Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 5th, '03 - P2P-Zone

JackSpratts · 03-07-03, 10:27 PM

Slow Burn

This was the week we learned just how far the RIAA would go to maintain its hold on Western culture, and *yawn*, how “big a deal” it was not. The number of people sharing files – and the number of files being shared - has not diminished in any measurable way so far. While this may change once reports come in on subpoenas issued and their dollar amounts, it may not even change then. In the U.S. it’s estimated that about 60 million people use peer-to-peers but anecdotal evidence suggests something far greater. My guess is in the 80 to 100 million range. If the RIAA manages to subpoena a truly amazing 10,000 people it will make itself the scourge of the West, but as a percentage of users attacked they’ll be hitting a miniscule one hundredth of one percent. That’s just one file sharer out of 10,000, and that’s if they somehow manage to fight that many to begin with which seems unlikely to me. I’d imagine the amount of people actually going to trial in the dozens, or hundreds. Not thousands or tens of thousands. Even still, if the recording industry manages to gear up to an evil-empire-sized suing machine capable of squashing 10,000 moms, pops, juniors and sissys, the odds remain overwhelmingly in favor of the file sharers. Overwhelmingly.

This has not been lost on the file sharers, even those at the wrong end of the RIAA’s howitzers. Their numbers continue to rise.

This has not been lost on all the members of the RIAA either, many of whom are trembling in awe at the mountains of bad press rising from these lawsuits, and who are at last openly questioning the strategy, and perhaps more importantly the basic premise of a lobbying group that is managing to squander 100 years of billion dollar profits while turning its members into pariahs. With anti CD boycotts popping up all over the world, it’s not a stretch to say that soon the biggest negative effect on sales won’t be high prices, boring products, or even a slow economy; it will be the record companies’ themselves. Their own terrible reputations magnified by the RIAA’s outrageous strong arm tactics could bring a halt to sales. People just don’t support groups that attack them, and people find it difficult doing business with people who sue their friends. Who can blame them? It’s common sense self preservation.

It’s an amazing thing to watch all the same. The destruction of the record business by the record business is like watching in ultra slow motion a bomb go off in the hands of the bomber, over the course of several years. Every mistake is magnified and every mistake obvious to all but the bomber herself. It makes me want to shout “Don’t cross those wires!” But she does. It’s her nature I guess, and another electron shoots to the infinite, another business to oblivion.

Any more than you can halt summer’s passing or slow the tides, file sharing won’t be stopped or appreciably changed. There might be helpful technological responses from the software developers. They may create something a little or a lot more anonymous. ISP’s might bow to subscriber pressure and stop keeping records of Internet Protocol addresses, instantly making file sharing anonymous. This would deprive the RIAA of the names and alleged evidence upon which these suits are based. ISP’s – or even the courts - may yet play a role, especially if this new non-judicial subpoena system becomes a boondoggle, and I think it will though that’s another story. Still and all the technical client side fixes are band aid approaches at best and not particularly necessary. The sun is setting on that day. The people have spoken. File sharing isn’t the unspeakable thing in the attic anymore, it’s now the 900 pound gorilla in the living room and it’s pretty comfortable right where it is, thanks. It’s the people. They file share. They like it a lot and they’re not going to stop. Ride it for sure, but it’s not a train anyone with any sense should stand in front of.

What you can do is take a page from the file sharers themselves and learn to use Peer-to-Peer to your advantage. And experience a whole new world of opportunities.

Enjoy,

Jack.

Music Industry Threats Not Slowing File-Sharing Volume
Andrew J. Manuse

Companies that develop music-sharing software and people who download copyrighted music were not frightened by the recording industry's threat Tuesday to sue

computer users who illegally offer to share ``substantial'' amounts of music.

``I don't expect the threat to have an impact,'' said Wayne Rosso, president of the file-sharing network called Grokster. Rosso said the recording industry was just hurting itself by going after its own customers.

Grokster usually has 3.5 million to 4.5 million users at any given moment, he said. At 6 p.m yesterday, 3.8 million people were on the network.

A spokesperson from Sharman Networks, the company that owns another popular network called KaZaa, said the average number of KaZaa users at any given time is about 4 million. Post threat, there were 4.2 million people downloading music at around 5:30 p.m. yesterday.

Greg Bildson, CTO and COO of Limewire, another network, said he has seen no decrease in users since the recording industry's threat and doesn't expect one.

Still, the Recording Industry Association of America is threatening to sue the users of the networks, not the companies that run them.

Jessica Gleason, 20, a student at UMass Amherst, is one of those users, but she wasn't worried.

``There are enough (network) systems out there that (the recording industry) is not going to stop us,'' said Gleason, who has 1,000 downloaded songs and adds five songs a week to that collection.

Twenty-seven file sharing networks came up in a Web search for services that have replaced Napster.

``Truth will come out when we find out who they're going to sue,'' said Gigi Sohn, president of a group that advocates balance in copyright laws.
http://www.bostonherald.com/business...ra06272003.htm

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Japan Grapples With Digital Shoplifting Using Mobiles
Agence France-Presse

Japanese publishers said on Monday that they will launch a campaign this week to stop digital shoplifters -- people who visit book stores to photograph magazine pages with their cellphones rather than make a purchase.

Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly, said an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, Kenji Takahashi.

Starting Tuesday, bookstores across the nation will put up posters urging magazine readers to "refrain from recording information with camera-mounted cellphones and other devices."

The association has printed 30,000 posters for the campaign, which will last until August 20 in co-operation with bookstores and the Telecommunications Carriers Association.

There are 20,000 bookstores in Japan. Small operators are already hit hard by conventional theft and hundreds of them are closing down every year due to financial difficulties, Takahashi said.

"Given the enormous speed of business closures, we cannot overlook this information-lifting with cellphones," he said.

He said it was unclear if digital shoplifting is tantamount to a crime as the copyright law only covers use of information for commercial purposes.

The Telecommunications Carriers Association also "recognizes the need to improve people's mobile phone manners," an official said, as handsets become more advanced with new functions ranging from Internet access to sending and receiving e-mails and taking pictures.

The latest advertisement by the association, published in newspapers on Sunday, urged users not to write e-mails while walking.

There were 76.73 million mobile phone subscriptions at the end of May, according to the latest data from the telecom association.

J-Phone Co Ltd, controlled by British-based telecoms giant Vodafone, launched the world's first picture-taking handsets in November 2000.

More than half of mobile handsets shipped in the year ended March were estimated to be camera phones.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_294225,0003.htm

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'Cameraphones' Could Get Less Candid
Tak Sang-hun

Amid a bid by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC) to regulate the use of cell phones with cameras installed - "cameraphones" - the National Assembly is expected to soon discuss a new bill tighten the use of such phones.

Huh Un-na, a ruling Millennium Democratic Party member on the Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Telecommunications committee said that the party plans to submit a bill mandating that cameraphones be designed to emit a loud noise when photos are taken. The noise would alert people in public that their picture might have been taken.

Huh said the bill would require that mobile handset manufacturers install the noisemaker in cell phones, in order to prevent what she called "human rights infringements" and to prevent corporate espionage.

Meanwhile, an official at the MOIC said the ministry would start a comprehensive analysis to draft measures to stem the misuse of cameraphones in public places, including bath houses and dressing rooms.

The nation's leading cell phone manufacturers, however, expressed concern over the proposed regulation, as the businesses have been suffering from a sharp decline in domestic sales. An official at Samsung Electronics said that restrictions on the use of cameraphones would cause domestic sales of the phones, which is still struggling to get off the ground, to be stalled. Exports would also sink, he warned.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...306230022.html

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RealNetworks, Listen Sued for Patent Infringement

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Privately held Friskit Inc. on Tuesday said it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against digital media software provider RealNetworks Inc (RNWK.O) and its online music unit, Listen.com. San Francisco-based Friskit, a technology licensing company, is seeking a permanent injunction that would prevent the two companies from using what it claims is its technology for streaming online media, which include Webcast sounds.
http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml

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P2P Goes Corporate
Tiernan Ray

Peer-to-peer technology may have pulled off the greatest disappearing act of the post-dot-com era. Once heralded as the second coming of the Internet, file-sharing giant Napster was sued out of business, and many of its descendants, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, are under fire from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Grizzled veterans of P2P technology, such as Andy Oram, editor of "Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies," shake their heads in disappointment. "Honestly, I've felt for a while now like it was part of my past," Oram says of the technology he once passionately embraced.

Nonetheless, the innovations unleashed by Napster are making modest headway in corporate networks. For example, network administrators are discovering that distributing some file-sharing capabilities out to the edges of a network can make their workforce more versatile and mobile. Sun Microsystems has launched a set of P2P tools, as has IBM, though they have yet to catch fire in the marketplace.

Peer-based technologies may yet change the way corporate computing works. Just remember: Don't call it "P2P" when you are selling it to executives. That term is tainted.

Evaluating P2P in the enterprise is an ambiguous endeavor. What does the term really encompass? For some, the image of file-sharing programs like BearShare, Limewire and Napster is most prominent. For others, it is about "presence" -- the ability of a computer user to sense when a coworker may be on the network -- though that feature is more properly associated with instant messaging programs than with P2P. Still others might say P2P should promote distributed processing power within the enterprise, just as the SETI@HOME project uses volunteers' Pentiums to search for extraterrestrial life.

In fact, it turns out that the features commonly deemed most important about P2P -- decentralized file exchanges, non-hierarchical communications, direct collaboration and distributed processing power -- are rather unimportant to most corporate buyers. This dilemma is familiar to Ray Ozzie, formerly the brains behind the Lotus Notes program, who now runs P2P software venture Groove Networks. Lotus Notes offered sophisticated file sharing in an age before the World Wide Web, but most corporate customers ended up using it for little more than e-mail. Likewise, Groove is finding that the killer P2P app, collaboration, is not so killer.

"There's about 3 million lines of code in Groove, but it's the last 250,000 lines, the part that you use to develop applications internally, that matters to customers," Andrew Mahon, director of strategic marketing at Groove Networks, told the E-Commerce Times.

Groove Workspace, a peer-based file-sharing program, was a proof of concept built on top of the company's P2P toolkit, he said. Businesses can start using it for US$49 per seat, putting it within reach of even small companies. However, three pieces of application infrastructure have made the underlying Groove code libraries more important to users than Workspace itself. They are: synchronization of changes made to documents offline; the ability to apply strong encryption to files with sensitive content; and the ability for remote workers to connect to the enterprise through virtual private networks.

One prominent Groove customer said those three factors are exactly why he implemented the software. Craig Samuel is chief knowledge officer in charge of information sharing among the 65,000 employees in Hewlett-Packard's services division, which is spread across 160 countries. "The business problem we try to solve internally is, how do you get large organizations around the world to access and share the right knowledge in a very responsive way?" Samuel told the E-Commerce Times.

For HP, Samuel said, achieving this goal meant integrating peer-to-peer technology with the Web-based Sharepoint package used widely throughout the company, which in turn required using Groove's capabilities as modules to be plugged into Sharepoint. "We wanted to be able to not just share information around the periphery of the organization," as in Napster-style file sharing, "but also to connect that to centralized programs." Specifically, Groove offered a better way to synchronize data than Microsoft Outlook, according to Samuel, and it was an easy way to add 192-bit encryption to file sharing.

As a customer since version 1.0, HP's experience helped shape Groove. "In the beginning, Groove was just a nice collaboration tool," Samuel said. "Now, people can work together in a common space, in portals, and push content between different repositories. That's been the key" to making Groove a productivity enhancer. In the future, he added, HP may build more complex applications on top of Groove using Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET.

However, although Groove is cherished by some customers for offline synchronization, its popularity only highlights the shortcomings that hobble P2P in general. P2P guru Oram said file-sharing programs and the like have "serious problems."

"There are three things that P2P really lacks, namely a consistent addressing scheme, metadata and a way to ensure the reputation of participants in the network," he told the E-Commerce Times. Because of those shortcomings, "right now, it's hard to say P2P makes things better for the end user; it makes things more difficult."

On the first point, Oram noted that although the presence features of Jabber, an instant messaging program, are good, he would like to see a consistent protocol for finding and addressing P2P participants, akin to plain old e-mail addresses. He added that he thinks metadata is needed to replace the unstructured, stream-of-consciousness nature of instant messaging with an organized method of exchanging complex documents. Lastly, Oram argued that as P2P technology moves beyond stealing music, there must be a way to validate the reputation and trustworthiness of users participating in the network.

Others agree that beneath all the fluff about P2P, today's programs are immature. "There are mixed emotions about this in IT," said Bob Parker, an analyst at AMR Research. He told the E-Commerce Times that although peer-based software can be an effective tool for ad-hoc collaboration, companies are worried that they will not be able to properly archive materials traded back and forth among peers.

"Any communication in a bank related to an equity that might be traded comes under purview of [the] SEC, and that needs to be archived," Parker said. Of course, third-party tools can be added, but "out of the box, P2P has these archival issues." He agreed with Oram about the issue of addressing, to say nothing of the headaches created on networks flooded with decentralized file sharing.

However, if companies like Groove can succeed despite the pressing issues surrounding peer-to-peer technology, one can only conclude that P2P has not been rejected by the market. Far from it. The technology appears to be finding a niche by addressing existing communication issues in enterprise computing. Such unglamorous hacks used to be called "middleware," a kind of software piping sold by established companies like IBM.

However, Groove's Mahon eschews that label, not least because it threatens to pull Groove into Microsoft's rapacious maw as the software giant seeks to incorporate more middleware into Windows. (Microsoft has an investment in Groove.) Instead, Mahon is stumping for the liberating power of the technology. He believes that, like Napster, Groove brings a little bit of an anarchic quality to the way an increasingly mobile and connected staff functions inside the Fortune 500.

"Users want to just work together without having to have permission, just as they do with e-mail," he said. "Groove lets IT maintain control over policy, while users can control the content that gets exchanged." That may be a good enough selling point for executives -- so long as they are not spooked by visions of illicit file swapping.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21742.html

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Tadpole Seeks Strategic Partner To Offset Losses
Chris Lake

Peer to peer software developer Tadpole Technology said it is seeking a strategic partner to help it market its instant messaging and collaboration products, to help combat continued losses.

The company, which offloaded its hardware division towards the end of 2002, is now focused purely on software and hopes to improve sales of Endeavors products. It has decided to cash in quickly on the sale of the hardware unit - Tadpole was due to recieve $8.5m in 2007 but has instead realised just $2m from the sale after signing an agreement earlier this week. This has resulted in a write off of more than £4m, but has given Tadpole some much-needed cash, to allow it to hold off from drawing down cash from the equity line of credit it has in place with GEM. It has used almost £5m of the £10m GEM facility, which expires in January, and did not rule out further drawdowns.

Endeavors has developed peer to peer software and secure corporate instant messaging applications that transform AIM and MSN from standalone IM platforms into interoperable ones.But sales at Endeavors have been disappointing, reaping just £50,000 for Tadpole in the six months to 31 March, although this is a seven-fold increase on the same period last year.

Endeavors remains at an early-stage in its development but now it has market-ready software products, Tadpole should benefit from sales growth in the coming months and years, though current market conditions were described as "challenging".

The company has completed a strategic review and reduced headcount at Endeavors to reduce operating costs by £300,000 to £1.9m. Crucially, the company is actively seeking out a strategic partner to help exploit Endeavors' technology.

Overall, Tadpole reported a £600,000 reduction in operating costs to £2.6m. Sales were flat, at £1.1m, and the loss made from cashing in early on the hardware division forced overall losses up to £7.5m, from £2.8m last year.

Worryingly, the company now has net current liabilities of £168,000, but the equity line of credit from GEM and cash from the hardware sale will buy Tadpole vital time.

If it can add a high profile strategic partner to its Endeavors division then the shift from development to sales and marketing will be complete, but it needs to quickly increase sales if it is to breakeven before it runs out of funds.

Tadpole said it expects to report a "substantially reduced operating loss" in the second half of the year.
http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/vie...ews_0000054411

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Grokster Blasts RIAA Anti-Piracy Tactics
Brian Garrity

The Recording Industry Association of America's plan to sue individuals for distributing "substantial amounts" of music files on peer-to-peer networks isn't likely to change consumer behavior, critics of the initiative charge.

Grokster president Wayne Rosso told attendees of an event sponsored by the Copyright Society of the USA yesterday (June 26) in New York that attempts by the recording industry to thwart file sharing through litigation are bound to fail. Rosso said lawsuits can't keep pace with technological innovation and development.

RIAA attorney Dean Garfield told attendees that lawsuits against consumers are just one tactic in a multi-faceted strategy the industry is using to combat piracy.

The move comes after litigation aimed at P2P networks themselves has failed to stem the growth of file sharing. Two years after the industry's shutdown of Napster, the practice is more popular than ever. The RIAA reports that an estimated 2.6 billion copyrighted files are traded over P2P networks every month. Leading the pack is KaZaA: The RIAA says that in May, the service had more than 230 million users, up from 100 million in July 2002.

Additionally, a recent court ruling in the RIAA's suit against Grokster and others found that P2P networks cannot necessarily by held accountable for the illegal activities of their users.

Rosso said the only real solution is for labels to strike distribution deals with P2P networks. However, he said, the RIAA's litigation initiatives are stifling negotiations.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1923806

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Napster Plans Ad Push for Comeback
Brian Morrissey

Napster, the deceased file-sharing network, announced on Thursday that it hired ad agency Venables, Bell & Partners to design a promotional campaign for its re-launch set for sometime in the next eight to 10 months.

MediaSmith, a San Francisco-based company that handles the same duties for Napster parent company Roxio, will complement the Venables campaign. Napster declined to give any further details on its ad plans, citing "competitive reasons."

The announcement comes a month after Roxio paid about $40 million to acquire online music service Pressplay, a joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Roxo plans to use Pressplay's infrastructure and the Napster brand to build a legitimate and viable online music offering. It said it would earmark $20 million to the re- introduction of the new Napster. Venables was about to be named Pressplay's agency of record at the time of its acquisition, according to press reports.

Venables will have its work cut out for it. Although Napster retains a strong brand name in the public imagination, it has not operated for the past two years. By the time it re- launches in 2004, the online service will have been offline for nearly three years.

"It really needs to do some re-imaging and repositioning because what people grew to love about Napster will change when it moves to a pay service," said Lee Black, an online music industry analyst for Jupiter Research, which is owned by the parent company of this site. "It's about moving that name recognition into familiarity with the new Napster."

Since its demise at the hands of the recording industry's legal assault, a number of online music services have sprung up to take its place. Listen.com's Rhapsody, which Real Networks plans to buy to replace MusicNet, capitalized on the Napster phenomenon, while Apple Computer also now sells songs at its iTunes online store. In addition, a number of other peer-to-peer networks, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, have grown in popularity for music fans looking to trade MP3s.

Still, Roxio saw value in the strong brand Napster built during its short life. Last November, it shelled out $5.3 million to buy Napster's assets from a bankruptcy court, and four months ago it announced plans to re-launch it as an online music service, albeit one that operates legally. The new service will be a client-server application, eschewing Napster's peer-to-peer roots.
www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/2228481

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Coming Soon: A Horror Show for TV Ads
Jane Black

TiVo's digital recorders indicate that viewers don't necessarily watch the ads, even on hit shows. Agencies and networks are still in denial
"I know that 50% of my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half," retail guru John Wanamaker famously quipped in 1886. Things haven't improved much since then. Magazines and newspapers still sell ads based on circulation, and TV networks have sold ads based on viewer ratings for the last 50 years, even though no one knows whether anyone actually watches commercials. More than a century after Wanamaker's lament, advertising remains as much an art as a science.

Yet the world of TV advertising is about to become a lot more scientific. On June 2, personal-video-recorder outfit TiVo (TIVO ) unveiled an analytical tool that can tell advertisers, agencies, and networks not only how many people tune in for a show but whether they're watching the ads. Unlike a Nielsen rating, which relies on surveys filled out by viewers, TiVo's system tracks what a viewer records and tunes into, even when the channel is changed -- although, thankfully, it still doesn't know if you head for the kitchen for something to eat.

UNWELCOME FINDINGS. TiVo can also pinpoint where and when ads are watched the most. For example, a commercial for breakfast cereal might be skipped through less often in the morning on the West Coast than during pricey prime-time slots in the East. "This is the beginning of the end of that drunken orgy of dollars spent on broadcast TV as the ultimate 'reach' vehicle," says Tim Hanlon, vice-president for emerging contacts at Starcom MediaVest, an ad agency that helped TiVo design its new service.

Perhaps. But the ad industry's response has been anything but ecstatic. In the weeks since TiVo threw down the gauntlet, it has become clear that the burning question of which half of advertising is wasted isn't something that ad giants, such as Interpublic (IPG ) or the big three networks necessarily want answered -- especially in the network-TV market, where ad prices continue to rise, despite falling viewer ratings. "This kind of information is the holy grail for marketers. But it's not the holy grail for advertising agencies and media companies, which have built an industry around the idea of getting a shallow message to a broad audience rather than a tailored message to a narrower one," says Mike Galgon, chief strategy officer at Seattle-based interactive ad agency Avenue A (AQNT ).

Galgon would know. Over the last seven years, Avenue A and other interactive agencies such as DoubleClick (DCLK ) have struggled to legitimize online advertising -- the ultimate in accountable media. In the heyday of the late 1990s, successful Web portals such as AOL and Yahoo! (YHOO ) sold inventory based on the number of unique users visiting their sites. That model mimicked TV: The more "viewers" you could deliver, the more you could charge.

Then, in 2000, the bubble burst. Advertisers stopped caring whether 2 million or 20 million people visited a site. Instead, they demanded to know how many people clicked on their ads -- or how many saw the ad and subsequently bought something. "Accountability is a huge challenge for everyone who's buying TV," says Galgon. Now, "all of a sudden [TV] looks a lot like the Internet."

SMALLER, "STICKIER" VIEWERSHIP? Indeed, just like clickable ads, TiVo's initial data reveal some trends that ad agencies and networks might prefer to bury. For one, a program's rating -- the number of people saying they watched a TV show at a given time -- appears to have an inverse relationship with the proportion of ads viewed. On April 11, 2002, ABC's popular TV drama The Practice drew a TiVo rating of 8.9, meaning 8.9% of TiVo owners watched the show live or recorded it and watched it later. But those viewers watched just 30% of the ads shown. Meanwhile, quiz show The Weakest Link, drew a rating of 0.9, but viewers watched 78% of the commercials. TV news magazine 60 Minutes got only a 2.2 rating, but its viewers sat through 73% of the ads.

Certain genres are "stickier" than others, TiVo's research shows. Big-budget situation comedies and dramas tend to have the lowest retention and commercial-viewing rate because couch potatoes tend to record them and skip through the commercials rather than watch them live. Reality TV, news, and "event" programming such as the Oscars do significantly better at getting viewers to see the commercials. Just 39% of viewers watched ads during the highest-rated network TV show, Friends, vs. 75% for the 45th Annual Grammy Awards and 58% for Fox reality show Fear Factor.

These trends don't threaten to kill TV advertising, but they're sure to change how ads are produced and sold. Today, media buyers purchase TV ad time based on program ratings and demographics. When 2 million people turn in to watch Friends on Thursday night at 8 p.m., advertisers assume 2 million people see their ad. Tomorrow's ad buyers might choose to bid higher for 30-second spots on programs such as 60 Minutes, which has an older audience less prone to channel surfing.

RESHUFFLING AD DOLLARS. Advertisers trying to reach younger people will shift their spending to more appropriate channels. According to Forrester Research, when personal-video-recorder (PVR) technology reaches 30 million households in 2006, 76% of advertisers say they'll cut their TV ad spending -- one quarter of them by more than 41%. Instead of buying TV ads, 65% plan to spend more on program sponsorship, 46% will increase budgets for product placement, and 36% say they'll rechannel their dollars to online advertising.

TV's transformation will surely take time. Right now, most ad agencies and network execs are in a state of deep denial about the wrenching change on the horizon. Ad execs by and large dismiss TiVo's data, saying the sample size is too small -- Tivo has just 750,000 customers -- and arguing that these users represent an early-adopter set, not the mass market. "You pour money in where it's going to work," says Lisa Seiwers, director of national broadcast at New York agency Tucker, Hampel & Stephanides. "TV still remains the most mass reach you can get in terms of advertising."

Or is it? Data collected by TiVo and other PVR outfits are certain to challenge the prevailing wisdom and the status quo. Forrester predicts that by 2007, half of American households will have either a PVR or other on-demand services that allow viewers to watch TV programs at their convenience. As PVRs become more prevalent, the data will become increasingly difficult to ignore.

It's easy to sell ads when advertisers don't know which half of their money is being wasted. But if the technology exists to figure it out, you can be sure they'll demand to know.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...1133_tc119.htm

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Urban Spying System Would Eye Vehicles
AP

The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.

Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.

Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

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Labels May Face Risk in Piracy Suits
Jon Healey

As the record industry prepares to haul thousands of alleged music pirates into court, its biggest risk may be suing the wrong people — and losing the support of leading members of Congress in the process.

Labels and artists are widely viewed on Capitol Hill as victims of rampant piracy by millions of users of file-sharing networks. And anonymous file sharers are easy to demonize.

But the real people sued this fall by the Recording Industry Assn. of America may have sympathetic stories to tell. That could turn sentiment on Capitol Hill at a time when some lawmakers are eager to narrow the reach of copyright law and expand consumer rights.

"I would guess that you would then see stories about the family faced with economic ruin and the cost of having to hire defense counsel, settling for $10,000 or $20,000, and the money they were saving for Timmy's college education now has to go to Kid Rock," said Philip S. Corwin, a lobbyist in Washington for Sharman Networks, distributor of the Kazaa file-sharing software.

"That's the kind of stuff that would scare a politician."

Even Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), a frequent ally of the entertainment industry, said the labels' standing in Congress would suffer if they "overreach and refuse to settle these issues reasonably." But, he added, "I don't think their goal is to collect a huge amount of revenue through the vehicle of lawsuits; I think it is to deter continued illegal conduct."

The RIAA can identify which computers are sharing songs, but it can't easily tell who's using them. The people it sues will be the ones who pay to connect those computers to the Internet, and could be unwitting parents and employers.

"Nobody wants to be the heavy," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "Everybody is aware that there could be poster children. But the alternative, which is to do nothing about a problem which is getting worse that's much worse."

The RIAA plans to start by suing the several hundred "worst offenders," hoping that the opening salvo will deter the masses from sharing copyrighted songs. If it doesn't, Sherman said, the lawsuits will continue.

File-sharing networks attract an estimated 57 million Americans and about 80 million users worldwide, with Kazaa alone drawing at least 4 million people sharing more than 800 million songs, movies and other digital files at any given moment.

The rise of those networks has coincided with a decline in CD sales, which have fallen more than 25% since Napster Inc. debuted in 1999.

The one bright spot for the RIAA is that its educational efforts may be making some headway — 50% of the 12- to 44-year-olds surveyed by Edison Media Research in May said it's wrong to download songs for free, compared with 39% last year.

The combination of relentless piracy and the labels' increased support for legitimate sources of music online has driven up the music industry's stock on Capitol Hill. "There's strong recognition that what's been going on in these file-swapping systems is theft, and there is an injured party, and it is the people who create and record and distribute music," Berman said.

That sympathy is important because the RIAA has largely been playing defense in Washington, trying to block proposals that would weaken the anti- piracy tools in copyright law.

Examples include a new proposal from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) that would make it harder for copyright holders to obtain the identities of alleged infringers from their Internet service providers, a change that would put a significant hurdle in front of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. The draft bill, which Brownback has yet to introduce, also would guarantee consumers' ability to sell or donate the downloadable songs, movies and other digital media they buy.

Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that's trying to rein in copyright law, said the record labels' campaign could backfire if they "start to go after the smaller fry" on file-sharing networks or "if they just pick the wrong person, like a congressman's daughter or son."

And if they mistakenly target someone who's not violated any copyrights, as the labels and movie studios have done occasionally when sending out cease-and-desist letters, that may sink the entire campaign, Sohn said.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), sponsor of a bill to let consumers make personal copies of digital media, said the RIAA could cause a backlash simply by suing too many people. "There will be political ramifications from vast numbers of lawsuits being filed."

On the other hand, Berman said, lawmakers may have little trouble supporting lawsuits against constituents who violate copyrights, or suits brought against their parents.

"If a constituent called me and said, 'My kid got picked up for shoplifting. You've got to change the shoplifting law.' I'd say, 'Tell your kid to stop shoplifting.' And I think this is somewhat analogous."

Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), a frequent critic of the record labels, said in this instance the RIAA has a good message: "The purpose here is to get people aware of this underlying truth: Stealing is stealing, whether it's a hard good or software."
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...,5959080.story

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NewsHour

The Federal Communications Commission late Wednesday published its final report on the revised media ownership rules, even as lawmakers and consumer rights groups announced various plans aimed at making sure the new rules never take effect.

Read the entire FCC report on media concentration. (MS Word)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/conglomeration/

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Here’s To Internet Piracy And The New Artistic Renaissance.
Ed Weathers

Why did Homer write the Iliad and the Odyssey? Why did Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales and John Milton Paradise Lost? Why did Emily Dickinson write her poems? Why did the unknown composer of “The Londonderry Air” (better known as the tune of “Danny Boy”) go to the trouble of writing a song at all? Why did Mozart compose and compose in a frenzy of creativity even when he knew it wouldn’t solve his money problems? Why did Van Gogh continue to make paintings that would never make him a living?

I’ve been preoccupied with questions like these ever since Napster first came to light. Napster, of course, was the original music-sharing software, which allowed anyone with a computer to go online and make a perfect digital copy of a song, for nothing, by transferring the song-file data from the CD of someone who owned it.

This is what I hope will happen: Those who, like the RIAA and the MPAA, are trying to put roadblocks around the Internet will fail. The programmers and the kids (often one and the same) will stay a step ahead of them. Finally, the Internet police will give up. As a result, within ten, at most twenty years, every form of art that can be digitized--every song, every movie, every book--will be available for free to everyone who owns a computer. The recording, movie and book distribution industries as we know them will collapse, though there will continue to be a cottage industry for those who, driven by nostalgia, demand actual vinyl records and paper books, or want to watch movies in large groups at movie theaters instead of in their own, far superior, home entertainment centers. Art that cannot be digitized and passed through wires or the ether, such as sculpture and painting, will flourish, in part because of the very fact that it cannot be translated by Booean algebra and is therefore extra-special. Art that depends on live performances--rock concerts, live theater, novel and poetry readings--will likewise flourish, and that’s how most singers, actors and writers will make their livings. Finally, art itself will be more malleable than ever, since every digitized novel can be re-edited instantly by anyone who receives it on his computer, and every song changed to suit the listener--much as those who recited the Iliad modified it with each retelling, often, I suspect, improving it. This audience-editing, of course, is already happening and can never be stopped.

