Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - May 12th, '07

[JackSpratts]

Founded 2002


































"The Web is like the mythical Hydra. Cut off one of its many heads, and two will grow back in its place." – Kevin Bankston


"File sharing may constitute piracy in some cases, but it is not supposed to be about plagiarism. Attribution costs nothing and giving credit where it is due is still good manners." – Jonathan Bailey


"That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defense contractors will not go away." – Luc Portelance


"This should be the first $4 billion summer. That could fuel the first $10 billion year at the box office. That was unthinkable two years ago, during the [movie] slump of 2005." – Paul Dergarabedian


"A milestone for us would be to print a robot that would get up and walk out of the printer." – Professor Lipson


"They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords." – The Pirate Bay


"We would throw something called smile powder on the girls. They would smile. That was beautiful." – Pedro Aponte





































May 12th, 2007







Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty
Saul Hansell

Sometimes a particular piece of plastic is just what you need. You have lost the battery cover to your cellphone, perhaps. Or your daughter needs to have the golden princess doll she saw on television. Now.

In a few years, it will be possible to make these items yourself. You will be able to download three-dimensional plans online, then push Print. Hours later, a solid object will be ready to remove from your printer.

It’s not quite the transporter of “Star Trek,” but it is a step closer.

Three-dimensional printers have been seen in industrial design shops for about a decade. They are used to test part designs for cars, airplanes and other products before they are sent to manufacturing. Once well over $100,000 each, such machines can now be had for $15,000. In the next two years, prices are expected to fall further, putting the printers in reach of small offices and even corner copy stores.

The next frontier will be the home. One company that wants to be the first to deliver a 3-D printer for consumers is Desktop Factory, started by IdeaLab, a technology incubator here. The company will start selling its first printer for $4,995 this year.

Bill Gross, chairman of IdeaLab, says the technology it has developed, which uses a halogen light bulb to melt nylon powder, will allow the price of the printers to fall to $1,000 in four years.

“We are Easy-Bake Ovening a 3-D model,” he said. “The really powerful thing about this idea is that the fundamental engineering allows us to make it for $300 in materials.”

Others are working on the same idea.

“In the future, everyone will have a printer like this at home,” said Hod Lipson, a professor at Cornell University, who has led a project that published a design for a 3-D printer that can be made with about $2,000 in parts. “You can imagine printing a toothbrush, a fork, a shoe. Who knows where it will go from here?”

Three-dimensional printers, often called rapid prototypers, assemble objects out of an array of specks of material, just as traditional printers create images out of dots of ink or toner. They build models in a stack of very thin layers, each created by a liquid or powdered plastic that can be hardened in small spots by precisely applied heat, light or chemicals.

3D Systems, a pioneer in the field, plans to introduce a three-dimensional printer later this year that will sell for $9,900.

“We think we can deliver systems for under $2,000 in three to five years,” said Abe Reichental, the company’s chief executive. “That will open a market of people who are not just engineers — collectors, hobbyists, interior decorators.”

Even at today’s prices, uses for 3-D printers are multiplying.

Colleges and high schools are buying them for design classes. Dental labs are using them to shape crowns and bridges. Doctors print models from CT scans to help plan complex surgery. Architects are printing three-dimensional models of their designs. And the Army Corps of Engineers used the technology to build a topographical map of New Orleans to help plan reconstruction.

Entrepreneurs like Fabjectory are beginning to find interest in 3-D printing among aficionados of online games, like Second Life and World of Warcraft, in which players design their own characters. Electronic Arts hopes to offer a similar service to create three-dimensional models of characters in Spore, a game to be introduced later this year.

Eventually, 3-D design software will let people make sculptures and design housewares at home.

But 3-D printers may be useful for people who do not want to learn how to use such sophisticated programs.

IdeaLab hopes companies will sell three-dimensional designs over the Internet. This would allow people to print out replacements for a dishwasher rack at home. And it would open up new opportunities for toys.

“You could go to Mattel.com, download Barbie, scan your Mom’s head, slap the head on Barbie and print it out,” suggests Joe Shenberger, the director of sales for Desktop Factory. “You could have a true custom one-off toy.”

How many people will want such a thing? It is impossible to say for sure, but some who work with the current crop of 3-D printers say they will be very attractive when the price puts them in reach of home users.

“When laser printers cost more than $5,000, nobody knew they needed desktop publishing,” said A. Michael Berman, chief technology officer for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which has a half-dozen 3-D printers for its students to use. “The market for 3-D printing isn’t as big as for laser printers, but I do believe it is huge.”

And Desktop Factory’s version is meant to be compact enough for a home office — 25 by 20 by 20 inches — with a weight of less than 90 pounds.

The origin of Desktop Factory was not so much a desire to print Barbies as a frustration with the Internet. After making a lot of money starting Internet companies like CitySearch, IdeaLab lost even more with flops like eToys. With its investors disgruntled, the company shrank, slowed down and turned its attention from the Web to technologies like solar energy and robotics.

“We traded bits for atoms,” Mr. Gross said.

IdeaLab’s new interest in things required it to build a machine shop, and eventually Mr. Gross bought a 3-D printer from Stratasys. IdeaLab engineers kept the machine going around the clock, experimenting with designs.

Mr. Gross even downloaded a model of an octopus to print out for a project on vertebrates in his daughter’s eighth-grade biology class.

This convinced Mr. Gross that there was a market for 3-D printers, especially if the price could be cut.

At first, the prospects looked difficult. The three leading 3-D printer companies all used different technologies, but none seemed simple enough to be modified for inexpensive home devices. Stratasys makes models out of liquid plastic using a very expensive heated print head that resembles a glue gun. 3D Systems uses lasers to harden liquid polymers. And the Z Corporation, a unit of the private equity group EQT, builds models by squirting a sort of glue over layers of sandlike plaster.

In a brainstorming session, Kevin Hickerson, an IdeaLab engineer, proposed the method the company would ultimately choose. First the machine spreads a powdered plastic over a roller, which is heated to just below the plastic’s melting point. Then a sharply focused beam of light melts dots of plastic on the roller. After the unmelted powder is brushed off, the roller deposits the hot plastic onto a platform. This process is repeated until the object is assembled from the bottom up.

It took IdeaLab a year to prove that the basic approach would work and a second year to develop the technology to get the layers to stick to each other properly. (The model is gently squished, as in a sandwich press, after each layer is applied.) And it has taken two more years to write the required software and to create a working design for the first production model.

IdeaLab has made about 10 of the printers so far. It is preparing to begin production at its combination office and factory in an industrial building half a mile from the company’s headquarters. This summer it will start to deliver its initial test machines to the 200 customers who have agreed to buy them.

Desktop Factory says the machines pose no hazard to users because they use a safe nylon-based material.

Some in the 3-D printer industry say Desktop Factory may have cut too many corners. Its first model makes objects with rather jagged edges because it applies layers that are 0.01 inch thick, two to three times thicker than many other machines’. Moreover, it uses a nylon mixed with aluminum and glass that produces gray objects, with a rather sandy finish that many do not find attractive.

Kathy Lewis, the chief executive of Desktop Factory, said the company saw enormous initial demand among small engineering firms that simply cannot afford the larger printers, as well as high schools and colleges that teach computer-aided design.

To appeal to the home market, she said, the company is trying to develop new materials — a smoother plastic and a very soft, bendable substance suitable for toys.

Much of the research in the field is about how to develop materials of various properties that can be applied in tiny digital specs. Cornell’s 3-D printer, called Fab@Home, is particularly suited to those experiments because it moves a syringe in three dimensions that can be filled with any substance. So far, it has built objects out of silicone, plaster, Cheez Whiz and Play-Doh.

Noy Schaal, a high-school freshman in Louisville, modified the design with a heated syringe to extrude a chocolate bar, decorated with the letters KY for Kentucky. (Koba Industries has started selling kits with all the parts needed to make the Fab@Home design for about $3,000.)

Professor Lipson said researchers are developing ways to use the process to build parts with more complex functions. They have preliminary designs for batteries, sensors, and parts that can bend when electricity is applied.

“A milestone for us would be to print a robot that would get up and walk out of the printer,” Professor Lipson said. “Batteries included.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/te...gy/07copy.html





How-To

Make your own 3-D printer. Cheap, and tasty!
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab





Australia Hands Over Man to US Courts
Kenneth Nguyen

BEFORE he was extradited to the United States, Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW, had never even set foot in America. But he had pirated software produced by American companies.

Now, having been given up to the US by former justice minister Chris Ellison, Griffiths, 44, is in a Virginia cell, facing up to 10 years in an American prison after a guilty plea late last month.

Griffiths' case — involving one of the first extraditions for intellectual property crime — has been a triumph for US authorities, demonstrating their ability to enforce US laws protecting US companies against Australians in Australia, with the co-operation of the Australian Government.

"Our agents and prosecutors are working tirelessly to nab intellectual property thieves, even where their crimes transcend international borders," US Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said.

In some corners of the Australian legal community, however, there is concern about Griffiths' case. In a recent article for the Australian Law Journal, NSW Chief Judge in Equity, Peter Young, wrote: "International copyright violations are a great problem. However, there is also the consideration that a country must protect its nationals from being removed from their homeland to a foreign country merely because the commercial interests of that foreign country are claimed to have been affected by the person's behaviour in Australia and the foreign country can exercise influence over Australia."

Griffiths, a Briton, has lived in Australia since the age of seven. From his home base on the central coast of NSW, he served as the leader of a group named Drink Or Die, which "cracked" copy-protected software and media products and distributed them free of cost. Often seen with long hair and bare feet, Griffiths did not make money from his activities, and lived with his father in a modest house.

But Drink or Die's activities did cost American companies money — an estimated $US50 million ($A60 million), if legal sales were substituted for illegal downloads undertaken through Drink or Die. It also raised the ire of US authorities.

In 2003, the US Department of Justice charged Griffiths with violating the copyright laws of the US, and requested his extradition from Australia. Senator Ellison signed a notice for Griffiths' arrest and Australian Federal Police arrested him at his home.

Griffiths fought the prospect of extradition through the courts for three years, in which time he was denied bail and detained in prison. He indicated that he would be willing to plead guilty to a breach of Australian copyright law, which meant he could serve time in Australia.

Last year, Griffiths ran out of avenues for appeal in Australia. His fate lay in the hands of Senator Ellison, who had the power to refuse Griffiths' extradition. But in December, Senator Ellison issued a warrant for extradition — a decision welcomed by the US Government. Griffiths' extradition in February is believed to be the first out of Australia for a breach of intellectual property law.

"This extradition represents the (US) Department of Justice's commitment to protect intellectual property rights from those who violate our laws from the other side of the globe," US Assistant Attorney-General Alice Fisher said.

But Justice Young described as "bizarre" the fact that "people are being extradited to the US to face criminal charges when they have never been to the US and the alleged act occurred wholly outside the US".

Griffiths appears to have been singled out by US authorities. British-based members of Drink or Die were reportedly tried in Britain. Last month, in news that slipped the local media's radar, Hew Griffiths pleaded guilty in a US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to criminal copyright infringement offences. According to US authorities, Griffiths admitted to overseeing all the illegal operations of the now-disbanded Drink Or Die.

On top of a possible 10-year jail term, Griffiths could be fined $US500,000. (By way of comparison, the average sentence for rape in Victoria is six years and 10 months.)

Any Australian who has pirated software worth more than $US1000 could be subject to the same extradition process as Griffiths was. "Should not the Commonwealth Parliament do more to protect Australians from this procedure?" Justice Young asked in his article. Others, however, argue that extradition is necessary to prevent internet crimes that transcend borders.

Griffiths will be sentenced on June 22.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...90140855.html#





CamShaft

Canadins Plan New Movie Piracy Law
Janice Tibbetts

In response to lobbying from Hollywood, the federal government plans to introduce legislation this spring that would make it a crime to use handheld cameras to copy movies in theatres, CanWest News Service has learned.

Pressure from the film industry has been mounting for months, culminating this week with Warner Bros. film studio announcing it will cancel its sneak preview screenings in Canada, starting with this summer's releases of Ocean's Thirteen and the next Harry Potter film.

The Conservative government, which until recently was cool to the idea of a Criminal Code crackdown, now hopes to move a bill quickly through the parliamentary process, a government insider said.

The film industry alleges that movie piracy is rampant in Canada because there are no sanctions unless it can be proved that a movie was surreptitiously recorded for commercial distribution. The maximum penalty under the federal Copyright Act is a $1-million fine and five years in jail.

Hollywood studios assert that Canada, because of lax laws, has become a major source of pirated movies worldwide, alongside China and Russia.

A Warner Bros. spokesman, who declined to give his name, said that in the past 18 months, 70 per cent of the studio's bootlegged movies originated in Canada. The problem, he added, has escalated since 2005 when the United States passed a federal law banning filming in theatres.

