmus Woxholt of the Oslo police promised a continuing crackdown on pirate copying of films and music.

Eterra's managing director Sverre Bjerkeli said that the firm had cooperated with police after the raid and had considered firing staff involved in the piracy ring, but so far no jobs have been lost.

"Six employees have received a written warning and four have been temporarily suspended," Bjerkeli told Dagens Naeringsliv.

The Norsk Videogramforening (NVF), a member of the International Video Federation, monitors distribution and traffic of vidoe films in Norway and tipped off police about the illegal file-sharing on Eterra's servers. Now Eterra can expect a hefty lawsuit from the entertainment industry.

"This is a very major victory for us. I can promise that we will follow through on this," said NVF head Roald Dye.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) spokesman in Norway, Saemund Fiskvik, was shocked by the news.

"I am speechless. Eterra is one of the country's data flagships. This is like learning (cross-country skiing legend) Bjoern Daehlie used doping. If the police confirm this information then there will be a civil compensation suit," Fiskvik told Dagens Naeringsliv.

According to Norwegian law copying media for private use is legal but distribution is a crime.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/lo...ticleID=551434


European broadband uptake to reach 28 per cent by 2008 – research
Leigh Phillips

By 2007, Europe will overtake the US in terms of the proportion of online households that have broadband internet
access, with 48 per cent of European online households using broadband, compared to 46 per cent in the US, according to new analysis from Jupiter Research. By 2008, 28 per cent of all European households (47m) will have broadband, making it the most common form of internet connection in the region.

In contrast, at the end of 2002, 81 per cent of European online households accessed the internet via a narrowband connection. But consumer interest in broadband is strong and the results of a Jupiter Research consumer survey show that 26 per cent of narrowband internet users are likely to upgrade to broadband within a year. Yet consumers who are keen to switch are currently hampered by limited broadband availability and poor communication of where the service is available. This has slowed migration from narrowband to broadband. These barriers will drop as improvements in broadband technology - such as better exchange equipment - will extend the geographical reach of broadband.

Europe is far from a single market for broadband with diverse adoption levels and although these differences will narrow, diversity will persist. At the end of 2002, broadband penetration ranged from one per cent of households in Greece to 19 per cent in Belgium. By 2008, these two countries will still represent the extremes of Europe’s broadband market, with penetration rates of ten per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.

The bulk of broadband households will be in the largest economies: 12.2m will be in Germany; 6.6m in France; and 8m in the UK. In Spain, the advance of broadband will be much quicker than across Europe as a whole. By 2004, there will be 2.3m broadband households in Spain and they will outnumber the 1.9m with narrowband. For Europe as a whole, it will take until 2008 for this shift in dominance to take place.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16486


Ericsson demonstrates first standards-based SIM-card log-on for WLAN

Swedish mobile communications company Ericsson has successfully demonstrated the first standards based
solution that allows users a single sign-on for both GSM and public WLAN.

At the WLAN Event in London, a WLAN-enabled lap-top was authenticated (identified) by a GSM network, using the same procedure that is used when a regular GSM mobile call is made.

The SIM-card is the standard identification module used in all GSM-handsets. Until now, only proprietary solutions for WLAN logon have been available, in effect curtailing market take-off. With Ericsson`s solution, building on 3GPP standards, equipment from all vendors will be interoperable, and users can use their equipment will work wherever they go.

Combining public WLAN with mobile systems brings the best of two worlds to the users; higher speed connection at hot-spots and true mobility through nation-wide GSM coverage. Easy log-on and one bill for both WLAN and mobile use are likely to be the most attractive features for the users.

The log-on solution is part of Ericsson's Mobile Operator WLAN - offering for which Ericsson has developed a new node, the Ericsson WLAN Authentication Server.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16490


Peugot-To-Porche - Bluetooth in 20% of all automobiles by 2007 – report

Roughly 20 per cent of all new automobiles globally will have Bluetooth technology by 2007, according to new research from market analysts Allied Business Intelligence. Furthermore, the analysts predict that the automotive application of the technology will offer a range of opportunities to silicon vendors, hardware manufacturers, automakers and gas companies.