What about the poor artists? They will continue to create art. Why? For the same reasons Homer and Emily Dickinson and Mozart did: because they want to be famous or because they need to be heard or because they have something they need to say or sing, or because, well, they just can’t help it. Maybe they’ll have full-time jobs doing something else, like selling insurance or folding pretzels, and will be artists on the side. Maybe the U.S. government will actually support artists seriously, for a change, as other governments do around the world. Or maybe artists will rely on patrons to support them, as Michelangelo relied on the Medicis in Renaissance Florence.

Speaking of the Renaissance, I also think this: In the end, the music we hear and the movies we see and the books we read will be all the better for their digital availability. No longer will music, movies and books be the products of greed. Now they’ll be the products of need--the need of the artist to make something special, so special that bits and bites, zeroes and ones, cannot reduce it to anything less than art, and the money it makes is not part of its specialness. There is something in the act of artistic creation so satisfying, so far beyond the satisfaction of a full bank account, that we don’t need to worry that the rock bands or the novelists or the filmmakers will go away. Those who write potboilers just to make money (Tom Clancy? John Grisham?) and those who make bad music and bad movies with nothing but an eye to the bottom line (The Backstreet Boys? 2 Fast 2 Furious?) will probably go away forever. To which we can all say: Good riddance.

In ten years, maybe twenty at the most, the truer, purer artists will once again take center stage. And then we can all say:

Welcome home, Homer.
http://www.memphisflyer.com/onthefly...ew.asp?ID=2444

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Computer Users Urged To Take Music Industry Lawsuits Seriously
Ken Seeber

It could be several weeks before record companies begin filing their planned lawsuits against people who download copyrighted music over the Internet. But a lawyer who provides legal advice to students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale said people should take the music industry's latest anti-piracy campaign seriously.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the Washington lobbying group that represents the interests of the major record labels, announced plans Wednesday to more aggressively combat so-called peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted music.

Instead of targeting the software companies that make such activity possible, the RIAA plans to file several hundred lawsuits in the coming weeks against individual computer users who illegally share music files online.

"There's not a very large body of case law in this area at this point as to what legal rights the (record) companies have against the users of these (file sharing) sites, but I would think it's likely that the courts would side in the favor of the companies and enter judgments against these people," said Steve Rogers, a lawyer with the Students' Legal Assistance Office at SIUC. "Better to be safe than sorry."

File sharing used to take place through centralized computer servers, such as Napster, which made such services easy targets for the RIAA. But since the music industry successfully shut Napster down, file sharing has evolved into decentralized "peer-to-peer" networks such as Kazaa and Grokster.

The RIAA claims such file sharing is responsible for a 26 percent decline in recorded music sales over the last three years.

Not all musicians agree with the RIAA's decision to sue music fans.

"I think it's unconscionable," said Peter Mulvey, a Milwaukee-based singer/ songwriter. Mulvey has recorded several albums and regularly posts mp3s of his music on his Web site, www.petermulvey.com.

"I understand that an artist's got to get paid, and really should get paid for his work, and I understand the concept of intellectual property," Mulvey said. "But at the same time, the actions of the record labels over the last 30 years has been to suck the musicality out of things and to increase profits, and to in no way encourage artists to put out great songs.

"For them to come around now and say this thunderbolt out of the blue is what's wrecking music is hypocrisy," he added.
http://www.southernillinoisan.com/re...op/TOP003.html

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Online File Sharing Thrives in USA

comScore Networks reports that despite growth in most sectors of consumer e-commerce, online sales of recorded music in the USA have continued to decline sharply for three consecutive quarters. At the same time, millions of Internet users continue to use online file-sharing services even as some of these applications have vanished.

The comScore analysis - based on the actual online activity of more than 1.5 million representative Internet users - shows that 2002 online music sales through the third quarter were $545 million, down 25 percent from the $730 million spent over the same period last year. In fact, the decline in online sales of recorded music has accelerated throughout 2002, with sales declining versus year-ago by 12 percent, 28 percent and 39 percent in the first, second and third quarters of 2002, respectively. In contrast, online sales of all products (excluding auctions) increased 30 percent, 28 percent and 30 percent over the same three quarters.

The decline in online music sales far exceeds the decline in overall shipments of recorded music as recently reported by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). While the RIAA reported in August 2002 that total U.S. music shipments dropped seven percent in the first half of 2002 versus the first half of 2001 ($5.93 billion versus $5.53 billion), comScore data shows that online sales of music fell 20 percent (from $531 million to $424 million) over the same period.

‘The music industry attributes the decline in online and offline music sales to a variety of factors, such as a slow economy, fewer hit songs, piracy, CD-burning and file-swapping among others,’ said Peter Daboll, division president of comScore Media Metrix, a division of comScore Networks. ‘While a host of factors inevitably impact consumer behaviour, the greater sales decline online as reported by comScore would suggest that Internet file-swapping and CD-burning are having a severe negative impact on music sales among Internet users.’

After the fall of legendary file-swapping pioneer Napster, comScore data shows that U.S. consumers quickly flocked to numerous alternatives, including Kazaa and Morpheus. Each of the latter two increased its average monthly U.S. home user base from less than one million in the second quarter of 2001 to 4.6 million and 7.1 million, respectively, in the first quarter of 2002. By the close of the third quarter of 2002, Kazaa had built an impressive following of 9.4 million average monthly U.S. home users.

‘comScore Media Metrix will continue to report online purchases of music as well as usage of file- swapping,’ concluded Daboll. ‘In addition, we'll be conducting more in-depth analyses and looking at key online segments such as the university population, an audience which our data show contains many heavy users of file-swapping services.’
http://www.mrons.com/drno/news1980.htm

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BMG Tinkers With CD Copy Controls
Richard Shim

Music label BMG said Monday that it has licensed new technology from SunnComm Technologies aimed at preventing legal music buyers from making unlimited digital copies of songs from its CDs.

The Bertelesmann AG division, which produces contemporary artists including Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne and No Doubt, said it plans to begin selling CDs in the United States protected with SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 product.

The software lets listeners transfer music from a CD to a computer but prevents them from then distributing that music to file-sharing services. It also allows music companies to include extras on the disc, such as artist information, song lyrics, bonus tracks, video clips and special offers.

Songs on a MediaMax CD can be uploaded only three times, and software built into the disc prevents listeners from copying or sharing the music. BMG music CDs using MediaMax will be available immediately in the U.S. market.

BMG has been one of the more aggressive music labels in trying to block the copying of its CDs. The Monday announcement with SunnComm suggests that the company, like other labels, is looking for ways to give listeners freedom in how they listen to music while keeping them from distributing it illegally.

"We're seeing music labels and technology providers search for a middle ground in appeasing consumers while protecting their content," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said.

Other labels have worked to prevent the distribution of digital music with limited success. Hackers have found ways to get around high-tech blocking systems, sometimes through such low-tech means as black markers and Post-It Notes.

The agreement is a multiyear deal, but the companies did not give further details.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1022369.html

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Consumer Sues Label Over Copy Protected CD – And Wins

Translation from South American Source:

Noise: Consumer Gains Action For "Tribalistas"
Peter Alexander Sanches

The Carioca consumer Pablo Enrique Andrade was successful, in lower court, an action against the producing company of Marisa Mount, recording EMI and the Sony plant, for having supposedly been injured in the purchase of the COMPACT DISC "Tribalistas".

Andrade affirms that its record, bought legally, did not function in touches- CDs of its car, also acquired of regular form. A device antipiracy of the COMPACT DISC would be the cause.

6º Civil Special Court of the River determined that the companies change the copy and pay indemnity of R$ 1,000 to the consumer. EMI already appealed.

If confirmed, the sentence would generate jurisprudence for that if they oppose to the technology of "controlled copies", already incorporated by EMI in all its launchings, with the objective to inhibit illegal copies of its records for computer.

The vice-president of EMI, Bannitz Luiz, affirms that she is inevitable will happen problems in situations of implantation of new technologies. "the consumer complains, we changes the product. But it is lamentable that certain people use this as extortion form ", complains.

Marisa Mount, owner of the Phonomotor stamp, that launched the COMPACT DISC, keeps silence on the case.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...90u34467.shtml

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Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright

Should Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass be banned?
Tim Wu

If you're a serious Harry Potter fan, you finished The Order of the Phoenix over the weekend and are already impatient for the sixth book. While you wait (and wait) for it, how about trying some of the international versions of Potter? In China last year, it was easy to buy the unusual Potter sequel Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon, in which Harry encountered sweet and sour rain, became a hairy troll, and joined Gandalf to re- enact scenes from The Hobbit. The book, while credited to J.K. Rowling, wasn't authorized or written by her, but that didn't prevent it from selling like butterbeer.

Meanwhile, in Russia, you can still meet Harry's Slavic twin: "Tanya Grotter," star of Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass. Tanya rides a double bass, sports a mole instead of a bolt of lightning, and attends the Tibidokhs School of Magic. In an interview with journalist Steve Gutterman, author Dmitry Yemets called her "a sort of Russian answer to Harry Potter," and described his books as "cultural competition" for the original. Grotter is a hit: Yemets has already sold more than 1 million copies. And next door in Belarus you'll find Porri Gatter and the Stone Philosopher. In something of a departure, Harry's Belarussian clone wields a grenade launcher and re-fights the White Russian wars.

You're unlikely to be able to get your hands on any of these works, since J.K. Rowling and her publisher have launched an aggressive worldwide legal campaign against the unauthorized Potter takeoffs. It began last year when Rowling and Time-Warner threatened the publishers of Chinese Potter, who agreed to stop publication. On April 4 of this year, Rowling persuaded a Dutch court to block the import of Tanya Grotter to Holland. Harry Potter in Calcutta, in which Harry meets up with various characters from Bengali literature, was recently pulled by its Indian publisher under threat. Potter takeoffs have become international contraband.

Rowling's ability to stop the Potter pretenders is largely a function of the new regime of international copyright. Until recently, countries varied considerably in how they protected literary works, especially works from abroad. The United States, for instance, has a long history of providing less protection than the Europeans. Benjamin Franklin was a kind of pirate: He did good business as a printer of unlicensed English writing. In the 19th century, the United States generally refused to recognize foreign copyrights, allowing American readers to get the latest Dickens and Doyle cheaply. And the borrowing of characters itself has a longer tradition. For example, the princess we know as Cinderella originally hails from China, where she goes by the name Yeh-Shen and relies for help on a magic fish who gives her golden slippers.

Today, nations still maintain and enforce their own copyright laws, but for members of the World Trade Organization (that is, nearly everyone that matters), those statutes must meet extensive minimum standards. Under the Trade Related International Property treaty, original authors "enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing adaptations, arrangements and other alterations of their works." In other words, there is little scope for secondary authors to write local adaptations of the Potter-clone variety, since their country must abide by the international norms guaranteeing Rowling's monopoly everywhere. The result: Rowling can use the courts in WTO-compliant countries to club her Potter rivals.

You might think it a good thing that Rowling can stop the Potter cloning industry, whether it is in Brighton, Bangalore, or Bratislava. Who wants to see Harry turned into a hairy troll or forced to gallivant with foreign literary figures? But on closer examination the argument for letting Potter crush his international competition is quite weak.

The case for preventing literal copying—in which a foreign publisher simply reprints a work without permission—is strong. But Potter follow-ons are different from the American Dickens piracy of the 19th century and DVD piracy of today. Literal copies are what come out when you use a photocopier. Potter's takeoffs are different: They either borrow characters and put them in a new, foreign context (Potter in Calcutta) or just use the themes and ideas of Potter (as in Tanya Grotter's case) as inspiration for a different kind of story. They aren't a direct replacement for a Potter book, the way a literal copy is, but rather a supplement or an adaptation.

One of the main justifications for a unified and strong global copyright system is that it is supposed to facilitate international trade. That's why it's a part of the WTO system. But as trade economists will tell you, trade often works when countries imitate and improve the inventions of others. America invents the hi-fi, Sony turns it into the Walkman, and then Chinese companies make still cheaper imitations.

This is basically what's going on in the world of Harry Potter. The English original is clearly the best. The imitators aren't as good but are cheaper and come out much more frequently (there are already three Tanya Grotter books). There is, in short, a secondary Potter market. Isn't this the international trading system at its best?

Moreover, the writers of secondary Potters are probably better at creating versions of Potter suited to local conditions. According to Reuters, at least some Russian children prefer Tanya Grotter to Harry, some on account of her Russian name. Local writers do things to Harry that Rowling can't, like introducing him to local literary figures and putting him in local wars. It may be good and it may be bad, but it's a market failure to prevent it.

Potter's publishers, in defense of strong global copyright, would say that works like Tanya Grotter are theft, and such theft destroys the incentive to write in the first place. But the incentives argument is surprisingly unpersuasive in the international setting. To say Rowling will stop writing for fear of international parody is a difficult case to make. Only the most famous and lucrative works are parodied overseas. If an international adaptation is a sign you've made it rich, how can it be a serious financial deterrent for new writers?

The truer complaint is that Potter's overseas competitors may mean slightly less profit for Rowling and her publishers. It is also true that Burger King means slightly less profit for McDonald's. You could say that Burger King and Wendy's stole the idea of a fun, plastic burger joint from McDonald's and are unfairly profiting from their evil deed. But when it comes to burger joints, we accept that the consequence of a competitive market is less profit for the first mover (McDonald's). Copyright should be no different. So long as it provides Rowling sufficient incentive to write, it should strive to maintain as much competition and facilitate as much international trade as possible.

It is also true that these rip-off works make authors angry and may tarnish the reputation of the character. But what makes authors angry is precisely what they are least likely to write, and therefore often what copyright needs to permit. For example, in 1989 the rap group 2 Live Crew recorded an obscene version of Roy Orbison's song "Pretty Woman." Orbison's "Pretty Woman" became, successively, "big hairy woman," "bald woman," and eventually, "two-timin' woman." There was little question that it made Orbison's estate angry, tarred the reputation of the original, and was a commercial competitor that threatened Orbison's profits. But the U.S. Supreme Court found it a parody: a non-infringing fair use. The faux Potter books are not quite parodies, but they're similar. Just as refusing 2 Live Crew permission to parody would have destroyed the market for parodies (since authors rarely parody their own works), so Rowling's campaign destroys the market for international follow-ons, since Rowling could never write a Potter book that could capture the Russian spirit the way Grotter does. Rowling is using the cudgel of international copyright not to destroy something she could have created, but to destroy something she could never create.

In the end, few people are likely to mistake Tanya Grotter for Harry Potter; it is akin to mistaking Burger King for McDonald's. The international copyright system is justified in preventing the most basic forms of piracy. But it doesn't need to stop works like Tanya Grotter. The original Harry Potter is good enough to compete with its foreign cousins. So let a hundred Harrys bloom and let a hundred schools of magic contend.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084960/

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Overheard

Participant: Isn’t cyberspace just like the ocean—meaning there is no real jurisdiction?

Larry: Are you a lawyer?

Participant: Yes.

Larry: So this is a standard way to think about this. But here’s the difference between the Internet and the sea. When you’re in the ocean, you’re not in France at the same time.
http://www.copyfight.org/

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So Sue Me, Teens Tell Music Biz
Howard Cohen

Many South Florida music downloaders reacted with a scoff to the music industry's newest threat to sue individual users of music-trading software.

''How are they going to sue every teenager in America?,'' asks Lucia Goyen, 17, of Sunny Isles Beach, who says she buys CDs but also downloads dozens of songs for free and has friends who download hundreds more.

The threat is real, however.

On Wednesday, the music industry's chief trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), pledged that it is ''taking names'' of illegal downloaders and could soon begin preparing civil lawsuits against them.

''Too many computer users don't think there is anything wrong with downloading music that doesn't belong to them -- they are mistaken,'' Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said during a teleconference.

Local music fans cite many reasons for downloading versus buying CDs:

• The discs are overpriced (list price is now up to $19.98 for some titles. Record companies say they need to cover costs, overhead, etc.) )

• Labels stopped issuing commercial singles to force sales of full albums, losing a generation of consumers .

• The quality of the music itself is also perceived as poor.

''I don't think they'll get much money from us. I don't see it being enforceable,'' Goyen says on the phone. ``They threaten us, but we just find a different program, and other computer savvy kids will find new programs.''

Dalia Weintraub, 17, of North Miami Beach, says she has 1,000 MP3s and agrees. ``It's an empty threat. I don't consider it a big deal. Sometimes I only like one or two songs and I'm not going to buy an entire CD for that song.''

The RIAA, however, says the theft of intellectual property using peer-to-peer software programs such as KaZaA, Morpheus or Grokster is a ''big deal'' and attributes the decline in music sales -- 25 percent since 1999 -- mostly to music piracy.

''I think that the industry has no choice but to take this route,'' attorney Leslie José Zigel says on the phone from his Miami office. Zigel, a shareholder with the law firm Greenberg Traurig, says that ``Intangible property is a hard notion for people to wrap their arms around and feel that it's property like a tube of toothpaste at the Wal-Mart, but at the end of the day it is property.''

Zigel gives an example. ``You go to a doctor and he gives you advice, but not medicine. No one would think of not paying the doctor. You took his time and his advice.''

Take Grimm, 30, a member of Miami rock group Darwin's Waiting Room, a band signed to the folding MCA Records. ''This is my living. People think [they're] getting something over on the record label and showing these big corporate a- - - - - -s what's up. Fact of the matter, it hurts the artists. If you don't sell a certain amount of records, you will get dropped,'' he says on the phone.

That view isn't winning the RIAA total support.

Says Sunrise's Jason Valhuerdi, 24: ``If you really want to get your music out there and you're a struggling artist who can't get your name out by [regular] distribution, the next best thing is the Internet. The down side is if people download music and don't make any attempt to purchase music.''

Valhuerdi estimates his downloads number in the hundreds.

''I'm the type of person that likes to own the CD and the cover art and I like to support the band,'' he says. ``They worked hard to get their stuff out there. But there are bands out there that are making millions. . . . A band like 'N Sync or Eminem, he's got tons of money. I'm going to download an Eminem song.''

The move by the RIAA strikes him as heavy-handed.

''[It] will give them a bad name,'' he says. `` Let's drop prices. Maybe people will purchase the CD.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...nt/6199993.htm

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Rhapsody Says CD Burning Doubled Since Price Drop
Reuters

Listen.com on Tuesday said it has seen a nearly 100 percent increase in CD burning among subscribers to its Rhapsody online music service since cutting its fee to 79 cents from 99 cents per track. Rhapsody would not disclose how many tracks were actually burned in June, but said that on-demand streaming has increased 45 percent to more than 11 million songs, or more than 350,000 songs per day, in June.
http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml

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Net Services Promise Anonymous File Sharing – Eventually
Jefferson Graham

With the record industry preparing to sue its customers -- at least those who download without paying -- now comes the next step: file-sharing services that promise to keep users anonymous.

Recording Industry Association of America officials say they can find any song swapper on services such as Kazaa and Grokster using simple tracking software. But new services such as Earth Station 5 and eDonkey2000 say they can protect the identity of their users. And established file-sharing services say they will adapt to protect their customers.

The RIAA's actions ''will force us to come up with solutions that will make it harder, if not impossible, to detect who the users are,'' says Elan Oren of Imesh, a song- and game-swap firm based in Israel. ''It's the never-ending game of the firewall and the hacker.''

Imesh -- which has been in operation since 1999 and somehow never was sued, unlike Napster, Scour, Aimster, Audio Galaxy, Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster -- has 50 million registered users. Oren suggests that, instead of suing its customer base, the RIAA make peace with file sharers and learn to co-exist.

''By attacking its users, they are motivating them not to pay,'' he says. ''We met with them and begged them to make their material available on Imesh for a fee, because we know our users would gladly pay. (The RIAA) refused.''

Songs on Imesh are traded the traditional way -- click on a title to download the file, and it ends up on your hard drive. New programs such as eDonkey and Earth Station 5 do it differently, cutting a file into little pieces and reassembling it when it arrives at your hard drive -- a process that makes it harder for file sharers to be tracked and unmasked.

Still, Internet detective Mark Ishikawa insists that despite new technologies, if it happens online, he'll find it. ''If five buddies are sharing in their dorm room, that's one thing,'' says the CEO of BayTSP, which works for studios and record labels. ''Once it gets to critical mass and goes out onto the Internet, you can't hide.''

Another avenue that analysts expect to lure file sharers is instant messaging. AOL, MSN and Yahoo's chat programs have nearly 100 million users among them. Besides conversing with buddies, users of the software can send photos and music files to each other, without being tracked by the record industry.

For now, the RIAA says it will stay focused on the more established file-sharing programs. ''We can't solve every problem, only the biggest ones before us,'' says RIAA president Cary Sherman.

Kazaa, the most popular swap service with more than 240 million users, shows no sign of slowing down despite the legal threats: 890 million files were being traded Thursday afternoon by 4.3 million users.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...atoday/5280775

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ECT Act Could Put Pirate Viewers In Jail
Tracy Burrows

Internet law company Buys Incorporated has added its voice to warnings that pirate TV viewers could face jail sentences in terms of the provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act. This follows a court case between MultiChoice and a pirate TV viewer.

Last week, the media reported on a Cape High Court judgment that let a pirate viewer off the hook after prosecution by the state in terms of the Broadcasting Act of 1999. The findings implied that MultiChoice had been broadcasting without a licence as it only had permission from the Independent Broadcasting Authority of SA to offer its subscription satellite services.

MultiChoice responded with a statement that until 1999 it was not required to hold a licence, because satellite broadcasting was not regulated. It said the company now complied with the requirements and timeframes of the Broadcasting Act of 1999 and the subsequent Broadcasting Amendment Act of 2003.

"The Cape High Court decision on the case last week appeared to indicate that pirate viewing and tampering with TV decoder smart cards were not crimes in SA," says Internet attorney Reinhardt Buys.

"In fact, nothing could be further from the truth," says Buys. "The MultiChoice pirate viewers were prosecuted in terms of outdated broadcasting legislation and not in terms of the new ECT Act."

MultiChoice spokesman Lebogang Hashatse said pirate viewers were not a problem for the company and that it had the issue under control. Hashatse said even if MultiChoice was not afforded any protection in terms of the Broadcasting Act, "companies were protected as piracy was generally considered an illegal act".

Buys points out: "In terms of section 86 of the ECT Act, a person who intentionally accesses data without the permission or authority to do so, is guilty of an offence and may face imprisonment of up to 12 months or a fine. Furthermore, tampering with a smart card is also a criminal offence that may result in a heavier fine or five years in jail. The Act's definition of ‘data' is wide enough to include digital TV broadcasts.

"Any person who assists a pirate viewer in gaining access to a pay satellite TV channel also commits an offence. The MultiChoice pirate was lucky not to be prosecuted in terms of the ECT Act, as his fate would have been dramatically different," says Buys.
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/busi...0306300942.asp

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P2P Downloaders Go Anonymous With Blubster 2.5

Music Centric Network Provides Privacy to Downloaders and Powerful Marketing Tools to Artists
Press Release

Optisoft S.L., provider of popular peer-to-peer program Blubster, today announced the launch of Blubster 2.5 in the wake of the latest litigious efforts by the RIAA and MPAA to erode consumer privacy and monopolize control of the P2P entertainment market. As Verizon has been handed a court decision forcing the company to reveal the identity of Internet subscribers accused of music piracy, Blubster has re-launched with a new secure, decentralized, self-assembling network that provides users with private, anonymous accounts. (www.blubster.com).

"In an age of media consolidation, it is critical that P2P networks thrive," demands Pablo Soto, developer of Blubster. "Blubster will always pursue counter measures to preserve the freedom and empowerment of decentralized networking. The very existence of our network ensures artists and content creators an alternative to signing away their rights to copyright barons."

Blubster’s latest update is giant leap ahead of other P2P networks. Version 2.5 takes advantage of a streamlined means of distributing large files to dissociate file transfers from specific users.

"If other means of delivering media files could be compared to a postal system with an identifiable sender and receiver, then Blubster’s proprietary MP2P network could be likened to throwing a bottled message into the vast ocean," said Pablo Soto. "The message may get to a destination, but no one knows the full path of its journey nor what is in each bottle."

The first public version of Blubster was ranked "Best Program" in users’ opinion on CNET's Download.com listing for MP3 search tools. Today, Blubster has won the confidence of more than 10 million desktop users all over the world and more than 100,000 users sharing over 20,000,000 songs are connected simultaneously to Blubster, representing the world’s largest online music network.

The powerful new release empowers users to swap music-only files at extremely high speeds, with multi-sourced and auto- resuming downloads, buddy list, private and channel based chat, voice chat, among other features, in a totally decentralized environment. This advanced, third generation file-sharing program gives both, musicians and fans a powerful and free desktop solution to share files in MP3 and the emerging OGG Vorbis music formats.

Blubster 2.5 has many new features; several of which are unique to the Blubster platform.

- Private protocol, featuring a “serverless” peer-to-peer
network with anonymous access and auto-regulated connectivity
for unlimited scalability.

- Speeds never seen before in any peer-to-peer file-sharing
network.

- .OGG Vorbis support, a music format considered by many to be
superior to MP3, has both a higher quality sound and smaller
file size.

- Multi source downloading with the most advanced techniques,
having much higher transfer rates than those achieved via
other protocols, such as HTTP.

- Web links support, providing musicians a new way to share
their creations with an immense and targeted audience.

May Contain 3rd Party Software – JS.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release...lease_id=54968

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Filter
Cynthia L. Webb

File Swappers Beware

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking a lot of heat this morning after its announcement last week that it will sue hundreds of suspected digital pirates. It comes as entertainment industry representatives get ready to meet with file-sharing network owners, who are trying to start their own lobby group to prove their legitimacy to Capitol Hill.

The Associated Press said the RIAA's lawsuit plan "drew the ire of many fans, driving speculation that it could ultimately backfire and encourage a new crop of file-sharing services capable of keeping users anonymous. Filetopia already promises to do just that, and another, called Blubster, is to launch Monday." Gigi Sohn, president of Washington-based technology and copyright group Public Knowledge, told the wire service: "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up."
• The Associated Press via The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Music File Sharing Not Missing A Beat Over Lawsuit Threat

Chris Hoofnagle, deputy counsel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the RIAA's action could impact consumer privacy, according to The Denver Post. He also said that free music fans still will find ways to get their music downloads. "There is going to be a technical measures war between the industry and the users," Hoofnagle said.
• The Denver Post: Singing The Privacy Blues

Michael Weiss, chief executive of StreamCast Networks (owner of file-sharing software site Morpheus), said he will appeal to Congress over the RIAA's lawsuit plan. "The record industry called peer-to-peer users pirates, but what these people are are hundreds of millions of voters," Weiss said, according to BBC News Online. "At the end of next month, we're going to be involved in helping to mobilise [sic] peer-to-peer users around the world and ultimately around the globe to ensure that their voices are heard."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling for popular support of file-sharing networks. The San Francisco-based civil liberties group's Web site has a letter that people can sign and send to their representatives on Capitol Hill. "This is only the most recent development in a campaign that is putting companies out of business, forcing college students to hand over tens of thousands of dollars, and bullying ISPs into betraying your trust. Adding insult to injury, these tactics don't earn a single penny for the artists you love. It is time to change the laws that the RIAA relies upon to bully the public. There are over 60 million Americans using P2P today, and you can make a difference. Send this letter and urge Congress to hold hearings on using P2P to get artists paid," the EFF site said to describe the letter campaign.
• BBC News Online: Music Swappers Plan Protest

The Unsinkable Jack Valenti

Motion Picture Association of America chief Jack Valenti is holding a meeting today to figure out who will replace him once he steps down, the Hollywood Reporter said. "Valenti, 81, has hinted that he is contemplating stepping down as president and CEO of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, and has held discussions with studio executives for some time about planning for an orderly changing of the guard," the trade magazine said. But it looks like Valenti, ensconced as head of the group since 1966, is a little testy when people bring up the idea of his departure. "When asked last week at a going away party for Hilary Rosen, who is leaving the helm of the Recording Industry Association of America, when this would happen for him, Valenti said flatly: 'The job's not open.'"
• The Hollywood Reporter via Reuters/washingtonpost.com: Hollywood’s Man In D.C. To Talk Succession On Monday

"I may leave in September, I may leave in December, I may leave in June '04 or I may leave in December '04," Valenti told The Los Angeles Times recently. "So long as I'm able to do a 15-hour day without collapsing, and so long as 90 percent of it is fun and 10 percent is business, I'll keep going."
• The Los Angeles Times via The Canton Repository: Jack Valenti's Long Goodbye

Valenti, a dedicated opponent of online movie file sharers, was online with washingtonpost.com last week to talk about digital piracy. When asked whether the MPAA would follow the RIAA and lob its own lawsuits against individuals swapping movies online without permission, he replied. "We have no such firm plans at this time. But I don't rule out any options if the occasion requires it." See a full transcript of the discussion here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hptoc_tn

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File-Sharing Firms Plan European Lobbying Effort
Bernhard Warner

Internet file-sharing firms are forming a lobbying group in Europe to defend their business interests against media companies trying to force them out of business, a member of the coalition told Reuters on Monday.

The move is the latest sign that file-sharing outfits, which until recently operated far away from the public eye to avoid litigation, intend to fight for their right to distribute software that enables computer users to share files online.

Media and software companies say the technology is a threat to their business because it allows users to exchange copyright-protected materials such as video games, music, film and software with others for free.

Last week, file-sharing firms Grokster and LimeWire said that, along with an unspecified number of rival firms, they were in the process of forming a lobbying entity to convince the U.S. Congress of their legitimacy.

The initiative won't stop in Washington D.C., said Pablo Soto, a Madrid-based developer of file-sharing technology Blubster. European firms are forming a lobby group in Europe with plans to work with the U.S. group.

"We are joining forces to make the U.S. Congress and the European Union listen to us and the hundreds of millions of voters who use our services," Soto told Reuters.

Soto said details on the coalition will be released as soon as late July. He would not say if the group had hired a lobbyist, nor how many file-sharing firms were involved.

The recording industry is stepping up the heat on file-sharing outfits, claiming they are opening the floodgates to Internet piracy, a phenomenon that is eating into CD sales.

Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America said it would take individual file-sharers to court in an effort to clamp down on the daily flow of millions of unauthorized exchanges.

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, a global trade group that counts hundreds of independent and major music labels such as Sony Music 6758.T and Universal Music EAUG.PA V.N as members, has also vowed to keep legal pressure on the firms.

Soto argued that there are legitimate uses for the technology that could be snuffed out if the law suits are successful.

He added the group does not intend to seek changes to existing copyright laws. He said the primary aim is to protect the privacy of individual users and keep them out of court.

"It's something we've got to do," Soto said.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3013148

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Contract Case Could Hurt Reverse Engineering

Supreme Court decided not to hear accused company's appeal
Grant Gross

A U.S. Supreme Court decision could call into question a common practice among software companies: studying competitors' products to improve their own offerings.

The legality of this practice, called reverse engineering, is in question after a lower court found that a software company had violated a shrink-wrapped license contract when it reverse-engineered a competitor's piece of software.

Last week, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the accused software company's appeal.

Although the breach of contract ruling applies only to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court's lack of action could embolden other software companies to prohibit reverse engineering or take away other fair use rights allowed under copyright law by including such prohibitions in an end user license agreement, said Karen Copenhaver, a patent and intellectual property lawyer with Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, of Boston.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...neering_1.html

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Hollywood will spend approximately $500 million on data storage in 2003 alone, a figure that will grow 70 percent annually.

New Technology A Boon For Big Screen
John Borland

BURBANK, Calif.-- In the middle of the Warner Bros. lot here, surrounded by vast warehouses and soundstages, the past and the present are meeting amid banks of data-crunching and storage devices housed at a high-tech control center.

It is here that the studio recently turned the original Technicolor release of "Singin' in the Rain" into a crystal-clear digital file, using state-of-the-art technology that produced a far better version than would have been possible just a few years ago. The studio's chief technical officer, Chris Cookson, showed it off to most of the original cast late last year.

"The comment I heard was that it looked like it did when they did it on stage," says Cookson, laughing. "Debbie Reynolds, who was maybe 19 when she did the movie, said it was so clear you could even see wrinkles on her face."

The 1952 classic's restoration reflects a seismic shift for Hollywood studios, broadcast networks and other media companies, which are digitizing new works and decades of archives to take advantage of new distribution channels: the Internet, high-definition DVDs and TV, and next-generation theaters.

Digital technology is also redefining the art of moviemaking itself, an evolution that is apparent on-screen in current releases such as "Finding Nemo" and "The Matrix Reloaded." With the right digital manipulation, Keanu Reeves can fight scores of computer-generated villains, Pixar Animation Studios can give birth to another family of wise-cracking 3D cartoon characters, and virtual armies can storm citadel walls in the "The Lord of the Rings"--with no extras required.

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the tools used to create and support this digital wizardry represent multibillion- dollar opportunities for companies such as IBM, Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), Apple Computer and Thomson. And perhaps the most dramatic barometer of this evolution is the seemingly innocuous technology of data storage.

Hollywood companies will spend roughly $500 million on data storage in 2003, and expenditures will increase about 70 percent each year, according to Tom Coughlin, an independent analyst tracking the entertainment industry's storage use. By 2006, Coughlin estimates, the annual storage needs of film studios, video and television production companies, and distribution outfits will reach 740 petabytes, or 740 million gigabytes.

"These trends are forcing spending on information technology tremendously up," says Rick Dougherty, principal analyst with research firm The Envisioneering Group. "It's a glamorous section of IT. Apple, IBM and Sun all brag when they get a big Hollywood contract."

Almost all action thrillers, children's tales and, of course, science fiction epics employ computer-generated effects or characters that would have been impossible with film alone. Digital imaging of this type requires processing, storage and server resources of mammoth proportions.

In the Pixar blockbuster "Monsters, Inc.," for example, fur-covered star James P. "Sully" Sullivan had more than 2.3 million individual hairs that needed to be processed separately by banks of powerful computers. Individual frames in complicated works of this kind can take as long as 80 minutes to render. Similarly complex were the kung-fu fights involving dozens of Agent Smiths in "The Matrix Reloaded," which required the painstaking re-creation of each character's face and clothing, along with innovative lighting effects.

A single hour of digitally animated film can take up a terabyte or more of data storage, and all of it must be available at any time to animators, directors and others working on the movie. That requires networks, storage devices and databases flexible and fast enough to juggle these massive amounts of data.

IBM is one of several companies aiming squarely at this market. It is applying some of the supercomputing techniques used by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to create a fast storage server system that gives multiple people simultaneous access to high-resolution files.

Big Blue is pitching its Linux-based technology as a cheaper, faster and open alternative to the proprietary systems most studios use for this kind of storage and processing work. So far, it has found only a few takers for its most advanced systems, notably Threshold Digital Research Lab, an animation studio that worked on "The Faculty," "Dogma" and "Scary Movie."
http://news.com.com/2030-6683-1001643.html

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RIAA Hit By EFFing Music Campaign

Engage in Congress, ginger group says
Adamson Rust

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will formally announce today a campaign aimed at persuading American citizens to demand changes in the copyright laws.

The "Let the Music Play" campaign, said the EFF, will counter the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) bid to file thousands of lawsuits against people who use file sharing software.

Shari Steele, head of the EFF claimed that copyright law in the USA is out of kilter with the views of the American public.

She said: "Rather than sue people into submission, we need to find a better alternative that gets artists paid while making file sharing legal".

The campaign will place adverts in a number of publications and attempt to make it easy for voters in the USA to write Congress politicians.

Senior lawyer Fred von Lohmann claimed: "Congress needs to spend less time listening to record industry lobbyists and more time listening to... 60 million Americans who use file sharing software today".
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10252

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Court: Anonymous P2P No Defense
Paul Festa

Operators of peer-to-peer networks cannot escape copyright infringement claims by giving their members the ability to mask the content that changes hands on their networks, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

Calling the tactic a form of "willful blindness," the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a lower court's injunction against the Madster file-swapping network that had ordered the service shut down pending a trial. But, in a mixed decision, the court also bolstered a key defense argument invoking a comparison between file-swapping software and personal home video recording.

Before it was shut down, Madster had offered its users the ability to encrypt files traded over America Online's AOL Instant Messenger client. As a result, its operators had argued that they had no obligation to seek to block illegal files swapped on the network because they were unaware of specific copyright violations.

In a decision that could dampen efforts to bring privacy to file-swapping networks, the court on Monday rejected that reasoning.

"One who, knowingly or strongly suspecting that he is involved in shady dealings, takes steps to ensure that he does not acquire full or exact knowledge of the nature and extent of those dealings, is held to have criminal intent," the panel wrote in the 23-page decision.

Privacy in file-swapping was put on the front burner last week when the Recording Industry Association of America said it would begin investigations aimed at bringing lawsuits against individuals who make large numbers of files available for uploading on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster.

Since June 17, a file-swapping client promising improved privacy known as Blubster 2.5, has seen more than 3.3 million downloads, according to CNET Download.com, a division of CNET Networks.

"I wouldn't say it's the end of the road for (Madster), but one of the things that makes it tough is that the (court) is highly critical of the willful blindness approach to running these sorts of companies," said Tim Wu, an associate professor at the University of Virginia Law School. The opinion "suggests that deliberately creating something beyond your control is not going to get you out of copyright infringement."

Madster, previously called Aimster, is one of several peer-to-peer, or P2P, online file-swapping services designed to facilitate the sharing of computer files, including audio tracks. Its more famous predecessor, Napster, has been credited with revolutionizing the distribution of popular music, though lawsuits by the recording industry shut it down. The services are also used to swap digitized copies of films and TV programs.

The Aimster case is not the only file-swapping case wending its way through the courts. In April, the courts handed a major defeat to the recording and movie industries with a decision holding that file-swapping networks Streamcast and Grokster were not liable for contributory infringement due to illegal activities of their users.

In December, a federal court ordered Madster to shut down after the service failed to comply with a preliminary injunction ordering it to put an end to copyright infringement. Monday's ruling upheld that decision.

"We are pleased that the injunction against Aimster was upheld, effectively shutting it down until trial," Motion Picture Association of America President and CEO Jack Valenti said in a statement. "This is another indication that so called 'file-sharing' businesses designed to benefit from the illegal use of copyrighted movies will not be tolerated."

Madster operator Johnny Deep said Monday that although the court had failed to lift the injunction against him and his service, it had taken his side in approving a legal analogy between Madster and Sony's Betamax video recorder--an analogy the recording industry is eager to discredit.

"The court agreed with us on matters of law," said Deep in an interview. "It said Sony does apply. It disagreed completely with the record industry on that."

In the 1984 Sony case--Sony Corp. of America, Inc. v. Universal City Studios, Inc.--the Supreme Court ruled that making a product that has "substantial noninfringing uses" is not itself a contributory infringement, even if that product is used to infringe. Therefore Sony couldn't be held responsible for the unlicensed copying on its Betamaxes of copyrighted works.

In Monday's decision, the court rejected the recording industry's argument that because Aimster was capable of blocking infringing uses, it should necessarily be considered a contributory infringer. Instead, the court ruled, if detection and prevention of copyright infringement were "highly burdensome" to a service provider, that provider would escape an infringement claim.

Deep pledged to appeal the injunction on the basis of its being too broad--a contention the 7th Circuit explicitly rejected. He also pledged that his determination to fight would sour the recording industry on its promise to sue individual file-swappers in large numbers.

"This is a case against me personally," Deep said. "And I'm going to give them a little taste of what it's like to sue these thousands of people who are determined and who believe that they're doing the right thing."
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1022462.html

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Some Bands Spurn Apple's iTunes Online Music Store
Reuters

Rock bands The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer Inc's AAPL.O iTunes online music store, a representative for the bands, said on Wednesday.

That move comes in response to Apple's decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, the format that has dominated the music industry for decades, an agent for the bands said.

"Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format," said Mark Reiter, with Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and several other artists.

Green Day and Linkin Park, according to a source familiar with the situation, have also refused to make their songs available as individual downloads on the Apple service, which has already sold more than 5 million songs since launching this spring.

According to Reiter, Apple refuses to sell albums in their entirety unless the artists also allow the tracks on the album to be sold independently as digital downloads.

"We can't let a distributor dictate the way our artists sell their music," Reiter said, adding that the business terms were otherwise acceptable.

Apple had no immediate comment.

Calling the issue more a "creative issue than a financial issue," Reiter said the artists felt that if consumers can download their singles, they are less apt to buy entire albums.

"If you download a single, you may ignore the other tracks on the album," he said. "When our artists record a body of work, it's what they deem to be representative of their careers at that time."
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3029706

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P2P Alliance To Counter RIAA?
Lisa M. Bowman

The company behind the popular Kazaa file-swapping software plans to launch a trade group Wednesday to push the case for peer-to-peer networking.

Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks and partner Altnet hope their new group, called the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), will help legitimize the much-maligned peer-to-peer industry, which has come under fire from Hollywood, politicians and the recording industry for being a haven for pirates.

Martin Lafferty, the DCIA's chief executive, said the group is hoping to provide a neutral forum where companies that are affected by or involved in peer-to- peer or distributed computing technology can meet to establish business practices, to encourage the adoption of standards and to help shape public policy.

The association hopes to attract peer-to-peer network providers, software makers and Internet service providers as members. It also aims to draft content providers such as the movie studios and record labels. Ideally, members will be optimistic about the business opportunities presented by peer-to-peer technologies, but will also believe that copyright owners should be compensated for their work, according a DCIA white paper.

"Then this becomes a real and rational business and not just something for hobbyists," Lafferty said.

Sharman, which is based in Australia, is the parent company of Kazaa, one of the most popular online file-swapping services. Altnet is a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Earlier this month, in an attempt to diminish piracy, the two companies jointly released a new bundle of file-swapping software that includes components of a high-security peer-to-peer network, and a program that pays users to be a part of it.

Although peer-to-peer networks have soared in popularity, they've also drawn lawsuits from record and movie companies who say they provide an easy method for people to freely trade unauthorized copies of songs and films. Peer-to-peer companies including Aimster, Napster and Scour have all found themselves on the losing end of entertainment industry lawsuits.

Now, the media industry has expanded its approach to go after individuals who use peer-to-peer networks in addition to chasing the companies that provide the technology.

Just last week, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that it would start gathering information about people using peer-to-peer networks to share music, so it could file thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits against them.

Lafferty said that the DCIA hopes to extend an olive branch to the entertainment companies and work with them to come up with an alternative to litigation.

"It's never a good idea to criminalize your target customers; it's something you kind of do out of desperation," Lafferty said. "It will take the industry somewhat burying the hatchet and sitting down at the table, and the DCIA wants to provide the table."

Lafferty, who once launched a satellite TV industry trade group, said the peer-to-peer market is facing many of the same issues the satellite TV market once did. He said that at first, the satellite TV industry was a hotbed of piracy, with people buying dishes to gain unauthorized access to paid TV programming. But programmers, technology companies, and other players eventually got together to hammer out business plans amenable to all sides, he said.

A representative from the RIAA is hopeful that the new group will help foster a positive dialog with copyright holders.

"Anytime anyone wants to talk to us about becoming legitimate--compensating artists, songwriters and others for their creative works--we are happy to listen," the representative said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1022811.html

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Corbis Sues Amazon, Online Stores Over Images

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Corbis Corp., a photography provider owned by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) Chairman Bill Gates, said on Tuesday it sued Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) for being party to illegal sales of its images. 'We're going to be very aggressive about people that infringe willfully on our intellectual property,' Corbis Chief Executive Steve Davis told Reuters. 'Amazon has been a part of that and participated in these transactions.'
http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml

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Giving Sharers Ears Without Faces
Xeni Jardin

In response to recent threats to file traders, peer-to-peer developers say they're seeing an upsurge of interest in tools that purport to hide identities.

The pressure comes from the Recording Industry Association of America's announcement Wednesday that it plans to sue hundreds of uploaders, and a recent court ruling requiring Verizon to reveal the names of subscribers accused of piracy.

Blubster developer Pablo Soto of Madrid said his music-swapping service relaunched today as a secure, decentralized system providing users with anonymous accounts.

The MP2P network (short for Manolito Peer-to-Peer) on which Blubster is based consists of more than 200,000 users sharing over 52 million files, according to Soto. The update is also said to include a new, streamlined file-distribution method that disassociates transfers from specific users.

"The biggest privacy weakness of our previous version was the ability to query a list of shared songs for any user -- now that can be disabled," Soto said. "It may be possible to gather IP addresses from the network, but not data about what content specific users are sharing."

Blubster uses an Internet data transfer protocol known as UDP for content look-up and transfer negotiating. Unlike the TCP protocol that serves this function in other file-sharing networks, UDP is a so-called "connectionless" method that doesn't reveal links between nodes or acknowledge transmission in an identifiable manner.

Because UDP transfer logs don't reveal detailed information about which user at which IP address is accessing what content at what time, they are considered less vulnerable to legal discovery than TCP logs.

"Any technology that allows people to communicate is a step in the right direction," Soto said. "This isn't just about exchanging music, this is about the right to create technology and enjoy the right to privacy."

Developer sources told Wired News that pro-P2P coalitions are forming in the United States and Europe to centralize lobbying and public relations efforts. Coalition members are said to include Grokster, LimeWire, Blubster and others. Public announcements are expected in July.

Philip Corwin, Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist for Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks, predicts file traders will migrate to anonymous networks and "sneaker networks" that facilitate trades among smaller groups of swappers. This is already possible through popular instant-messaging clients from Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online, and through tools such as Waste, the application created by principal Nullsoft developer Justin Frankel that facilitates secure exchanges among private groups.

"There is no practical technological means to obliterate the public's ability to transfer files," Corwin said. "The RIAA lawsuits may create a chilling effect that deters some or causes others to limit the size of shared collections to minimize risk. It will probably drive more technologically adept consumers to systems that profess to offer more security against legal assault."
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59448,00.html

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Center For Democracy And Technology

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Privacy And Security
Summary

Concerns are exacerbated by the growing use of file-sharing programs by millions of individuals and families, often with little or no training or experience.

With these risks come benefits. Peer-to-peer file sharing can be used for legitimate, non-infringing file distribution. Its underlying technology, not so different from peer-to-peer networks like the World Wide Web, is rapidly evolving and being adopted for many new uses. Regulating this technology without broader ramifications would be difficult, and could have many unintended consequences.

How then do we address these real privacy and security concerns? CDT believes that an active program of education and better software practices is needed. Such a program would:

* Inform people about the risks in file sharing - The public, and particularly the families of file-trading minors, need greater awareness of the potential risks of file sharing. Educational efforts- like the Internet community GetNetWise website-are already including tips for safe peer-to-peer use that should be widely disseminated.
* Seek fair information practices in file-sharing software - Much more should be done to design peer-to-peer software with transparency and better control over shared files. Software producers should reject invasive spyware, adopt fair information practices, and must provide better notice when information is transmitted to third parties.
* Add privacy protections for DMCA subpoenas - Privacy and safety protections for end users should be included in the broad DMCA Section 512(h) subpoena provision in order to require more due process - including notice to the user and other protections- before ISPs are compelled to reveal sensitive personal identity information.
* Prevent invasive "self-help" tactics- In no circumstances should it be legal to damage another person's computer or files based on allegations of wrong-doing, including copyright infringement.

All of this should take place against the broader backdrop of action regarding Internet privacy generally, where the continued growth of privacy technologies and industry self-regulatory efforts along with baseline privacy legislation are necessary to ensure public trust and democratic values.

Congress has a valuable role to play in educating the public about the potential risks of file-sharing systems, in encouraging companies to design more user-friendly systems, and in modifying current legal provisions that create privacy risks. CDT looks forward to working with this Committee and others to further these efforts.
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=53760

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Online File-Sharing Networks Set Up Lobbying Shops
Andy Sullivan

Internet file-sharing networks that allow users to copy songs for free are organizing to counter mounting pressure from the entertainment industry and Capitol Hill, industry officials said on Tuesday.

"Peer to peer" services including Kazaa, Grokster and LimeWire are hiring lobbyists and setting up trade associations in Washington to convince power brokers in Congress and Hollywood to work with them, rather than demonize them.

Since Napster introduced the concept in 1999, millions of Internet users have logged on to peer-to- peer networks to copy music, movies, software and other files from each others' hard drives, a practice the recording industry says has led to a sharp decline in CD sales.

Record labels have actively pursued the peer-to-peer services in court, and last week announced that they plan to sue individual users as well. Meanwhile, lawmakers have condemned the networks because they make pornography readily available to minors and expose users to viruses, hacking and other security risks.

Peer-to-peer officials say it's time to tell their side of the story.

Entertainment companies "are not going to come to the table until they're forced to," said Grokster President Wayne Rosso. "The only way we can force them to come to the table is to make our users' voices heard in Congress."

Rosso said Grokster and several other peer-to-peer groups will unveil an advocacy group within the next 60 days to argue that they represent a promising new distribution channel for legitimate content, rather than just a conduit for copyright infringement.

Separately, the two companies behind the popular Kazaa network have sponsored an umbrella group that hopes to draw in electronics makers, Internet providers and entertainment companies, as well as other peer-to-peer firms.

The Distributed Computing Industry Association had its first meeting last night in Los Angeles with record-label representatives and other industry players, "and there were no fistfights," Chief Executive Marty Lafferty said.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3022618

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Rights Group Defends P2P In Ad Campaign
Kate Leadbetter

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched an advertising campaign demanding changes in copyright law to legalise file sharing.

The "Let the Music Play" campaign is intended to encourage the six millions users of file-sharing software in the US to make their voices heard in government, as a counterweight to increasingly vehement condemnation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks by the entertainment industry. The campaign, launched on 30 June, follows the RIAA's announcement last week that it intends to begin filing lawsuits against a large number of the individuals who use file-swapping services like Kazaa and Morpheus.

Shari Steele, the executive director of the EFF, said in a statement that copyright law is "out of step with the views of the American public and the reality of music distribution online". Steele said that the RIAA's efforts would be better directed finding a way for the music industry and peer-to-peer networks to coexist: "rather than trying to sue people into submission, we need to find a better alternative that gets artists paid while making file sharing legal."

The recording industry's legal tactics successfully shut down an earlier generation of file-swapping services, such as Napster, but file-sharing usage has continued to grow. The industry blames file-sharing for a precipitous drop in music sales; in the past three years, unit shipments of recorded music have dropped by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in 1999 to 860 million units in 2002.

As a solution, the RIAA said last week it would begin gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits against individuals who offer "substantial amounts" of copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks. "The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear -- this activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences," said RIAA president Cary Sherman in a statement announcing the strategy. The RIAA has already begun suing individual P2P users. Earlier this year, for example, the RIAA successfully sued four university students for P2P piracy, ordering each to pay $12,000 to $17,000 (£8,000 to £11,000) in compensation.

EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann said that America's politicians are failing to recognise the importance of the P2P community. "Today, more US citizens use file-sharing software than voted for President Bush," he said. "Congress needs to spend less time listening to record industry lobbyists and more time listening to the more than 60 million Americans who use file-sharing software today."

The EFF will place advertisements about the Right to Share campaign in magazines including "Spin", "Blender", "Computer Gaming World", and "PC Gamer".
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t26...zdnetukhompage

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New File-Sharing Sites Hide Users' IDs
AP

Music fans continued swapping songs over the Internet, though a bit more cautiously, despite the recording industry's threat this week to sue individuals engaged in digital piracy.

The threat appeared to have little effect on the pace of downloading over the most popular file-sharing services.

But the move drew the ire of many fans, driving speculation that it could ultimately backfire and encourage a new crop of file-sharing services capable of keeping users anonymous. Filetopia already promises to do just that, and another, called Blubster, launched Monday.

"The recording industry is not going to win if all they do is sue people," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group on technology and copyright issues. "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up."

Yet the campaign could result in the proliferation of file-sharing services that outfox efforts to detect the users' identity.

"If the recording industry succeeds in their goal of making large numbers of people feel unsafe in their file sharing, it's a safe bet that someone will come along to fill the sudden demand for an easy, safer way to use P2P," said Adrian Lamo, 22, a communications researcher from San Francisco.

For now, many users of file-sharing services said they took some precautions, but remained undeterred.

"I don't think that I trade in the volumes that they would be interested in," said Alec Cumming, 24, a Los Angeles film restorer who estimates he has 200 downloaded songs on his computer. "If they really went after me, I would pretty likely stop. I'm not making any money off of it."

Others hoped to skirt the RIAA's sweep, which is initially targeted at those who share "substantial" collections of MP3 files, by simply disabling the sharing feature on their software -- something the RIAA hopes will mean fewer songs available on the networks.

"I turned (the feature) off because they're on their witch hunt, and I think the witch hunt will die off and prove to be just that," said Jeff Gregory, a Web editor in North Palm Beach, Florida, who uses Kazaa. Gregory, 32, estimated he has 600 songs downloaded on his computer -- and he intends to get more.

There were about 10 million fewer files traded on FastTrack between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, though the difference amounted to a decline of only 1 percent.

"That number should drop off over time if the deterrence is having effect," said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates. Sohn said people won't really get scared until RIAA starts filing its lawsuits. But she warned that the industry risks consumer backlash if it sues "every Tom, Dick and Harry with a handful of songs." Leigh said the industry's strategy overlooks the impact of CD burning. If the industry squelches file sharing, he said, young music fans will simply trade copies of CDs.

While such a scenario would be an improvement for an industry now seeing millions of music files shared worldwide, Leigh said it underscores how the exchange of music on some level won't go away.

There are 200 million CD burners in use currently, Leigh said. "And the kids are not going to stop using them."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...oad.music.ap/#

JackSpratts · 03-07-03, 10:28 PM

EFF Press Release

File-sharing has enabled music fans from around the world to build the largest library of recorded music in history. While this should be cause for celebration, large record labels have spent the last three years attacking peer-to-peer (P2P) technology and the people who use it. But neither user-empowering technologies nor consumers' desire for easy access to digital music are evil. Targeting technologists and users is not addressing the real problem.

The problem is that there is no adequate system in place that allows music lovers access to their favorite music while compensating artists and copyright holders. It's time to start addressing this problem head on. In the past, we've used a system called "compulsory licensing" to reconcile copyright law with the benefits of new technologies like cable television and webcasting. This approach has drawbacks, but it's certainly better than the direction that the recording industry is taking us today.

Artists and labels are already making money from the Net without suing their fans:

* Wilco
* Janis Ian
* They Might Be Giants
* Matador Records
* Beggars Banquet

We need to face the fact that copyright law currently is broken. It is making criminals out of music lovers and technologists. College students are being sued, ISPs are being forced to rat out their customers, some members of Congress are calling for college students to be jailed for file sharing, the list goes on and on. But there are more than 60 million people in the United States alone who use file sharing--more than the number of people who voted for our current President. If we all band together and stand up for our rights, we can change the law.

* We recently won the Morpheus case (MGM v. Grokster), the first major court victory in the fight to save P2P.

* EFF members in every Congressional district in the United States helped defeat the Berman "P2P Vigilantism" Bill in 2002 by sending thousands of letters to Congress via our online Action Center.

* We are working to establish fair legal protections for privacy by helping ISPs like Verizon stand up to the recording industry .

* Lawmakers have, with our help, proposed legislation that would protect the anonymity rights of Internet users, including file- traders.

* EFF is trying to move the debate forward by educating peer-to-peer users with a national ad campaign and educational resources like this page.

* We are working with ISPs and attorneys to protect the civil liberties of Internet users with a service called SubpoenaDefense.org.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been protecting your rights to use technology for over a decade. When Congress considered legalizing vigilante attacks on the computers of P2P users, we helped thousands of people contact their legislators, and the measure was defeated. Large record companies have been trampling privacy on the Internet, but EFF has been helping ISPs like Verizon stand up for their customers. We recently won a major legal victory for the makers of Morpheus, a popular file-sharing program.
http://www.eff.org/share/

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Bit Torrent in the Spotlight

File Sharing Tech Takes Center Stage
Karl Bode

Over a month ago, we wrote about the latest craze in filesharing, Bit Torrent; a technology that has since exploded in popularity. At the time of our initial report, many people had never heard of the technology. Many still haven't, but in just over a month, the usage of that application has exploded and can be seen everywhere. Several websites are now up (and stable) offering a myriad of guides to what's being shared out there. So what's so great about Bit Torrent? What's so different about it from any other filesharing application?

First, there's no searching services built into Bit Torrent. When you find a file, you're nearly guaranteed that it's going to contain the content you asked for. You very rarely (if ever) fall victim to the corrupted/fake file syndrome that you see on many other peer-to-peer programs, eliminating a major headache. There are, however, a few file-sharing applications (E.G. Shareaza) out there that will search for torrents, as well as many other popular file- sharing extensions, but you eventually fall victim to falsification of files again.

Secondly, BT rewards those who upload while they're downloading. As soon as you start downloading a part of your file, you immediately begin to start uploading what you have to other people around the internet. This means that files can be shared faster, because you don't have to wait for someone to have a completed file in order to download from them. There are ways to disable the uploading, but in situations where available upload bandwidth is limited, Bit Torrent will give the uploaders greater priority on their downloads than the leechers.

Some large websites, especially those distributing linux and linux components, have adopted the Bit Torrent technology. This has vastly increased download performance while decreasing bandwidth costs at the same time. Now, much smaller sites have the ability to spread their files across the internet without having to worry about hundreds and thousands of dollars of bandwidth charges each month. Even some IRC channels have been using BT to distribute their files. The anime scene was one of the first to start distributing files and so far it's been a huge success. More people can be served, and they can be served much faster.

Our filesharing forum has helped dozens of users to get online with Bit Torrent.

The technology's creator, Bram Cohen, says that his "attempts to promote BitTorrent for any specific purpose basically failed", but that he hopes the technology can still find a viable place on the internet. Cohen addressed several questions, including his feelings on piracy, in a recent Slashdot Interview.

So far the technology sounds great; but what's the catch? Many people still love the simplicity of a one-two click/GUI based search technology. There's no doubt that Bit Torrent requires a little more technical knowledge than many of the other filesharing applications. Also, as is being discussed in our forums, Bit Torrent doesn't make you invulnerable from the large agencies that try to crack down on copyright infringement and piracy.

You're just as likely to receive your fair share of attorney nasty-grams if you choose to downloaded pirated content. There's certainly no doubt that a good chunk of the files that are distributed are of the illegal type, but there is certainly a lot more practical and legal uses for it then most other file-sharing applications.

Bit Torrent doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, and as more people use it, the technology should improve. This is one of the few file-sharing applications that provides a higher quality of performance for everyone as its user base increases.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/29907

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Buyer Beware
eBay Security Chief Turns Website Into Arm of the Law
Jonah Engle

Speaking at a conference this winter on Internet crime, eBay.com's director of law enforcement and compliance, Joseph Sullivan, offered law- enforcement officials extensive access to personal customer information.

Founded in 1995 as a niche site for collectibles, eBay quickly grew into one of the Internet's largest websites, currently boasting 69 million daily visitors, who place an average of 7.7 million bids each day. The company, now valued at $29.6 billion, has become synonymous with online shopping, and is rapidly expanding overseas.

The talk, "Working with Law Enforcement," was delivered at the CyberCrime 2003 conference in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Sullivan, who left the Justice Department to become senior counsel for rules, trust and safety at eBay last year, told the audience of law-enforcement officials and industry executives that he didn't "know another website that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," seemingly meaning that eBay acts particularly quickly to grant law enforcement extensive access to user information without regard to established legal procedures that protect individuals from civil rights abuses by the state.

Brags Sullivan, "If you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details--all without having to produce a court order." (eBay itself goes further than this, employing six investigators who are charged with tracking down "suspicious people" and "suspicious behavior.")

Seventy percent of eBay customers, as well as a significant portion of the rest of the online commercial world, make their purchases using (eBay- owned) Paypal, which provides clearing services for online financial transactions. Through Paypal, eBay has access to the financial records of tens of millions of customers. "If you contact me," said Sullivan to assembled law-enforcement authorities, "I will hook you up with the Paypal people. They will help you get the information you're looking for.... In order to give you details about credit-card transactions, I have to see a court order. I suggest that you get one, if that's what you're looking for."

Sullivan even offered to conscript eBay's employees in virtual sting operations: "Tell us what you want to ask the bad guys. We'll send them a form, signed by us, and ask them your questions. We will send their answers directly to your e-mail."