"The problem with the (Canadian) law as it stands is that if someone is caught there are no enforceable penalties because you have to prove commercial distribution," the spokesman said yesterday.

The studio will rethink its cancellation of early promotional screening and "sneak peaks" if the federal government comes up with a new law, he added.

But Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor specializing in copyright and the Internet, says he is not convinced by Hollywood's claims that Canada is a leading source of bootlegged movies, particularly since the industry's statistics are all over the map.

"One would hope that government policy would be dictated by facts rather than by lobbying," said Mr. Geist. "We've got all these numbers out there about Canada being this piracy haven and we've never had any sort of independent, verifiable data to support that."

According to the Motion Picture Association of America, for instance, the United States is still the top source of pirated movies. "The notion that somehow stepping up the penalties against camcording will solve this issue is completely undermined by the experience in the United States, where there are laws, but the U.S. is the largest source of camcorded movies in the world and it is also experiencing a proliferation," Mr. Geist said.

The pending bill appears to be a change of heart for the Conservatives. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in an interview three months ago that while he was willing to look at proposals, he already had a lot on his plate because of the Conservative government's lengthy law-and-order agenda.

"I don't want to get into the situation that you may have seen in this town where certain ministers or certain governments had a different priority every day of the week and every time a new problem came up that was a new priority and ultimately nothing gets done," he said at the time.

But the industry's lobbying efforts appear to be on the verge of paying off.

Doug Frith, a former Liberal cabinet minister who is now president of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association -- Hollywood's voice in Canada -- was in Ottawa yesterday to meet with government representatives. He was, however, not available for comment to the media.

Heritage Minister Bev Oda released a statement this week that she and Mr. Nicholson are working on a plan to tackle piracy, but she did not mention the pending Criminal Code proposal.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...a-1bdd7dee212c





The P2P Mistake at Ohio University
Ashwin Navin

Ohio University recently informed students that the use of peer-to-peer technology has been banned from the campus computer network. The reasons cited range from network congestion to malicious software to piracy.

While the university acknowledges that there are legitimate uses of P2P technologies, the blanket ban on the technology stands.

By instituting this ban, Ohio University has demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of P2P technology's value and role on the Internet. Furthermore, the school has closed its doors to innovation and shirked its responsibilities as an educational institution.

P2P is still a tremendously misunderstood and underestimated technology. It is most commonly associated with file sharing, which is only one application of P2P technology. It has been applied in many compelling ways--as a mechanism to make voice calls over the Internet (think Skype), to legally enjoy popular TV shows when on the go or away from a TV, and to solve problems that enterprises face in their computer networks.

The best way to alleviate the stress on the central backbone of the Internet is to decentralize the onus of distribution to a local level using P2P.

Many artists, along with nonprofit and budget-conscious organizations, depend a great deal on P2P to reduce the costs of publication on the Internet. A blanket ban, then, will cripple the basic Internet experience for the very students and organizations that need it most. P2P technologies like BitTorrent are being used by independent software developers, entities like NASA and PBS, and countless musicians and filmmakers to move large files faster and more efficiently around the Web. On the other end of the publishing spectrum, major Hollywood studios like our partners 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, MGM and Warner Bros. have made their content available legally via P2P technology.

A P2P fix for what ails the Internet

What Ohio University and others fail to realize is that within P2P lies a much-needed fix for the Internet itself. The way we use the Internet today--to stream YouTube videos, to make Voice over IP calls, or to download software and video games--is actually taxing the capacity of our networks and servers beyond their design. If applied intelligently, P2P can provide more capacity to congested networks by harnessing abundant and unused computing capacity and bandwidth we have in our own PCs. If other institutions followed in the footsteps of Ohio University--or worse, if P2P technology were banned completely--the traffic jam on the Internet will actually worsen.

Given my position at BitTorrent, I confess I have a vested interest in building a successful and robust future for P2P architectures; however, this vested opinion is shared by many others. According to a recent study by Deloitte, experts state that video traffic alone is stretching the Internet to its limits and that the current growth rate will lead to serious congestion problems.

If P2P is like a hybrid car, BitTorrent is the Toyota Prius.

P2P can help. (One of the original designers of the Internet, Vint Cerf, also agrees with us.) The best way to alleviate the stress on the central backbone of the Internet is to decentralize the onus of distribution to a local level using P2P, and specifically with a BitTorrent-like architecture. BitTorrent does one thing and one thing only: it reduces, not replaces, the dependency on a central Web server by accumulating all of the available bandwidth and computing capacity that lives on the user's PC. As a result, a Web site and the Internet can run more efficiently. If P2P is like a hybrid car, BitTorrent is the Toyota Prius. Although it doesn't eliminate the need for gasoline (that is, central Web servers), BitTorrent can often provide more than 1,000 times the "fuel efficiency" relative to the old-fashioned way of driving the Internet, which has been dependent on a lot of central resources.

The smart money is betting on P2P. Companies that offer traditional, centralized Internet infrastructure are increasingly adopting P2P to tap its efficiency when managing the delivery of large, popular files that strain central servers. For example, BitTorrent technology is a natural addition to the content delivery market--we are currently in trials with beta customers. Industry heavyweights are also getting in on the action: Akamai Technologies last month purchased a P2P company called Red Swoosh, and VeriSign has scooped up an early P2P developer called Kontiki.

We come in peace. BitTorrent, the company, does not support piracy. In fact, piracy is our biggest competitor and the most significant challenge to making our company profitable.

That said, the potential for tech-aided piracy begs a few fundamental questions. Why aren't similarly broad actions being taken to block other technologies that can be used to transfer and share copyrighted material (such as newsgroups, FTP, IM and e-mail--along with photocopiers, printers and CD burners)? Can the techniques implemented to manage the abuses of other technologies be applied to P2P? Why isn't Ohio University working with P2P industry leaders to find productive solutions, instead of copping out with unilateral bans?

And why are university policy makers not raising awareness for the legal services to rent or purchase content legally? More effectively, why doesn't the campus reply to industry pressure with a plea for steep college discounts and more aggressive marketing support for legal download services like iTunes and the BitTorrent Entertainment Network?

This ban will have a devastating affect on Ohio University's ambitions in computer science, engineering and IT.

Ohio University has a responsibility to its community that is clearly undercut by this ban. Experimentation and adoption of any new technology undoubtedly opens the door to unforeseen risks. But we have the simultaneous obligation to monitor and manage any new risks that surface and apply ingenuity to address them. American universities bear the absolute obligation to lead the world with their openness to new ideas wherever they originate.

By applying a short-sighted, arbitrary ban on a technology with so many redeeming uses, Ohio University has deprived its students, faculty and staff of a powerful tool, as well as censored a treasure trove of information and entertainment that is not available through any means other than P2P. It has created an environment that doesn't prepare its people for the "real world" where P2P technologies are being adopted in powerful, constructive ways. Worse yet, the university's administration has set a terrible precedent for its staff on the desirability of seeking creative ways to support new technologies.

My prediction is that this ban will have a devastating effect on Ohio University's ambitions in computer science, engineering and IT, particularly as most of the country's leading engineering schools are embracing innovative ways to manage P2P traffic. The ban could even hurt general enrollment for the school. Who wants to spend what could be their most formative years in an environment that seeks to stunt creativity and innovation? It's antithetical to what we, as students and parents, want from higher education.

If you're an Ohio University student, you should follow the instructions in the dean's note. Contact the IT service desk to get an exemption and exercise it. Download a photo from space for a term paper from NASA's Visible Earth series. Or download some of the thousands of legal movies, TV shows and music at the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. Or reduce the cost of servers for your school by "torrenting" the documents on your campus Web server--it's as simple as 1-2-3.

P2P isn't the enemy. Narrow-minded policy that thwarts innovation is.
http://news.com.com/The+P2P+mistake+...3-6181676.html





Record Shops: Used CDs? Ihre Papieren, Bitte!
Ken Fisher

There are a few things lawmakers have decided really ought to be handled with the "care and oversight" that only the government can provide: e.g., tax collection, radioactive materials, biohazards, guns, and CDs. CDs? No, I'm not talking about financial Certificates of Deposit, though that might make more sense. I'm talking about Compact Discs.

New "pawn shop" laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the "right" to treat their customers like criminals.

The legislation is supposed to stop the sale of counterfeit and/or stolen music CDs, despite the fact that there has been no proof that this is a particularly pressing problem for record shops in general. Yet John Mitchell, outside counsel for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, told Billboard that this is part of "some sort of a new trend among states to support second-hand-goods legislation." And he expects it to grow.

In Florida, Utah, and soon in Rhode Island and Wisconsin, selling your used CDs to the local record joint will be more scrutinized than then getting a driver's license in those states. For retailers in Florida, for instance, there's a "waiting period" statue that prohibits them from selling used CDs that they've acquired until 30 days have passed. Furthermore, the Florida law disallows stores from providing anything but store credit for used CDs. It looks like college students will need to stick to blood plasma donations for beer money.

Why this trend, and why now? It's difficult to say, but to be sure, there is no love lost between retailers who sell used CDs and the music industry. The Federal Trade Commission has scrutinized the music industry for putting unfair pressures on retailers who sell used CDs, following a long battle between the music industry and retailers in the mid 90s. The music industry dislikes used CD sales because they don't get a cut of subsequent sales after the first. Now, via the specter of piracy, new legislation is cropping up that will make it even less desirable to sell second-hand goods. Can laws targeting used DVDs be far behind?

The music industry has never been a big fan of the Doctrine of First Sale, and the rise of digital music sales will only exacerbate the tension between consumers who believe that they "own" what they pay for, and the music industry. As more and more content-oriented goods transition to digital formats that are distributed free of physical formats, this issue is going to get tricky because it will be harder to spot the counterfeits from the authentic products, and consumers will still expect to exercise robust rights with the content that they've paid for with their hard-earned cash.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ren-bitte.html





The EFF Sues Uri Geller
p2pnet.net news

Israeli spoon-bender Uri Geller is in the EFF's bad books.

Geller, who's supposedly able to bend spoons by merely thinking at them, is being sued by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) on behalf of a YouTube critic, "silenced by Geller's baseless copyright claims".

Brian Sapient belongs to the Rational Response Squad, dedicated to debunking what it calls irrational beliefs.

"As part of their mission, Sapient and others post videos to YouTube that they say demonstrate this irrationality," says the EFF. "One of the videos that Sapient uploaded came from a NOVA program called 'Secrets of the Psychics,' which challenges the performance techniques of Geller.

"Despite the fact that only three seconds of the over thirteen-minute video contain footage allegedly under copyright owned by Geller's corporation Explorogist Ltd. - a classic fair use of the material for criticism purposes - Geller filed a takedown demand with YouTube under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). That violates the DMCA requirement that copyright holders only send takedown notices for infringing content."

Sapient's YouTube account was suspended, shutting down his videos were not available for more than two weeks.

Now the EFF is asking for damages and a declaratory judgment that the NOVA video doesn't infringe Geller's copyrights, and that he be, "restrained from bringing any further legal action against Sapient in connection to the clip".
http://p2pnet.net/story/12175





‘Spider-Man 3’ Box Office Bodes Well for Summer
Sharon Waxman

In Hollywood summer is supposed to open with a box-office bang, and if all goes well keep on popping through the next three months.

“Spider-Man 3,” the latest in the blockbuster series starring Tobey Maguire, set an exuberant tone for Hollywood’s summer season, beating box-office records for its opening day and the weekend that followed, domestically and internationally.

The movie, directed by Sam Raimi, took in an estimated $148 million in domestic ticket sales in its opening weekend, including $59 million when it opened on Friday, according to box-office tracking companies like Screenline and Media by Numbers. Both figures broke the records held by “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

“Spider-Man 3” broke records around the world too, as it opened abroad even before hitting screens in the United States, underscoring the rising dominance of international markets. The film took in an estimated $227 million in 105 foreign countries, outstripping the previous record-holder, “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.”

“It’s the biggest opening ever in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Italy, Mexico and Brazil,” said Jeff Blake, Sony’s chairman for worldwide marketing and distribution, adding that the film broke records in 26 countries. “It justifies the expense of a franchise picture like this. And I think it’s a great sign for the summer.”

The movie may have cost more to make than any film in Hollywood history. Sony put the budget at $260 million, with additional marketing costs of about $120 million, but some published reports have placed the budget at above $300 million.

The strong opening weekend for “Spider-Man 3” may augur well for a season in which more than a dozen big-budget sequels are set to come barreling forth, promising what some experts say could be a record-breaking summer for the movie industry. “Shrek the Third” will follow “Spider-Man 3” by two weeks, with “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” right after that. “Ocean’s 13” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” come on their heels in June.

“This should be the first $4 billion summer,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers. “That could fuel the first $10 billion year at the box office. That was unthinkable two years ago, during the slump of 2005.”

Mr. Dergarabedian and others pointed out that sequels seemed the most reliable way to draw audiences to a familiar theater experience and allowed studios to contain marketing costs relative to the challenge of introducing new franchises.