Already, Daimler-Chrysler is launching its Uconnect hands-free car kit, which will the techology’s first commercial automotive application in the United States. Across the water, Audi, BMW, Peugot and Saab currently have Bluetooth hands-free car kits as optional extras in Europe.

As the kits cost only E5.60, automobile manufacturers will find Bluetooth extremely attractive, say the researchers, who also feel that the costs will continue to fall.

Initially, the introduction of Bluetooth to cars will focus on telephony, but later on, such services as remote vehicle diagnostics, lower-cost telematics services, advanced automotive safety systems, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and remote audio and video downloads into the vehicle will come online.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16483


Porn, Music Driving European Broadband Gains-Study
Bernhard Warner

High-speed Internet access in Europe continues to grow at a healthy rate, boosted by consumer demand for file-sharing, pornography and music, a new study said on Thursday.

According to market research firm Nielsen/Netratings, the number of European surfers using fast broadband Internet connections at home grew by 136 percent in the year ending in April, 2003.

The beneficiaries of the broadband boom are entertainment sites, in particular adult entertainment, Netratings said.

"The adult entertainment sector has increased its reach year-on-year in all European markets except Italy, where, not coincidentally, broadband access is the relative lowest in Europe," the report said.

The strong demand for broadband is a good news-bad news scenario. For example, major music labels decry the rampant trade of copyright-protected songs, an activity that has surged as home users get faster Internet connections.

Free file-sharing services such as Kazaa and Grokster have become a hit with broadband-equipped music fans who can speedily download large music files. The labels have tried to shut down the services as they blame them for the decline in recorded music sales, which could last a few more years, executives say.

Meanwhile, Internet service providers (ISPs) including T-Online, Wanadoo and BT OpenWorld are banking heavily on widescale deployment of higher-margin broadband access.

The biggest gainer in the past year is Britain where broadband penetration has more than tripled to 3.7 million users.

The UK remains second from the bottom in Europe in terms of broadband penetration though, with 21.6 percent of all Internet users on broadband. In Italy, broadband penetration is at 16.4 percent, or 1.8 million.

France, Spain and the Netherlands round out the top three with 39 percent, 37.2 percent and 36.6 percent of the their Internet users, respectively, on a high-speed connection.

In comparison, the U.S. is the world's broadband leader with 38 million, or 35 percent of Internet users, on broadband. The biggest markets in terms of penetration are in Asia, led by South Korea (news - web sites) and Hong Kong.

If current rates continue, there will be over 53 million Europeans with broadband, five million shy of the U.S., by April 2004, NetRatings analyst Tom Ewing said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...t_broadband_dc


DefaultCity rolls out wireless broadband in Sweden
Andreas Juva

Wireless internet provider DefaultCity has already 15 hot-spots in production in Stockholm, and during May, June
and July, the company plans to build another 15 new hot-spots every month, with at least one hot-spot for every Swedish city with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Currently the company has 15 hot-spots in operation. 23 hots-pots are under construction, of which, three are being built outside Stockholm. Every hot-spot provides instant access to the internet through a wireless connection also called WLAN, supporting the IEEE 802.11b standard. The speed of the hot-spot internet connection is between 0.5 and 5 mbps.

Furthermore, Powernet and DefaultCity customers will from now on be able to surf high-speed wireless internet using either of the two companies’ networks, increasing the number of locations where the customers can use their subscriptions. Powernet is Sweden's second largest wireless internet service provider.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16493


MTV acquires 50% stake in games channel Game One
David Minto

MTV Networks Europe has acquired a 50 per cent stake in French videogames channel ‘Game One’ through a
partnership with French media company Atari.

MTV says the alliance, which marks MTV Networks’ entrée into the gaming arena, leverages the company’s niche audience expertise and represents the next step in the company’s ongoing international expansion.

Game One, a 24 hour local language channel devoted to games, is distributed to 3.5m homes on all cable and satellite platforms in France. The fully-integrated Game One offering comprises interactive elements such as SMS chat, competitions, news, reviews of current games, games tips and a dedicated website.