The attack on Internet privacy, like all civil liberties, has been growing since September 11 in the form of the Patriot Act and other federal and state- based legislation. Many provisions in the new laws undermine online privacy, and are in keeping with eBay's information-sharing policies. The Patriot Act allows ISPs to voluntarily hand over all "non-content" information to law enforcement without the need for a court order or subpoena. It also expands the category of information that law-enforcement figures can seek with a simple subpoena (no court review required) to include, among other things, IP addresses and credit card and bank account numbers.

While Sullivan's statements are the most extreme examples of the blurring between law enforcement and private corporations, eBay is not the only large online companies to have diluted its customer-privacy provisions. Traditionally, it was standard practice not to reveal customer information to third parties; now, however, Internet companies are making exceptions for the government. And massive online vendors from Travelocity to Amazon are using vague language to give themselves virtually complete discretion as to what customer information they will turn over to law-enforcement officials. Whether there will be a consumer backlash against these relaxed privacy policies remains to be seen.

If so, then companies like eBay may have to question their current willingness to become quasi-private law-enforcement agencies themselves. In liberal democracies it is assumed that criminal investigation and law enforcement are the sole domain of government. But the trend in the United States, as evidenced by eBay, among many companies, now sees huge private-sector commercial entities becoming, in effect, agents of law enforcement. It's an arrangement between government and the private sector, which Kozlovski calls the "invisible handshake"--Internet companies promise to open their files to law enforcement, while law enforcement insures that citizens stay in the dark. This new relationship raises crucial questions regarding civic life in the United States, and our rights as citizens and consumers. According to Sullivan, "when someone uses [eBay's] site and clicks on the 'I agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities..." Is this more than we bid for?
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=engle

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OGG For Neuros Bows
Jack Spratts

OOG Vorbis files can now be played for the first time on a portable “MP3” style player. That player, the Neuros, has the needed hardware to decode the more complex OGGs, considered by many serious listeners to be of a much higher quality than the more popular MP3s. This firmware release is for testers, but anyone can participate. In the works for months, final release originally scheduled for March has not been announced.

Instructions and download here.

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Copying Troubles A Hiccup For Linux Festival
Richard Wood

CD duplication company Software Images has refused a request to copy 500 Linux software CDs for a Linux Installfest this Saturday, because of concerns the job would breach a contract with Microsoft and infringe intellectual property rights.

New Zealand Open Source Society member Eden McKee approached Software Images to have a CD replicated containing Linux variant Knoppix and Microsoft Office competitor Open Office.

But when he arrived with the materials last week, Software Images declined to do the job. Society president Peter Harrison then made a separate request for Software Images to do the work.

Correspondence obtained by the Herald shows Harrison was told by Software Images' account manager Dean Baker that "your content will be no problem to replicate".

But he then backtracked, saying there may be an issue due to a "replication agreement" with Microsoft.

On Thursday he said the replication was not a problem, but Software Image's e-fulfillment services (if they were required) could not be offered.

Yesterday Software Images declined to do the job, citing intellectual property concerns.

When questioned by the Herald on Friday, Software Images chief executive Allan Morton said his company's wariness of Linux was due to legal action between SCO and Linux over intellectual property issues.

"[The media] has made us aware that there is litigation around this software."

Morton said it was the customer's obligation to show they had the necessary rights and his company could only replicate "properly licensed and owned intellectual property content".

Harrison said the SCO lawsuit was not about copyright.

"There are no allegations that there are any copyright violations in Linux," he said, adding that the Open Source community was committed to making sure intellectual property rights were respected.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydispl...toryID=3510183

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CanOnline Global Media, Inc. Announces Copy- proof CD Release

Prepares Entertainment Industry for New Content Protection Technology and New Revenue Opportunities
Press Release

CanOnline Global Media, Inc. ('CanOnline'), through its operating division KaOzz Entertainment Group ('KaOzz') today announced a distribution agreement with the Seattle based rock group, Underride. Utilizing a proprietary content protection technology and distribution method, KaOzz will revolutionize the distribution of copyrighted content and the associated revenues generated by the sale of original creative material.

Saturday, July 12, 2003, KaOzz and Underride will introduce the World's First Digital Copy-proof CD(SM) at a music industry event at the infamous "Whisky a Go-Go" in Los Angeles, CA. During the "Cruefest 2003" event, Underride will distribute encrypted copies of its first album, "Horsepower Kills," in anticipation of the upcoming August 4, 2003 Peer-to-Peer (P2P) release of its new Extended Play CD, "No Tomorrow," mixed and produced by the famed rock producer, Toby Wright. Utilizing the Company's patent pending Security Protocol Integration technology (SPi(TM)), Underride's music releases will be protected from unauthorized copying and redistribution in an online environment.

SPi(TM) is the first release in a series of new technologies from CanOnline to be offered under the brand "KaOzz Unleashed(TM)." The technologies under this brand are designed to protect digital content from copyright infringement and preserve "fair use" while opening access to new revenue opportunities for artists, distributors, music labels and other content owners. SPi Certified(TM) content will be released directly into Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing environments and tracked throughout all generations of distribution while offering every user the opportunity to listen and buy music using the KaOzz Digital Distribution Network(TM).

This release may contain forward-looking statements on reasonable management expectations of certain events and projections. These forward-looking statements involve a high degree of uncertainty and inherent risks. Therefore subsequent results after the date this news was released may vary and such variations may be material.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2003,+09:05+AM

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Morpheus Responds To Recording Industry's Legal Threat Against Internet File Sharing Users
Press Release

StreamCast Networks Inc., the developers of the popular peer-to- peer file-sharing software, Morpheus, today announced its support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) initiative, "Let the Music Play." When visiting the www.morpheus.com website or opening the Morpheus peer-to-peer application, users will be able to send an instant and automatic e-mail message to their Congressional Representatives demanding to keep file-sharing legal and to change the US copyright law so that artists get paid. This action is in response to the Recording Industry Association of America's recent decision to legally prosecute thousands of peer- to-peer file sharing users.

"We do not condone copyright infringement, but we will not sit idly by and watch the recording industry trample on the rights and privacy of individuals," said Michael Weiss, CEO of StreamCast Networks. "While the recording industry calls file-sharers pirates, we have a much stronger name for them -- VOTERS -- and we will do whatever it takes to help them have their voices heard."

Additionally, an updated version of the Morpheus file-sharing software is being prepared for release next week. Morpheus 3.2 will provide users with increased security and anonymity to protect users privacy.

"Today, more U.S. citizens use file-sharing software than voted for President Bush," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "Congress needs to spend less time listening to record industry lobbyists and more time listening to the more than 60 million Americans who use file-sharing software today."

The Morpheus peer-to-peer file sharing software product allows millions of people to connect directly to each other and to search, share and download all types of digital media files, including audio, video, games, images, software and documents as provided by the owners of their creative works, as well those available in the public domain. Over 112 million copies of Morpheus have been downloaded by users making it the third most popular downloaded software in the history of the Internet according to CNET's download.com. Morpheus is available as a free download at www.morpheus.com.
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=53925

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Consumer Alert: Copy Controls Crackdown

Battle rages on several fronts, but technology offers answers for both sides.
Frank Thorsberg

Multimedia lovers find themselves caught in a digital vise these days, as Hollywood tightens its copyright controls on movies, games, and music on DVDs and CDs--most recently squeezing customers accused of copyright infringement in court. But even well-meaning consumers are feeling pressured (and baffled) by conflicting messages about what is allowed. Meanwhile, the courts and Congress mull legal answers to the ongoing digital rights struggle.

The ISP Verizon Online recently buckled and gave the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) the names of four customers suspected of downloading large quantities of music from file-sharing sites in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. More than 40 privacy groups and ISPs are joining Verizon in fighting procedural aspects of the copyright holders' demands. But it is clear that customer privacy has sustained a hit.

The RIAA also recently settled with four university students who ran Napster-like file-sharing networks campuswide. Each agreed to pay $12,000 to $17,000, although the trade group had originally sought up to $150,000 per song. The RIAA warns that it may not settle on such lenient terms in the future.

For the moment, peer-to-peer networks sporting a copy-for-free business model continue to thrive despite being mired in lawsuits. But the line demarcating the lawful use of file-sharing technology may be shifting.

In April, a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed an RIAA suit against file-sharing services Grokster and StreamCast Networks (maker of Morpheus), holding that peer-to-peer services are not liable for illegal file-trading over their networks. The RIAA is appealing the decision.

"That's the most important victory of the last three or four months," says Cory Doctorow, outreach director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Doctorow notes that it reinforces the Supreme Court's so-called Betamax decision of 1984, in which the court refused to ban legitimate products or services simply because they could also be used for illicit activities.

Even the act of copying DVD movies has a chance to prevail in court: 321 Studios is taking on Hollywood by claiming the right to market its DVD copying software. Its preemptive lawsuit against the major movie studios challenges the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's constitutionality. At the heart of the case--taken under advisement by a federal judge in May--is consumers' right to make back-up copies of DVDs.

Congress offers the public little hope of quick action, but copy-control legislation is nevertheless in the spotlight.

Several pieces of legislation would require labeling of CDs or DVDs that use digital rights management technology (also known as DRM). Other proposed measures would affirm consumers' right to back up digital material or to donate it, and try to balance fair use and copyright.

Also, the DMCA is undergoing its periodic review, facing several complaints about its regulation of copyright.

Ultimately, technology provides new opportunities for both vendors and users. Only 20 years ago, Hollywood feared piracy with the advent of VCRs--but instead prerecorded videotape has become a lucrative market. Today, "consumers want new ways to get content easily," says Kirby Kish, director of digital technology for copy protection developer Macrovision.

Microsoft is licensing Macrovision technology for its Windows Media Player. The technology permits "dual sessions" on a disc, so that users can play the CD in a standard audio player but also can play a DRM-protected digital version in another device. Alternatively, vendors could stuff the extra session with additional material.

"They're still playing with a couple of different models, like bonus songs and other extra content," says Yankee Group consumer technology analyst Ryan Jones.

As another example, this fall Disney is testing DVD discs that become unreadable after 48 hours of play.

Whatever the final outcome of the DRM wars, today's digital technology is sufficiently flexible to give copyright holders many options on packaging content, Kish says.

"We really think of it as an enabling, not restrictive, technology," Kish says. He believes that success is a matter of educating both sides about the different methods possible.

The methods all share one thing in common, however: Users will have to pay.

Whether it's okay--or illegal--to make back-up versions of copy-protected DVD movies may be contested in court for some time to come.

But a pending federal ruling didn't stop scrappy 321 Studios from releasing a new, streamlined version of its program for copying even the longest movies onto a single disc. The earlier version, priced at $99, nearly always required splitting the movie between two discs, but it copies all of the DVD's data; DVD X Copy Express copies only the movie and soundtrack.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111329,00.asp

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Vivendi Pares Bids, Eliminates Davis

Oil tycoon's bid rejected; music label won't be sold
Russ Britt

Vivendi Universal's board has dropped one bidder from the running in the contest for its U.S. entertainment assets, and it has decided to keep control of its music labels, people familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

Los Angeles oil tycoon Marvin Davis has been eliminated from the bidding, leaving five parties still in the running, according to sources close to Vivendi (V: news, chart, profile). Davis' proposal, the first of six to be revealed in the months-long shopping of the entertainment properties, fell short of Vivendi's price range, sources said.

It was unclear whether Davis, the one-time head of Twentieth-Century Fox studios, would try to come back with a better offer. A spokesman declined to comment.

The remaining suitors include a private group led by former Universal chief Edgar Bronfman, John Malone's Liberty Media (L: news, chart, profile), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM: news, chart, profile), General Electric Co.'s (GE: news, chart, profile) NBC unit and Viacom Inc. (VIA.B: news, chart, profile) (VIA: news, chart, profile) Viacom is an investor in MarketWatch.com, publisher of this report.

Vivendi issued a statement saying it was still reviewing the bids, adding that it hasn't ruled out an initial public offering of the assets, which include movie and television properties along with theme parks.

It is believed that Davis was bidding $13 billion for all of Vivendi's U.S. assets, including the music labels, and would take on another $5 billion in debt.

Other bidders who made an offer for the music assets were offering around $15 billion, sources close to Vivendi said. But these people said there also were other concerns about the Davis offer, including how the new entity would be run. Also of concern was his age -- he's 77 -- and his health, sources said.

Vivendi officials have said they may well retain an interest in the entertainment assets through a minority stake, which reportedly is how most of the proposals were structured. For that reason, the company is paying close attention to how the units will be run once they change hands.

In any case, Vivendi would not be out of the entertainment business completely. Sources said Vivendi will retain its industry-leading music business, a decision that may have been a factor working against Davis' bid. Sources close to Davis had said he coveted the music division for its strong cash flow.

Despite all its pluses, the Universal Music Group has been hit hard by the spread of file sharing of online music. That has cut into Universal's sales along with other music labels.

Bidders say that Vivendi originally asked for offers for just the studios, theme parks, television and cable assets, and video games. Some suitors submitted offers for the music group simply to follow the lead of others to be sure they weren't overshadowed by them.

But it appears Vivendi believes its music business is in a trough and due for a rebound.
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/stor...7D&siteid=mktw

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Rants & Raves

Date: 06/26/2003 07:40 AM
From: George
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

What I just can't understand is why the RIAA is so uptight about sharing files ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

Why doesn't it go after pawnshops that resell CDs? It's losing money there, isn't it? Or how about those that resell music via outfits like eBay? Better yet, why doesn't the RIAA go after businesses like Hastings that buy back used CDs and then resell them?

Those secondary sellers (pawn shops, eBay and others) are making money off someone else's work, without paying them additional royalties. File sharers are doing nothing more than trading baseball cards.

It seems that the RIAA employs some sort of double standard here. If it claims it's losing money because of file sharing, then what it should really look at is the homologous crap it continues to shelve each week.

- - -

Date: 06/26/2003 08:05 AM
From: Rich
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

What I want to know is, what happens to the poor guy on a fast DSL link that has been hacked and is being used as a "bounce" server? The illegally traded files are on his machine and he doesn't even know it, when all of a sudden the RIAA's jack-booted thugs bust down his door and haul him off to the slammer ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

As an artist myself, I highly disapprove of copyright violation, but Senator Hatch's "blow up their computers" scheme, and this RIAA "payola or lawsuit" approach both seem overly draconian to me. I'd much rather see the artists get paid fairly for their work, and the artists suing those who are taking food off of their tables.

To me, the RIAA is nothing more than a bunch of thugs with expensive lawyers who are robbing both the artists and the consumers to feed their own pocketbooks.

- - -

Date: 06/26/2003 08:51 AM
From: Johnny
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

Unbelievable. Now they are going to sue their customers? And they wonder why we swap files with such glee. Stupid bastards ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

When are they going to realize that sharing information is the nature of the network, just like evolution is the nature of, well, nature. No matter how many fingers and toes they stick into the holes of what is left of their ancient levy/business model, the industry refuses to realize the levee is already broken and they are chest-deep in their own irrelevance.

- - -

Date: 06/26/2003 10:11 AM
From: TC
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

How can they legally target "supernodes"? In case they aren't aware of it, in Kazaa, if you act as a node, you have no control over what passes through. And many things are legal to share ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

The RIAA apparently seems to think it is the law. Well it isn't. I think it's about time the RIAA gets investigated for ripping off song artists and customers.

- - -

Date: 06/26/2003 12:26 PM
From: Faast
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

This will, of course, ensure that the animosity against the recording industry grows. Once the first lawsuit is announced, the recording industry will be as popular as Satan himself. The only thing we can be assured of is that programmers will find another way ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

- - -

Date: 06/26/2003 03:05 PM
From: Roj
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

1) They don't have the balls ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

2) They don't have the cash to waste, despite how deep their pockets are. All it will take is one precedent set in a small principality in Europe to derail them -- as has already happened in the MPAA DVD efforts.

3) They don't have the savvy and technology to win this war -- in fact they have already lost.

My advice to them? "Take your lumps and concentrate your efforts on giving your customers a fair shake -- a concept that has been demonstrably alien to you for over 40 years. The honeymoon is over, dahling -- now earn your keep."

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Date: 06/26/2003 05:35 PM
From: Benj
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

This is the perfect time for the broadband ISPs to stand up to this type of harassment ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003). We pay far too much for DSL for them to sit back. The only reason most people get broadband connections is to share files.

The music industry is dead. They are now going after the fans who enjoy their product to drag down with them. Very sad.

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Date: 06/26/2003 05:38 PM
From: Bryan
Subject: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?

The users are the ones with the true power. The RIAA is another form of Big Brother. If hackers were truly as strong as they claim, they would empty the RIAA's collective bank accounts and disperse the funds to every user on every P2P in the world ("Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" June 26, 2003).

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http://www.wired.com/news/rants/0,2350,59458,00.html

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Ars Technica Newsdesk

Emergence of a Pro-P2P Lobby
Ken "Caesar" Fisher

With the threat of lawsuits being targeted at individuals via the RIAA, it's become rather clear that the community needs a voice to represent itself in what is becoming an increasingly one-sided power struggle over fair use. To that end, a number of P2P companies are coming together both in the United States and in Europe to form a pro- P2P lobby.

The initiative won't stop in Washington D.C., said Pablo Soto, a Madrid-based developer of file-sharing technology Blubster. European firms are forming a lobby group in Europe with plans to work with the U.S. group. "We are joining forces to make the U.S. Congress and the European Union listen to us and the hundreds of millions of voters who use our services," Soto told Reuters. Soto said details on the coalition will be released as soon as late July. He would not say if the group had hired a lobbyist, nor how many file-sharing firms were involved.

No one (serious) is wanting to argue that all music should be freely and legally downloadable via the 'net. However, the gross characterization of P2P users as "pirates" has caught on so well that the majority of the public believes that sharing files of any kind is synonymous with piracy, and no one even bothers to think for a second about whether or not some users are downloading songs that they already own on CD. The way the RIAA would have it, mix tapes never existed and no one ever recorded songs off the radio. No, all of this is new and evil, and the RIAA doesn't even have to produce demonstrable proof that they're losing a dime. A lobby group could, at least in theory, push the RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) to drop its draconian tone, and give the public some real data.
http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1056999100.html

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An Apple Down The Hatch
Douglas Wolk

When most people propose technology that can destroy other people's computers remotely, they're called cyberterrorists. When Orrin Hatch calls for that technology, as he did June 17, he's just doing his job as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a hearing on peer-to-peer systems, Hatch suggested that copyright owners should be freed from liability for damaging computers. If users exchange files online and ignore two warnings, "then I'm all for destroying their machines. . . . There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," he said. By "copyright laws," he appears to mean exclusively the ones that cover music and film; the entertainment business has been the fourth largest industry among Hatch's campaign contributors over the past six years, and he has never proposed, say, destroying photocopy machines on which newspapers or books are copied. (The next day, Hatch offered a non-clarification clarification: "I do not favor extreme remedies—unless no moderate remedies can be found.")

But hardware isn't all the Recording Industry Association of America has been trying to destroy lately. On April 3, the RIAA filed high-profile, high-ticket lawsuits against four students who had built search engines that could be used for file-sharing at three universities; it subsequently settled the suits quickly and brutally. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jesse Jordan agreed to pay the RIAA $12,000 —his entire savings—and Aaron Sherman got hit for $17,500. Daniel Peng at Princeton settled for $15,000, as did Joseph Nievelt of Michigan Tech.

The point of this exercise, of course, wasn't for the RIAA to sue people for their life savings ($12,000 is chump change to them), or even to collect $97.8 billion—the total of the initial suit against Nievelt alone (at $150,000 per song) and yes, that's a b. It was to pick on small fry, to make them fold quickly instead of taking it to the courts, regardless of the legal merit of the lawsuits. (Arguably, since at least a couple of the defendants' programs were search engines rather than Napster-like networks, they were protected under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act against claims for "contributory infringement.") Ultimately, it was to create a chilling effect for file traders —and for service providers and schools, and anybody who uses their networks for any reason. Eight days after the RIAA announced its lawsuits against the students, Columbia University sent out a message threatening to cut off network access for copyright violations and pointing users to instructions for disabling several peer-to-peer programs.

Technology remains three steps ahead of the recording industry anyway. Even as Apple's new iTunes Music Store was getting ecstatic press last month, savvy users discovered that iTunes 4.0, the program that makes it work, could be used to share music between users across the Internet. Apple promptly released an "upgraded" version, 4.0.1, which limited sharing capability to local networks; shortly thereafter, maverick programmer James Speth released iCommune 401(ok), which makes iTunes think the rest of the Internet is on its local network. But don't expect the RIAA to pick on Apple; expect them to pick on you.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0326/sotc.php

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Nielsen SoundScan To Track Download Sales
Matthew Benz

Nielsen SoundScan will announce today (July 2) that it will begin compiling sales of permanent music downloads. SoundScan -- a sister company of Billboard.com -- will include these sales in its "non- traditional" category, which also includes Internet, mail-order and concert-venue sales of physical music.

Sales of downloaded singles and albums will be included in Billboard's charts for those configurations. In addition, SoundScan will offer a new download tracks chart.

Sales data initially will come from Apple's iTunes Music Store, Pressplay, MusicNet, Liquid Audio and Listen.com's Rhapsody service. Digital music that is available only via subscription will not be included.

In the past, SoundScan has occasionally included sales of downloads in the "non-traditional" category, says Rob Sisco, president of Nielsen Music and COO of Nielsen Entertainment's East Coast operations. But he says that in the last few months, the volume of download sales has increased enough "to be able to present the numbers and have them be meaningful in terms of trending and tracking information." Sisco declines to quantify download sales volume.

For the week ending June 29, the top downloaded track was "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce featuring Jay-Z. This was followed by Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent," Coldplay's "Clocks," matchbox twenty's "Unwell" and Clay Aiken's "This Is the Night."
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1925753

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MEPs Anxious To Avoid Us-Style Software Patenting
David Minto

An EU directive meant to harmonise patenting rules applying to “computer-implemented inventions” across member states has been taken off of ‘fast track’ legislative proceedings because MEPs have claimed it may bring in a US-style patent regime.

Critics of the proposed new regulations say that the terminology of the current proposal is sufficiently ambiguous to have a detrimental effect on European small businesses and open-source software developers, to the tremendous disadvantage of consumers. Some argue that allowing software to be patented, already the situation in the US, is comparable enabling a monopoly on the ideas in novels. An anti-software-patenting petition organised by lobbying group EuroLinux has already garnered more than 150,000 signatures, whilst 30 senior European scientists recently spoke out strongly against the legislation.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (Juri) had approved the legislation on the 17 June, making only minor modifications before fast-tracking it to the parliament itself for a proposed vote on 30 June. MEPs complained, however, that the draft resolution was too controversial to be properly considered in only ten days, and have moved a vote back to the 1 September.

Andrew Duff MEP, a UK Liberal Democrat and keen critic of the proposal, said in a statement that "Blocking competition and free creativity in software is not good for consumers or cultural diversity, and it is a serious problem for the European economic fabric." Writing in The Guardian earlier this month, however, Arlene McCarthy, a UK Labour MEP guiding the patents proposal through Parliament, argued that the legislation would "provide legal certainty for European software inventors" and commented that "It is time some of the 'computer rights campaigners' got real."
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16916

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Over 200m European Internet Users By 2004, survey
David Minto

Europe's online population reached 184m by the end of 2002 and will surge beyond 200m by the end of 2004, according to a new study from IDC.

The survey, which covers internet usage and eCommerce in Western, Central and Eastern Europe between 2002- 2006, maintains that Germany is going to be the locus of change as the European internet epicentre moves east, from the UK to the accession states. Commercial connectivity is recognised as a significant driving factor here as strong Germanic ties with the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, particularly Poland (Germany is Poland's premier trading partner), will have a knock-on effect for viable IP-based services/providers in neighbouring countries.

Today, clear contrasts exist between the European regions and countries, the report suggests. While the West has grown to include over 43 per cent of the population in 2002, the CEE region reflects an internet population of just 13 per cent.

Businesses or organisations have led the way in internet access; a trend that is particularly pronounced in the CEE. As such, B2B eCommerce has manifested itself across Europe. "The initial wave of B2B eCommerce was started by visionary “sell-side” organisations that explored the internet’s abilities as a sales channel. However, roles are now reversed, and purchasing organisations currently drive B2B eCommerce growth," said Daniel O'Boyle Kelly, research director at IDC's European internet expertise centre.

The study argues that once behaviour change and adoption, whether from a buy side or sell side, is triggered and gains momentum, the effects on internet commerce will be dramatic. This is reflected in the numbers, where by 2006 IDC believes total eCommerce in Central and Eastern Europe will reach E2.1bn (USD2.4bn), while Western Europe will exceed E226bn (USD261bn).
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16906

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CDs In Soft Drink Cup Caps
AP

Pop singer Rachel Farris is far from a household name, but a new spin on marketing could change that.

Her independent record label is embedding mini-CDs in the lids of soft drink cups at movie theaters nationwide and a few theme parks.

Featuring not just a pair of songs that can be heard on regular CD players but also video clips and other content viewable on computers, the so-called enhanced CDs make TV and radio seem passe.

In all, 4.8 million of the CDs promoting Farris will be distributed in a monthlong campaign that began Friday, dolling up -- or cluttering, depending on your perspective -- drink containers at the Regal Entertainment Group's 530 theaters in 36 states and at two Universal Studios theme parks.

(The straw fits through the hole in the middle of the disc.)

The theaters will also show a three-minute video of Farris before movies.

"The whole industry is in such a state of flux," said Bill Edwards, whose Big3 Records is financing the Farris promotion. "It's kind of a tough situation, especially for an independent label, to get music played, because we're vying against everyone else in the world."

The marketing push by the St. Petersburg, Florida-based label is unusual for a new artist.

"We know it's a gamble, but we think it's a very good gamble," Edwards said.

LidRock, the company making the discs, pinned costs at several million dollars. The CDs have two of Farris' songs, lyrics, an interview and a video of the singer.

Using such CDs to market musicians is fairly new, but its time has come, said Tena Clark, CEO of Pasadena-based Disc Marketing, which has designed enhanced CD marketing campaigns for companies like United Airlines, Coca-Cola and Victoria's Secret.

Clark said she has received inquiries in recent weeks from both veteran and budding recording artists, but hasn't inked any deals yet.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html

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Apple on Speed
Sandy McMurray

Apple's computers are about to get a dramatic speed boost, and Mac fans couldn't be happier.

Starting in August, a new 64-bit processor co-developed by Apple and IBM, will bring unprecedented speed and performance to the Mac platform. According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the new PowerMac G5 is "the world's fastest personal computer" -- faster than any system using Intel's Pentium 4 or Xeon processors.

For several years, Apple fans have watched in dismay as the "megahertz gap" widened between PCs and Macs. Monday's introduction of a truly speedy Macintosh was thrilling news for Mac users. With the PowerMac G5, it appears that Apple and IBM have actually surpassed current Intel technology and built a platform that has "legs" for the future.

The PowerMac G5 is definitely built for speed. The G5 processor can handle more than 10 times as many simultaneous instructions as Motorola's G4 processor (215 versus 16). The "pipes" that take data to and from the G5 "brain" have been redesigned for better performance.

The 1 GHz front-side bus, for example, is six times faster than the fastest G4 system available today. Apple's other design choices (AGP 8x Pro graphics, PCI-X slots, Serial ATA, USB 2 and FireWare 800) reflect this need for speed. For all the geeky details, see http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html.

What really matters, of course, is real world performance. Apple made its case on Monday with impressive benchmark test results and a series of live demos that pitted a dual-processor 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 test system against two Intel-based computers: a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 and a 3.06 GHz dual-processor Xeon system.

Marketing demos are always chosen to highlight a product's best features. Past Apple "bake-off" tests have usually featured Adobe Photoshop doing difficult things with graphics, which played to the Mac's strengths. This time, however, the demos highlighted graphic performance (Photoshop), animation (Luxology), pro audio (Logic) and large-scale numerical problem solving (Mathematica).

Wolfram Research co-founder Theo Gray concluded his demo of Mathematica with this observation: "The competition for [the PowerMac G5] is not PCs anymore. The competition for our customers is high-end workstations that cost twice as much. And it's faster than all of them, too."

It would be ridiculous to claim that the new PowerMac G5 will put Intel, AMD or Microsoft out of business, but I think the personal computer landscape shifted on Monday. The old debate about Mac versus PC has been revived, and the Mac side has a lot more ammunition today than it had last week.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...ry/Technology/

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Wanadoo Is Caching Your KaZaA
Jan Libbenga

Subscribers of Wanadoo Netherlands can download MP3s and videos twice as fast, thanks to a PeerCache set up by the company for users of KaZaA and other peer to peer networks.

Wanadoo's Dutch subsidiary has stored 0.8 terabyte of frequently asked files on local servers, and this cache reduces the volume of international traffic by 25 per cent or more, according to Wanadoo business development manager Lammert van Raan. Most Wanadoo subs in Europe are set to introduce PeerCache.

PeerCache is developed by Joltid, the Swedish company behind the P2P content distribution platform FastTrack, which most file sharing companies now use. Joltid was established by Niklas Zennström, co- founder of KaZaA.

With PeerCache installed, peers transparently query a local temporary cache. Only when a file is unavailable, KaZaA will get it from other users in the network. This means that hundreds of illegal files are stored locally, albeit in a barely recognisable form as 'data objects'.

PeerCache is highly controversial. Typically, files are only swapped between users; there is no central server for downloading. The KaZaA network merely points users to files contained on other PCs. For this reason The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last week changed legal tack, threatening to file lawsuits against thousands of individual file traders.

"We believe the cache is legal," van Raan said. "The US, Australia and European Union have recently amended their copyright laws to permit temporary caching." Wanadoo also looked carefully at the recent Grokster and Morpheus cases. Neither companies are liable for piracy, a US federal judge ruled earlier this year.

Other Dutch ISPs have also experimented with the PeerCache, but stopped using it citing disappointment with the results, rather than legal fears. "We continued working with Joltid to improve the technology," says Van Raan. "The traffic reduction has improved dramatically."
http://www.theregister.com/content/6/31532.html

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So Sue Me

Bob Parks
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_5981.shtml

Better put your heads under the covers and hope the bogeyman will go away!

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is pissed off.

"We'd much rather spend time making music then dealing with legal issues in courtrooms. But we cannot stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry." – RIAA president Cary Sherman

They have some nerve.

Sure, file swapping is technically stealing. But the record business has ripped off its’ own musicians and consumers for decades, and when the industry starts losing money, it’s time to get payback. Maybe they should try looking in the mirror first before publicly threatening to track down and prosecute petty thieves when they’ve been ripping off everybody so a few non-talented suits could suck off the artistic teat of legends long since gone.