The results could help put to rest fears over declining audience attendance and box-office revenue. Before this weekend, box-office revenues were up 3.5 percent over the same period in 2006, driven by surprise hits like “300,” which took in $207 million domestically, and “Wild Hogs,” which took in $160 million in the United States.

But after this weekend, box-office revenues were up 6 percent — a jump attributable to “Spider-Man” — while attendance increased 3.6 percent over the same time last year.

The top executives at Sony said that the success of “Spider-Man 3” in its opening weekend, and its potential impact on the industry, more than justified its budget. “We knew what this movie was going to cost, and we hoped that it would be successful,” Amy Pascal, the co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said. “I don’t think any of us thought it would break records the way it has. It was budgeted to be a little less than Spidey 1 and 2.”

Riding a massive marketing push and a release on 4,252 screens domestically — more than any previous Hollywood release — “Spider-Man 3” was impervious to a drubbing by movie critics who said it had a surfeit of villains (four), an indulgent length at two hours and 20 minutes and a Busby Berkeley section in which Peter Parker cuts a rug.

The only competition among new releases for “Spider-Man 3,” Curtis Hanson’s “Lucky You,” a Las Vegas poker story with Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana, took in just $2.5 million. In those circumstances even the studio releasing it, Warner Brothers, bowed to the blockbuster behemoth. “They just knocked it out of the park,” Dan Fellman, president of theatrical distribution for Warner Brothers, said. The horror film “Disturbia” came in second for the weekend, taking in a mere $5.7 million.

“Dead Man’s Chest,” the 2006 “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel from Disney, held the previous record for opening day ($55.8 million) and for the highest box-office take on a weekend ($135.6 million).

Ms. Pascal of Sony said she had definite plans to make yet another sequel to the “Spider-Man” franchise, with the same group that had made the first three hits.

“We’re going to make a lot more,” she said. “I hope it will be with Tobey and Sam and all of them. They began it, and I hope they go on making them forever.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/movies/07spid.html





Disney Sells 24 Million TV Shows Through iTunes Store

Latest Disney results confirm steady iTunes media sales
Jonny Evans

Walt Disney this week confirmed it continues to enjoy strong sales of its television shows and films through iTunes.

Company CEO Bob Iger confirmed the company to have sold 23.7 million episodes of its television shows and an additional two million films through Apple's media service.

In November 2006, Iger confirmed Disney to have sold 500,000 films and 12 million television show episodes since such content reached iTunes. Disney hit 1.3 million films sold in February.

Top-selling titles include Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean, Iger observed.

“We continue to view the broadband-enabled internet as an important entertainment medium, and our creative and technological investments in Disney, ESPN, ABC.com are designed with that premise in mind.”

Iger also confirmed Disney to be satisfied with iTunes prices – the company makes as much from an online sale as it does from a physical one, he explained.

"There are cost of goods that are factored out of the iTunes sale, which allows them to sell at a lower price. That’s their decision and it allows us to take revenue out that is equal to, in terms of a per-click sale, store sales. So, yes, we’re quite comfortable with iTunes," Iger explained.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index...S&newsID=17988





Transcript: Disney CEO Iger Talks Up Blu-ray in Analyst Call

While he was recently quoted as suggesting that his company might support both Blu-ray and HD DVD, Disney CEO Robert Iger appears to have reversed his earlier position, making a new more unequivocal statement of support for Blu-ray this week.

Back in March, Iger seemed to signal that his Blu-ray exclusive studio was considering joining Warner and Paramount in the format neutral camp, telling investors at Disney's annual meeting with shareholders that his company was "excited about next generation DVD formats" and that while it had chosen Blu-ray because it thought it was superior to HD DVD, that Disney would eventually "probably publish in both formats."

This week, however, Iger made a much more firm statement of his company's exclusive support of Blu-ray during Disney's quarterly analyst call, saying "the single greatest thing we can do right now is to not waffle, but to be very, very blunt about it, to continue our support of Blu-ray because we sense a real advantage."

A complete transcript of Iger's Blu-ray comments made during this week's analyst call follows:

"We made our bed with Blu-ray because we believed more in that format for a variety of reasons; some technical in nature, some due to the fact that it simply had broader support from a variety of industries, notably the motion picture studios but also what I’ll call the consumer electronics and the tech industry.

What we are seeing lately is that sales of Blu-ray discs are outpacing HD discs by at least two to one. As more quality Blu-ray product comes on the market, which is going to happen, notably with Pirates on May 22, we actually believe that the difference or the advantage of Blu-ray is only going to widen.

What we are also seeing is that the adoption of the platform right now is being held back a bit by a perception among consumers, really, that there is a format war; and that the hardware or the players are too expensive. We see the players coming down in price nicely, particularly by the Christmas season. We also believe that if Blu-ray continues to outpace HD DVD the retailers are ultimately going to weigh in, because they only have a limited amount of shelf space, and they are going to have to choose a format in order to manage their own shelf space. Once that happens, the advantage is going to go even more in Blu-ray’s direction.

I think the single greatest thing we can do right now is to not waffle, but to be very, very blunt about it, to continue our support of Blu-ray because we sense a real advantage. The best thing that could happen is for the format war to end, which will be very pro-consumer, particularly as hardware comes down.

The other thing I want to note is, if you look across the globe, the only place there is really a format war is in the United States. In other markets where next-gen DVD is starting to penetrate, Blu-ray is winning, and substantially; so much so there isn’t even a perceived format war.

So I think we made the right decision, the trends we are seeing seem to validate the decision. We think long-term, this is going to be a nice growth area for the company, because as you know sell-through DVD is a big business for the Walt Disney Company, even though we believe in things like VOD and the rental model. People want to own a Disney DVD, particularly in the next-generation format."
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/622





Format Wars in Home Theater

After twenty years of struggling to contend with the emergence of television, movie studios began to realize that the only way to survive would be to adapt to changes in demand.

MCA’s new Laserdisc hoped to bring high quality movies into the home, as soon as the bugs could be fixed. In the meantime, the new VCRs hoped to do the same, while additionally allowing users to both record TV shows and film home movies using a video camera.

Studios were cautiously optimistic about a new videodisc, but adamantly opposed to video tape recorders and the imagined crimes they could be used to commit.

Beyond the studios’ paranoia, there were two other barriers that greatly slowed the progress of home theater.

The first was a brutal series of format wars that wasted tremendous resources and created uncertainty in the market. Like all wars and other sources of uncertainty, these format conflicts upset the market and stalled the advance of technology.

It wasn’t until these format wars--and overall studio opposition--were resolved in the mid 80s that the rapid pace of technical advancement in home theater could begin.

The Fragile Market: Standardization by Decree vs. Competition.

During World War II, the FCC set up the National Television Standards Committee to develop an American TV standard, based upon the recommendations and input from a variety of radio manufacturers.

Standards for NTSC color TV were similarly developed by consensus in the 50s. A rival, incompatible color system developed by CBS was pulled off the market by the government to prevent competition from splintering the nascent TV industry and creating confusion and frustrating incompatibility problems for consumers.

As the pace of technology increased, this style of consensus decree in setting standards was called into question by companies that wanted more freedom to innovate. While the FCC continued to rule certain aspects of broadcasting with the iron fist of government decree, it played a passive role in the development of video recorders.

The Market Fails.

That allowed companies the opportunity to experience the alternative to standards based development. Rather than a government run organization establishing standards, individual manufacturers would all scramble to develop their own proprietary systems, optionally choosing to license their designs to other makers.

In hindsight, this worked out really poorly. While companies were already able to compete in delivering TVs that all worked according to the standard NTSC TV specifications, there were no standards guiding a record or tape delivery medium for video.

Because there were no standards, huge resources were wasted in competing efforts to invent new ones. This same principle was later relearned at considerable expense in the field of software development, in networking, and again in video standards. Open formats and open standards solve a lot of problems for the market.

It Worked in Audio.

The market had earlier appeared to work well in selecting audio formats, but there were fewer format to
chose between and little real contention.

In the mid 60s, Philips introduced the audio tape, which put reel-to-reel magnetic audio tape into a compact cassette. It licensed the format to other makers.

An alternative format, the 8-track, came out at the same time. It was based upon the self-contained carts used in radio to record and play back jingles or advertisements while broadcasting.

Both tape and 8-tracks were widely popular though the 70s and into the 80s, but both offered lower sound quality than vinyl records; 8-track offered particularly marginal sound.

8-tracks slowly phased out as the smaller audio cassette tapes made portable players possible, leaving cassettes the lone ubiquitous standard for audio recording well into the 90s.

Why Video Tape Was a Problem.

The amount of information required to deliver a video signal is far larger than that required for audio, suggesting that any video tape system would have to consume huge reels of tape and draw the tape through the player at problematically unworkable high speeds.

Ampex developed the 2” Quad video tape format for broadcasters in the 50s, but it was far too large and expensive for home use. Ampex put video onto tape using recording heads that wrote in vertical stripes.

Researchers at RCA other companies had failed to deliver a workable video tape system because they were trying to record video using stationary heads that wrote horizontally like audio tape; they couldn’t move the tape fast enough.

Space Age Technology Tries to Replace Magnetic Tape.
Frustrated by the limitations of conventional tape recording and the high demands of video recording, makers turned to advanced new technologies.

In 1969, CBS developed the EVR, using optically read tape. Spools of film were unreeled inside the machine and read using a high speed scanner, which output a video signal for TV. It was outrageously expensive.

In the same timeframe, RCA developed the laser read HoloTape system which was also unworkably expensive, in addition to the more conventional MagTape system. After a test roll out of its prototype video tape recorders in 1974, RCA abandoned MagTape, deciding that it was too expensive to warrant continued development.

Germany’s Telefunken developed a flexible VideoDisc that went on sale in 1975; it was read using a diamond head like a record player. It offered very limited playback time.

Sony Pioneers Practical Magnetic Tape

Sony’s U-matic VCR in 1971 proved that magnetic tape was the most practical and economical technology for recording video.

It used improved magnetic coatings on the tape, but also pulled the tape outside the cassette and around a rotating drum that wrote diagonal stripes on the tape, reducing the speed of tape required to deliver a video signal.

However, U-matic was delivered as a professional format and was too expensive for home users.

Additionally, the studios would not release affordable movie titles for U-matic, since there was no mechanism to audit rentals like the ill fated Cartrivision, or any way to stop users from duplicating films.

Home VCR Format Wars: Technology, Laws, and Espionage.

Sony wasn’t the only company offering consumer video tape recorders; in 1972, Philips launched its own VCR in Europe, which became the first successful consumer format.

Sony’s 1975 Betamax format solved the cost and size problems of its earlier system by replacing U-matic’s 3/4” tape with 1/2” tape in a cassette about the size of a paperback book.

Sony also improved upon both Philips’ VCR and its own U-matic system by developing an azimuth recording head that could put tracks closer together on tape without suffering from crosstalk interference.

This enabled Betamax to reliably record a full hour of content on a single tape, something that Philips’ earlier VCR could not reliably do.

There were two remaining barriers to Sony’s efforts to establish Betamax as the consumer video format:

•the first was the Betamax Case, which MCA’s Universal Studios thew at Sony at the arrival of the Betamax VCR.

•the second was a play by JVC to hijack Sony’s technology and ship its own cloned version.

JVC Steals, Clones Betamax.

While JVC and other manufacturers had licensed Sony’s U-matic format, JVC decided to create its own rival format for home VCRs rather than licensing the new Betamax home format from Sony.

Sony wanted the industry to align behind a common standard. It had earlier worked with other vendors to develop consensus behind U-matic. It hoped that Betamax would launch a new revolution in home video, and tried to dissuade rival makers from introducing their own incompatible formats, fracturing the market.

However since U-matic had helped to establish Sony as the leader in professional video tape development, rival companies feared that licensing Betamax would only further entrench Sony’s position in the consumer market.

With full access to Sony’s technology, JVC created a slightly different cassette format called VHS in 1976. JVC’s rival format eventually won over the technically superior Betamax for a number of reasons:

•JVC initially offered a cheaper VCR

•Sony failed to match functions on competing VCRs, including integrated clocks and pause features

•Sony’s consumer and industrial divisions competed against each other instead of against competing companies

•VHS offered longer recording times than Betamax because its larger cassette could could hold more tape

Sony’s Big Beta Blunders.

Sony was shocked to find that its technical lead in video tape could be ripped off so easily by a former partner, but many of the Betamax problems were Sony’s own fault. Sony stacked the deck against itself by making a series of licensing blunders than sealed its fate back in the late 70s, before competition even got started.

•Sony turned down RCA’s advice to provide a long play mode, so RCA chose to license JVC’s VHS instead

•Sony withheld a Betamax license from Hitachi to avoid upsetting its existing U-matic partner Matsushita

•Matsushita chose to license VHS over Betamax because VHS tapes were simpler and cheaper to duplicate

That left Sony without the two largest players in the US and Japanese market. Sony continued marketing Betamax, and eventually delivered longer format versions that could hold two and then three hours of content, but VHS’ longer play had gained it a head start in video rentals.