Commented Simon Guild, Chief Operating Officer, MTV Networks Europe: "Videogames and home entertainment are integral to European youth culture, so we see opportunities to expand Game One to other markets, as a natural complement to our stable of youth and music brands. The alliance will enable Game One to take advantage of MTV Networks Europe’s creative expertise and pan-European infrastructure, whilst Game One will bring its extensive experience of the videogames arena to our network."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16500


Minister Dermot Ahern launches wireless broadband

Irish Broadband, specialists in broadband wireless internet access, and a wholly owned subsidiary of NTR, the
Irish private sector developer of public infrastructure, has launched its, fixed price 'always-on', broadband internet services in Dublin, with the help of Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

Speaking at the launch of Irish Broadband, Minister Ahern said: “The launch of this product is further proof of the major strides being made by telcos in delivering on the broadband revolution. Since becoming Minister, I have placed at the top of my agenda the delivery of affordable, always-on internet access. The message to service providers and telcos from me has been to drop price and grow your customer base. We have seen significant price cuts and more are on the way.”

Irish Broadband claims it is the first company to introduce guaranteed broadband connection speeds, offering wireless leased lines equivalent quality at DSL prices. DSL connections are shared with between 24 and 48 other users whereas Irish Broadband customers only share the service with between 4 and 8 other users.

“We offer the only true flat rate service at all levels, and we have no extra charges on any of our services. So users can download as much as they want without being penalised for it” said Paul Doody, Managing Director.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16278


Official: not all Eurovision records are pants

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest may have had a dearth of impressive records in the musical sense, but a rousing record it did manage to produce was the highest level of concurrent video stream usage across Europe ever!

Indeed – and if only this could have gone for the musical records as well – it smashed it.

Whilst over 100m viewers across Europe were tuning into the live television broadcast from Riga, those on the official Eurovision website could log onto four different video streams simultaneously and follow the whole event backstage.

Up to 25,000 concurrent streams were used, a tenfold increase over the previous year, producing a server load that reached almost 4 Gigabit per second. The greatest number of users came from Poland, Sweden and the UK, countries that I hope are now all hanging their heads in shame. The video streams were requested most often from Sweden, the Netherlands and, rather scarily, the United States.

So what lies behind this startling occurrence? Maybe it was the sapphic-though-not-so-graphic Russian teen- divas, t.A.T.u.? Maybe it was the flame-haired German lady-man whose rousing chorus featured the immortal line, “Lets be happy, let’s be gay.” Maybe it was the contest’s eventual winner, the Turkish vampire belly-dancer, locked in a life-and-death game of ‘Twister’ with her harem of backing singers? Whatever it was, it almost certainly wasn’t the UK’s atonal coupling of Jemini – a musical act so gleefully insipid that they made even S Club 7 look like Radiohead.

In 2004, of course, the Eurovision rules are changing, with countries at the bottom of this year’s table forced to sing-off in a qualifying round. Unfortunately, the UK pours such a lot of money into the Eurovision coffers that we’re going to be at the final, anyway. So see you in there! I'll do my best to make sure we take along someone who can sing this time...
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16512


New UK broadband proposal full of hot air?

After BT’s ‘broadband-in-a-box’, a new solution may soon be rolled-out across the UK in an attempt to provide high-speed internet access to even the remotest hermitage of the Scottish Highlands: broadband balloons.

An idea full of hot air? Well quite. But York-based company SkyLinc promises that just 18 base stations for balloons floating at a height of 1.5km above the surface of the earth would be needed to give complete UK broadband coverage. Data transfer would be at over the twice the speed of most broadband services offered today and would be the same in both directions – for uploading as well as downloading.

The balloons – apparently more accurately described as ‘tethered aerostats’ – would be helium filled and fed signals via a fibre optic antenna that could be held stable even in adverse weather coniditons. According to the BBC, the US military has been using a similar technology for more than 50 years.