Full Disclosure
Besides being an opinion columnist, I am a songwriter, producer, percussionist, synthesizer programmer and have been since 1979. Still waiting for my big break….

Song Rippers
For a long time, record companies screwed older musicians by charging them for, among other things, the recording sessions (to be paid for off the top of sales), new instruments, food, drink, and any other expenses they could. The companies sometimes paid those musicians a one-time few hundred dollars (big money to broke musicians in the 50’s) and pocketed millions in sales made to this day with digital re-releases and re-packaged box sets.

“Online music piracy through illegal file-sharing is killing the business as we know it today, and songwriters like myself won't be able to write the songs if there's no way for us to make a living. It's the only job I know how to do!” – Lamont Dozier, legendary songwriter (Stop! In The Name Of Love)

Nowadays, record companies charge musicians for recording sessions, even though the companies keep the master tapes, convince them of the need to embrace MTV and make a few $2-5 million promotional videos. The band later has to re-pay those costs first off the top before they see any money. Some companies even charge the artist for the costs of promotion, which can also be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And when all is said and done, the artist is lucky to receive even 10% of the record sales.

Some record companies have what are known as “9-5 composers” whose sole job it is to write hit songs according to “formulas”. Some are paid a “kill fee” and some get royalties as well. This is money that doesn’t make it to the artists, and some groups are required to use some of these composers even though they are quite capable of writing their own material. This keeps the mortgages paid for friends and relatives of senior record company personnel. The artists may come and go, but do a search of some obscure composer names and see all the different places they appear….

“If you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing. It may sound harsh, but it is true.” – Mary J. Blige, multi-Platinum award winning artist

I find it amusing: today’s R&B and hip-hop artists lecturing us about obeying the law. How many of them illegally carry guns, beat their girlfriends (the ones they artistically refer to as “bitches” and “hos”), shoot their rivals on the street and in the studio, beat up company employees, commit gang rape, and more. When was the last R&B, hip-hop award ceremony that didn’t need to have the police called?

Content
Why would someone break the law and download a song rather than pay for the CD? Simple; with the exception of maybe two high-profile songs, the other 15 or so probably suck. And the CD still costs near $20.

Today’s compact disks hold up to 80 minutes whereas yesterday LP’s held only 46. There’s almost twice the room to fill and today’s talent, to be quite generous, is questionable.

“Downloading… it’s petty theft for those that don’t have the guts to go ahead and shoplift.” – Marcus Hummon, songwriter and playwright

I remember paying $14 for Stevie Wonder’s “Songs In The Key Of Life”: a double album with a bonus 45 tucked in a sleeve. There was a line around the corner and it was an album everyone had to have. Now why would someone want to pay an additional $6 today for Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake?

A few short decades ago, you could play an entire album at a party. Almost any Stones album, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Eagles, K.C. & The Sunshine Band, The J. Geils Band, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Boston, The Ohio Players, and lots more.

Watch your average commercial today. Are they playing a hit song from last year or 20 years ago? I’ll bet anyone out there over 30 can name 10 hits from the 70’s and 80’s. The 90’s get a bit murky…. Can someone name me 10 hits from last year? How about five?

As I’ve pointed out on many previous columns, this is what it takes to be a songwriter today:

1. Sit down and create a song from dead air. Tough, but most satisfying.

2. Go to Tower Records, find a Rhino Records’ Greatest Hits of the 60’s or 70’s CD, take a song painstakingly written using Method 1, extract an eight measure “hook” from a song, loop it indefinitely, and get some rapper to talk over it in an attempt to “make it his own”. The more profane, violent, and juvenile the sexual references, the better.

The record companies aim their product at kids 14-17 (the teen demographic). One problem guys: this demographic, for the most part, ain’t got no money. The music industry is relying on a hard sell off MTV hopefully (for them) resulting in persistent whining and nagging from spoiled-brat kids to get the $20 from parents who know better.

What do parents know? They’re just the ones who have to listen to their kids play one song over and over and over, later just to leave that CD face up on the floor to be run over by a skateboard.

“Without copyright protection and the royalties it insures, artists and songwriters will have no long-term bankable financial security whatsoever.” – Hugh Prestwood, number-one Country Music hit songwriter

Personally, I would love to be writing and performing songs for a living. I would much rather be on stage slowly going deaf, but taking in the adrenaline rush of playing to thousands of people who are singing my song along with the band. I’d much rather be doing that instead of eking out a living, and writing columns that I feel a passion for but have yet to see any monetary reward.

Bottom line, Hugh: no one owes me a living in the music business just because I write songs. One small suggestion: if the record industry wants to make more money, MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT!

We, the adults in this equation, who give the our brats the money so Christina Aguilera can over-sing every line, pierce her genitals, and tell us how cool she is, bought a lot of the music we download before.

We ditched our records since y’all stopped making turntables. We re-bought a lot of our old record collections on CD, so we really bought those albums at least twice. But the industry expects us to pay more for music with inferior content and album art that you need a magnifying glass to read even if you still have 20/20 vision.

“It hurts artists, songwriters and everyone else who brings music to the public, and we will hold those who engage in this activity accountable.” – RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss

The music industry had better watch out whom they threaten. Those who are doing the majority of the downloading are kids with little or no earning power. It’s the parents who have to deal with the out-of- control “artists” who have our daughters dressing like porn stars, and our sons like thugs.

The music industry produces videos that portray young girls doing almost obscene gyrations while being eye-candy for young males cruising the streets while flashing gang signs. When a crime is committed, the industry is the first to deny responsibility.

Now, they produce garbage and issue ultimatums when they can’t meet a bottom line.

Good music sells. People will want a pristine version, physically hold it, enjoy the album art, and play it over again. An mp3 is instant gratification, but it’s a lot better than being made to look the fool again: buying an expensive CD with one or two good songs on it, and a near worthless trade-in value.

Only a dumb business would sue its’ customers to force them to buy more of a lousy product.

The record industry is dumb. So sue me.

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They Know Where You Are

New technologies can pinpoint your location at any time and place. They promise safety and convenience—but threaten privacy and security
By Jay Warrior, Eric McHenry & Kenneth McGee

The terrorist blast had destroyed the office building. Piles of glass and concrete littered most of a city block, the air was thick with dust, debris still smoldered. The police had no suspects but had already sent out an all-points alert. Then, when troopers pulled a van over for making a couple of risky lane changes, they found a pile of fertilizer sacks and an empty fuel-oil drum in the back. A duffel bag held a change of clothes, a small kit with a new razor and other toiletries, and a .45-caliber pistol. The truck had been stolen, and the driver wasn't talking.

Within an hour, some 1000 km away, an FBI team walked into a Wal-Mart with pictures of the arrested man. One of the cashiers recognized the face. "There were four of them," she said. "One of our regular customers said they were friends visiting from out of town—but that guy's a loner. He lives out on County 15."

This may sound like the start of a mediocre TV drama. But given recent events—and coming technical advances —it just might be a scenario pulled from tomorrow's news. Here's the rest of the story: a bit of microcircuitry called a radio frequency identification (RF-ID) tag was embedded within the package of razor blade cartridges in the suspect's toiletry kit. The manufacturer inserted it into that package, and all others of its kind, to let retailers track inventory cheaply and conveniently. But because the tag carried a unique identifying code, the FBI could scan it, check it against a database, and then track down the store where the razor was purchased.

The future, in this case, is already here. This past January, the Gillette Co. (Boston) announced that it would purchase up to half a billion RF-ID tags to put on its Mach3 and Venus razors and razor blade packages. The tags, which contain chips that respond to an RF field from a scanner, are now being used in a test by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., by the UK-based grocery chain Tesco PLC, and most recently by Metro AG, Germany's largest retailer, to determine whether the technology can streamline inventory management and save retailers billions of dollars a year in supply chain costs.

It's not much of a stretch to imagine this relatively benign way of tracking goods being put to other, more dramatic uses. Indeed, RF-ID tags are only one example of a coming wave of wireless communications technologies that will be everywhere in the next year or two, merging location and time-related information.

The most spectacular of these will be large-scale systems that piggyback on cellular networks to locate any cellphone on the network—in other words, in the near future, your whereabouts won't be a secret if you are carrying your cellphone. Other plans revolve around smaller-scale technology that will, for example, let you buy an item merely by pointing at it with your cellphone.

The commercialization of these technologies promises to make your life safer, easier, and more enjoyable by providing instant, personalized information. It might even save your life by helping rescue officials find you in an emergency, no matter where you are.

But these benefits will almost certainly cost you some privacy. In the case of the tagged razor blades, the loss will be small and incremental; with cellphone tracking, it could be substantial and potentially intrusive. So, in coming months, expect some clashes as watchdog groups, businesses, and governments try to find common ground and deliver the benefits of location tracking with the least possible intrusion.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY...ul03/e911.html

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Iran Shuts Out Porn, Dissent Web Sites

Authorities are worried that such access is helping stir reform calls in the Islamic nation.
AP

TEHRAN — Iran is blocking access to Web sites containing pornographic material and dissent against the country's Islamic establishment, an official said Tuesday.

More than 140 Web sites promoting dissent, dancing and sex have been blocked since the crackdown began last month, said Farhad Sepahram, a Telecommunications Ministry official.

Religious hard-liners are increasingly worried about Iranians' access to information from the outside world, apparently concerned that communications are playing a role in stirring reform sentiment such as the recent anti-government protests by young people.

Sepahram said most of the blocked Web sites belong to opposition groups. They include one run by Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and one by Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Iran's first elected president after 1979 who now opposes the cleric-dominated establishment.

Also blocked are the Voice of America's Persian-language service and radiofarda.com, a U.S.-financed Persian-language audio program.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

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Computer Bugs Even Infiltrate the Kitchen

Now that software controls everyday devices, it's hard to escape malfunctions. And manufacturers aren't liable.
Peter Svensson

When his dishwasher acts up and won't stop beeping, Jeff Seigle turns it off and then on, just as he does when his computer crashes. Same with the exercise machines at his gym and his CD player.

"Now I think of resetting appliances, not just computers," said Seigle, a software developer in Vienna, Va.

Malfunctions caused by bizarre and frustrating glitches are becoming harder and harder to escape now that software controls everything from stoves to cell phones, trains, cars and power plants.

But computer code could be a lot more reliable — if only the industry were more willing to make it so, experts say. And many believe that it would help if software makers were held accountable for sloppy programming.

Bad code can be more than costly. Sometimes it's lethal.

• A poorly programmed ground-based altitude warning system was partly responsible for the 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed 228 people.

• Faulty software in anti-lock brakes forced the recall of 39,000 trucks and tractors, and 6,000 school buses in 2000.

• The $165-million Mars Polar Lander probe was destroyed in its final descent to the planet in 1999, probably because its software shut the engines off 100 feet above the surface.

Of course, more deaths are caused by human error than by bad software, and modern society would be unthinkable without Web servers, word processors and autopilot.

But software's usefulness means people tolerate it even when quality is not the best.

Last year, a study commissioned by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that software errors cost the U.S. economy about $59.5 billion annually, or about 0.6% of the gross domestic product. More than half the costs are borne by software users, the rest by developers and vendors.

Most software is thrown together with insufficient testing, says Peter Neumann, principal scientist at SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif.

"The idea that we depend on something that's inherently untrustworthy is very frightening," he said.

When Neumann's group worked with NASA on software for the space shuttle, developers were so careful about bugs that they produced just three lines of code per day, an unthinkable pace in an industry where a major application may have a million lines of code.

Developers say defects stem from several sources: software complexity, commercial pressure to bring products out quickly, the industry's lack of liability for defects and poor work methods.

Programmers typically spend half their time writing code, and the other half looking for errors and fixing them.

That approach may have worked in the infancy of computers, when programs were small, says Watts Humphrey, former director of programming quality at IBM Corp. But as demands on software balloon, the size of programs seems to double every year and a half — just like microprocessor speeds, says Humphrey, now with Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute.

Most programs in testing have five to 10 defects per 1,000 lines of code, or up to 10,000 bugs in a million-line program. It would take 50 people a year to find all those bugs, Humphrey says.

Consequently, he teaches engineers to plan and pay attention to details early, and to reject aggressive deadlines.

The problem, says consortium director Bill Guttman, is that unlike other engineers, programmers have no way of measuring the reliability of their designs.

"It always takes us by surprise when the rocket blows up or the ATM goes down," Guttman said.

The consortium wants to create automated tools that analyze software and rate its reliability.

But others say bugs would be greatly reduced if software makers were held legally responsible for defects.

"Software is being treated in a way that no other consumer products are," said Barbara Simons, former president of the Assn. for Computing Machinery. "We all know that you can't produce 100% bug-free software. But to go to the other extreme and say that software makers should have no liability whatsoever strikes me as absurd."
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

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Small Companies Sow Decoy Files To Fool Would-Be Internet Pirates
Anick Jesdanun

Next time you try to download the latest pop tunes over the Internet, don't be surprised if you get a message chewing you out as a thief.

Chances are, the digital reprimand would be the work of Randy Saaf or Marc Morgenstern, whose small companies belong to a budding cottage industry devoted to thwarting file-sharing and other Internet piracy. Sowers of decoy files and digital detectives, these agents of entertainment and software companies tend to work stealthily, at their clients' behest.

Morgenstern, president of Overpeer Inc., said his year-old, 15-employee company in New York fools would-be pirates some 300 million times a month by flooding file-sharing networks with decoys, mostly masquerading as popular songs.

http://media.canada.com/scripts/loca...b-85781ad2ba67
MediaDefender's Randy Saaf

Some decoys are blank, circulated to make real files harder to find. Others carry warnings or other messages. An embedded programming script might even take individuals expecting free songs and movies to a Web site where they are sold.

Though neither Saaf nor Morgenstern would name clients, Madonna fans who tried to download her new song this spring instead heard from the singer, "What the - do you think you're doing?"

Saaf, president of MediaDefender Inc., said his Los Angeles company also tries to tie up queues by posing as real users who want to download large files through slow modems.

MediaDefender's engineers - previously in the business of foiling radar systems for the Pentagon - began thinking of ways to stymie file-sharing three years ago just as the recording industry began its legal fight to end Napster, Saaf said. Its tactics, he said, aim to make downloading so frustrating that people simply give up.

Other companies, like BayTSP Inc. and Ranger Online Inc., use software to seek out pirated materials at peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks along with chat rooms, newsgroups and Web sites. Another group that includes BigChampagne LLC measures the scope of P2P trafficking.
http://www.canada.com/technology/sto...C-46A48D5304B0

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To Catch A Music Thief

Record industry's war on downloading gets draconian against file-sharers
John Gorman

You're either with or against the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). They're the non- profit lobby controlled by the Big Five label conglomerates: BMG, AOL-Time Warner, Universal Music Group, EMI and Sony. Download music from the Internet and you're a thief.

The RIAA has already threatened to pull the cable on independent Internet radio stations unless they fork over up-front mega-fees to SoundExchange, the collection arm of the RIAA. It's fair to say that, excluding commercial stations that also stream, most Internet radio stations are giving airplay to independent and European music from smaller labels that aren't members of the RIAA and can't afford to buy their way onto the conventional radio playlists.

Immediately following 9/11, the RIAA's chief lobbyist, Mitch Glazier -- considered one of most influential on Capitol Hill -- attempted to tack a hack-authorization amendment on last year's anti-terrorism bill. If approved, it would have immunized all copyright holders for any data destruction caused by computer intrusions. The RIAA would like you to believe that file sharing is on par with an Al Qaeda terrorist attack, and is the cyberspace equivalent of North Korea's nuclear program.

The RIAA also launched its own terrorism campaign. They took Verizon to court, demanding the identity of a client that used their platform to download music. They randomly targeted and prosecuted college students from Princeton, Rensselaer Polytech Institute and Michigan Tech for running a music file-sharing service. With White House permission, the RIAA raided a group of renegade U.S. Navy sailors for downloading music.

That was followed by the RIAA targeting Fortune 1000 companies and warning their CEOs that employees downloading music on their dime could cause legal, security and efficiency problems.

The ringleader was former RIAA Chairman and CEO Hillary Rosen. Wrapped in a bizarre interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, she insisted the RIAA had the right to do whatever necessary to silence Internet radio stations that can't afford pay her fee and hold downloaders hostage. Rosen resigned earlier this year and landed at CNBC, where she will, presumably, shill for entertainment industry.

Rosen's campaign has now been taken over by new RIAA head Cary Sherman. His first order of business is to sue anyone housing a significant library of downloadable songs, which could be accessed by a file-sharing program. "Significant" was not clearly defined. The RIAA claims it will file several hundred lawsuits in the next six to eight weeks.

Music downloaded from the Internet is highly compressed and not even remotely close to a perfect digital copy. Music heard on Internet radio is down a few more notches in audio quality. In most cases, downloading has replaced radio as a medium for hearing new music. The majority of those who download music buy "hard copy" CDs of music they truly like. The percentages haven't changed.

What the RIAA refuses to admit is that downloading music and Internet radio are replacing commercial radio as the prime exposure of new music. Current music on U.S. radio is bought and paid for in advance. Station chains cut deals with third-party promoters peddling wares for the Big Five. Small indie labels no longer get radio airplay. They can't afford the pay for play fees, and they're not members of the RIAA's Big Five club.

It costs at least $1 million to promote one song on hit music stations. That's the retainer fee. Since all costs of promotion are liposucked from the artists' hides, many are reluctant to give up cash with no guarantee of airplay. Heard Liberty X, Atomic Kitten or Sophie Ellis-Baxter on the radio? These acts had top 5 successes worldwide but elected not to enter the pricey pay-for-play game. In doing so they've shut themselves out of radio airplay in the U.S.

Commercial radio listening has dropped significantly and no longer serves as the soundtrack to American popular culture. Unlike the payola of old, today's pay-for-play isn't illegal. It's not the cash under-the-table payments exposed in Fredric Dannen's 1990 book The Hit Men. In radio new-speak, it's referred to as "non-traditional revenue." Chains report payoffs as taxable income. Since most station playlists are dictated by radio's corporate offices, the Big Five no longer have the need for the expense of their own promotion staff.

A couple of radio chains claim they're revisiting their current legal payola deals, but none have said they're giving them up.

The RIAA blames downloading, not radio, as the reason for their flaccid music sales. They ask you not to confuse them with the facts that some of the best music being released is neither seen nor heard, due to the combination of legal payola and labels buying up every square inch of music retailer stores and even controlling what's heard on the store's speakers.

How about the reality that with broadband, it's just as easy to download full-length feature films. That technology hasn't hurt Hollywood. Every year's box office tally breaks the previous year's record, and that's not even counting the record number of DVDs rented or sold.

Here's another one. The Big Five? Next year at this time it will probably be down to the Big Three. Both AOL-Time Warner and EMI have their label divisions on the block.
http://www.freetimes.com/issues/1110...ns-gorman.html

Mass Hysteria at RIAA
Barry Willis

Last October, US Senate Commerce Committee chairman and former presidential hopeful John McCain hosted NBC's long-running comedy show Saturday Night Live. In a spoof of the political talk show Hardball, McCain did a devastating impression of US Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fellow Republican. Speaking of homeland security, the faux Ashcroft intoned, "This country won't be safe until every American is in jail."

That sort of irony is apparently over the heads of lawyers and executives at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). On Wednesday, June 25, the music industry trade group announced that it would escalate its legal war against music fans who continue to offer or download collections of MP3 music files. Hundreds of lawsuits will be launched against alleged copyright violators over the summer, in the wake of a recent US appeals court ruling that Internet providers must reveal the identities of subscribers suspected of sharing unauthorized copies of music or movies. The ruling exposes millions of Internet users to the threat of litigation, according to RIAA president Carey Sherman. "We're going to begin taking names," Sherman told reporters. File sharers must relent or "face the music," he added.

Despair has given way to desperation. Now entering its fourth year of declining sales, the music industry has decided that threatening its customers with massive fines—from $750 to $150,000 per song—is a good public relations move, despite strong evidence that the most enthusiastic file-sharers are also the most voracious buyers of recorded music at full retail. "This latest effort really indicates the recording industry has lost touch with reality completely," said Fred von Lohmann, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "Does anyone think more lawsuits are going to be the answer? Today they have declared war on the American consumer."

They have also declared war on themselves. If the industry's failure in the mid-1990s to recognize the inevitability of the Internet and to embrace its commercial potential was a bit like punching a hole in the bottom of its boat, mass lawsuits are like spraying it with an automatic weapon. How long will it be until the RIAA sinks completely? "The recording industry is not going to win if all they do is sue people," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group for technology and copyright issues. "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up."

Announcements of the threat caused a brief dip in the amount of file sharing, which quickly rebounded, according to a June 28 report from the Associated Press. "The threat appeared to have little effect on the pace of downloading over the most popular file-sharing services," read the report. KaZaa, one of the most popular file-sharing services, saw a drop in traffic during the first 10 hours after the announcement, but it surged back within 24 hours, with between 3.4 million and 4.4 million users. Richard Chernela, spokesman for KaZaa's corporate parent Sharman Networks, described the drop as a "consistent-to- normal fluctuation." On Thursday, June 26, file-sharing service Grokster reported an increase in traffic between 5% and 10%.
http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1679

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File-Swapping Services, Entertainment Execs To Meet
Dawn C. Chmielewski

Even as the recording industry escalated its war on Internet downloaders, a group of entertainment industry executives plans to meet privately this afternoon with representatives of the file-swapping services to start talking detente.

The newly formed Distributed Computing Industry Association will gather in Los Angeles to discuss how the long-reviled file-swapping networks can gain legitimate access to music and movies.

The high-level meeting represents a shift for the entertainment industry, which has favored confrontation -- in the form of lawsuits and technological counter-measures -- over cooperation with the creators of file-swapping software.

Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America announced it would sue hundreds, even thousands, of individual computer users who exchange unauthorized copies of music on popular services like Kazaa, Grokster and iMesh.

But this new group, while bankrolled by entertainment industry pariah Sharman Networks, corporate parent of Kazaa Media Desktop, nonetheless has an aura of entertainment-industry legitimacy.

It is the brainchild of former Hollywood agent Derek Broes -- who, at age 21, started a production company with actor Cuba Gooding, and by 2000 had developed technologies to prevent piracy of music and films across peer-to-peer networks.

Broes, 36, has testified before Congress on the evils of unauthorized Internet piracy -- and called on both the entertainment and technology industries to work together ``to find solutions to this problem that is threatening the very essence of our business.''

He has since switched corporate allegiances -- joining the executive staff of Brilliant Digital Networks, which, as Altnet, distributes paid content across the 50 million users of the Kazaa network. But he remains the driving force behind bringing entertainment executives and technologists together in a coalition that's intended to turn Internet ``pirates'' back into customers.

His entertainment-industry background helped woo long-time television executive Martin Lafferty, a veteran of NBC and Turner Broadcasting, as the group's new chief executive.

Other digital entertainment heavyweights, including Phil Lelyveld, director of digital industry relations at Walt Disney, and Ted Cohen, senior vice president of digital distribution for EMI Recorded Music, are expected to attend the session.

But Laffety has not, so far, won over other members of the file-swapping community. Grokster President Wayne Rosso said he plans to pursue another approach, joining with other Internet download services in lobbying Congress for blanket licenses for the right to distribute content across peer-to-peer networks.

``Frankly, we're late coming to the party. There's no question about it. We realize that,'' Rosso said. ``We realize there's a lot of work to be done. We've got a lot of tar on us that we've got to wash off.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/6201974.htm

Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne

'Raw Deal' On Printer Ink
BBC

Consumers are getting a raw deal when it comes to the ink used in printers, according to research by Which? magazine. With the top brand names costing more than vintage champagne, it is an unnecessary waste that people can ill afford, said the campaigning magazine.

Tests on a crop of colour printers found that many gave premature warnings that the cartridges were running out of ink. Which? is also critical of the overall cost of printer ink. It says some cartridges cost over seven times more than vintage champagne per millilitre. It recommends that people buy generic cartridges which are often half the price of branded products.

Protecting customers?

The Cost Of Ink

Colour HP Cartridge costs £29
This works out at £1.70 per millilitre
1985 Dom Perignon costs 23p per milliliter

The magazine suggests that people squeeze every drop out of the ink they use, ignoring the premature warnings that the ink is low and continuing until they see a drop in quality of printing. Most cartridges give people the option of continuing printing. But Which? found that Epson embeds a chip which stops the cartridge running when the ink runs low. The company says that it employs the cut-off system to "protect customers from accidentally damaging their printer or producing sub-standard print quality".

A Which? researcher who over-rode the system found that in one case he could print up to 38% more good quality pages, even though the chip stated that the cartridge was empty. The least amount of extra pages that could be printed was 17%.

The cost of ink has been the subject of an Office of Fair Trading investigation. It has accused manufacturers of a lack of transparency about the price of ink and called for an industry standard for measuring ink cartridge performance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3035500.stm

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Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Printer Cartridge Co.

Opposes Printer Manufacturer's Broad Copyright Claims
Press Release

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked a federal appeals court to rule that a company can examine a competitor's technology in order to manufacture printer toner cartridges compatible with Lexmark printers without facing a copyright lawsuit.

Printer maker Lexmark had sued, claiming that cartridge remanufacturer Static Control Components circumvented Lexmark's access control technologies and infringed its copyrights by "reverse engineering" its printer toner cartridges. Static Control produced replacement microchips that enabled resellers to refill toner cartridges and sell them more cheaply.

Lexmark cited provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the lawsuit. The district court ruled in Lexmark's favor, then Static Control appealed to the Sixth Circuit.

EFF today filed an amicus brief to the appeals court supporting Static Control.

"Whether you like or hate the controversial DMCA, Congress never intended the law to shield printer manufacturers from competition in toner cartridges," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "The Lexmark lawsuit shows how far copyright law has strayed from its original foundations, that is, 'to promote progress of science and useful arts.'"

EFF's amicus brief continues the EFF tradition of defending the rights of technologists and innovators. The brief argues that manufacturers should not be able to use the law to thwart interoperability with their products, because reverse engineering is protected fair use of copyrighted programs.
http://www.eff.org/Cases/Lexmark_v_S...702_eff_pr.php

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German Comedian Ordered To Take Down Parody Site
BNA

EDRI reports that a comedian has been ordered by the German Federal Chancellor to take down a parody website that has been operational for five years. The Chancellor claims that the site infringes on its trademark.

German language article at http://rhein-zeitung.de/on/03/06/16/...nzler-web.html

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Ecast Shuts Online Music Store Service
Jon Healey

Online music distributor Ecast Inc. has closed its downloadable music operations, saying it couldn't afford to spend the marketing dollars needed to compete with Apple Computer Inc. and other suppliers of songs online.

The move comes two months after Apple launched its much-ballyhooed iTunes Music Store, whose success has spurred Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other major players to explore competing offerings.

Many music-industry executives expect more downloadable music stores to open by Christmas. San Francisco-based Ecast's Rioport division, which employed 25 people in San Jose, appeared to have been in a position to supply those stores with music and technology.

But Ecast Chief Executive Robbie Vann-Adibe said the situation wasn't as promising as it seemed.

"There's a lot of conversations going on, there's not a lot of check-writing going on right now," he said.

"We're a relatively small organization, we're a private company with limited resources," he added. "We cannot at this point continue to invest in this part of our business and wait for these organizations to get around to make decisions to go on this stuff."

Instead, the company plans to focus on the other half of its business: supplying restaurants, bars and other gathering places with jukeboxes stocked with music and other digital media from the Internet. That operation is growing significantly, Vann-Adibe said, noting that the number of songs played in the last quarter was more than three times as great as the same period last year.

Even in that division, however, Ecast has cut expenses significantly. Last month the company quietly closed its customer-support offices in San Diego and laid off some workers in its jukebox division.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

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Sonia K. Katyal is an associate professor at Fordham Law School specializing in intellectual property.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...,1457054.story

A War on CD Piracy, a War on Our Rights
Sonia K. Katyal

It has become more than just a war against piracy. It is a war against basic American civil liberties.

A few years ago, round one began with the Recording Industry Assn. of America filing suit against Napster, the renegade file- sharing program developed by a 19-year-old. The result was an explosive public debate about the clash between law and technology. The battleground was the Internet.

Recording industry execs and ordinary citizens lined up to declare their allegiances in the question of whether downloading copyrighted music constitutes piracy or something else.

A few years later, with Napster sputtering its last breaths, round two started. The RIAA filed a host of lawsuits against other file- sharing entities that had developed in Napster's stead, like Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster. The RIAA used the same rhetoric it used against Napster, but the strategy changed. If round one made Napster into the enemy, round two made file-sharing itself the scapegoat. However, just weeks ago, a California court corrected the RIAA's rhetoric, reminding it that peer-to-peer file-sharing services are deserving of protection as long as people use them for legitimate purposes.

But the RIAA's battle continues, each move more invasive and threatening than the last. Not only do anti-piracy devices search the hard drives of individuals looking for copyrighted music, the RIAA appears determined to force Internet service providers to reveal the identities of their users at any cost.

Already, schools across the country, fearful of threats from the RIAA, have implemented monitoring programs to track and report the exchange of copyrighted files. Employers now search through employee hard drives looking for MP3s, irrespective of whether the person is authorized to have them, and prohibit the use of peer-to-peer technologies, even for the sharing of legitimate files.

Of course, stealing music is wrong. But the RIAA's efforts are just as misguided as its own piracy detection techniques, which often mistake legitimate files for illegitimate ones. Witness the recent cease-and-desist letter addressed to Pennsylvania State University, which accused an astrophysics professor of illegally sharing files. The problem? His last name was Usher, which the RIAA Web crawler confused with an artist of the same name. Or the time that the RIAA sent a cease-and-desist letter to a broadband provider, claiming that one of its subscriber's sites illegally "offers approximately 0 sound files for download."

The legislative response has been equally misplaced: Last session, Rep. Howard Berman (D-N. Hollywood) proposed a bill that would have authorized an unprecedented host of invasive measures to prevent file-sharing, including attacks on a suspect's computer that deny service. And a few days ago, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed destroying the computers of individuals who illegally downloaded material, pointing out that damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

Now, round three begins. The RIAA's efforts have culminated in yet another display of unilateral aggression. This week, the RIAA announced that it would track down and sue hundreds of file sharers. In doing so, the RIAA pits itself against ordinary Americans who use file-sharing programs legitimately.