JVC not only managed its licensing program better, but also ensured that all VHS licensees supported the slowest and highest quality SP mode, which ensured wide compatibility with movie rentals; Sony’s comparable B1 mode was not only too short to support an entire movie, but wasn’t even supported on all of Sony’s own players.

Content drove sales, and since Sony didn’t support various modes and prerecorded content on all of its Betamax players, VHS increasingly won ground with consumers, content producers, and manufacturers.

As VHS became established, it also logically became the medium for porn; it is unlikely that porn was a decisive factor however, because it is trivial to copy video between formats and low budget pornographers wouldn’t be stymied by the effort required to reach the Betamax audience in the same way larger studios would.

Sony’s advertising grew increasingly bitter and desperate as VHS gained traction, but it didn’t change anything.

Little Room For Technical Superiority.

In 1980, Philips followed up its original VCR with the VCC format, which crossed the VCR with its compact cassette tape design. Also known as Video 2000, the system used VHS sized tapes that could be flipped over like an audio tape, boasting recording times of up to 16 hours.

Philips’ system also pioneered dynamic tracking, which aligned the heads to the tape. Other systems had manual tracking controls until much later.

Even as early as 1980 however, there was little room left for a technically superior system. Prerecorded content was available for VHS, and manufacturers and retailers didn’t want produce and stock multiple types of tapes.

Unable to gain a real footing without content, VCC was also limited to the European market, leaving VHS the standard in consumer video tape players.

Sony eventually began selling VHS VCRs itself, and converted its Betamax technology into the Betacam professional format. Betacam records a much higher quality component signal, making it useable for professional broadcasters.

Sony later beat out JVC in consumer camcorders with the compact Video8 format. Designed specifically for use in small camcorders and using a flying erase head for cleaner edits than VHS could provide, Sony was able to win back the portable segment of the consumer video market in the mid 80s.

Sony repeated many of the same errors it made with Betamax in other formats it attempted to introduce, including 4 mm DAT and MiniDisc in the 90s, and more recently its ATRAC audio players, which handed the Walkman Dynasty to Apple’s iPod.

Videodisc Format Wars: A Quicker Battle.

While JVC won the video tape format wars, it was trounced in a parallel war involving prerecorded videodiscs.

In parallel with RCA’s failure in delivering magnetic video tape, it had also developed the SelectaVison CED videodisc, which electronically read vinyl disc media with an electronic contact head.

It suffered from problematic quality issues, but offered a picture better than video tapes, although not as good as Philips’ optically read Laserdisc, which Philips had developed in partnership with MCA as detailed in the article Movie Studios vs. Consumers in Home Theater.

JVC Again Tries to Pull a Microsoft.

Like Sony, RCA made the mistake of sharing its prototype videodisc with JVC in the early 70s; JVC took RCA’s technology and attempted to create its own rival standard, in the same way it had earlier hijacked Betamax video tape recording from Sony.

JVC had actually originated as the Japanese subsidiary of the American Victor Company, which was owned by RCA. During World War II, RCA cut its relationship with the Japanese Victor Company, but by the 70s, was again working with the company.

What RCA didn’t know was that JVC was the Microsoft of the 70s, intent upon stealing its research to develop its own incompatible, low quality standard it could foist on the masses.

Sure enough, JVC ran to to market with a movie and music player using two new formats incompatible with RCA’s original videodisc: Video High Density and Audio High Density; both even sounded similar to VHS.

Neither format caught on however. Philips’ Laserdisc was already superior on the video end to both RCA’s CED disc and JVC’s VHD copy. Further, Sony had also partnered with Philips to create the audio CD, which destroyed any chance of JVC winning the format war on disc with its copycat, technically inferior new record formats.

Manufacturers Learn to Work Together.

The vast wasted efforts suffered by Sony, Philips, RCA, and all their licensees who developed equipment that ended up incompatible and worthless to consumers taught the manufacturing industry the value of working together to develop common standards.

For the next generation of home theater, Sony and Philips agreed to drop their Multimedia CD standard to join JVC and a range of other manufacturers behind the Super Density disc, and effort that resulted in the highly successful launch of DVD.

Unfortunately it appears that that lesson has been lost, as the disc industry first splintered on ‘+’ and ‘-’ versions of optical disc recording technologies, and most recently on the next generation, high definition Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats.

The Other Big Problem for Home Theater

Back in the mid 90s, it appeared that both the studios’ panicked fears of home theater users and the brutal format wars were nearly under control. However, one other critical problem still had to be solved:

The studios had worked so hard to differentiate movies from television and create an experience that could not be duplicated at home, that now--somewhat ironically--solutions needed to be engineered for the technical problems of presenting those movies designed exclusively for theaters on home theater equipment.

The movies that studios made available on both Laserdisc and video tape were often poor quality transfers from the original films; the next article takes a look, with less backstabbing and fight scenes, hardly any sex, but a fair amount of surprise endings, and quite a lot of artistic genius and brilliant engineering.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM...49A926D00.html





Little big man

Hollywood Loves the Tiny Screen. Advertisers Don’t.
Laura M. Holson

Superman has the power to leap tall buildings. But leaping onto a cellphone screen is proving a little trickier.

Warner Brothers recently created a six-episode series of short videos for mobile devices based on the popular Superman television show, “Smallville.” The episodes tracked the history of Oliver Queen, the “Smallville” billionaire mayor who, like Clark Kent, has a superhero alter ego, the Green Arrow.

For Warner, it was a way to tell the Green Arrow story that might have otherwise been missed. “We were never able to do that in the show,” Lisa Gregorian, the executive vice president of worldwide television marketing for Warner Brothers Television Group, said of the “Smallville Legends” mobile series.

But while short, multiepisode cellphone series are growing in popularity, the lucrative advertising dollars prevalent in other entertainment segments — and which studios rely on for profit — have been slow to migrate to the supersmall screen. Sprint, which underwrote the series as part of an overall deal with Warner, was the only sponsor, Ms. Gregorian said.

In the two years since Fox Mobile and MTV Networks pioneered the market for cellphone programming, almost every major film and television studio is developing projects. But, for now, advertisers are reluctant to abandon traditional formats.

In 2006, $421 million was spent on mobile phone advertising, said a study by the market research firm eMarketer. By contrast, broadcast television advertising was estimated at $48 billion last year, according to the Universal McCann media agency.

“If you think about what the market could be from an advertising perspective, it is a dream,” said Linda Barrabee, an analyst for wireless mobile communications at the Yankee Group, a research firm in Boston.

“That’s why you see a lot of companies playing with different concepts and ideas,” she said, but added that “it’s hard to target advertising in a meaningful way. From a brand perspective, they haven’t figured it out.”

Even studio executives suggest that the explosive growth predicted is still some time away.

“In six months from now, we will be producing more of these,” Ms. Gregorian said about the “Smallville” episodes. “But an advertiser would have to pay us to develop content for wireless phones because right now there is no business model. There has to be a way to make money there.”

Alana Muller, director of wireless data marketing for Sprint, said companies are reluctant to sponsor ads because demand for video is still new. According to the Yankee Group, the number of mobile video viewers in the United States is about 5 million, 10 times more than in 2004 but still a small fraction of the 195 million mobile phone subscribers nationwide.

Ms. Muller said that Toyota sponsored advertising for mobile episodes created for the Fox television show “Prison Break.” But that was one of the few she could remember. Instead, wireless Internet promotions have proved more popular, she said.

Many in Hollywood are betting that interest in mobile video will be hastened by the debut of the new touch-screen iPhone from Apple, which are expected to begin selling this summer. With a 3 1/2-inch screen and no cumbersome keypad, many people believe it will be easier for Americans to watch movies and television shows like their peers in Europe and Asia readily do.

“The iPhone is going to shake things up and make cellphone companies look like they are behind the curve,” said Thomas Lesinski, president of digital entertainment for Paramount Pictures. “It is going to be good for us.”

Until then, studios continue to experiment. For fans of “Borat,” 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, which released the film in November, distributed 12 one-minute episodes last fall through several mobile phone carriers. The clips included “best of” highlights and unseen footage tailored for palm-size viewing.

“ ‘Borat’ was not a sweeping cinematic melodrama,” said Kevin Campbell, an executive vice president of marketing at 20th Century Fox. “We offered short, funny clips we thought people would like.”

They were so popular that the studio is developing others like it as advertisements. A small team of Fox marketers now solely focuses on how the company can more widely deliver other original content based on Fox movies through cellphones. Those include serials for “Live Free or Die Hard” and the “Fantastic Four” sequel scheduled for release this summer.

Television has so far proved the easiest to adapt to cellphones. Cellphone users who can’t get enough of Fox Television’s “American Idol” on Tuesday nights, can download the losers’ auditions to their phones the next day. MTV Networks currently offers original shows like “Dances from the Hood,” a 10-episode hip-hop series.

Indeed, there is no limit to what Viacom, MTV’s parent, won’t try; it has created 30 hours of programming for MTV, VH1 and other youth-oriented brands. To promote the MTV television hit “The Hills,” it distributed early footage to several wireless carriers narrated by the show’s host, Lauren Conrad.

“The notion that we have to hold out and be precious for television is gone,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music and Logo Group, which was one of the early adopters of mobile phone programming. “We’ll leak this stuff all the time.”

But even Mr. Toffler conceded there were challenges for even the savviest creators. While MTV wanted to offer music videos created by fans, Mr. Toffler said MTV “will edit the clips.”

“We’ve learned how to produce better content over time,” he said. “It is my ambition that before I die or get fired, I would like to do an original 90-minute movie, in non-linear fashion, which is told in three-minute bites.”

The question is whether anyone will pay to watch. Ms. Barrabee said there is a disconnect between what mobile users are willing to spend for video services and what wireless companies charge.

“It’s more like the Internet,” she said. “People are going to want things for free. Studios will have to come up with advertising-supported business models.”

Sony Pictures Television plans to create its own products specifically for the cellphone. It recently closed a deal with the Groundlings troupe, which will develop sketch comedy routines for cellphones. Jamie Erlicht, a co-president of programming and production at Sony Pictures Television said, “we are going to use it too as a tool to market original programming of traditional shows.”

In the summer of 2006, Sony created behind-the-scenes vignettes from the FX series “Rescue Me,” which were offered in three-minute installments on cellphones in-between the weekly television shows.

“We were trying to leverage the production,” said Mike Arrieta, executive vice president of digital distribution and mobile entertainment for Sony, adding that they had their own team on the set for filming.

Where studios could get into trouble, though, is if mobile phone episodes like these are viewed less as promotional material and more as pure entertainment. Unionized actors, directors and writers have already balked at creating videos and other material for the Web, saying they should be paid for the extra work. (Unionized workers are not paid extra to create promotional materials.)

One way to get around the situation is by creating animated episodes or hiring look-alike actresses instead. That is what Fox did early on. But the issue is expected to be a sticking point in the planned talks with the unions. Some unions are already monitoring how much advertising revenue studios are making.

Not surprising, studios are bracing for tough negotiations.

“I think everyone is trying to figure it out and decide how to deal with it,” said Zack Van Amburg, a co-president with Mr. Erlicht at Sony Pictures Television. “For now we are all in a ‘Let’s embrace it and it’s here’ mode. No one has the answer yet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/bu...ia/07cell.html





Digitally Crippled Entertainment

HBO Exec: Don't Call It DRM

People don't like DRM, perhaps that's just because it's such a smelly word. HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter thinks so, he wants to ditch the term DRM in favor of "DCE," or, "Digital Consumer Enablement." Speaking at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association show in Las Vegas, HBO's top techie said the new term would better describe all the peachy ways that copyright holders and providers could dictate how consumers access content:

Digital Consumer Enablement, would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators.

Zitter notes that HBO has HD on Demand movies ready to go, but can't serve them up due to piracy fears until it has better DRM in place. Excuse me, I should have said DCE in place. HBO's big concern is the analog hole--in essence the gap in DRM that lets consumers capture the unencrypted analog signal from an HD signal. He, apparently, would like to plug the hole, but can't due to meddlesome laws.

Theoretically, says Zitter, those analog outputs could be disabled, forcing consumers to use a secure digital connection to watch HD content. But current FCC rules don't give HBO or cable operators that power, in order to protect consumers who bought early HDTV sets that don't support digital copy protection. "They say we can't turn off the analog output," Zitter notes.