SkyLinc says it hopes to sign its first contracts with ISPs next year, and has already secured two approved sites in Yorkshire from the Aviation Authority. Though analysts suggest it may be five to 10 years before the system is commercially available, it is thought the system will be able to provide particularly competitive rates to small businesses having to employ leased lines, and will also be extremely beneficial to rural communities.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16472

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roxio Posts Greater Earnings for Quarter
Reuters

Software company Roxio Inc. reported a larger profit for its fiscal fourth quarter and said it expects a profit in the current quarter, excluding its pending acquisition of an online digital music service.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Roxio reported a net profit for the March quarter of $2.3 million, or 12 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $340,000, or 2 cents.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call expected a profit of 19 cents.

For the June quarter, Roxio said it expects revenue of $23 million, with earnings of 5 cents a share, excluding the potential accounting effect of the acquisition of Pressplay. Analysts on average expect earnings of 7 cents, within a range of a 9-cent loss to a 17-cent profit.

Roxio shares fell 75 cents to $7.26 on Nasdaq.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...2Dtechnolog y

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bush administration seeks to give military spectrum to mobile phones.
Pentagon raises national security concerns.
Jube Shiver Jr.

With the U.S. waging a war in Iraq that relies heavily on wireless communications, a controversial Bush administration plan to transfer valuable airwaves from the military to the mobile phone industry is coming under new scrutiny.

Accommodating growing consumer demand for high-speed mobile Internet access -- as well as for ordinary cell phone calls -- is a crucial challenge for the White House. The administration is trying to balance the wireless industry's voracious appetite for new spectrum capacity against national security concerns. There is also a potential government windfall that would come from the sale of billions of dollars' worth of military airwaves to mobile phone carriers.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...2Dtechno logy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Study finds CIA falling behind in IT know-how
Paul Roberts

A new unclassified report, titled "Failing to Keep Up With the Information Revolution," offers a withering assessment of the CIA's use of IT for intelligence analysis, calling its networking and information-searching capabilities "primitive" and saying that the agency's emphasis on secrecy fundamentally discourages IT use and adoption by CIA analysts.

The study's author, Bruce Berkowitz, interviewed almost 100 CIA employees involved in producing national security analysis, including intelligence analysts, technicians and managers. He asked them about their work and use of technology, soliciting their ideas for using IT more effectively, according to the report.

Contrary to popular depictions of CIA agents using cutting-edge information-gathering technology, Berkowitz found that DI analysts lack access to even the most common information-searching technology for conducting intelligence analysis, such as Web- based search engines. instead, they rely largely on a 1970s-era database called CIRAS, for Corporate Information Retrieval and Storage.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the DI's archaic information-gathering capabilities is the continued importance of DI analysts' "informal source network" of contacts within other organizations or agencies. Those sources provide analysts with the information they need -- essentially the job that search engines such as Google and AltaVista already perform in an automated fashion, according to Berkowitz.

Although the glacial pace of government IT purchasing is partly to blame for the slow rate of technology adoption within the agency, it isn't the primary source of the CIA's troubles, Berkowitz said.

Instead, he put most of the blame on the CIA's obsession with security, which he charged with creating an approach of "risk exclusion" as opposed to "risk management" regarding technology adoption.
http://www.computerworld.com/governm...,81605,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stop turning librarians into busybodies
Dan Gillmor

Freedom to read: The nation's librarians were turned into unwilling agents of law enforcement when Congress passed a law most members never bothered to read -- the infamous USA Patriot Act, which gave the government unprecedented new powers to spy on citizens. The law turned us all into suspects.

It also turned librarians into snoops. Under the law, says Karen G. Schneider, chair the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the California Library Association, ``the federal government can access library or bookstore records -- the books you have checked out, the logs associated with your Internet or e-mail activities -- without having to get a traditional search warrant.''

And you, the library or bookstore patron, are not allowed to know about this fishing expedition into what you read.

I have no problem with the FBI getting access to someone's library records after persuading a judge to sign a warrant. In that case, some kind of probable cause has been established.

But to give the government untrammeled -- and unmonitored -- access to our personal lives is a perversion of liberty.