The deeper question is why Congress would let the RIAA wage such a war without even a shred of opposition from Capitol Hill. Americans enjoy online freedom and take their rights to privacy, fair use and free speech seriously. But these rights appear to have swiftly collapsed in the face of threats by the RIAA and congressional inaction.

Most people support the protection of copyrighted works from unauthorized file-sharing, but not at a cost that compromises the civil liberties that our nation has traditionally cherished. In the end, we will have to ask ourselves whether the music we love is really worth hearing, especially when it comes at such a grave cost to our individual freedoms.

Until next week,

- js.

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Recent WIRs -

http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16759 June 28th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16705 June 21st
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16638 June 14th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16580 June 7th

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

JUST SAY NO!

This week the RIAA announced that it will now be pursuing lawsuits against individual music lovers using peer-to-peer(P2P) file-sharing networks. We as musicians wish to state our objection to the RIAA's action, and have issued the statement below, which we would encourage all who are concerned to sign using the form below.

For Immediate Release

MUSICIANS SAY NO TO PERSECUTION AND PROSECUTION OF MUSIC LOVERS

June 30th 2003

In response to the continuing legal attacks by the RIAA and major record labels on internet music sharing, which now include both criminal charges and civil suits against individuals, musicians are joining together to say NO to the action supposedly being taken on our behalf.

Just because the major labels haven't figured out a way to make money out of the internet doesn't mean that individuals who have shared music should go to prison, or be forced into bankruptcy. The industry is alienating the very people it hopes to sell music to in future with its heavy handed action.

With its collective failure to understand the internet, or the benefit it derives from the peer to peer networks that have sprung up in the vacuum created by that failure, the industry has now turned to desperate methods. Suing your customers one by one is not a business model. We can only assume that the intention behind these attacks on individuals is to create an atmosphere of intimidation in which music lovers dare not use legally acquired computers to listen to music, except under very limited terms that the industry intends to dictate.

As musicians we recognise and defend the right of artists to be compensated for their work. However, these prosecutions are not helping musicians, or helping the industry create a better system of internet distribution.

We ask that the RIAA refrain from assuming our implicit support for their persecution of individual music lovers, stop equating all free online music with 'piracy', and concentrate its legal sanctions on the organisations who are making money out of the unauthorised duplication of our work.

We invite all musicians who support our position to add their names to this open letter at http://www.copyleftmedia.org.uk/justsayno/

Keep these dates in mind...

Boycott-RIAA is planning some action in the near future and you want to be aware of these dates. The dates are August 1st and August 2nd. Start thinking about what you can do in your area. We're wanting to co-ordinate fax campaigns to our legislators, phone campaigns to our legislators (August 1st is a friday). Some suggestions for local actions on August 2nd (Saturday) CD Burning Party (literally) Independent Music Concerts, Educational Seminars, Press Conferences, Handout flyers and picketing record stores that sell RIAA Products..It's time to get off of your rear end folks and get to work...We want pictures, we'll post them. NO Violence!

I'm in the process of creating a "Street Team" forms, and will be posting what actions are taking place and where, so that you can get the maximum turnout. Let us know through the form that will be available MONDAY JUNE 30.
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/7001

Ðiego · 04-07-03, 04:32 AM

Jack, how can I work with you if you're not wasted?

(grin)

Ð

theknife · 04-07-03, 06:10 AM

front line dispatches from our p2p war correspondent...

nice work, Jack

naz · 04-07-03, 09:46 AM

Compiling that every week must be pretty daunting. Sooooo, "Distributed Computing" is the PC term of choice for p2p now, eh?

JackSpratts · 04-07-03, 11:09 AM

it's one way to call it.

- js.

TankGirl · 04-07-03, 05:04 PM

A great opening essay again, Jack!

Quote:

Originally posted by JackSpratts
People just don’t support groups that attack them, and people find it difficult doing business with people who sue their friends. Who can blame them? It’s common sense self preservation.

Yep… p2p has grown too big and prominent a phenomenon for any scare or bullying tactics to benefit the RIAA anymore. An open clash with consumers is plain suicidal – PR wise, economically and eventually politically. The voting masses are getting increasingly interested in esoteric things like copyright and privacy laws.

Quote:

Originally posted by JackSpratts
File sharing isn’t the unspeakable thing in the attic anymore, it’s now the 900 pound gorilla in the living room and it’s pretty comfortable right where it is, thanks. It’s the people. They file share. They like it a lot and they’re not going to stop. Ride it for sure, but it’s not a train anyone with any sense should stand in front of.

Very vivid and very true!

- tg

walktalker · 04-07-03, 08:47 PM

Phew... just by reading all these news story and opinions, I'm exhausted. And since TankGirl came around, I'm feeling jealous as well.

Hey JS

JackSpratts · 04-07-03, 11:00 PM

hi wt - nothing to be jealous about, you're doing the original great job.

- js.

faggotry · 06-07-03, 11:30 AM

this site kicks ass. all the relevant information i could ask for.

other so-called p2p meccas skip a lot of stuff.

dingdongding · 08-07-03, 02:32 AM

Urban Spying System Would Eye Vehicles

From Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.

Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.

Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.

The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face.

According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watch list, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities.

The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies to combat terrorism and fight wars.

Its other projects include developing software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide to predict terrorist attacks, and creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches.

Scientists and privacy experts — who already have seen the use of face-recognition technologies at a Super Bowl and monitoring cameras in London — expressed concern about the potential impact of the emerging DARPA technologies if they are applied to civilians by commercial or government agencies outside the Pentagon.

"Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.

DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker dismissed those concerns. She said the Combat Zones That See technology isn't intended for homeland security or law enforcement and couldn't be used for "other applications without extensive modifications."

But scientists envision nonmilitary uses.

"One can easily foresee pressure to adopt a similar approach to crime-ridden areas of American cities or to the Super Bowl or any site where crowds gather," said Steven Aftergood of the American Federation of Scientists.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