That's a bummer, Bob. Yet while it's easy to joke, Zitter's comments at the industry event are revelatory into the disconnect between content consumers and producers. Instead of addressing the problems its customers have with DRM, HBO's tech chief wants to call it by another name. It shows a fundamental distrust of the customer base. Some of Zitter's ideas are great--burn to own DVDs that would let customers download and burn their own movies on demand, or "early window exhibition" that would make HD versions of movies available the same day as their video or theatrical release. Yet these things are being held up, apparently, by an industry that's fearful of its inability to control where its content goes after it's released to consumers. My take is that if you make high quality content affordable, easily available, practical and portable (meaning that if I pay to download an HD movie I should be able to watch it on my set top, iPod, computer, PSP or elsewhere) most people will pay to use it, rather than steal it. To some extent, the iTunes Store has proved this over the past few years as its digital sales have skyrocketed. Even moreso has eMusic. Yet the former still has a DRM wrapper while the latter doesn't sell major label music. Yet in the next year, EMI is going to take the radical step of trusting its customers, offering high quality content without restrictions on when and how you can enjoy it. That--not new restrictions or crippling technologies--is digital consumer enablement.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/...xec_dont_.html





Does The MPAA Simply Make Up Piracy Numbers Out Of Thin Air?

Remember in the last few months how the movie industry was hyping up the idea that Canada was the center for camcording movies? This was bogus for many reasons -- with the biggest being that movies recorded in theaters on camcorders are a tiny, tiny part of the counterfeit market. It's much more common to actually get a movie leaked from an insider and then have the real copy spread around. However, the MPAA kept claiming (without any evidence) that Canada was a hotbed of this activity -- accounting for approximately 50% of camcorded movies. However, now the same movie industry is claiming that New York City is responsible for 40% of camcorded movies. That would mean that only 10% of camcorded movies come from outside New York City or Canada -- a number that hardly seems realistic especially given an entirely different report from the movie industry that highlighted how camcorded movies were happening in many states across the US.

It seems like the movie industry just makes up numbers. The reason they're doing so, of course, is to push for stronger legislation in their favor. So far, Canada has resisted, noting that it already has very strict laws when it comes to taping movies. However, the folks in NY weren't able to resist, and have now passed a new law upgrading the penalties for people caught taping movies. Instead of a $250 fine, you can now face a $5,000 fine and up to 6 months in jail. It's unclear how this is a victory for the movie industry. Insiders will still leak copies (that are much better in quality than camcorded ones) and they'll still be available on the internet.

Instead of focusing on pointless legal solutions, the industry would have been better off making the movie-going experience better so that people actually want to go out to the movies. In the meantime, though, why doesn't anyone ask the movie industry to actually back up the numbers they put forth?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070502/173805.shtml





The Future's Five Enemies (and How to Beat Them)
Nick Douglas

Wasn't it sci-fi author William Gibson who said "The future is here, it's just unevenly distributed among pithy sci-fi authors"? The future is indeed inevitable, but before it brings us a 24/7 carnival of worldwide post-scarcity, cyborg bodies, and Starbucks on Mars, it must fight enemies like the following five: Baby Boomers, the movie industry and music industries, cell providers, the government, and Web 2.0.

Baby Boomers
Hey, in their time, the Boomers did plenty to help the future. They were the first generation raised on TV. They started the sexual revolution and used the first cell phones. They saw the first walk on the moon and one of them is Prince, who is actually from the future.

But the Boomers have turned into their parents, and now they're cramping their children's style. And children are our future, so the Boomers are giving the future cramps. They're putting parental locks on the TV, driving big old inefficient cars, and gumming up the computers of Gen X and Gen Y with e-mail forwards.

They've started diverting all the biotech research money into stuff to make old age last longer and feel better. Which, in fact, is how they might become useful again to the future. We can skip the whole civilizational step of helper robots if the Gen Xers use the Boomers. Get these aging folks on enough meds and they'll turn their social mores back on themselves; it's better than the three laws of robotics. No one gets Social Security payments without seven years of manual labor. Bam! Two problems solved! Next enemy!

The movie industry
Now, the enemy isn't movies themselves. Movies have done a lot for the future, like reminding us that technology can be evil, unless it's used to make expensive special effects. The enemy is the industry that's risen around them, the people who never touch a camera but make all the money from movies.

Why are films literally wasting away in vaults instead of being preserved? Why does it still cost royalties to publicly perform "Happy Birthday"? Why, in fact, is nothing published after 1923 in the public domain? Because the movie industry, desperate to keep its rights over the first appearance of characters like Mickey Mouse (made by Disney, which has pulled in billions by exploiting fairy tales from the public domain), has successfully lobbied Congress to extend copyright terms 11 times in the past 40 years.

But that's not all they've done to stop the future from building on the past. The MPAA has also cracked down on copying of movies (even for one's personal use) and bottlenecked movies through a panel of raters. The hegemony keeps moviemakers from bucking the system without getting shut out.

One solution is to sit back and watch box office returns stagnate. This might make studios try even harder to keep control, but a mob of renegades is beating them back by grabbing, copying and spreading movies (often before they make it to DVD). A last solution is to just watch stuff made outside the system like YouTube videos and indie films. (No, it's not all crap; come to think of it, I'd rather watch the worst blond-girl lip-synch than "Kickin' It Old School.")

Much of what goes for the movies goes for music as well, but here the industry is more definitely losing the digital war. Until Apple goaded them, labels refused to release digital music without "digital rights management" that limited, for example, how many computers a user could load a song onto.

The RIAA also just killed internet radio by lobbying to make it damn near impossible to legally play a good stream of music for listeners without going bankrupt. This was all done in the name of protecting works from unauthorized copying. Earth to the RIAA: the protected streaming audio of legit internet radio was already one of the few things keeping some listeners from just downloading the whole album on Bittorrent and Limewire or just grabbing one song at a time from their favorite music blogs. (Pretty much every rock and indie song, for example, makes it onto the Hype Machine.)

As for how the future kills the RIAA: the constant barrage of piracy and industry pressure from digital distributors will force the old models out; cell phone ringtones and commercial licensing (Moby, for example, sold all but one track of his "Play" album before it hit stores) will provide plenty of new ways to make money from music.

Cell providers
Cellular providers make yet another great industry oxymoron. Device makers can't survive in the U.S. without tying themselves to a service provider, but providers want to lock down all the potential features in phones. Thank providers for GPS being so rare on phones; it's an intensive service that most customers may refuse to pay for, so cell companies would rather not implement it. And, of course, there are the two-year contracts that keep people from quickly shifting to the best service.

Even Apple had to pick a provider to ensure that its iPhone actually gets sold. But in doing so, the company helped pry open the business's reluctance to adopt new technologies. For example, a combination of wifi and cellular service in devices like the iPhone (some Windows Mobile devices already have this) will free up communication from slow cell service while shifting some of the bandwidth burden to the thousands of wifi providers scattered across the country.

Of course, for widespread wifi to truly decentralize wireless communication, we'll need to keep the landline phone/cable/internet providers from double-charging users and content/service providers (like Skype) for any significant use of bandwidth.

The government
Despite what the anarchocapitalists of Silicon Valley might believe, you can't really have progress without a government to keep civilization running smoothly. But damn if the government doesn't try to prove those anarchocapitalists wrong by stepping in the way of the future.

Remember all the nasty things the music and movie industries did to freedom of information and innovative digital delivery? They couldn't have done it without the help of the feds. The most heinous attack on innovation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which made it illegal to get around a copy protection program, to make a tool to do so, or to even attract attention to such a tool. That's why it's theoretically illegal to even link to this number, a key used to decrypt movies on HD-DVD.

Of course, that's just a fraction of the ways the government gets in the way of the future. There's also the reactionary approach to public health: Under the Bush administration, the federal government has blocked aid to countries that fund abortions, teach safe sex behavior other than abstinence, or help sex workers avoid getting and spreading STDs.

The same government is doing its damnedest to prevent us from even having a future, with an aggressive string of policies that could let industry push the world temperature up until sea levels rise and flood our coastal cities.

Wow, we actually get to try solving this one every couple years. Speaking of the next election, I hear Al Gore plans to finally run. His platform: He'll prevent rising sea levels by fighting global warming and by promising never to plunge his ever-expanding body into the ocean.

Web 2.0
Oh, thought this one was a joke, did you? How could the forefront of the tech industry be anti-future? Well when you think about it, what is Web 2.0 really doing for the future? Sure, we got Flickr and whatever, but now we're wallowing in a sea of consumer-generated crap that goes through "indie" and out the other end. The dot-com money's all back in the hands of Google, News Corp, and Yahoo, and the users are working for them for free.

While hype gets wasted on Web 2.0, the real progress is being made in biotech, nanotechnology, and other businesses that require real money. And as putrid as the phrase "Web 3.0" sounds, it could stand for the salvation of the corporatizing Web 2.0. The next edition of the web could reverse all this user generation through decentralized services like OpenID. With everything decentralized, content stays under the power of users and multiple sites, rather than residing on one service like Facebook or YouTube. Of course, before we can make this future, we'll have to figure out how to make boatloads of money from it.
http://www.valleywag.com/tech/wild-p...hem-259214.php





Last.fm: Video Marries the Radio Star
Nate Lanxon

Community music portal Last.fm has announced it's going to be launching a swanky video version of its popular Web 2.0 music service. The new music video portal will work in much the same way as the music side of the site, where streaming radio stations are dynamically created and tuned for you, based on your listening habits. The site aims to host every music video ever created.

This is a monumental goal, but with the right technology in place and the (pretty much guaranteed) input from its large community, the Last.fm effort has every chance of succeeding, and we sincerely hope it does. Our only concern is how much usage people will get from such a service. Do enough people sit at their computers watching an endless screening of music videos?

Oh, wait, what are those MTV and Kerrang! things again?

We don't want to seem negative, but one of the reasons MTV and similar stations have been so successful is that it's totally acceptable for it to just be on in the background while you've got some friends round. But the same setup doesn't really work on PCs, where video prevents you from doing other things (unlike audio). Can Last.fm justify its servers pumping out hours of streaming video bandwidth for people who aren't really paying attention to the video part for most of the time?

On the other hand, Last.fm's recommendation system has been hugely successful for audio, and a video system that works just as well could potentially be expanded to include other kinds of TV -- now that would be exciting. You like The West Wing, eh? Why not try Studio 60? Why, thank you Last.tv, that's a marvellous new show I would otherwise have been ignorant of.

The doorway for a Web 2.0 video channel is open and Last.fm is in the perfect position to say, "Y'see that doorway over there? That's SO ours!" -
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic...9290318,00.htm





Shock Radio, Playing Rough, Shrugs at Imus’s Fall
Jacques Steinberg

Almost two weeks after CBS Radio fired Don Imus for his racially and sexually demeaning remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Nick Di Paolo opened his talk show on another CBS station in New York by mocking a manual that, he said, one of his bosses had given him that morning.

The booklet was entitled “Words Hurt and Harm” and, as described by Mr. Di Paolo, it urged him and his brethren to avoid the sort of stereotypes that had not only upended Mr. Imus but had also just gotten two colleagues on WFNY (92.3 FM) suspended for broadcasting a six-minute prank call littered with slurs to a Chinese restaurant.

“Right away, we’re starting with a false premise,” Mr. Di Paolo told his listeners on April 25, just after noon. “Because words don’t hurt.”

He then proceeded to refer to someone in the studio who was apparently of Colombian descent as “a drug dealer,” before using an exercise in the manual as a springboard to the following observations: that “enough” Native Americans drank to make them fair game for a joke; that waiters in Chinese restaurants were “efficient” and “better than most, you know, other ethnic groups as waiters and waitresses”; and that Jewish mothers were “bad cooks and a little hairy.”

The part of the radio spectrum where Mr. Di Paolo holds forth each day — shows in which commentary and entertainment fuse, sometimes under the rubric of a morning or afternoon “zoo” — remains as arguably and insidiously untamed in the days after Mr. Imus’s collapse as it was before, based on a New York Times screening of nearly 250 hours of shock-talk radio broadcast over the last week.

Gay men and lesbians, and women and Muslims, among others, were frequent targets of ridicule; coarse, sexually explicit banter, particularly descriptions of anal and oral sex, proliferated, much of it reminiscent of the routines that once drew Howard Stern heavy penalties; and meanness appeared to be a job prerequisite, whether a host was belittling someone who called in or the unwitting subject of a prank call.

In a sense, the hosts of these shows are juggling live grenades each day, putting the companies that broadcast and sponsor them at the greatest risk of collateral damage, particularly as the smoke clears from the Imus affair.

After being told of Mr. Di Paolo’s comments, for example, officials of the New York State Lottery said they had decided to discontinue all advertising on his show. They also said they would no longer sponsor “Opie and Anthony,” a morning show on the same station, after being apprised of a line uttered by a comedian who is a regular guest. “Would it be possible, could you whistle ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ while I rape a girl?” the comedian had asked another guest, a professional whistler, in an old interview replayed on April 25.

All told, The Times listened to a dozen prominent shows on so-called terrestrial radio for five weekdays in a row. Some, like “Mancow’s Morning Madhouse,” out of Chicago, and “El Vacilón de la Mañana,” a Spanish-language program originating in New York, draw tens of thousands of listeners each day on multiple stations across the country. Others tend to reach a more regional audience, including “The Jersey Guys,” an afternoon talk show that is among the most popular in New Jersey, and “Steve and D.C.,” which has similar reach in St. Louis.