Some libraries have put up signs notifying patrons that their reading habits are no longer considered private. Other libraries, and several bookstores, are destroying records showing what books its customers have borrowed or bought.

None of those responses should be necessary. The best new idea is from Congress, believe it or not: a bill that would repeal this section of the UnPatriotic Act. It's called the ``Freedom to Read Protection Act.'' Authored by Vermont's independent congressman, Bernie Sanders, the bill has been endorsed by about 100 of his colleagues, according to Schneider.

The bill, HR 1157, needs your support, too. Call your member of Congress and fight for your own freedom to read without someone peering over your shoulder.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/5960524.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming to a P2P Near You – Physical, Downloadable Stuff
Peter Wayner

VIEWED through the fantastic lens of science fiction, three-dimensional printers seem as amazing as the transporters in "Star Trek." In goes a digital idea of a thing and out comes the thing itself.

In practice, three-dimensional printing is fairly mundane. Many such machines use a computer-controlled stream of a chemical or laser light to bind a powdery material, layer by layer, into an object. Just as a modern printer uses billions of tiny dots to produce images, three-dimensional printers arrange billions of tiny flecks of plastic or metal to produce objects. Computers ensure that the billions of bits end up in the right place, a process that can take several hours or even a day.

The machines are very expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars or more, and are used by industrial designers or engineers to make prototypes of parts or other objects.

But some companies are considering the possibility of producing a lower-priced version that could eventually find its way into homes. Then, for example, a grandmother could e-mail a toy to her grandchild by sending a software file, or the angler in the family could prepare for a day of fishing by printing out a few lures, optimized for the season and the weather.

Kevin McAlea, the senior vice president for worldwide revenue generation at 3D Systems, a printer manufacturer based in Valencia, Calif., said that mass production could lower the price of the machines, but that no one knew whether there would be a market.

There are many competing approaches using combinations of plastics, paper, metal and glue that are sprayed, melted, cut, dissolved, precipitated and catalyzed by chemicals, heat and light. The machines from the Z Corporation, a small company in Burlington, Mass., for example, spread a thin layer of powder that is bound into the right shape by a liquid that is sprayed from an ink-jet print head adapted from a Hewlett-Packard design. The machines repeat this process to build up the object.

For powder, the Z Corporation uses starch or plaster. "A lot of our materials are food-grade," said Marina Hatsopoulos, the company president, "but they aren't very tasty."

Ms. Hatsopoulos explained that the starch in her company's machines keeps the inner parts separate. "We can do a ball in a ball in a ball," she said. "We've got really cool ball bearings."

The quality of the finished object varies. The Z Corporation machines, for instance, deliver a rougher, sandy surface at a relatively low price. The print heads can also color the material, producing objects with intricate patterns on the surface. Tools that rely on lasers usually offer more precision and a smoother surface at a price that may be several times greater.

Tim Reher, the president of Print3d.com, a model-making shop, sells models he makes with a Z Corporation printer and finishes them with wax, glue or plastic resin.

"It acts pretty much like a sponge," he said. "You can take a starch part and build a flexible part by impregnating it with an elastomeric urethane."

"I say to people, 'Tell me what you want to do,' " Mr. Reher said. "You can make it act like a piece of plastic. You can paint it. You can snap-fit it. You can actually use the part. I've heard of pieces attached to the outside of an F-16."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/te...ts/29howw.html










Until next week,

- js.









~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recent WIRs -


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16411 May 24th
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



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

[TankGirl]

Thanks for another major news digest, Jack.

There's a lot interesting going on as usual but one of the news that caught my attention was that of the totally revamped WinMX version 4 being under works. There are many good things on their agenda - one of the most potential is their idea to introduce 'persistent WPN entries', or permanent peer identities, whichever way you want to call them. This is a key feature upon which (especially if the implementation is secure) a lot of novel and interesting functionality can be built. When some of the larger decentralized p2p networks start to support permanent and verifiable peer identities and network-wide peer searches, they are ready to start competing with ICQ, MSN and other instant messaging services.

- tg