03-07-03, 10:27 PM	#1
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,017	Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 5th, '03 Slow Burn This was the week we learned just how far the RIAA would go to maintain its hold on Western culture, and yawn, how “big a deal” it was not. The number of people sharing files – and the number of files being shared - has not diminished in any measurable way so far. While this may change once reports come in on subpoenas issued and their dollar amounts, it may not even change then. In the U.S. it’s estimated that about 60 million people use peer-to-peers but anecdotal evidence suggests something far greater. My guess is in the 80 to 100 million range. If the RIAA manages to subpoena a truly amazing 10,000 people it will make itself the scourge of the West, but as a percentage of users attacked they’ll be hitting a miniscule one hundredth of one percent. That’s just one file sharer out of 10,000, and that’s if they somehow manage to fight that many to begin with which seems unlikely to me. I’d imagine the amount of people actually going to trial in the dozens, or hundreds. Not thousands or tens of thousands. Even still, if the recording industry manages to gear up to an evil-empire-sized suing machine capable of squashing 10,000 moms, pops, juniors and sissys, the odds remain overwhelmingly in favor of the file sharers. Overwhelmingly. This has not been lost on the file sharers, even those at the wrong end of the RIAA’s howitzers. Their numbers continue to rise. This has not been lost on all the members of the RIAA either, many of whom are trembling in awe at the mountains of bad press rising from these lawsuits, and who are at last openly questioning the strategy, and perhaps more importantly the basic premise of a lobbying group that is managing to squander 100 years of billion dollar profits while turning its members into pariahs. With anti CD boycotts popping up all over the world, it’s not a stretch to say that soon the biggest negative effect on sales won’t be high prices, boring products, or even a slow economy; it will be the record companies’ themselves. Their own terrible reputations magnified by the RIAA’s outrageous strong arm tactics could bring a halt to sales. People just don’t support groups that attack them, and people find it difficult doing business with people who sue their friends. Who can blame them? It’s common sense self preservation. It’s an amazing thing to watch all the same. The destruction of the record business by the record business is like watching in ultra slow motion a bomb go off in the hands of the bomber, over the course of several years. Every mistake is magnified and every mistake obvious to all but the bomber herself. It makes me want to shout “Don’t cross those wires!” But she does. It’s her nature I guess, and another electron shoots to the infinite, another business to oblivion. Any more than you can halt summer’s passing or slow the tides, file sharing won’t be stopped or appreciably changed. There might be helpful technological responses from the software developers. They may create something a little or a lot more anonymous. ISP’s might bow to subscriber pressure and stop keeping records of Internet Protocol addresses, instantly making file sharing anonymous. This would deprive the RIAA of the names and alleged evidence upon which these suits are based. ISP’s – or even the courts - may yet play a role, especially if this new non-judicial subpoena system becomes a boondoggle, and I think it will though that’s another story. Still and all the technical client side fixes are band aid approaches at best and not particularly necessary. The sun is setting on that day. The people have spoken. File sharing isn’t the unspeakable thing in the attic anymore, it’s now the 900 pound gorilla in the living room and it’s pretty comfortable right where it is, thanks. It’s the people. They file share. They like it a lot and they’re not going to stop. Ride it for sure, but it’s not a train anyone with any sense should stand in front of. What you can do is take a page from the file sharers themselves and learn to use Peer-to-Peer to your advantage. And experience a whole new world of opportunities. Enjoy, Jack. Music Industry Threats Not Slowing File-Sharing Volume Andrew J. Manuse Companies that develop music-sharing software and people who download copyrighted music were not frightened by the recording industry's threat Tuesday to sue computer users who illegally offer to share ``substantial'' amounts of music. ``I don't expect the threat to have an impact,'' said Wayne Rosso, president of the file-sharing network called Grokster. Rosso said the recording industry was just hurting itself by going after its own customers. Grokster usually has 3.5 million to 4.5 million users at any given moment, he said. At 6 p.m yesterday, 3.8 million people were on the network. A spokesperson from Sharman Networks, the company that owns another popular network called KaZaa, said the average number of KaZaa users at any given time is about 4 million. Post threat, there were 4.2 million people downloading music at around 5:30 p.m. yesterday. Greg Bildson, CTO and COO of Limewire, another network, said he has seen no decrease in users since the recording industry's threat and doesn't expect one. Still, the Recording Industry Association of America is threatening to sue the users of the networks, not the companies that run them. Jessica Gleason, 20, a student at UMass Amherst, is one of those users, but she wasn't worried. ``There are enough (network) systems out there that (the recording industry) is not going to stop us,'' said Gleason, who has 1,000 downloaded songs and adds five songs a week to that collection. Twenty-seven file sharing networks came up in a Web search for services that have replaced Napster. ``Truth will come out when we find out who they're going to sue,'' said Gigi Sohn, president of a group that advocates balance in copyright laws. http://www.bostonherald.com/business...ra06272003.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Japan Grapples With Digital Shoplifting Using Mobiles Agence France-Presse Japanese publishers said on Monday that they will launch a campaign this week to stop digital shoplifters -- people who visit book stores to photograph magazine pages with their cellphones rather than make a purchase. Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly, said an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, Kenji Takahashi. Starting Tuesday, bookstores across the nation will put up posters urging magazine readers to "refrain from recording information with camera-mounted cellphones and other devices." The association has printed 30,000 posters for the campaign, which will last until August 20 in co-operation with bookstores and the Telecommunications Carriers Association. There are 20,000 bookstores in Japan. Small operators are already hit hard by conventional theft and hundreds of them are closing down every year due to financial difficulties, Takahashi said. "Given the enormous speed of business closures, we cannot overlook this information-lifting with cellphones," he said. He said it was unclear if digital shoplifting is tantamount to a crime as the copyright law only covers use of information for commercial purposes. The Telecommunications Carriers Association also "recognizes the need to improve people's mobile phone manners," an official said, as handsets become more advanced with new functions ranging from Internet access to sending and receiving e-mails and taking pictures. The latest advertisement by the association, published in newspapers on Sunday, urged users not to write e-mails while walking. There were 76.73 million mobile phone subscriptions at the end of May, according to the latest data from the telecom association. J-Phone Co Ltd, controlled by British-based telecoms giant Vodafone, launched the world's first picture-taking handsets in November 2000. More than half of mobile handsets shipped in the year ended March were estimated to be camera phones. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_294225,0003.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 'Cameraphones' Could Get Less Candid Tak Sang-hun Amid a bid by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC) to regulate the use of cell phones with cameras installed - "cameraphones" - the National Assembly is expected to soon discuss a new bill tighten the use of such phones. Huh Un-na, a ruling Millennium Democratic Party member on the Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Telecommunications committee said that the party plans to submit a bill mandating that cameraphones be designed to emit a loud noise when photos are taken. The noise would alert people in public that their picture might have been taken. Huh said the bill would require that mobile handset manufacturers install the noisemaker in cell phones, in order to prevent what she called "human rights infringements" and to prevent corporate espionage. Meanwhile, an official at the MOIC said the ministry would start a comprehensive analysis to draft measures to stem the misuse of cameraphones in public places, including bath houses and dressing rooms. The nation's leading cell phone manufacturers, however, expressed concern over the proposed regulation, as the businesses have been suffering from a sharp decline in domestic sales. An official at Samsung Electronics said that restrictions on the use of cameraphones would cause domestic sales of the phones, which is still struggling to get off the ground, to be stalled. Exports would also sink, he warned. http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...306230022.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RealNetworks, Listen Sued for Patent Infringement LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Privately held Friskit Inc. on Tuesday said it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against digital media software provider RealNetworks Inc (RNWK.O) and its online music unit, Listen.com. San Francisco-based Friskit, a technology licensing company, is seeking a permanent injunction that would prevent the two companies from using what it claims is its technology for streaming online media, which include Webcast sounds. http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P2P Goes Corporate Tiernan Ray Peer-to-peer technology may have pulled off the greatest disappearing act of the post-dot-com era. Once heralded as the second coming of the Internet, file-sharing giant Napster was sued out of business, and many of its descendants, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, are under fire from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Grizzled veterans of P2P technology, such as Andy Oram, editor of "Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies," shake their heads in disappointment. "Honestly, I've felt for a while now like it was part of my past," Oram says of the technology he once passionately embraced. Nonetheless, the innovations unleashed by Napster are making modest headway in corporate networks. For example, network administrators are discovering that distributing some file-sharing capabilities out to the edges of a network can make their workforce more versatile and mobile. Sun Microsystems has launched a set of P2P tools, as has IBM, though they have yet to catch fire in the marketplace. Peer-based technologies may yet change the way corporate computing works. Just remember: Don't call it "P2P" when you are selling it to executives. That term is tainted. Evaluating P2P in the enterprise is an ambiguous endeavor. What does the term really encompass? For some, the image of file-sharing programs like BearShare, Limewire and Napster is most prominent. For others, it is about "presence" -- the ability of a computer user to sense when a coworker may be on the network -- though that feature is more properly associated with instant messaging programs than with P2P. Still others might say P2P should promote distributed processing power within the enterprise, just as the SETI@HOME project uses volunteers' Pentiums to search for extraterrestrial life. In fact, it turns out that the features commonly deemed most important about P2P -- decentralized file exchanges, non-hierarchical communications, direct collaboration and distributed processing power -- are rather unimportant to most corporate buyers. This dilemma is familiar to Ray Ozzie, formerly the brains behind the Lotus Notes program, who now runs P2P software venture Groove Networks. Lotus Notes offered sophisticated file sharing in an age before the World Wide Web, but most corporate customers ended up using it for little more than e-mail. Likewise, Groove is finding that the killer P2P app, collaboration, is not so killer. "There's about 3 million lines of code in Groove, but it's the last 250,000 lines, the part that you use to develop applications internally, that matters to customers," Andrew Mahon, director of strategic marketing at Groove Networks, told the E-Commerce Times. Groove Workspace, a peer-based file-sharing program, was a proof of concept built on top of the company's P2P toolkit, he said. Businesses can start using it for US$49 per seat, putting it within reach of even small companies. However, three pieces of application infrastructure have made the underlying Groove code libraries more important to users than Workspace itself. They are: synchronization of changes made to documents offline; the ability to apply strong encryption to files with sensitive content; and the ability for remote workers to connect to the enterprise through virtual private networks. One prominent Groove customer said those three factors are exactly why he implemented the software. Craig Samuel is chief knowledge officer in charge of information sharing among the 65,000 employees in Hewlett-Packard's services division, which is spread across 160 countries. "The business problem we try to solve internally is, how do you get large organizations around the world to access and share the right knowledge in a very responsive way?" Samuel told the E-Commerce Times. For HP, Samuel said, achieving this goal meant integrating peer-to-peer technology with the Web-based Sharepoint package used widely throughout the company, which in turn required using Groove's capabilities as modules to be plugged into Sharepoint. "We wanted to be able to not just share information around the periphery of the organization," as in Napster-style file sharing, "but also to connect that to centralized programs." Specifically, Groove offered a better way to synchronize data than Microsoft Outlook, according to Samuel, and it was an easy way to add 192-bit encryption to file sharing. As a customer since version 1.0, HP's experience helped shape Groove. "In the beginning, Groove was just a nice collaboration tool," Samuel said. "Now, people can work together in a common space, in portals, and push content between different repositories. That's been the key" to making Groove a productivity enhancer. In the future, he added, HP may build more complex applications on top of Groove using Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. However, although Groove is cherished by some customers for offline synchronization, its popularity only highlights the shortcomings that hobble P2P in general. P2P guru Oram said file-sharing programs and the like have "serious problems." "There are three things that P2P really lacks, namely a consistent addressing scheme, metadata and a way to ensure the reputation of participants in the network," he told the E-Commerce Times. Because of those shortcomings, "right now, it's hard to say P2P makes things better for the end user; it makes things more difficult." On the first point, Oram noted that although the presence features of Jabber, an instant messaging program, are good, he would like to see a consistent protocol for finding and addressing P2P participants, akin to plain old e-mail addresses. He added that he thinks metadata is needed to replace the unstructured, stream-of-consciousness nature of instant messaging with an organized method of exchanging complex documents. Lastly, Oram argued that as P2P technology moves beyond stealing music, there must be a way to validate the reputation and trustworthiness of users participating in the network. Others agree that beneath all the fluff about P2P, today's programs are immature. "There are mixed emotions about this in IT," said Bob Parker, an analyst at AMR Research. He told the E-Commerce Times that although peer-based software can be an effective tool for ad-hoc collaboration, companies are worried that they will not be able to properly archive materials traded back and forth among peers. "Any communication in a bank related to an equity that might be traded comes under purview of [the] SEC, and that needs to be archived," Parker said. Of course, third-party tools can be added, but "out of the box, P2P has these archival issues." He agreed with Oram about the issue of addressing, to say nothing of the headaches created on networks flooded with decentralized file sharing. However, if companies like Groove can succeed despite the pressing issues surrounding peer-to-peer technology, one can only conclude that P2P has not been rejected by the market. Far from it. The technology appears to be finding a niche by addressing existing communication issues in enterprise computing. Such unglamorous hacks used to be called "middleware," a kind of software piping sold by established companies like IBM. However, Groove's Mahon eschews that label, not least because it threatens to pull Groove into Microsoft's rapacious maw as the software giant seeks to incorporate more middleware into Windows. (Microsoft has an investment in Groove.) Instead, Mahon is stumping for the liberating power of the technology. He believes that, like Napster, Groove brings a little bit of an anarchic quality to the way an increasingly mobile and connected staff functions inside the Fortune 500. "Users want to just work together without having to have permission, just as they do with e-mail," he said. "Groove lets IT maintain control over policy, while users can control the content that gets exchanged." That may be a good enough selling point for executives -- so long as they are not spooked by visions of illicit file swapping. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21742.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tadpole Seeks Strategic Partner To Offset Losses Chris Lake Peer to peer software developer Tadpole Technology said it is seeking a strategic partner to help it market its instant messaging and collaboration products, to help combat continued losses. The company, which offloaded its hardware division towards the end of 2002, is now focused purely on software and hopes to improve sales of Endeavors products. It has decided to cash in quickly on the sale of the hardware unit - Tadpole was due to recieve $8.5m in 2007 but has instead realised just $2m from the sale after signing an agreement earlier this week. This has resulted in a write off of more than £4m, but has given Tadpole some much-needed cash, to allow it to hold off from drawing down cash from the equity line of credit it has in place with GEM. It has used almost £5m of the £10m GEM facility, which expires in January, and did not rule out further drawdowns. Endeavors has developed peer to peer software and secure corporate instant messaging applications that transform AIM and MSN from standalone IM platforms into interoperable ones.But sales at Endeavors have been disappointing, reaping just £50,000 for Tadpole in the six months to 31 March, although this is a seven-fold increase on the same period last year. Endeavors remains at an early-stage in its development but now it has market-ready software products, Tadpole should benefit from sales growth in the coming months and years, though current market conditions were described as "challenging". The company has completed a strategic review and reduced headcount at Endeavors to reduce operating costs by £300,000 to £1.9m. Crucially, the company is actively seeking out a strategic partner to help exploit Endeavors' technology. Overall, Tadpole reported a £600,000 reduction in operating costs to £2.6m. Sales were flat, at £1.1m, and the loss made from cashing in early on the hardware division forced overall losses up to £7.5m, from £2.8m last year. Worryingly, the company now has net current liabilities of £168,000, but the equity line of credit from GEM and cash from the hardware sale will buy Tadpole vital time. If it can add a high profile strategic partner to its Endeavors division then the shift from development to sales and marketing will be complete, but it needs to quickly increase sales if it is to breakeven before it runs out of funds. Tadpole said it expects to report a "substantially reduced operating loss" in the second half of the year. http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/vie...ews_0000054411 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Grokster Blasts RIAA Anti-Piracy Tactics Brian Garrity The Recording Industry Association of America's plan to sue individuals for distributing "substantial amounts" of music files on peer-to-peer networks isn't likely to change consumer behavior, critics of the initiative charge. Grokster president Wayne Rosso told attendees of an event sponsored by the Copyright Society of the USA yesterday (June 26) in New York that attempts by the recording industry to thwart file sharing through litigation are bound to fail. Rosso said lawsuits can't keep pace with technological innovation and development. RIAA attorney Dean Garfield told attendees that lawsuits against consumers are just one tactic in a multi-faceted strategy the industry is using to combat piracy. The move comes after litigation aimed at P2P networks themselves has failed to stem the growth of file sharing. Two years after the industry's shutdown of Napster, the practice is more popular than ever. The RIAA reports that an estimated 2.6 billion copyrighted files are traded over P2P networks every month. Leading the pack is KaZaA: The RIAA says that in May, the service had more than 230 million users, up from 100 million in July 2002. Additionally, a recent court ruling in the RIAA's suit against Grokster and others found that P2P networks cannot necessarily by held accountable for the illegal activities of their users. Rosso said the only real solution is for labels to strike distribution deals with P2P networks. However, he said, the RIAA's litigation initiatives are stifling negotiations. http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1923806 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Napster Plans Ad Push for Comeback Brian Morrissey Napster, the deceased file-sharing network, announced on Thursday that it hired ad agency Venables, Bell & Partners to design a promotional campaign for its re-launch set for sometime in the next eight to 10 months. MediaSmith, a San Francisco-based company that handles the same duties for Napster parent company Roxio, will complement the Venables campaign. Napster declined to give any further details on its ad plans, citing "competitive reasons." The announcement comes a month after Roxio paid about $40 million to acquire online music service Pressplay, a joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Roxo plans to use Pressplay's infrastructure and the Napster brand to build a legitimate and viable online music offering. It said it would earmark $20 million to the re- introduction of the new Napster. Venables was about to be named Pressplay's agency of record at the time of its acquisition, according to press reports. Venables will have its work cut out for it. Although Napster retains a strong brand name in the public imagination, it has not operated for the past two years. By the time it re- launches in 2004, the online service will have been offline for nearly three years. "It really needs to do some re-imaging and repositioning because what people grew to love about Napster will change when it moves to a pay service," said Lee Black, an online music industry analyst for Jupiter Research, which is owned by the parent company of this site. "It's about moving that name recognition into familiarity with the new Napster." Since its demise at the hands of the recording industry's legal assault, a number of online music services have sprung up to take its place. Listen.com's Rhapsody, which Real Networks plans to buy to replace MusicNet, capitalized on the Napster phenomenon, while Apple Computer also now sells songs at its iTunes online store. In addition, a number of other peer-to-peer networks, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, have grown in popularity for music fans looking to trade MP3s. Still, Roxio saw value in the strong brand Napster built during its short life. Last November, it shelled out $5.3 million to buy Napster's assets from a bankruptcy court, and four months ago it announced plans to re-launch it as an online music service, albeit one that operates legally. The new service will be a client-server application, eschewing Napster's peer-to-peer roots. www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/2228481 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Coming Soon: A Horror Show for TV Ads Jane Black TiVo's digital recorders indicate that viewers don't necessarily watch the ads, even on hit shows. Agencies and networks are still in denial "I know that 50% of my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half," retail guru John Wanamaker famously quipped in 1886. Things haven't improved much since then. Magazines and newspapers still sell ads based on circulation, and TV networks have sold ads based on viewer ratings for the last 50 years, even though no one knows whether anyone actually watches commercials. More than a century after Wanamaker's lament, advertising remains as much an art as a science. Yet the world of TV advertising is about to become a lot more scientific. On June 2, personal-video-recorder outfit TiVo (TIVO ) unveiled an analytical tool that can tell advertisers, agencies, and networks not only how many people tune in for a show but whether they're watching the ads. Unlike a Nielsen rating, which relies on surveys filled out by viewers, TiVo's system tracks what a viewer records and tunes into, even when the channel is changed -- although, thankfully, it still doesn't know if you head for the kitchen for something to eat. UNWELCOME FINDINGS. TiVo can also pinpoint where and when ads are watched the most. For example, a commercial for breakfast cereal might be skipped through less often in the morning on the West Coast than during pricey prime-time slots in the East. "This is the beginning of the end of that drunken orgy of dollars spent on broadcast TV as the ultimate 'reach' vehicle," says Tim Hanlon, vice-president for emerging contacts at Starcom MediaVest, an ad agency that helped TiVo design its new service. Perhaps. But the ad industry's response has been anything but ecstatic. In the weeks since TiVo threw down the gauntlet, it has become clear that the burning question of which half of advertising is wasted isn't something that ad giants, such as Interpublic (IPG ) or the big three networks necessarily want answered -- especially in the network-TV market, where ad prices continue to rise, despite falling viewer ratings. "This kind of information is the holy grail for marketers. But it's not the holy grail for advertising agencies and media companies, which have built an industry around the idea of getting a shallow message to a broad audience rather than a tailored message to a narrower one," says Mike Galgon, chief strategy officer at Seattle-based interactive ad agency Avenue A (AQNT ). Galgon would know. Over the last seven years, Avenue A and other interactive agencies such as DoubleClick (DCLK ) have struggled to legitimize online advertising -- the ultimate in accountable media. In the heyday of the late 1990s, successful Web portals such as AOL and Yahoo! (YHOO ) sold inventory based on the number of unique users visiting their sites. That model mimicked TV: The more "viewers" you could deliver, the more you could charge. Then, in 2000, the bubble burst. Advertisers stopped caring whether 2 million or 20 million people visited a site. Instead, they demanded to know how many people clicked on their ads -- or how many saw the ad and subsequently bought something. "Accountability is a huge challenge for everyone who's buying TV," says Galgon. Now, "all of a sudden [TV] looks a lot like the Internet." SMALLER, "STICKIER" VIEWERSHIP? Indeed, just like clickable ads, TiVo's initial data reveal some trends that ad agencies and networks might prefer to bury. For one, a program's rating -- the number of people saying they watched a TV show at a given time -- appears to have an inverse relationship with the proportion of ads viewed. On April 11, 2002, ABC's popular TV drama The Practice drew a TiVo rating of 8.9, meaning 8.9% of TiVo owners watched the show live or recorded it and watched it later. But those viewers watched just 30% of the ads shown. Meanwhile, quiz show The Weakest Link, drew a rating of 0.9, but viewers watched 78% of the commercials. TV news magazine 60 Minutes got only a 2.2 rating, but its viewers sat through 73% of the ads. Certain genres are "stickier" than others, TiVo's research shows. Big-budget situation comedies and dramas tend to have the lowest retention and commercial-viewing rate because couch potatoes tend to record them and skip through the commercials rather than watch them live. Reality TV, news, and "event" programming such as the Oscars do significantly better at getting viewers to see the commercials. Just 39% of viewers watched ads during the highest-rated network TV show, Friends, vs. 75% for the 45th Annual Grammy Awards and 58% for Fox reality show Fear Factor. These trends don't threaten to kill TV advertising, but they're sure to change how ads are produced and sold. Today, media buyers purchase TV ad time based on program ratings and demographics. When 2 million people turn in to watch Friends on Thursday night at 8 p.m., advertisers assume 2 million people see their ad. Tomorrow's ad buyers might choose to bid higher for 30-second spots on programs such as 60 Minutes, which has an older audience less prone to channel surfing. RESHUFFLING AD DOLLARS. Advertisers trying to reach younger people will shift their spending to more appropriate channels. According to Forrester Research, when personal-video-recorder (PVR) technology reaches 30 million households in 2006, 76% of advertisers say they'll cut their TV ad spending -- one quarter of them by more than 41%. Instead of buying TV ads, 65% plan to spend more on program sponsorship, 46% will increase budgets for product placement, and 36% say they'll rechannel their dollars to online advertising. TV's transformation will surely take time. Right now, most ad agencies and network execs are in a state of deep denial about the wrenching change on the horizon. Ad execs by and large dismiss TiVo's data, saying the sample size is too small -- Tivo has just 750,000 customers -- and arguing that these users represent an early-adopter set, not the mass market. "You pour money in where it's going to work," says Lisa Seiwers, director of national broadcast at New York agency Tucker, Hampel & Stephanides. "TV still remains the most mass reach you can get in terms of advertising." Or is it? Data collected by TiVo and other PVR outfits are certain to challenge the prevailing wisdom and the status quo. Forrester predicts that by 2007, half of American households will have either a PVR or other on-demand services that allow viewers to watch TV programs at their convenience. As PVRs become more prevalent, the data will become increasingly difficult to ignore. It's easy to sell ads when advertisers don't know which half of their money is being wasted. But if the technology exists to figure it out, you can be sure they'll demand to know. http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...1133_tc119.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Urban Spying System Would Eye Vehicles AP The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city. Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Labels May Face Risk in Piracy Suits Jon Healey As the record industry prepares to haul thousands of alleged music pirates into court, its biggest risk may be suing the wrong people — and losing the support of leading members of Congress in the process. Labels and artists are widely viewed on Capitol Hill as victims of rampant piracy by millions of users of file-sharing networks. And anonymous file sharers are easy to demonize. But the real people sued this fall by the Recording Industry Assn. of America may have sympathetic stories to tell. That could turn sentiment on Capitol Hill at a time when some lawmakers are eager to narrow the reach of copyright law and expand consumer rights. "I would guess that you would then see stories about the family faced with economic ruin and the cost of having to hire defense counsel, settling for $10,000 or $20,000, and the money they were saving for Timmy's college education now has to go to Kid Rock," said Philip S. Corwin, a lobbyist in Washington for Sharman Networks, distributor of the Kazaa file-sharing software. "That's the kind of stuff that would scare a politician." Even Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), a frequent ally of the entertainment industry, said the labels' standing in Congress would suffer if they "overreach and refuse to settle these issues reasonably." But, he added, "I don't think their goal is to collect a huge amount of revenue through the vehicle of lawsuits; I think it is to deter continued illegal conduct." The RIAA can identify which computers are sharing songs, but it can't easily tell who's using them. The people it sues will be the ones who pay to connect those computers to the Internet, and could be unwitting parents and employers. "Nobody wants to be the heavy," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "Everybody is aware that there could be poster children. But the alternative, which is to do nothing about a problem which is getting worse that's much worse." The RIAA plans to start by suing the several hundred "worst offenders," hoping that the opening salvo will deter the masses from sharing copyrighted songs. If it doesn't, Sherman said, the lawsuits will continue. File-sharing networks attract an estimated 57 million Americans and about 80 million users worldwide, with Kazaa alone drawing at least 4 million people sharing more than 800 million songs, movies and other digital files at any given moment. The rise of those networks has coincided with a decline in CD sales, which have fallen more than 25% since Napster Inc. debuted in 1999. The one bright spot for the RIAA is that its educational efforts may be making some headway — 50% of the 12- to 44-year-olds surveyed by Edison Media Research in May said it's wrong to download songs for free, compared with 39% last year. The combination of relentless piracy and the labels' increased support for legitimate sources of music online has driven up the music industry's stock on Capitol Hill. "There's strong recognition that what's been going on in these file-swapping systems is theft, and there is an injured party, and it is the people who create and record and distribute music," Berman said. That sympathy is important because the RIAA has largely been playing defense in Washington, trying to block proposals that would weaken the anti- piracy tools in copyright law. Examples include a new proposal from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) that would make it harder for copyright holders to obtain the identities of alleged infringers from their Internet service providers, a change that would put a significant hurdle in front of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. The draft bill, which Brownback has yet to introduce, also would guarantee consumers' ability to sell or donate the downloadable songs, movies and other digital media they buy. Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that's trying to rein in copyright law, said the record labels' campaign could backfire if they "start to go after the smaller fry" on file-sharing networks or "if they just pick the wrong person, like a congressman's daughter or son." And if they mistakenly target someone who's not violated any copyrights, as the labels and movie studios have done occasionally when sending out cease-and-desist letters, that may sink the entire campaign, Sohn said. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), sponsor of a bill to let consumers make personal copies of digital media, said the RIAA could cause a backlash simply by suing too many people. "There will be political ramifications from vast numbers of lawsuits being filed." On the other hand, Berman said, lawmakers may have little trouble supporting lawsuits against constituents who violate copyrights, or suits brought against their parents. "If a constituent called me and said, 'My kid got picked up for shoplifting. You've got to change the shoplifting law.' I'd say, 'Tell your kid to stop shoplifting.' And I think this is somewhat analogous." Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), a frequent critic of the record labels, said in this instance the RIAA has a good message: "The purpose here is to get people aware of this underlying truth: Stealing is stealing, whether it's a hard good or software." http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...,5959080.story ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NewsHour The Federal Communications Commission late Wednesday published its final report on the revised media ownership rules, even as lawmakers and consumer rights groups announced various plans aimed at making sure the new rules never take effect. Read the entire FCC report on media concentration. (MS Word) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/conglomeration/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here’s To Internet Piracy And The New Artistic Renaissance. Ed Weathers Why did Homer write the Iliad and the Odyssey? Why did Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales and John Milton Paradise Lost? Why did Emily Dickinson write her poems? Why did the unknown composer of “The Londonderry Air” (better known as the tune of “Danny Boy”) go to the trouble of writing a song at all? Why did Mozart compose and compose in a frenzy of creativity even when he knew it wouldn’t solve his money problems? Why did Van Gogh continue to make paintings that would never make him a living? I’ve been preoccupied with questions like these ever since Napster first came to light. Napster, of course, was the original music-sharing software, which allowed anyone with a computer to go online and make a perfect digital copy of a song, for nothing, by transferring the song-file data from the CD of someone who owned it. This is what I hope will happen: Those who, like the RIAA and the MPAA, are trying to put roadblocks around the Internet will fail. The programmers and the kids (often one and the same) will stay a step ahead of them. Finally, the Internet police will give up. As a result, within ten, at most twenty years, every form of art that can be digitized--every song, every movie, every book--will be available for free to everyone who owns a computer. The recording, movie and book distribution industries as we know them will collapse, though there will continue to be a cottage industry for those who, driven by nostalgia, demand actual vinyl records and paper books, or want to watch movies in large groups at movie theaters instead of in their own, far superior, home entertainment centers. Art that cannot be digitized and passed through wires or the ether, such as sculpture and painting, will flourish, in part because of the very fact that it cannot be translated by Booean algebra and is therefore extra-special. Art that depends on live performances--rock concerts, live theater, novel and poetry readings--will likewise flourish, and that’s how most singers, actors and writers will make their livings. Finally, art itself will be more malleable than ever, since every digitized novel can be re-edited instantly by anyone who receives it on his computer, and every song changed to suit the listener--much as those who recited the Iliad modified it with each retelling, often, I suspect, improving it. This audience-editing, of course, is already happening and can never be stopped. What about the poor artists? They will continue to create art. Why? For the same reasons Homer and Emily Dickinson and Mozart did: because they want to be famous or because they need to be heard or because they have something they need to say or sing, or because, well, they just can’t help it. Maybe they’ll have full-time jobs doing something else, like selling insurance or folding pretzels, and will be artists on the side. Maybe the U.S. government will actually support artists seriously, for a change, as other governments do around the world. Or maybe artists will rely on patrons to support them, as Michelangelo relied on the Medicis in Renaissance Florence. Speaking of the Renaissance, I also think this: In the end, the music we hear and the movies we see and the books we read will be all the better for their digital availability. No longer will music, movies and books be the products of greed. Now they’ll be the products of need--the need of the artist to make something special, so special that bits and bites, zeroes and ones, cannot reduce it to anything less than art, and the money it makes is not part of its specialness. There is something in the act of artistic creation so satisfying, so far beyond the satisfaction of a full bank account, that we don’t need to worry that the rock bands or the novelists or the filmmakers will go away. Those who write potboilers just to make money (Tom Clancy? John Grisham?) and those who make bad music and bad movies with nothing but an eye to the bottom line (The Backstreet Boys? 2 Fast 2 Furious?) will probably go away forever. To which we can all say: Good riddance. In ten years, maybe twenty at the most, the truer, purer artists will once again take center stage. And then we can all say: Welcome home, Homer. http://www.memphisflyer.com/onthefly...ew.asp?ID=2444 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Computer Users Urged To Take Music Industry Lawsuits Seriously Ken Seeber It could be several weeks before record companies begin filing their planned lawsuits against people who download copyrighted music over the Internet. But a lawyer who provides legal advice to students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale said people should take the music industry's latest anti-piracy campaign seriously. The Recording Industry Association of America, the Washington lobbying group that represents the interests of the major record labels, announced plans Wednesday to more aggressively combat so-called peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted music. Instead of targeting the software companies that make such activity possible, the RIAA plans to file several hundred lawsuits in the coming weeks against individual computer users who illegally share music files online. "There's not a very large body of case law in this area at this point as to what legal rights the (record) companies have against the users of these (file sharing) sites, but I would think it's likely that the courts would side in the favor of the companies and enter judgments against these people," said Steve Rogers, a lawyer with the Students' Legal Assistance Office at SIUC. "Better to be safe than sorry." File sharing used to take place through centralized computer servers, such as Napster, which made such services easy targets for the RIAA. But since the music industry successfully shut Napster down, file sharing has evolved into decentralized "peer-to-peer" networks such as Kazaa and Grokster. The RIAA claims such file sharing is responsible for a 26 percent decline in recorded music sales over the last three years. Not all musicians agree with the RIAA's decision to sue music fans. "I think it's unconscionable," said Peter Mulvey, a Milwaukee-based singer/ songwriter. Mulvey has recorded several albums and regularly posts mp3s of his music on his Web site, www.petermulvey.com. "I understand that an artist's got to get paid, and really should get paid for his work, and I understand the concept of intellectual property," Mulvey said. "But at the same time, the actions of the record labels over the last 30 years has been to suck the musicality out of things and to increase profits, and to in no way encourage artists to put out great songs. "For them to come around now and say this thunderbolt out of the blue is what's wrecking music is hypocrisy," he added. http://www.southernillinoisan.com/re...op/TOP003.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Online File Sharing Thrives in USA comScore Networks reports that despite growth in most sectors of consumer e-commerce, online sales of recorded music in the USA have continued to decline sharply for three consecutive quarters. At the same time, millions of Internet users continue to use online file-sharing services even as some of these applications have vanished. The comScore analysis - based on the actual online activity of more than 1.5 million representative Internet users - shows that 2002 online music sales through the third quarter were $545 million, down 25 percent from the $730 million spent over the same period last year. In fact, the decline in online sales of recorded music has accelerated throughout 2002, with sales declining versus year-ago by 12 percent, 28 percent and 39 percent in the first, second and third quarters of 2002, respectively. In contrast, online sales of all products (excluding auctions) increased 30 percent, 28 percent and 30 percent over the same three quarters. The decline in online music sales far exceeds the decline in overall shipments of recorded music as recently reported by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). While the RIAA reported in August 2002 that total U.S. music shipments dropped seven percent in the first half of 2002 versus the first half of 2001 ($5.93 billion versus $5.53 billion), comScore data shows that online sales of music fell 20 percent (from $531 million to $424 million) over the same period. ‘The music industry attributes the decline in online and offline music sales to a variety of factors, such as a slow economy, fewer hit songs, piracy, CD-burning and file-swapping among others,’ said Peter Daboll, division president of comScore Media Metrix, a division of comScore Networks. ‘While a host of factors inevitably impact consumer behaviour, the greater sales decline online as reported by comScore would suggest that Internet file-swapping and CD-burning are having a severe negative impact on music sales among Internet users.’ After the fall of legendary file-swapping pioneer Napster, comScore data shows that U.S. consumers quickly flocked to numerous alternatives, including Kazaa and Morpheus. Each of the latter two increased its average monthly U.S. home user base from less than one million in the second quarter of 2001 to 4.6 million and 7.1 million, respectively, in the first quarter of 2002. By the close of the third quarter of 2002, Kazaa had built an impressive following of 9.4 million average monthly U.S. home users. ‘comScore Media Metrix will continue to report online purchases of music as well as usage of file- swapping,’ concluded Daboll. ‘In addition, we'll be conducting more in-depth analyses and looking at key online segments such as the university population, an audience which our data show contains many heavy users of file-swapping services.’ http://www.mrons.com/drno/news1980.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BMG Tinkers With CD Copy Controls Richard Shim Music label BMG said Monday that it has licensed new technology from SunnComm Technologies aimed at preventing legal music buyers from making unlimited digital copies of songs from its CDs. The Bertelesmann AG division, which produces contemporary artists including Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne and No Doubt, said it plans to begin selling CDs in the United States protected with SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 product. The software lets listeners transfer music from a CD to a computer but prevents them from then distributing that music to file-sharing services. It also allows music companies to include extras on the disc, such as artist information, song lyrics, bonus tracks, video clips and special offers. Songs on a MediaMax CD can be uploaded only three times, and software built into the disc prevents listeners from copying or sharing the music. BMG music CDs using MediaMax will be available immediately in the U.S. market. BMG has been one of the more aggressive music labels in trying to block the copying of its CDs. The Monday announcement with SunnComm suggests that the company, like other labels, is looking for ways to give listeners freedom in how they listen to music while keeping them from distributing it illegally. "We're seeing music labels and technology providers search for a middle ground in appeasing consumers while protecting their content," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said. Other labels have worked to prevent the distribution of digital music with limited success. Hackers have found ways to get around high-tech blocking systems, sometimes through such low-tech means as black markers and Post-It Notes. The agreement is a multiyear deal, but the companies did not give further details. http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1022369.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Consumer Sues Label Over Copy Protected CD – And Wins Translation from South American Source: Noise: Consumer Gains Action For "Tribalistas" Peter Alexander Sanches The Carioca consumer Pablo Enrique Andrade was successful, in lower court, an action against the producing company of Marisa Mount, recording EMI and the Sony plant, for having supposedly been injured in the purchase of the COMPACT DISC "Tribalistas". Andrade affirms that its record, bought legally, did not function in touches- CDs of its car, also acquired of regular form. A device antipiracy of the COMPACT DISC would be the cause. 6º Civil Special Court of the River determined that the companies change the copy and pay indemnity of R$ 1,000 to the consumer. EMI already appealed. If confirmed, the sentence would generate jurisprudence for that if they oppose to the technology of "controlled copies", already incorporated by EMI in all its launchings, with the objective to inhibit illegal copies of its records for computer. The vice-president of EMI, Bannitz Luiz, affirms that she is inevitable will happen problems in situations of implantation of new technologies. "the consumer complains, we changes the product. But it is lamentable that certain people use this as extortion form ", complains. Marisa Mount, owner of the Phonomotor stamp, that launched the COMPACT DISC, keeps silence on the case. http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...90u34467.shtml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright Should Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass be banned? Tim Wu If you're a serious Harry Potter fan, you finished The Order of the Phoenix over the weekend and are already impatient for the sixth book. While you wait (and wait) for it, how about trying some of the international versions of Potter? In China last year, it was easy to buy the unusual Potter sequel Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon, in which Harry encountered sweet and sour rain, became a hairy troll, and joined Gandalf to re- enact scenes from The Hobbit. The book, while credited to J.K. Rowling, wasn't authorized or written by her, but that didn't prevent it from selling like butterbeer. Meanwhile, in Russia, you can still meet Harry's Slavic twin: "Tanya Grotter," star of Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass. Tanya rides a double bass, sports a mole instead of a bolt of lightning, and attends the Tibidokhs School of Magic. In an interview with journalist Steve Gutterman, author Dmitry Yemets called her "a sort of Russian answer to Harry Potter," and described his books as "cultural competition" for the original. Grotter is a hit: Yemets has already sold more than 1 million copies. And next door in Belarus you'll find Porri Gatter and the Stone Philosopher. In something of a departure, Harry's Belarussian clone wields a grenade launcher and re-fights the White Russian wars. You're unlikely to be able to get your hands on any of these works, since J.K. Rowling and her publisher have launched an aggressive worldwide legal campaign against the unauthorized Potter takeoffs. It began last year when Rowling and Time-Warner threatened the publishers of Chinese Potter, who agreed to stop publication. On April 4 of this year, Rowling persuaded a Dutch court to block the import of Tanya Grotter to Holland. Harry Potter in Calcutta, in which Harry meets up with various characters from Bengali literature, was recently pulled by its Indian publisher under threat. Potter takeoffs have become international contraband. Rowling's ability to stop the Potter pretenders is largely a function of the new regime of international copyright. Until recently, countries varied considerably in how they protected literary works, especially works from abroad. The United States, for instance, has a long history of providing less protection than the Europeans. Benjamin Franklin was a kind of pirate: He did good business as a printer of unlicensed English writing. In the 19th century, the United States generally refused to recognize foreign copyrights, allowing American readers to get the latest Dickens and Doyle cheaply. And the borrowing of characters itself has a longer tradition. For example, the princess we know as Cinderella originally hails from China, where she goes by the name Yeh-Shen and relies for help on a magic fish who gives her golden slippers. Today, nations still maintain and enforce their own copyright laws, but for members of the World Trade Organization (that is, nearly everyone that matters), those statutes must meet extensive minimum standards. Under the Trade Related International Property treaty, original authors "enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing adaptations, arrangements and other alterations of their works." In other words, there is little scope for secondary authors to write local adaptations of the Potter-clone variety, since their country must abide by the international norms guaranteeing Rowling's monopoly everywhere. The result: Rowling can use the courts in WTO-compliant countries to club her Potter rivals. You might think it a good thing that Rowling can stop the Potter cloning industry, whether it is in Brighton, Bangalore, or Bratislava. Who wants to see Harry turned into a hairy troll or forced to gallivant with foreign literary figures? But on closer examination the argument for letting Potter crush his international competition is quite weak. The case for preventing literal copying—in which a foreign publisher simply reprints a work without permission—is strong. But Potter follow-ons are different from the American Dickens piracy of the 19th century and DVD piracy of today. Literal copies are what come out when you use a photocopier. Potter's takeoffs are different: They either borrow characters and put them in a new, foreign context (Potter in Calcutta) or just use the themes and ideas of Potter (as in Tanya Grotter's case) as inspiration for a different kind of story. They aren't a direct replacement for a Potter book, the way a literal copy is, but rather a supplement or an adaptation. One of the main justifications for a unified and strong global copyright system is that it is supposed to facilitate international trade. That's why it's a part of the WTO system. But as trade economists will tell you, trade often works when countries imitate and improve the inventions of others. America invents the hi-fi, Sony turns it into the Walkman, and then Chinese companies make still cheaper imitations. This is basically what's going on in the world of Harry Potter. The English original is clearly the best. The imitators aren't as good but are cheaper and come out much more frequently (there are already three Tanya Grotter books). There is, in short, a secondary Potter market. Isn't this the international trading system at its best? Moreover, the writers of secondary Potters are probably better at creating versions of Potter suited to local conditions. According to Reuters, at least some Russian children prefer Tanya Grotter to Harry, some on account of her Russian name. Local writers do things to Harry that Rowling can't, like introducing him to local literary figures and putting him in local wars. It may be good and it may be bad, but it's a market failure to prevent it. Potter's publishers, in defense of strong global copyright, would say that works like Tanya Grotter are theft, and such theft destroys the incentive to write in the first place. But the incentives argument is surprisingly unpersuasive in the international setting. To say Rowling will stop writing for fear of international parody is a difficult case to make. Only the most famous and lucrative works are parodied overseas. If an international adaptation is a sign you've made it rich, how can it be a serious financial deterrent for new writers? The truer complaint is that Potter's overseas competitors may mean slightly less profit for Rowling and her publishers. It is also true that Burger King means slightly less profit for McDonald's. You could say that Burger King and Wendy's stole the idea of a fun, plastic burger joint from McDonald's and are unfairly profiting from their evil deed. But when it comes to burger joints, we accept that the consequence of a competitive market is less profit for the first mover (McDonald's). Copyright should be no different. So long as it provides Rowling sufficient incentive to write, it should strive to maintain as much competition and facilitate as much international trade as possible. It is also true that these rip-off works make authors angry and may tarnish the reputation of the character. But what makes authors angry is precisely what they are least likely to write, and therefore often what copyright needs to permit. For example, in 1989 the rap group 2 Live Crew recorded an obscene version of Roy Orbison's song "Pretty Woman." Orbison's "Pretty Woman" became, successively, "big hairy woman," "bald woman," and eventually, "two-timin' woman." There was little question that it made Orbison's estate angry, tarred the reputation of the original, and was a commercial competitor that threatened Orbison's profits. But the U.S. Supreme Court found it a parody: a non-infringing fair use. The faux Potter books are not quite parodies, but they're similar. Just as refusing 2 Live Crew permission to parody would have destroyed the market for parodies (since authors rarely parody their own works), so Rowling's campaign destroys the market for international follow-ons, since Rowling could never write a Potter book that could capture the Russian spirit the way Grotter does. Rowling is using the cudgel of international copyright not to destroy something she could have created, but to destroy something she could never create. In the end, few people are likely to mistake Tanya Grotter for Harry Potter; it is akin to mistaking Burger King for McDonald's. The international copyright system is justified in preventing the most basic forms of piracy. But it doesn't need to stop works like Tanya Grotter. The original Harry Potter is good enough to compete with its foreign cousins. So let a hundred Harrys bloom and let a hundred schools of magic contend. http://slate.msn.com/id/2084960/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *Overheard* Participant: Isn’t cyberspace just like the ocean—meaning there is no real jurisdiction? Larry: Are you a lawyer? Participant: Yes. Larry: So this is a standard way to think about this. But here’s the difference between the Internet and the sea. When you’re in the ocean, you’re not in France at the same time. http://www.copyfight.org/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So Sue Me, Teens Tell Music Biz Howard Cohen Many South Florida music downloaders reacted with a scoff to the music industry's newest threat to sue individual users of music-trading software. ''How are they going to sue every teenager in America?,'' asks Lucia Goyen, 17, of Sunny Isles Beach, who says she buys CDs but also downloads dozens of songs for free and has friends who download hundreds more. The threat is real, however. On Wednesday, the music industry's chief trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), pledged that it is ''taking names'' of illegal downloaders and could soon begin preparing civil lawsuits against them. ''Too many computer users don't think there is anything wrong with downloading music that doesn't belong to them -- they are mistaken,'' Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said during a teleconference. Local music fans cite many reasons for downloading versus buying CDs: • The discs are overpriced (list price is now up to $19.98 for some titles. Record companies say they need to cover costs, overhead, etc.) ) • Labels stopped issuing commercial singles to force sales of full albums, losing a generation of consumers . • The quality of the music itself is also perceived as poor. ''I don't think they'll get much money from us. I don't see it being enforceable,'' Goyen says on the phone. ``They threaten us, but we just find a different program, and other computer savvy kids will find new programs.'' Dalia Weintraub, 17, of North Miami Beach, says she has 1,000 MP3s and agrees. ``It's an empty threat. I don't consider it a big deal. Sometimes I only like one or two songs and I'm not going to buy an entire CD for that song.'' The RIAA, however, says the theft of intellectual property using peer-to-peer software programs such as KaZaA, Morpheus or Grokster is a ''big deal'' and attributes the decline in music sales -- 25 percent since 1999 -- mostly to music piracy. ''I think that the industry has no choice but to take this route,'' attorney Leslie José Zigel says on the phone from his Miami office. Zigel, a shareholder with the law firm Greenberg Traurig, says that ``Intangible property is a hard notion for people to wrap their arms around and feel that it's property like a tube of toothpaste at the Wal-Mart, but at the end of the day it is property.'' Zigel gives an example. ``You go to a doctor and he gives you advice, but not medicine. No one would think of not paying the doctor. You took his time and his advice.'' Take Grimm, 30, a member of Miami rock group Darwin's Waiting Room, a band signed to the folding MCA Records. ''This is my living. People think [they're] getting something over on the record label and showing these big corporate a- - - - - -s what's up. Fact of the matter, it hurts the artists. If you don't sell a certain amount of records, you will get dropped,'' he says on the phone. That view isn't winning the RIAA total support. Says Sunrise's Jason Valhuerdi, 24: ``If you really want to get your music out there and you're a struggling artist who can't get your name out by [regular] distribution, the next best thing is the Internet. The down side is if people download music and don't make any attempt to purchase music.'' Valhuerdi estimates his downloads number in the hundreds. ''I'm the type of person that likes to own the CD and the cover art and I like to support the band,'' he says. ``They worked hard to get their stuff out there. But there are bands out there that are making millions. . . . A band like 'N Sync or Eminem, he's got tons of money. I'm going to download an Eminem song.'' The move by the RIAA strikes him as heavy-handed. ''[It] will give them a bad name,'' he says. `` Let's drop prices. Maybe people will purchase the CD.'' http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...nt/6199993.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rhapsody Says CD Burning Doubled Since Price Drop Reuters Listen.com on Tuesday said it has seen a nearly 100 percent increase in CD burning among subscribers to its Rhapsody online music service since cutting its fee to 79 cents from 99 cents per track. Rhapsody would not disclose how many tracks were actually burned in June, but said that on-demand streaming has increased 45 percent to more than 11 million songs, or more than 350,000 songs per day, in June. http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Net Services Promise Anonymous File Sharing – Eventually Jefferson Graham With the record industry preparing to sue its customers -- at least those who download without paying -- now comes the next step: file-sharing services that promise to keep users anonymous. Recording Industry Association of America officials say they can find any song swapper on services such as Kazaa and Grokster using simple tracking software. But new services such as Earth Station 5 and eDonkey2000 say they can protect the identity of their users. And established file-sharing services say they will adapt to protect their customers. The RIAA's actions ''will force us to come up with solutions that will make it harder, if not impossible, to detect who the users are,'' says Elan Oren of Imesh, a song- and game-swap firm based in Israel. ''It's the never-ending game of the firewall and the hacker.'' Imesh -- which has been in operation since 1999 and somehow never was sued, unlike Napster, Scour, Aimster, Audio Galaxy, Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster -- has 50 million registered users. Oren suggests that, instead of suing its customer base, the RIAA make peace with file sharers and learn to co-exist. ''By attacking its users, they are motivating them not to pay,'' he says. ''We met with them and begged them to make their material available on Imesh for a fee, because we know our users would gladly pay. (The RIAA) refused.'' Songs on Imesh are traded the traditional way -- click on a title to download the file, and it ends up on your hard drive. New programs such as eDonkey and Earth Station 5 do it differently, cutting a file into little pieces and reassembling it when it arrives at your hard drive -- a process that makes it harder for file sharers to be tracked and unmasked. Still, Internet detective Mark Ishikawa insists that despite new technologies, if it happens online, he'll find it. ''If five buddies are sharing in their dorm room, that's one thing,'' says the CEO of BayTSP, which works for studios and record labels. ''Once it gets to critical mass and goes out onto the Internet, you can't hide.'' Another avenue that analysts expect to lure file sharers is instant messaging. AOL, MSN and Yahoo's chat programs have nearly 100 million users among them. Besides conversing with buddies, users of the software can send photos and music files to each other, without being tracked by the record industry. For now, the RIAA says it will stay focused on the more established file-sharing programs. ''We can't solve every problem, only the biggest ones before us,'' says RIAA president Cary Sherman. Kazaa, the most popular swap service with more than 240 million users, shows no sign of slowing down despite the legal threats: 890 million files were being traded Thursday afternoon by 4.3 million users. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...atoday/5280775 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ECT Act Could Put Pirate Viewers In Jail Tracy Burrows Internet law company Buys Incorporated has added its voice to warnings that pirate TV viewers could face jail sentences in terms of the provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act. This follows a court case between MultiChoice and a pirate TV viewer. Last week, the media reported on a Cape High Court judgment that let a pirate viewer off the hook after prosecution by the state in terms of the Broadcasting Act of 1999. The findings implied that MultiChoice had been broadcasting without a licence as it only had permission from the Independent Broadcasting Authority of SA to offer its subscription satellite services. MultiChoice responded with a statement that until 1999 it was not required to hold a licence, because satellite broadcasting was not regulated. It said the company now complied with the requirements and timeframes of the Broadcasting Act of 1999 and the subsequent Broadcasting Amendment Act of 2003. "The Cape High Court decision on the case last week appeared to indicate that pirate viewing and tampering with TV decoder smart cards were not crimes in SA," says Internet attorney Reinhardt Buys. "In fact, nothing could be further from the truth," says Buys. "The MultiChoice pirate viewers were prosecuted in terms of outdated broadcasting legislation and not in terms of the new ECT Act." MultiChoice spokesman Lebogang Hashatse said pirate viewers were not a problem for the company and that it had the issue under control. Hashatse said even if MultiChoice was not afforded any protection in terms of the Broadcasting Act, "companies were protected as piracy was generally considered an illegal act". Buys points out: "In terms of section 86 of the ECT Act, a person who intentionally accesses data without the permission or authority to do so, is guilty of an offence and may face imprisonment of up to 12 months or a fine. Furthermore, tampering with a smart card is also a criminal offence that may result in a heavier fine or five years in jail. The Act's definition of ‘data' is wide enough to include digital TV broadcasts. "Any person who assists a pirate viewer in gaining access to a pay satellite TV channel also commits an offence. The MultiChoice pirate was lucky not to be prosecuted in terms of the ECT Act, as his fate would have been dramatically different," says Buys. http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/busi...0306300942.asp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P2P Downloaders Go Anonymous With Blubster 2.5 Music Centric Network Provides Privacy to Downloaders and Powerful Marketing Tools to Artists Press Release Optisoft S.L., provider of popular peer-to-peer program Blubster, today announced the launch of Blubster 2.5 in the wake of the latest litigious efforts by the RIAA and MPAA to erode consumer privacy and monopolize control of the P2P entertainment market. As Verizon has been handed a court decision forcing the company to reveal the identity of Internet subscribers accused of music piracy, Blubster has re-launched with a new secure, decentralized, self-assembling network that provides users with private, anonymous accounts. (www.blubster.com). "In an age of media consolidation, it is critical that P2P networks thrive," demands Pablo Soto, developer of Blubster. "Blubster will always pursue counter measures to preserve the freedom and empowerment of decentralized networking. The very existence of our network ensures artists and content creators an alternative to signing away their rights to copyright barons." Blubster’s latest update is giant leap ahead of other P2P networks. Version 2.5 takes advantage of a streamlined means of distributing large files to dissociate file transfers from specific users. "If other means of delivering media files could be compared to a postal system with an identifiable sender and receiver, then Blubster’s proprietary MP2P network could be likened to throwing a bottled message into the vast ocean," said Pablo Soto. "The message may get to a destination, but no one knows the full path of its journey nor what is in each bottle." The first public version of Blubster was ranked "Best Program" in users’ opinion on CNET's Download.com listing for MP3 search tools. Today, Blubster has won the confidence of more than 10 million desktop users all over the world and more than 100,000 users sharing over 20,000,000 songs are connected simultaneously to Blubster, representing the world’s largest online music network. The powerful new release empowers users to swap music-only files at extremely high speeds, with multi-sourced and auto- resuming downloads, buddy list, private and channel based chat, voice chat, among other features, in a totally decentralized environment. This advanced, third generation file-sharing program gives both, musicians and fans a powerful and free desktop solution to share files in MP3 and the emerging OGG Vorbis music formats. Blubster 2.5 has many new features; several of which are unique to the Blubster platform. - Private protocol, featuring a “serverless” peer-to-peer network with anonymous access and auto-regulated connectivity for unlimited scalability. - Speeds never seen before in any peer-to-peer file-sharing network. - .OGG Vorbis support, a music format considered by many to be superior to MP3, has both a higher quality sound and smaller file size. - Multi source downloading with the most advanced techniques, having much higher transfer rates than those achieved via other protocols, such as HTTP. - Web links support, providing musicians a new way to share their creations with an immense and targeted audience. May Contain 3rd Party Software – JS. http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release...lease_id=54968 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Filter Cynthia L. Webb File Swappers Beware The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking a lot of heat this morning after its announcement last week that it will sue hundreds of suspected digital pirates. It comes as entertainment industry representatives get ready to meet with file-sharing network owners, who are trying to start their own lobby group to prove their legitimacy to Capitol Hill. The Associated Press said the RIAA's lawsuit plan "drew the ire of many fans, driving speculation that it could ultimately backfire and encourage a new crop of file-sharing services capable of keeping users anonymous. Filetopia already promises to do just that, and another, called Blubster, is to launch Monday." Gigi Sohn, president of Washington-based technology and copyright group Public Knowledge, told the wire service: "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up." • The Associated Press via The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Music File Sharing Not Missing A Beat Over Lawsuit Threat Chris Hoofnagle, deputy counsel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the RIAA's action could impact consumer privacy, according to The Denver Post. He also said that free music fans still will find ways to get their music downloads. "There is going to be a technical measures war between the industry and the users," Hoofnagle said. • The Denver Post: Singing The Privacy Blues Michael Weiss, chief executive of StreamCast Networks (owner of file-sharing software site Morpheus), said he will appeal to Congress over the RIAA's lawsuit plan. "The record industry called peer-to-peer users pirates, but what these people are are hundreds of millions of voters," Weiss said, according to BBC News Online. "At the end of next month, we're going to be involved in helping to mobilise [sic] peer-to-peer users around the world and ultimately around the globe to ensure that their voices are heard." The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling for popular support of file-sharing networks. The San Francisco-based civil liberties group's Web site has a letter that people can sign and send to their representatives on Capitol Hill. "This is only the most recent development in a campaign that is putting companies out of business, forcing college students to hand over tens of thousands of dollars, and bullying ISPs into betraying your trust. Adding insult to injury, these tactics don't earn a single penny for the artists you love. It is time to change the laws that the RIAA relies upon to bully the public. There are over 60 million Americans using P2P today, and you can make a difference. Send this letter and urge Congress to hold hearings on using P2P to get artists paid," the EFF site said to describe the letter campaign. • BBC News Online: Music Swappers Plan Protest The Unsinkable Jack Valenti Motion Picture Association of America chief Jack Valenti is holding a meeting today to figure out who will replace him once he steps down, the Hollywood Reporter said. "Valenti, 81, has hinted that he is contemplating stepping down as president and CEO of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, and has held discussions with studio executives for some time about planning for an orderly changing of the guard," the trade magazine said. But it looks like Valenti, ensconced as head of the group since 1966, is a little testy when people bring up the idea of his departure. "When asked last week at a going away party for Hilary Rosen, who is leaving the helm of the Recording Industry Association of America, when this would happen for him, Valenti said flatly: 'The job's not open.'" • The Hollywood Reporter via Reuters/washingtonpost.com: Hollywood’s Man In D.C. To Talk Succession On Monday "I may leave in September, I may leave in December, I may leave in June '04 or I may leave in December '04," Valenti told The Los Angeles Times recently. "So long as I'm able to do a 15-hour day without collapsing, and so long as 90 percent of it is fun and 10 percent is business, I'll keep going." • The Los Angeles Times via The Canton Repository: Jack Valenti's Long Goodbye Valenti, a dedicated opponent of online movie file sharers, was online with washingtonpost.com last week to talk about digital piracy. When asked whether the MPAA would follow the RIAA and lob its own lawsuits against individuals swapping movies online without permission, he replied. "We have no such firm plans at this time. But I don't rule out any options if the occasion requires it." See a full transcript of the discussion here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hptoc_tn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ File-Sharing Firms Plan European Lobbying Effort Bernhard Warner Internet file-sharing firms are forming a lobbying group in Europe to defend their business interests against media companies trying to force them out of business, a member of the coalition told Reuters on Monday. The move is the latest sign that file-sharing outfits, which until recently operated far away from the public eye to avoid litigation, intend to fight for their right to distribute software that enables computer users to share files online. Media and software companies say the technology is a threat to their business because it allows users to exchange copyright-protected materials such as video games, music, film and software with others for free. Last week, file-sharing firms Grokster and LimeWire said that, along with an unspecified number of rival firms, they were in the process of forming a lobbying entity to convince the U.S. Congress of their legitimacy. The initiative won't stop in Washington D.C., said Pablo Soto, a Madrid-based developer of file-sharing technology Blubster. European firms are forming a lobby group in Europe with plans to work with the U.S. group. "We are joining forces to make the U.S. Congress and the European Union listen to us and the hundreds of millions of voters who use our services," Soto told Reuters. Soto said details on the coalition will be released as soon as late July. He would not say if the group had hired a lobbyist, nor how many file-sharing firms were involved. The recording industry is stepping up the heat on file-sharing outfits, claiming they are opening the floodgates to Internet piracy, a phenomenon that is eating into CD sales. Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America said it would take individual file-sharers to court in an effort to clamp down on the daily flow of millions of unauthorized exchanges. The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, a global trade group that counts hundreds of independent and major music labels such as Sony Music 6758.T and Universal Music EAUG.PA V.N as members, has also vowed to keep legal pressure on the firms. Soto argued that there are legitimate uses for the technology that could be snuffed out if the law suits are successful. He added the group does not intend to seek changes to existing copyright laws. He said the primary aim is to protect the privacy of individual users and keep them out of court. "It's something we've got to do," Soto said. http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3013148 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contract Case Could Hurt Reverse Engineering Supreme Court decided not to hear accused company's appeal Grant Gross A U.S. Supreme Court decision could call into question a common practice among software companies: studying competitors' products to improve their own offerings. The legality of this practice, called reverse engineering, is in question after a lower court found that a software company had violated a shrink-wrapped license contract when it reverse-engineered a competitor's piece of software. Last week, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the accused software company's appeal. Although the breach of contract ruling applies only to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court's lack of action could embolden other software companies to prohibit reverse engineering or take away other fair use rights allowed under copyright law by including such prohibitions in an end user license agreement, said Karen Copenhaver, a patent and intellectual property lawyer with Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, of Boston. http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...neering_1.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hollywood will spend approximately $500 million on data storage in 2003 alone, a figure that will grow 70 percent annually. New Technology A Boon For Big Screen John Borland BURBANK, Calif.-- In the middle of the Warner Bros. lot here, surrounded by vast warehouses and soundstages, the past and the present are meeting amid banks of data-crunching and storage devices housed at a high-tech control center. It is here that the studio recently turned the original Technicolor release of "Singin' in the Rain" into a crystal-clear digital file, using state-of-the-art technology that produced a far better version than would have been possible just a few years ago. The studio's chief technical officer, Chris Cookson, showed it off to most of the original cast late last year. "The comment I heard was that it looked like it did when they did it on stage," says Cookson, laughing. "Debbie Reynolds, who was maybe 19 when she did the movie, said it was so clear you could even see wrinkles on her face." The 1952 classic's restoration reflects a seismic shift for Hollywood studios, broadcast networks and other media companies, which are digitizing new works and decades of archives to take advantage of new distribution channels: the Internet, high-definition DVDs and TV, and next-generation theaters. Digital technology is also redefining the art of moviemaking itself, an evolution that is apparent on-screen in current releases such as "Finding Nemo" and "The Matrix Reloaded." With the right digital manipulation, Keanu Reeves can fight scores of computer-generated villains, Pixar Animation Studios can give birth to another family of wise-cracking 3D cartoon characters, and virtual armies can storm citadel walls in the "The Lord of the Rings"--with no extras required. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the tools used to create and support this digital wizardry represent multibillion- dollar opportunities for companies such as IBM, Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), Apple Computer and Thomson. And perhaps the most dramatic barometer of this evolution is the seemingly innocuous technology of data storage. Hollywood companies will spend roughly $500 million on data storage in 2003, and expenditures will increase about 70 percent each year, according to Tom Coughlin, an independent analyst tracking the entertainment industry's storage use. By 2006, Coughlin estimates, the annual storage needs of film studios, video and television production companies, and distribution outfits will reach 740 petabytes, or 740 million gigabytes. "These trends are forcing spending on information technology tremendously up," says Rick Dougherty, principal analyst with research firm The Envisioneering Group. "It's a glamorous section of IT. Apple, IBM and Sun all brag when they get a big Hollywood contract." Almost all action thrillers, children's tales and, of course, science fiction epics employ computer-generated effects or characters that would have been impossible with film alone. Digital imaging of this type requires processing, storage and server resources of mammoth proportions. In the Pixar blockbuster "Monsters, Inc.," for example, fur-covered star James P. "Sully" Sullivan had more than 2.3 million individual hairs that needed to be processed separately by banks of powerful computers. Individual frames in complicated works of this kind can take as long as 80 minutes to render. Similarly complex were the kung-fu fights involving dozens of Agent Smiths in "The Matrix Reloaded," which required the painstaking re-creation of each character's face and clothing, along with innovative lighting effects. A single hour of digitally animated film can take up a terabyte or more of data storage, and all of it must be available at any time to animators, directors and others working on the movie. That requires networks, storage devices and databases flexible and fast enough to juggle these massive amounts of data. IBM is one of several companies aiming squarely at this market. It is applying some of the supercomputing techniques used by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to create a fast storage server system that gives multiple people simultaneous access to high-resolution files. Big Blue is pitching its Linux-based technology as a cheaper, faster and open alternative to the proprietary systems most studios use for this kind of storage and processing work. So far, it has found only a few takers for its most advanced systems, notably Threshold Digital Research Lab, an animation studio that worked on "The Faculty," "Dogma" and "Scary Movie." http://news.com.com/2030-6683-1001643.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RIAA Hit By EFFing Music Campaign Engage in Congress, ginger group says Adamson Rust The Electronic Frontier Foundation will formally announce today a campaign aimed at persuading American citizens to demand changes in the copyright laws. The "Let the Music Play" campaign, said the EFF, will counter the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) bid to file thousands of lawsuits against people who use file sharing software. Shari Steele, head of the EFF claimed that copyright law in the USA is out of kilter with the views of the American public. She said: "Rather than sue people into submission, we need to find a better alternative that gets artists paid while making file sharing legal". The campaign will place adverts in a number of publications and attempt to make it easy for voters in the USA to write Congress politicians. Senior lawyer Fred von Lohmann claimed: "Congress needs to spend less time listening to record industry lobbyists and more time listening to... 60 million Americans who use file sharing software today". http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10252 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Court: Anonymous P2P No Defense Paul Festa Operators of peer-to-peer networks cannot escape copyright infringement claims by giving their members the ability to mask the content that changes hands on their networks, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. Calling the tactic a form of "willful blindness," the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a lower court's injunction against the Madster file-swapping network that had ordered the service shut down pending a trial. But, in a mixed decision, the court also bolstered a key defense argument invoking a comparison between file-swapping software and personal home video recording. Before it was shut down, Madster had offered its users the ability to encrypt files traded over America Online's AOL Instant Messenger client. As a result, its operators had argued that they had no obligation to seek to block illegal files swapped on the network because they were unaware of specific copyright violations. In a decision that could dampen efforts to bring privacy to file-swapping networks, the court on Monday rejected that reasoning. "One who, knowingly or strongly suspecting that he is involved in shady dealings, takes steps to ensure that he does not acquire full or exact knowledge of the nature and extent of those dealings, is held to have criminal intent," the panel wrote in the 23-page decision. Privacy in file-swapping was put on the front burner last week when the Recording Industry Association of America said it would begin investigations aimed at bringing lawsuits against individuals who make large numbers of files available for uploading on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster. Since June 17, a file-swapping client promising improved privacy known as Blubster 2.5, has seen more than 3.3 million downloads, according to CNET Download.com, a division of CNET Networks. "I wouldn't say it's the end of the road for (Madster), but one of the things that makes it tough is that the (court) is highly critical of the willful blindness approach to running these sorts of companies," said Tim Wu, an associate professor at the University of Virginia Law School. The opinion "suggests that deliberately creating something beyond your control is not going to get you out of copyright infringement." Madster, previously called Aimster, is one of several peer-to-peer, or P2P, online file-swapping services designed to facilitate the sharing of computer files, including audio tracks. Its more famous predecessor, Napster, has been credited with revolutionizing the distribution of popular music, though lawsuits by the recording industry shut it down. The services are also used to swap digitized copies of films and TV programs. The Aimster case is not the only file-swapping case wending its way through the courts. In April, the courts handed a major defeat to the recording and movie industries with a decision holding that file-swapping networks Streamcast and Grokster were not liable for contributory infringement due to illegal activities of their users. In December, a federal court ordered Madster to shut down after the service failed to comply with a preliminary injunction ordering it to put an end to copyright infringement. Monday's ruling upheld that decision. "We are pleased that the injunction against Aimster was upheld, effectively shutting it down until trial," Motion Picture Association of America President and CEO Jack Valenti said in a statement. "This is another indication that so called 'file-sharing' businesses designed to benefit from the illegal use of copyrighted movies will not be tolerated." Madster operator Johnny Deep said Monday that although the court had failed to lift the injunction against him and his service, it had taken his side in approving a legal analogy between Madster and Sony's Betamax video recorder--an analogy the recording industry is eager to discredit. "The court agreed with us on matters of law," said Deep in an interview. "It said Sony does apply. It disagreed completely with the record industry on that." In the 1984 Sony case--Sony Corp. of America, Inc. v. Universal City Studios, Inc.--the Supreme Court ruled that making a product that has "substantial noninfringing uses" is not itself a contributory infringement, even if that product is used to infringe. Therefore Sony couldn't be held responsible for the unlicensed copying on its Betamaxes of copyrighted works. In Monday's decision, the court rejected the recording industry's argument that because Aimster was capable of blocking infringing uses, it should necessarily be considered a contributory infringer. Instead, the court ruled, if detection and prevention of copyright infringement were "highly burdensome" to a service provider, that provider would escape an infringement claim. Deep pledged to appeal the injunction on the basis of its being too broad--a contention the 7th Circuit explicitly rejected. He also pledged that his determination to fight would sour the recording industry on its promise to sue individual file-swappers in large numbers. "This is a case against me personally," Deep said. "And I'm going to give them a little taste of what it's like to sue these thousands of people who are determined and who believe that they're doing the right thing." http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1022462.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some Bands Spurn Apple's iTunes Online Music Store Reuters Rock bands The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer Inc's AAPL.O iTunes online music store, a representative for the bands, said on Wednesday. That move comes in response to Apple's decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, the format that has dominated the music industry for decades, an agent for the bands said. "Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format," said Mark Reiter, with Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and several other artists. Green Day and Linkin Park, according to a source familiar with the situation, have also refused to make their songs available as individual downloads on the Apple service, which has already sold more than 5 million songs since launching this spring. According to Reiter, Apple refuses to sell albums in their entirety unless the artists also allow the tracks on the album to be sold independently as digital downloads. "We can't let a distributor dictate the way our artists sell their music," Reiter said, adding that the business terms were otherwise acceptable. Apple had no immediate comment. Calling the issue more a "creative issue than a financial issue," Reiter said the artists felt that if consumers can download their singles, they are less apt to buy entire albums. "If you download a single, you may ignore the other tracks on the album," he said. "When our artists record a body of work, it's what they deem to be representative of their careers at that time." http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3029706 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P2P Alliance To Counter RIAA? Lisa M. Bowman The company behind the popular Kazaa file-swapping software plans to launch a trade group Wednesday to push the case for peer-to-peer networking. Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks and partner Altnet hope their new group, called the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), will help legitimize the much-maligned peer-to-peer industry, which has come under fire from Hollywood, politicians and the recording industry for being a haven for pirates. Martin Lafferty, the DCIA's chief executive, said the group is hoping to provide a neutral forum where companies that are affected by or involved in peer-to- peer or distributed computing technology can meet to establish business practices, to encourage the adoption of standards and to help shape public policy. The association hopes to attract peer-to-peer network providers, software makers and Internet service providers as members. It also aims to draft content providers such as the movie studios and record labels. Ideally, members will be optimistic about the business opportunities presented by peer-to-peer technologies, but will also believe that copyright owners should be compensated for their work, according a DCIA white paper. "Then this becomes a real and rational business and not just something for hobbyists," Lafferty said. Sharman, which is based in Australia, is the parent company of Kazaa, one of the most popular online file-swapping services. Altnet is a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Earlier this month, in an attempt to diminish piracy, the two companies jointly released a new bundle of file-swapping software that includes components of a high-security peer-to-peer network, and a program that pays users to be a part of it. Although peer-to-peer networks have soared in popularity, they've also drawn lawsuits from record and movie companies who say they provide an easy method for people to freely trade unauthorized copies of songs and films. Peer-to-peer companies including Aimster, Napster and Scour have all found themselves on the losing end of entertainment industry lawsuits. Now, the media industry has expanded its approach to go after individuals who use peer-to-peer networks in addition to chasing the companies that provide the technology. Just last week, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that it would start gathering information about people using peer-to-peer networks to share music, so it could file thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits against them. Lafferty said that the DCIA hopes to extend an olive branch to the entertainment companies and work with them to come up with an alternative to litigation. "It's never a good idea to criminalize your target customers; it's something you kind of do out of desperation," Lafferty said. "It will take the industry somewhat burying the hatchet and sitting down at the table, and the DCIA wants to provide the table." Lafferty, who once launched a satellite TV industry trade group, said the peer-to-peer market is facing many of the same issues the satellite TV market once did. He said that at first, the satellite TV industry was a hotbed of piracy, with people buying dishes to gain unauthorized access to paid TV programming. But programmers, technology companies, and other players eventually got together to hammer out business plans amenable to all sides, he said. A representative from the RIAA is hopeful that the new group will help foster a positive dialog with copyright holders. "Anytime anyone wants to talk to us about becoming legitimate--compensating artists, songwriters and others for their creative works--we are happy to listen," the representative said. http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1022811.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Corbis Sues Amazon, Online Stores Over Images SEATTLE (Reuters) - Corbis Corp., a photography provider owned by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) Chairman Bill Gates, said on Tuesday it sued Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) for being party to illegal sales of its images. 'We're going to be very aggressive about people that infringe willfully on our intellectual property,' Corbis Chief Executive Steve Davis told Reuters. 'Amazon has been a part of that and participated in these transactions.' http://boston.com/dailynews/183/tech...rnet_fi:.shtml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Giving Sharers Ears Without Faces Xeni Jardin In response to recent threats to file traders, peer-to-peer developers say they're seeing an upsurge of interest in tools that purport to hide identities. The pressure comes from the Recording Industry Association of America's announcement Wednesday that it plans to sue hundreds of uploaders, and a recent court ruling requiring Verizon to reveal the names of subscribers accused of piracy. Blubster developer Pablo Soto of Madrid said his music-swapping service relaunched today as a secure, decentralized system providing users with anonymous accounts. The MP2P network (short for Manolito Peer-to-Peer) on which Blubster is based consists of more than 200,000 users sharing over 52 million files, according to Soto. The update is also said to include a new, streamlined file-distribution method that disassociates transfers from specific users. "The biggest privacy weakness of our previous version was the ability to query a list of shared songs for any user -- now that can be disabled," Soto said. "It may be possible to gather IP addresses from the network, but not data about what content specific users are sharing." Blubster uses an Internet data transfer protocol known as UDP for content look-up and transfer negotiating. Unlike the TCP protocol that serves this function in other file-sharing networks, UDP is a so-called "connectionless" method that doesn't reveal links between nodes or acknowledge transmission in an identifiable manner. Because UDP transfer logs don't reveal detailed information about which user at which IP address is accessing what content at what time, they are considered less vulnerable to legal discovery than TCP logs. "Any technology that allows people to communicate is a step in the right direction," Soto said. "This isn't just about exchanging music, this is about the right to create technology and enjoy the right to privacy." Developer sources told Wired News that pro-P2P coalitions are forming in the United States and Europe to centralize lobbying and public relations efforts. Coalition members are said to include Grokster, LimeWire, Blubster and others. Public announcements are expected in July. Philip Corwin, Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist for Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks, predicts file traders will migrate to anonymous networks and "sneaker networks" that facilitate trades among smaller groups of swappers. This is already possible through popular instant-messaging clients from Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online, and through tools such as Waste, the application created by principal Nullsoft developer Justin Frankel that facilitates secure exchanges among private groups. "There is no practical technological means to obliterate the public's ability to transfer files," Corwin said. "The RIAA lawsuits may create a chilling effect that deters some or causes others to limit the size of shared collections to minimize risk. It will probably drive more technologically adept consumers to systems that profess to offer more security against legal assault." http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59448,00.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Center For Democracy And Technology Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Privacy And Security Summary Concerns are exacerbated by the growing use of file-sharing programs by millions of individuals and families, often with little or no training or experience. With these risks come benefits. Peer-to-peer file sharing can be used for legitimate, non-infringing file distribution. Its underlying technology, not so different from peer-to-peer networks like the World Wide Web, is rapidly evolving and being adopted for many new uses. Regulating this technology without broader ramifications would be difficult, and could have many unintended consequences. How then do we address these real privacy and security concerns? CDT believes that an active program of education and better software practices is needed. Such a program would: * Inform people about the risks in file sharing - The public, and particularly the families of file-trading minors, need greater awareness of the potential risks of file sharing. Educational efforts- like the Internet community GetNetWise website-are already including tips for safe peer-to-peer use that should be widely disseminated. * Seek fair information practices in file-sharing software - Much more should be done to design peer-to-peer software with transparency and better control over shared files. Software producers should reject invasive spyware, adopt fair information practices, and must provide better notice when information is transmitted to third parties. * Add privacy protections for DMCA subpoenas - Privacy and safety protections for end users should be included in the broad DMCA Section 512(h) subpoena provision in order to require more due process - including notice to the user and other protections- before ISPs are compelled to reveal sensitive personal identity information. * Prevent invasive "self-help" tactics- In no circumstances should it be legal to damage another person's computer or files based on allegations of wrong-doing, including copyright infringement. All of this should take place against the broader backdrop of action regarding Internet privacy generally, where the continued growth of privacy technologies and industry self-regulatory efforts along with baseline privacy legislation are necessary to ensure public trust and democratic values. Congress has a valuable role to play in educating the public about the potential risks of file-sharing systems, in encouraging companies to design more user-friendly systems, and in modifying current legal provisions that create privacy risks. CDT looks forward to working with this Committee and others to further these efforts. http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=53760 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Online File-Sharing Networks Set Up Lobbying Shops Andy Sullivan Internet file-sharing networks that allow users to copy songs for free are organizing to counter mounting pressure from the entertainment industry and Capitol Hill, industry officials said on Tuesday. "Peer to peer" services including Kazaa, Grokster and LimeWire are hiring lobbyists and setting up trade associations in Washington to convince power brokers in Congress and Hollywood to work with them, rather than demonize them. Since Napster introduced the concept in 1999, millions of Internet users have logged on to peer-to- peer networks to copy music, movies, software and other files from each others' hard drives, a practice the recording industry says has led to a sharp decline in CD sales. Record labels have actively pursued the peer-to-peer services in court, and last week announced that they plan to sue individual users as well. Meanwhile, lawmakers have condemned the networks because they make pornography readily available to minors and expose users to viruses, hacking and other security risks. Peer-to-peer officials say it's time to tell their side of the story. Entertainment companies "are not going to come to the table until they're forced to," said Grokster President Wayne Rosso. "The only way we can force them to come to the table is to make our users' voices heard in Congress." Rosso said Grokster and several other peer-to-peer groups will unveil an advocacy group within the next 60 days to argue that they represent a promising new distribution channel for legitimate content, rather than just a conduit for copyright infringement. Separately, the two companies behind the popular Kazaa network have sponsored an umbrella group that hopes to draw in electronics makers, Internet providers and entertainment companies, as well as other peer-to-peer firms. The Distributed Computing Industry Association had its first meeting last night in Los Angeles with record-label representatives and other industry players, "and there were no fistfights," Chief Executive Marty Lafferty said. http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=3022618 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rights Group Defends P2P In Ad Campaign Kate Leadbetter The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched an advertising campaign demanding changes in copyright law to legalise file sharing. The "Let the Music Play" campaign is intended to encourage the six millions users of file-sharing software in the US to make their voices heard in government, as a counterweight to increasingly vehement condemnation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks by the entertainment industry. The campaign, launched on 30 June, follows the RIAA's announcement last week that it intends to begin filing lawsuits against a large number of the individuals who use file-swapping services like Kazaa and Morpheus. Shari Steele, the executive director of the EFF, said in a statement that copyright law is "out of step with the views of the American public and the reality of music distribution online". Steele said that the RIAA's efforts would be better directed finding a way for the music industry and peer-to-peer networks to coexist: "rather than trying to sue people into submission, we need to find a better alternative that gets artists paid while making file sharing legal." The recording industry's legal tactics successfully shut down an earlier generation of file-swapping services, such as Napster, but file-sharing usage has continued to grow. The industry blames file-sharing for a precipitous drop in music sales; in the past three years, unit shipments of recorded music have dropped by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in 1999 to 860 million units in 2002. As a solution, the RIAA said last week it would begin gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits against individuals who offer "substantial amounts" of copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks. "The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear -- this activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences," said RIAA president Cary Sherman in a statement announcing the strategy. The RIAA has already begun suing individual P2P users. Earlier this year, for example, the RIAA successfully sued four university students for P2P piracy, ordering each to pay $12,000 to $17,000 (£8,000 to £11,000) in compensation. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann said that America's politicians are failing to recognise the importance of the P2P community. "Today, more US citizens use file-sharing software than voted for President Bush," he said. "Congress needs to spend less time listening to record industry lobbyists and more time listening to the more than 60 million Americans who use file-sharing software today." The EFF will place advertisements about the Right to Share campaign in magazines including "Spin", "Blender", "Computer Gaming World", and "PC Gamer". http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t26...zdnetukhompage ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New File-Sharing Sites Hide Users' IDs AP Music fans continued swapping songs over the Internet, though a bit more cautiously, despite the recording industry's threat this week to sue individuals engaged in digital piracy. The threat appeared to have little effect on the pace of downloading over the most popular file-sharing services. But the move drew the ire of many fans, driving speculation that it could ultimately backfire and encourage a new crop of file-sharing services capable of keeping users anonymous. Filetopia already promises to do just that, and another, called Blubster, launched Monday. "The recording industry is not going to win if all they do is sue people," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group on technology and copyright issues. "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up." Yet the campaign could result in the proliferation of file-sharing services that outfox efforts to detect the users' identity. "If the recording industry succeeds in their goal of making large numbers of people feel unsafe in their file sharing, it's a safe bet that someone will come along to fill the sudden demand for an easy, safer way to use P2P," said Adrian Lamo, 22, a communications researcher from San Francisco. For now, many users of file-sharing services said they took some precautions, but remained undeterred. "I don't think that I trade in the volumes that they would be interested in," said Alec Cumming, 24, a Los Angeles film restorer who estimates he has 200 downloaded songs on his computer. "If they really went after me, I would pretty likely stop. I'm not making any money off of it." Others hoped to skirt the RIAA's sweep, which is initially targeted at those who share "substantial" collections of MP3 files, by simply disabling the sharing feature on their software -- something the RIAA hopes will mean fewer songs available on the networks. "I turned (the feature) off because they're on their witch hunt, and I think the witch hunt will die off and prove to be just that," said Jeff Gregory, a Web editor in North Palm Beach, Florida, who uses Kazaa. Gregory, 32, estimated he has 600 songs downloaded on his computer -- and he intends to get more. There were about 10 million fewer files traded on FastTrack between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, though the difference amounted to a decline of only 1 percent. "That number should drop off over time if the deterrence is having effect," said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates. Sohn said people won't really get scared until RIAA starts filing its lawsuits. But she warned that the industry risks consumer backlash if it sues "every Tom, Dick and Harry with a handful of songs." Leigh said the industry's strategy overlooks the impact of CD burning. If the industry squelches file sharing, he said, young music fans will simply trade copies of CDs. While such a scenario would be an improvement for an industry now seeing millions of music files shared worldwide, Leigh said it underscores how the exchange of music on some level won't go away. There are 200 million CD burners in use currently, Leigh said. "And the kids are not going to stop using them." http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...oad.music.ap/#