In one respect, Mr. Imus and the hole he dug for himself were unique: a nationally syndicated radio host who interviewed the powerful used his bully pulpit, not just on radio but also on a cable news network, to make a racially charged aside about largely defenseless victims.

And yet, in the weeks after his firing, the nation’s AM and FM airwaves have continued to crackle with the kind of crude remarks, off-color bits and unfiltered rage that might well run afoul of the standards that Mr. Imus was said by his employers, and critics, to have violated.

One morning late last month, for example, Mancow, the syndicated talk show host whose real name is Erich Muller and whose audience was estimated at 1.5 million by Talkers magazine as recently as last fall, could be heard dismissing a caller as a “brain-dead fetus” and a “late-term abortion that somehow crawled out of the Dumpster” after the man’s phone connection gave out.

Mr. Muller — whose show is heard prominently on AM talk radio in South Florida (the station call letters are WMEN, a nod to its format), as well as in Houston, Indianapolis and San Francisco — also suggested on the same broadcast that “radical Muslims” would not stop until they had flattened American religion like a steamroller.

His children, he predicted, “will probably be killed because I’m bringing them up Catholic, and maybe their children will be brainwashed and put into some sort of situation where they’re wearing a burka and they follow Shia law, because that’s what these radicalized Muslims want.”

He also mused about several other matters, including, “I just wonder why we care so much about Virginia Tech kids.” He quickly qualified the remark by saying, “Don’t pull that out of context,” before indicating that soldiers killed in Iraq deserved comparable gestures of mourning.

And that was just one day’s show.

Asked about the appropriateness of that host’s remarks in a post-Imus world, a representative for the company syndicating the show — Talk Radio Network, which also distributes the hosts Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham — said he would pass on the question to the company’s chief executive, Mark Masters, and to the show’s producer. Neither responded.

Meanwhile, a representative for one of the show’s advertisers — the American Council on Education, an association of colleges — said that the group had been unaware that its spots promoting higher education had run on the show. The commercials are part of a public service campaign created and donated by the Ad Council, said Terry Hartle, a spokesman for the college group.

“We will certainly talk with the Ad Council about that particular placement,” Mr. Hartle said.

Still, no targets on such shows — which are overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, led by disaffected white men like Mr. Muller — are fired at with greater frequency than women.

Last Monday Mr. Di Paolo, a stand-up comic whose show on 92.3 “Free FM” in New York is heard by nearly 160,000 people each week (ranking it 27th in the market, according to Arbitron), proposed that homeless women be employed to monitor traffic.

“Go to the women’s shelter,” he said. “Get a bunch of chicks with black eyes and one tooth.”

On April 27, in an extended rant in support of Alec Baldwin’s right to lose his temper in private, he wondered about the last film role of the actor’s former wife, Kim Basinger. “What did she play?” Mr. Di Paolo asked. “An old tampon?”

Asked about the propriety of Mr. Di Paolo’s comments — especially in light of the action taken by CBS Radio against Mr. Imus and “J.V. and Elvis,” the hosts suspended over their prank against the Chinese restaurant — Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for the company, declined to comment. Reached on Friday night, Mr. Di Paolo said he knew that in the current climate, his reluctance to filter his harshest opinions could ultimately cost him his show, which began on WFNY in December.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” said Mr. Di Paolo, 45, who has been working as a comedian for nearly two decades. “It’s got to stop somewhere. And I’m hoping they say enough is enough — not as far as what I do, but as far as censoring people.”

He added, “At least with my show, I take shots at everybody.”

Across the Hudson River earlier in the week, the hosts of the “Jersey Guys” show on WKXW (101.5 FM) in Trenton, among the most popular in the state, were imagining the sex life of Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

Having decided a few days earlier that the governor’s girlfriend had surely cleared his hospital room to give him “a little servicing” after his car accident, they were now encouraging the governor, as he continued his recovery at his mansion, to find additional female companionship.

“I’d get bitches, wouldn’t you?” said Craig Carton, one of the hosts, on their April 30 program, which was simulcast live on the radio station’s Web site. “Poolside bitches ... with big leaves to fan the governor down after exhausting physical therapy, maybe a little massage.”

“That should be his new mantra,” Mr. Carton added. “I’m the governor, I’ve had a reawakening, I now believe everyone should have poolside bitches.”

Such talk was mild, though, when measured against what is offered every morning on Spanish-language radio, the Wild West of the medium.

Just as Mr. Imus’s show might have featured an interview with a presidential candidate followed by a bawdy imitation of Cardinal Edward M. Egan, “El Traketeo,” a morning show on an FM station owned by Univision in Miami (its title roughly translates as “the uproar” or “the hoax”) toggles between weighty discussion of matters like immigration and chatter that borders on the pornographic.

On April 26, for example, the show, heard by an estimated 142,000 listeners each week, broadcast a parody of a salsa song in which a man pleaded with his girlfriend for anal sex.

“I understand that you’re afraid,” he said. “Relax a little.”

A day later the show’s hosts conducted a phone interview about rising property taxes with Marco Rubio, a Republican from Miami who is speaker of the State House of Representatives. Sometime after Mr. Rubio hung up, the show broadcast another song parody, this one about a man whose life is being cramped by the taxes Mr. Rubio is trying to cut.

I had to have sex in a bus, the singer laments, because “I couldn’t afford the motel.”

Asked if Mr. Rubio had been aware of the shenanigans that are part of the show’s daily diet, a spokeswoman for him, Jill Chamberlin, said that he appreciated “the opportunity Univision has given him to get the cut-property-tax message out to the citizens.”

Whether the Federal Communications Commission or Congress will step up sanctions against radio programs after Mr. Imus’s firing remains unknown. The commission does not actively monitor such shows — it relies on listener complaints to initiate investigations — and even then, harsh or racy speech is often protected by the First Amendment.

Which is not to say that the F.C.C. is not paying attention: in 2004 the hosts of “El Vacilón de la Mañana,” a show that until recently originated in Miami on WXDJ FM, were fined $4,000 by the commission for broadcasting a prank call to Fidel Castro, who apparently thought he was speaking to Hugo Chávez; they have since left the station.

Emmis Communications, which had broadcast Mr. Muller’s show on its FM station in Chicago, let him go last summer, two years after it had agreed to pay $300,000 to settle indecency complaints against his show.

Still, employers may not wait for the government, choosing instead to apply their own standards, particularly if advertisers begin to object.

After Mr. Imus’s comments about the mostly black Rutgers team, the hosts on two predominantly black stations in New York — WQHT (97.1 FM) and WBLS (107.5) — have made references on their programs to the need to police themselves, and their callers, better.

Tarsha Nicole Jones, who as “Miss Jones” is host of a show on WQHT that reaches nearly 700,000 listeners a week, has taken to using “wenches” and “itches” as substitutes for harsher words, and she reprimanded a caller on Monday for using a common racial slur twice.

Later the show ran a stentorian public service announcement that said, “Due to new regulations regarding the use of language, the ‘Miss Jones Show’ has made the appropriate adjustments.”

Reporting was contributed by Terry Aguayo, Rebecca Cathcart, Bob Driehaus, Theo Emery, Ann Farmer, Malcolm Gay, Jon Hurdle, Carolyn Marshall, Lori Moore, Regan Morris, Colin Moynihan and Andrea Zarate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/bu...ia/06talk.html





Record Labels Propose Extending Royalties to All Radio
Scott M. Fulton, III

As a means of eliminating the appearance of disparity between the performance royalties about to be charged to US Internet streaming music providers such as AOL Radio and Pandora, and what terrestrial broadcasters pay for the same privilege - which, for that category, is currently zero - lobbyists representing the recording industry, according to Billboard magazine, are pressuring Congress to resolve this problem by extending essentially the same sharply higher performance royalty rates to all broadcasters.

If such a measure were to become law, an industry which once had the problem of overcoming the appearance of paying off radio broadcasters to increase the airplay for their songs -- a practice known as "payola" -- would begin charging broadcasters in all media for the privilege of having their songs played.

In response, National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO David Rehr is asking senators to oppose what he describes as a "performance tax." "Not only would this new performance tax upend the longstanding mutually beneficial business relationship that exists today between record labels, recording artists and broadcasters," Rehr writes, "but it would have a serious financial impact on broadcasters that could affect their ability to serve their local markets."

According to the Billboard report which was repeated in The Hollywood Reporter, the coalition backing lobbyists' efforts include representatives of record labels, plus the RIAA, musicians' and vocalists' unions, the Recording Artists Coalition, and the SoundExchange organization which would serve as the royalties collection body.

For seven decades, radio stations have paid royalties that are distributed to songwriters, and for most of that time, performance rights organizations (PROs) such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC have served as songwriters' representatives. Long-standing agreements between bargaining groups representing broadcasters and these PROs have limited royalty fees to amounts the stations could live with - for the smallest stations, as little as $972 per year to all three PROs combined.

The passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 introduced into US law the concept of relatively higher value for digital content than for traditional analog. This enabled the recording industry -- which holds copyrights on the performance of music as opposed to the authorship of it -- to acquire the right to charge royalties to digital music streamers and distributors (such as iTunes), on the basis that a digital performance essentially constituted a duplication of that performance. Such fees would theoretically offset losses caused by any piracy that emerged from that duplication.

Up to this point, terrestrial radio broadcasters have never had to pay performance royalties, on the basis that analog performances did not constitute duplications. Now, it appears that the "digital performance = duplication" argument may be in the midst of replacement in favor of a less technical, more populist argument centering on the rights of performers - people whose work appears in music, even if they didn't write the music - to be compensated for their work.

But a report published today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (PDF available here) suggests that performers appearing in popular music haven't exactly gone poor all these years.

With regard to the new populist argument adopted by the recording industry, the ITIF writes, "Considering the historical relationship between the music industry and terrestrial radio there seems to be little merit to this argument. Terrestrial radio could not exist without the music provided by the record labels; however, they have managed to avoid paying royalty fees for sound recordings. On the other hand, the record labels depend on terrestrial radio to create hits, promote their music and drive music sales. If copyright owners could establish separate royalty fees for each sound recording, some copyright owners would actually allow radio stations to broadcast their music for free and some would even pay the radio station. Getting your music played on the radio provides a huge boost for an artist."

The NAB may end up being a strange bedfellow for Internet radio providers who would also prefer the possibility of compromise. Two weeks ago, webcasters were upset by a statement from NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton, which included the sentence, "We will work with Congress to craft a solution that helps ensure the survival of a fledgling audio platform."

As USC Professor of Music Industry Jerry Del Colliano responded last week in his Inside Music Media blog, "Hell, the only reason it's fledgling is because it has been in a battle for its economic life over royalty rates for years. That doesn't really create stability or set the atmosphere right for growth. When universal WiFi is available, Internet radio will be the next radio...See, another reason why the National Association of Broadcasters might want to be seen as useful to this 'fledgling' group."


5:00 pm ET May 10, 2007 - While all this was going on, Senators Ron Wyden (D - Ore.) and Sam Brownback (R - Kansas) (a candidate for President) introduced a Senate version of the Internet Radio Equality Act on the floor of the House, presumably in an effort to expedite the bill's passage through both houses of Congress.

If a merged form of this legislation does pass -- as current bipartisan support indicates is likely -- then any effort by the recording industry coalition to make terrestrial broadcasters pay the same performance royalty rates as Internet radio streamers, may be limited by new caps the Act would impose, which are based on royalty rates currently paid by XM and Sirius satellite radio.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Reco...dio/1178829868





Congress Gets Earful on Net Neutrality, CableCARD, YouTube From Video Execs
Nate Anderson

Ah, elected representatives, where would we be without you and your endless hearings?

Today's hearing of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet gathered Mark Cuban, Blake Krikorian of Sling Media, Chad Hurley of YouTube, and Tom Rogers of TiVo for a discussion about "The Future of Video." Sounds interesting, no? Sadly, the most interesting bit of information gleaned from the hearing was that Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) has an iPod, and that it "holds the kind of music not normally heard enough on the airwaves: classical music." We did learn a few other things: YouTube's founder sees the company as a force for democracy, Mark Cuban thinks bandwidth will make network neutrality irrelevant, and CableCARDs may not solve all the problems they're supposed to solve.

After hearing from the various representatives, who waxed eloquent about new services like "Joust" (Joost), the panel members gave a series of eight-minute presentations. Several of them were essentially sales pitches for a company's products (the lengthy MediaFLO video, in particular, was a minutes-long marketing pitch), with Krikorian even telling the august group of representatives that they should all buy a Slingbox. Ed Markey (D-MA), who oversaw the hearing, had kind words for everyone: Mark Cuban was a "revolutionary," Phil Rosenthal of Everybody Loves Raymond infamy was a "creative genius," and TiVo has "revolutionized my life."

YouTube, which has not apparently revolutionized Markey's life yet, has big plans to revolutionize the world political scene, according to founder Chad Hurley. "I hope I don't mess this up," he told the committee at the start of his testimony, "because if I do it could end up on YouTube." Cue the laughter.

After showing a cute bit of user-generated footage from the site, Hurley laid out YouTube's three main goals: to promote community, advance democracy, and create economic growth. Wait, what's that about "democracy"?

His company wants to "create the world's largest town hall," Hurley said, where everyone in the world has equal opportunity to be heard. YouTube isn't just a good way to share Daily Show clips and motorcycle wipeout footage, it's also a great forum for the free exchange of ideas. It's an interesting argument—YouTube as defender of democracy— and it presents a positive vision of the company at odds with one that the representatives have been getting from content owners (one of the first questions to Hurley was about why he didn't proactively remove copyrighted content).

Who needs network neutrality?

Cuban, who loves to play the contrarian, wasn't there to talk about his own companies but to argue that it's "no longer the case at all technology improves with age." Now that the consumer Internet has matured, Cuban argues that it needs significant investment in last-mile infrastructure, specifically fiber, and he encouraged the subcommittee to do anything it could to help this happen.

While the Internet's fiber backbone is in no danger of running out of capacity, last-mile bottlenecks (especially through twisted-pair wiring) make the system "pretty weak" for transmitting video. Even peer-to-peer networks, sometimes pitched as a solution to the problem, simply spread distribution from the center of the network, where bandwidth is available, to the edges, where bandwidth is constrained. Cuban was essentially making an extended argument for laying fiber everywhere.

With fiber connections in place, the network neutrality issue simply disappears, he believes. It "goes away completely as bandwidth constraints go away," he said, likening the system to a highway. If the highway has 1,000 lanes, there's no need for special HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes or other expressways, as there's plenty of room for everyone to move at top speed.

TiVo: Cable industry threatens CableCARD standard

For Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, the hearing was like coming home, as Rogers served as chief counsel to the same committee for many years back in the 80s. After talking about where TiVo was today, Rogers told the committee that his main worry was CableCARDs.
CableCARD was supposed to free consumers from the cable company's set-top box, allowing them to plug the small card into any device they wanted (set-top box, TiVo, television, etc.) and to decode encrypted digital cable streams. This is essential for TiVo, which would otherwise be at the mercy of the cable companies. TiVo has done battle with the cable industry many times, urging the FCC to stand strong on its CableCARD support.

Over industry objections, the FCC has mandated an integration ban that will go into effect this summer and will prohibit cable companies from offering set-top boxes with integrated security. Essentially, everyone will be on a level playing field because everyone will need to use a CableCARD.

From TiVo's perspective, that means the problem is solved, and the company can continue to build innovative products without requiring permission from the various cable operators. But Rogers told the committee today that TiVo was facing a new threat that would make CableCARDs useless: the deployment of switched digital signals from cable operators. These two-way signals are incompatible with one-way CableCARDs, and Rogers made the point in both his testimony and in questions afterward that his company absolutely needed access to video signals to survive. He didn't call for any specific action, instead telling the committee that the cable industry has promised to work out a solution to the current problem.

Overall, the event was a bit scattershot, covering everything from HD television to intellectual property issues to CableCARDs. But at least the House is willing to educate itself by hearing from consumer darlings like TiVo, YouTube, and Sling, not just the content owners who have attempted to shut them down.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...democracy.html





Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining
Keach Hagey

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.

The news didn't make everyone all googly-eyed. In fact, some people at the paper's annual stockholders meeting in the New Amsterdam Theatre exchanged confused looks when Janet Robinson, the company's president and CEO, uttered the phrase "data mining." Wasn't that the nefarious, 21st-century sort of snooping that the National Security Agency was doing without warrants on American citizens? Wasn't that the whole subject of the prizewinning work in December 2005 by Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen?

And hadn't the company's chairman and publisher, Pinch Sulzberger, already trotted out Pulitzers earlier in the program?

Yes, yes, and yes. But Robinson was talking about money this time. Data mining, she told the crowd, would be used "to determine hidden patterns of uses to our website." This was just one of the many futuristic projects in the works by the newspaper company's research and development department. Heck, she added, the R&D department, when it was founded several years back, was "a concept unique in the industry."

These days, of course, all media outlets—not just the Times—are trying to bulk up their online presence, and many are desperately attempting to learn more about their readers' habits and then target ads to them. The old-line newspaper companies in particular are under immense pressure to figure out how to make double-digit leaps in profits annually—something they didn't have to worry about doing before websites spirited away huge chunks of newspapers' classified advertisers.

Not that anyone would confuse an old-line media company like the Times with a modern data expert like Google, but Sulzberger himself made kind of a comparison earlier in the stockholders' meeting. Morgan Stanley and other investors have ragged on the Times for having a two-tiered stock structure that protects the powerful voting shares from falling into the "wrong" hands. Sulzberger reminded the crowd that Google stock, that most coveted of Wall Street delicacies, also comes in two tiers.

But that's business. Do readers really want data-mining behavior from their newspapers—not just the Times but every other big media outlet? Do they want newspaper databases to store reading histories, minute by minute, until one day the government shows up to examine ordinary citizens' shopping and viewing and chatting habits in detail? If you think it can't happen, ask the librarians who've been told to hand over readers' checkout records under the Patriot Act.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, agrees that the prospect of a media-compiled reader-habit database is worrisome.

"My concern is, what happens when the government comes in and subpoenas it?" he says. "It's bad news to keep long, deep storehouses of information about how people use the Internet."

Harper notes that the Justice Department has been pushing since last spring for a "data retention" law that would require Internet service providers to warehouse their customers' online activity for the convenience of government investigators.

Ancient Times man Arthur Gelb made this hardly surprising observation to the Observer the other day: "Some day we'll all be reading our papers electronically." But the problem with reading papers electronically is that they can also read you.
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/...6522%2C15.html





Online Ads vs. Privacy
Dan Mitchell

FOR advertisers, and in many ways for consumers, online advertising is a blessing. Customized messages rescue advertisers from the broad reach of traditional media. And consumers can learn about products and services that appeal directly to them.

But there are huge costs, and many dangers, warns Jennifer Granick, the executive director for the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society (wired.com). To approach individuals with customized advertising, you have to know who they are. Or at least, you have to gather enough personal information about them that their identity could be easily figured out.

This has been an issue for a long time, of course, but as technology has improved and sources of data have multiplied, the problem has, in the eyes of many privacy advocates, reached a tipping point. Last fall, Ms. Granick notes, the Center for Digital Democracy filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission calling for “injunctive relief” and detailing how the combination of user profiling, data mining and targeted advertising threaten privacy (democraticmedia.org).

That group’s executive director, Jeff Chester, faced off with Mike Zaneis, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s vice president for public policy, last week at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Montreal (cfp2007.org).

Mr. Chester, she reported, argued that the information collected by many Web sites — browsing histories, search histories, wish lists, preferences, purchase histories — is amassed and manipulated in ways consumers never know about. And they often collect Internet Protocol addresses, which usually can be easily traced to individual users.

“They don’t need to know your name to know who you are,” Mr. Chester said.

Mr. Zaneis dressed well and sported “a John Edwards-quality coif and a smooth manner,” Ms. Granick wrote, as he faced “a hostile, privacy-loving crowd.”

She wrote that he “stressed that profiling does not capture” personally identifiable information.

Even if that is true, people like Kaliya Hamlin still say that collecting data about the online activities of individuals can amount to an invasion of privacy. Ms. Hamlin, known as The Identity Woman, is a privacy advocate and consultant. “My clickstream data is sensitive information,” she told Mr. Zaneis, “and it belongs to me.”

On her blog, though, Ms. Hamlin wrote that she found the whole affair frustrating. It was, she wrote, the “angry, progressive anticonsumer guy vs. the super-corporate marketing guy.”

The answers, she wrote, lie somewhere between those positions. “The ‘activist types’ tend to deny that we are people who actually might want to buy things in a marketplace,” she wrote. “The ‘corporate types’ tend to think that we always want to have ‘advertising’ presented to us at all times of day or night because we ‘want it.’ Neither view is really right.”

Her solution is essentially to give consumers ownership of their data and the power to decide whether or not to share it with marketers (kaliyasblogs.net/Iwoman).

Pretty Cool Hotmapping, a “geo-rectifying” British company, uses spy planes to conduct thermal surveys of some neighborhoods to determine which homes are leaking heat — and therefore, money (hotmapping.co.uk). “Now here’s an invasion of privacy I can really get behind,” writes Chris Taylor, who writes the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. (blogs.business2.com/futureboy) Local governments post thermal maps on the Web. Blue buildings are “cool,” red houses are “hot,” and wasting energy.

Owners who do not take action “will be shamed in front of the whole neighborhood as energy hogs,” Mr. Taylor writes. “Green action groups will know which doors to knock on.”

Sartrean Gag Gift Going the Pet Rock one better, a British outfit, I Want One of Those, is selling a product called Nothing. It is a small plastic sphere that contains, well, nothing. It is aimed at “the person who has everything” and costs $6.28 (iwantoneofthose.com). Charlie White of Gizmodo writes that “undoubtedly, some suckers are buying it” (gizmodo.com).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/te.../12online.html





Escaping the Data Panopticon: Prof Says Computers Must Learn to "Forget"
Nate Anderson

The rise of fast processors and cheap storage means that remembering, once incredibly difficult for humans, has become simple. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, a professor in Harvard's JFK School of Government, argues that this shift has been bad for society, and he calls instead for a new era of "forgetfulness."

Mayer-Schönberger lays out his idea in a faculty research working paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing," where he describes his plan as reinstating "the default of forgetting our societies have experienced for millennia."

Why would we want our machines to "forget"? Mayer-Schönberger suggests that we are creating a Benthamist panopticon by archiving so many bits of knowledge for so long. The accumulated weight of stored Google searches, thousands of family photographs, millions of books, credit bureau information, air travel reservations, massive government databases, archived e-mail, etc., can actually be a detriment to speech and action, he argues.

"If whatever we do can be held against us years later, if all our impulsive comments are preserved, they can easily be combined into a composite picture of ourselves," he writes in the paper. "Afraid how our words and actions may be perceived years later and taken out of context, the lack of forgetting may prompt us to speak less freely and openly."

In other words, it threatens to make us all politicians.

In contrast to omnibus data protection legislation, Mayer-Schönberger proposes a combination of law and software to ensure that most data is "forgotten" by default. A law would decree that "those who create software that collects and stores data build into their code not only the ability to forget with time, but make such forgetting the default." Essentially, this means that all collected data is tagged with a new piece of metadata that defines when the information should expire.

In practice, this would mean that iTunes could only store buying data for a limited time, a time defined by law. Should customers explicitly want this time extended, that would be fine, but people must be given a choice. Even data created by users—digital pictures, for example—would be tagged by the cameras that create them to expire in a year or two; pictures that people want to keep could simply be given a date 10,000 years in the future.

Mayer-Schönberger wants to help us avoid becoming digital pack rats, and he wants to curtail the amount of time that companies and governments can collate data about users and citizens "just because they can." Whenever there's a real need to do so, data can be retained, but setting the default expiration date forces organizations to decide if they truly do need to retain that much data forever.

It's a "modest" proposal, according to Mayer-Schönberger, but he recognizes that others may see it as "simplistic" or "radical." To those who feel like they are living in a panopticon, it might feel more like a chink in the wall through which fresh air blows.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...to-forget.html





Shredded East German Secret Police Files Being Reassembled by Computer
AP

German researchers said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms.

The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders.

So great was the task that it overwhelmed the shredding machines, and a large number of the documents were torn by hand into between eight and thirty pieces.

Some 16,250 sacks containing pieces of 45 million shredded documents were found and confiscated after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Reconstruction work began 12 years ago but 24 people have been able to reassemble the contents of only 323 sacks.

"Many important documents are slumbering in these sacks," Marianne Birthler, head of the Stasi archives, told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Berlin's Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology estimates that putting everything back together by hand would take 30 people 600 to 800 years.

Researchers are hopeful they will be able to put together 400 sacks in two years using new computer technology employed by the Frauenhofer Institute.

If the government-funded $8.53 million pilot project is successful, head researcher Bertram Nickolay said, researchers will be able to put together all of the bags in four to five years.

Using algorithms developed 15 years ago to help decipher barely legible lists of Nazi concentration camp victims, each individual strip of the shredded Stasi files will be scanned on both sides. The data then will be fed into the computer for interpretation using color recognition; texture analysis; shape and pattern recognition; machine and handwriting analysis and the recognition of forged official stamps, Nickolay said in a statement.

Hand-torn documents are expected to be the easiest to reassemble, because the pieces can be matched together by shape, like a complicated puzzle.