04-07-03, 09:46 AM	#5
naz - Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 1,319	Compiling that every week must be pretty daunting. Sooooo, "Distributed Computing" is the PC term of choice for p2p now, eh? __________________ I’ve been a little down because today my doctor diagnosed me with John Travolta Syndrome. It’s a condition where your face or head grows laterally, getting wider year by year. It’s not so much of a problem and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just a condition. In fact mine is good because it means my brain is getting bigger too. But not that Travolta guy, his head is mostly fat. The doctors said I am much smarter than John Travolta and I believe them.

04-07-03, 08:47 PM	#8
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Phew... just by reading all these news story and opinions, I'm exhausted. And since TankGirl came around, I'm feeling jealous as well. Hey JS __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies

06-07-03, 11:30 AM	#10
faggotry Registered User Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 4	this site kicks ass. all the relevant information i could ask for. other so-called p2p meccas skip a lot of stuff. __________________ o

08-07-03, 02:32 AM	#11
dingdongding ddd Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 14	here'e the full article on urban spying systems Urban Spying System Would Eye Vehicles From Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city. Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face. According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watch list, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities. The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies to combat terrorism and fight wars. Its other projects include developing software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide to predict terrorist attacks, and creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches. Scientists and privacy experts — who already have seen the use of face-recognition technologies at a Super Bowl and monitoring cameras in London — expressed concern about the potential impact of the emerging DARPA technologies if they are applied to civilians by commercial or government agencies outside the Pentagon. "Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst. DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker dismissed those concerns. She said the Combat Zones That See technology isn't intended for homeland security or law enforcement and couldn't be used for "other applications without extensive modifications." But scientists envision nonmilitary uses. "One can easily foresee pressure to adopt a similar approach to crime-ridden areas of American cities or to the Super Bowl or any site where crowds gather," said Steven Aftergood of the American Federation of Scientists. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

04-07-03, 06:10 AM	#4
theknife my name is Ranking Fullstop Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Promontorium Tremendum Posts: 4,391	front line dispatches from our p2p war correspondent... nice work, Jack

04-07-03, 11:09 AM	#6
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,017	it's one way to call it. - js.

04-07-03, 11:00 PM	#9
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,017	hi wt - nothing to be jealous about, you're doing the original great job. - js.

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