Putting the machine-shredded documents together requires analysis of the script on the surface of the fragments. The institute has already had success putting together similarly destroyed documents for Germany's tax authorities.
http://www.komotv.com/news/national/7423656.html





Breaking the Code: How Credit-Card Data Went Out Wireless Door

Biggest known theft came from retailer with old, weak security
Joseph Pereira

The biggest known theft of credit-card numbers in history began two summers ago outside a Marshalls discount clothing store near St. Paul, Minn.

There, investigators now believe, hackers pointed a telescope-shaped antenna toward the store and used a laptop computer to decode data streaming through the air between hand-held price-checking devices, cash registers and the store's computers. That helped them hack into the central database of Marshalls' parent, TJX Cos. in Framingham, Mass., to repeatedly purloin information about customers.

The $17.4-billion retailer's wireless network had less security than many people have on their home networks, and for 18 months the company -- which also owns T.J. Maxx, Home Goods and A.J. Wright -- had no idea what was going on. The hackers, who have not been found, downloaded at least 45.7 million credit- and debit-card numbers from about a year's worth of records, the company says. A person familiar with the firm's internal investigation says they may have grabbed as many as 200 million card numbers all told from four years' records.

The previous record for card numbers exposed to thieves was 40 million. The TJX hackers also got personal information such as driver's license numbers, military identification and Social Security numbers of 451,000 customers -- data that could be used for identity theft. The company has apologized for its security lapse and beefed up its system. It rejects the 200 million figure as speculation, but says it may never know the precise number. TJX deleted its own copies of the records stolen by the hackers and can't crack the encryption on files that the hackers left in its system.

The cost of the fraud may take years to count. Banks could spend $300 million to replace cards from just one year's worth of stolen numbers, even though about half the numbers were expired and some were hidden in some of the stolen data. TJX, which discovered the fraud in December, privately projected $20 million in fraudulent transactions from the breach, according to people familiar with the company's internal probe.

In March, police in Florida charged just one gang with buying some of the hacked TJX card data and using it to steal $8 million in small transactions at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Sam's Club and other stores across the state. TJX-related fraud has occurred in at least six other states and at least eight countries from Mexico to China, bankers and investigators say. They are still working to find all the stolen numbers.

"All bankers are talking about these days is the TJX situation," says Boyd R. Boudreaux, chief executive of Fidelity Homestead Association, a small Louisiana savings bank that so far has been hit with $23,000 in losses from the fraud. At a recent meeting of about 200 New England banking officials in Keene, N.H., a moderator asked who was still getting lists of compromised cards connected to the TJX breach. Nearly everyone raised their hands, says Daniel J. Forte, president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, who was there. His association is suing TJX, in one of 21 U.S. and Canadian lawsuits seeking damages from the retailer.

The ease and scale of the fraud expose how poorly some companies are protecting their customers' data on wireless networks, which transmit data by radio waves that are readily intercepted. The incident also has renewed debate about who should be financially responsible. Banks that issue credit and debit cards so far have borne the brunt of the TJX losses, as opposed to the retailer or the credit-card networks such as Visa or MasterCard. Banks' lobbyists and some legislators have started pushing for laws to make the party that lets the data slip responsible for the costs.

Individual consumers so far have largely been covered for the fraudulent TJX charges. Debit-card holders legally can be held liable for unauthorized transactions if they don't report the fraud within 60 days, while credit-card customers can only be liable for the first $50 in fraudulent charges.

Temporary Scare

Eleanor Dunning of Dana Point, Calif., got a temporary scare last fall when she opened her monthly Bank of America Visa bill: There were $45,000 in charges for gift cards from a Wal-Mart in Florida. "What I saw was a whole page of $450 charges, all identical and all in a row, all from the same place," she says. The bank removed the charges and issued her a new card, she said. When TJX's security breach was disclosed and she realized she was a victim of it, she decided to stop shopping at Marshalls.

TJX's breach-related bill could surpass $1 billion over five years -- including costs for consultants, security upgrades, attorney fees, and added marketing to reassure customers, but not lawsuit liabilities -- estimates Forrester Research, a market and technology research firm in Cambridge, Mass. The security upgrade alone could cost $100 million, says Jon Olstik, a senior analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group, a Milford, Mass., consulting firm, based on his conversations with industry experts and people familiar with the work being done.

TJX declined to comment on those numbers, but says it is undertaking a "thorough, painstaking investigation of the breach," hiring a team of 50 data security experts in December and taking a charge of $5 million in its first fiscal quarter. It says it will also pay for a credit-card fraud monitoring service to help avert identity theft for customers whose Social Security numbers were stolen. "We believe customers should feel safe shopping in our stores," says a letter from Chief Executive Carol Meyrowitz posted on TJX's Web site.

When wireless data networks exploded in popularity starting around 2000, the data was largely shielded by a flawed encoding system called Wired Equivalent Privacy, or WEP, that was quickly pierced. The danger became evident as soon as 2001, when security experts issued warnings that they were able to crack the encryption systems of several major retailers.

By 2003, the wireless industry was offering a more secure system called Wi-Fi Protected Access or WPA, with more complex encryption. Many merchants beefed up their security, but others including TJX were slower to make the change. An auditor later found the company also failed to install firewalls and data encryption on many of its computers using the wireless network, and didn't properly install another layer of security software it had bought. The company declined to comment on its security measures.

The hackers in Minnesota took advantage starting in July 2005. Though their identities aren't known, their operation has the hallmarks of gangs made up of Romanian hackers and members of Russian organized crime groups that also are suspected in at least two other U.S. cases over the past two years, security experts say. Investigators say these gangs are known for scoping out the least secure targets and being methodical in their intrusions, in contrast with hacker groups known in the trade as "Bonnie and Clydes" who often enter and exit quickly and clumsily, sometimes strewing clues behind them.

The TJX hackers did leave some electronic footprints that show most of their break-ins were done during peak sales periods to capture lots of data, according to investigators. They first tapped into data transmitted by hand-held equipment that stores use to communicate price markdowns and to manage inventory. "It was as easy as breaking into a house through a side window that was wide open," according to one person familiar with TJX's internal probe. The devices communicate with computers in store cash registers as well as routers that transmit certain housekeeping data.

After they used that data to crack the encryption code the hackers digitally eavesdropped on employees logging into TJX's central database in Framingham and stole one or more user names and passwords, investigators believe. With that information, they set up their own accounts in the TJX system and collected transaction data including credit-card numbers into about 100 large files for their own access. They were able to go into the TJX system remotely from any computer on the Internet, probers say.

Encrypted Messages

They were so confident of being undetected that they left encrypted messages to each other on the company's network, to tell one another which files had already been copied and avoid duplicating work. The company says the hackers may even have lifted bank-card information as customers making purchases waited for their transactions to be approved. TJX transmitted that data to banks "without encryption," it acknowledged in an SEC filing. That violates credit-card company guidelines, experts say.

While the hackers were stealing the data, they were selling it on the Internet on password-protected sites used by gangs who then run up charges using fake cards printed with the numbers, investigators say.

The problems first surfaced at credit-card issuers such as Fidelity Homestead, the Louisiana savings bank. Its customers were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when they began seeing strange transactions on their credit-card bills in November 2005, says Richard Fahr, Fidelity's security officer. First there were unauthorized transactions from Wal-Mart stores in Mexico, and then fraud started surfacing in Southern California, Mr. Fahr says.

Using bogus debit cards containing the data of just a handful of customers, thieves purchased $5,600 worth of goods from Jan. 18 to Jan. 21, 2006. Over the four-day period, they made 25 shopping trips, moving among California supermarkets, department stores, a drug store and a videogame retailer, ringing up charges ranging between $57 and $561. The real cardholders were in Louisiana at the time, Mr. Fahr said.

Fidelity had no idea how the thieves had managed to obtain the debit-card data. "At that time TJX wasn't even in my vocabulary," he says.

Last fall, a spate of fraudulent card purchases appeared in Florida, where police now say a band of 10 thieves traveled in rented cars purchasing gift cards from Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, using bogus credit cards stolen from hundreds of TJX customers. Within four months, the gang bought $8 million worth of gift cards and used them to buy flat-screen TVs, computers and other electronics across 50 of the state's 67 counties.

"They covered a lot of territory in a relatively short period of time," says Dominick Pape, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The thieves gradually became bolder, with one of them eventually making $35,000 in fraudulent purchases in a single day, police said.

Marilyn Oliver, of San Marcos, Calif., received a phone call from Bank of America alerting her that 40 $400 gift cards had been purchased with her Visa card from cashiers at a single Florida Wal-Mart. "It sort of unnerves you," she says. "I'm very cautious, I shred everything."

Suspicious Purchases

A Wal-Mart clerk in Gainesville, Fla., eventually became suspicious of multiple gift-card purchases and alerted authorities, who reviewed store surveillance tapes and card transaction data at numerous Wal-Mart outlets before making arrests.

As the stolen TJX numbers were being used in Florida, the company was getting a stern warning about its poor security from a routine audit. The auditor told the company last Sept. 29 that it wasn't complying with many of the requirements imposed by Visa and MasterCard, according to a person familiar with the report. The auditor's report cited the outmoded WEP encryption and missing software patches and firewalls.

Then on Dec. 18, another auditor found anomalies in the company's card data. At that point, TJX hired forensics experts from International Business Machines Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. and notified the U.S. Secret Service, which spent a month trying to catch the hackers in the act. But the data thefts stopped and the hackers had obscured their whereabouts by using the Internet addresses of private individuals and public places such as coffee houses. Investigators did find traces of the hackers: altered computer files, suspicious software and some mixed-up data such as time stamps in the wrong order.

On Jan. 17, the company announced its systems had been hacked, affecting "a limited number of credit and debit card holders." It began sending lists of compromised numbers to credit-card issuers as it pored through the data. Some fraudulent activity has continued to pop up this year.

'Hot Lists'

Only last month did Fidelity in Louisiana find out the fraudulent charges in 2005 were linked to the TJX breach, when its card numbers showed up on one of TJX's "hot lists" of stolen cards. New lists keep arriving, and losses for the small bank have climbed from about $7,000 to about $23,000. "The fraud cuts right into our profits," says Fidelity's Mr. Fahr. He says the credit union has asked Visa to reimburse it for the losses, but the credit-card association so far hasn't done so. Visa declined to comment.

Chuck Bower, the chief technical officer of Middlesex Savings Bank, Natick, Mass., says about 18,000 of its Visa debit cards were stolen by TJX thieves, with "at least three dozen claims of fraudulent activities," mostly committed in January and February. The thefts have occurred in Italy, Australia, Mexico and Japan, Mr. Bower reports. Robert Mitchell, chief financial officer of the retail division of Eagle Bank Corp., in Lowell, Mass., says 1,300 of its MasterCards were compromised. The bank has replaced all of them.

Lobbying by banking associations since disclosure of the TJX breach has helped persuade lawmakers in several states and in Congress to consider new legislation. One bill in Massachusetts would impose full financial responsibility for any fraud-related losses, including costs of reissuing of cards, on companies whose security systems are breached. Another bill, in Minnesota, would bar any company from storing any consumer data after a transaction is authorized and completed.

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in March he believes Congress will move to require a company responsible for allowing a breach to bear the costs of notifying customers and reissuing cards.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...DIwNDQ0Wj.html





States, Uncle Sam Combating Identity Theft
Brian Krebs

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia allow consumers to place a "security freeze" on their credit files, and more states are considering similar legislation.

For the millions of consumers who receive notice each year that their personal or financial data was lost or stolen, a preemptive security freeze can offer peace of mind. It blocks businesses and potential fraudsters from gaining access to a consumer's credit report and score and from granting new lines of credit in the consumer's name. In many states, consumers who want to remove the freeze can use a special identification number to unlock access to their credit file.

Residents of the District of Columbia will be able to request a credit freeze starting July 1. Maryland's General Assembly approved a similar bill this year. The governor is expected to sign it. Even if he doesn't, it will become law automatically on Jan. 1, 2008. Virginia is among at least four other states where lawmakers are debating credit-freeze legislation.

Most states require consumers to pay a fee of $3 to $10 per credit bureau to freeze their credit files. In some cases, there are additional fees if a consumer wants to remove or temporarily lift a freeze. In all states with credit-freeze laws, victims of identity theft can obtain a freeze without paying a fee, although many states require that the victim provide a copy of a police report detailing the incident.

In the District, consumers will be required to pay a $10 fee per credit bureau to place a freeze, but there are no fees tied to removing it. Maryland consumers could have to pay as much as $5 per freeze, and an additional $5 fee to lift it. (Temporarily "thawing" your credit file to gain access to credit usually only requires lifting the freeze at one of the three major credit bureaus.) Identity-theft victims in D.C. and Maryland will be able to place a freeze on their credit files at no charge.

Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney for Consumers Union, said many states have enacted freeze laws in part to send a message to Capitol Hill that they are intent on securing this option for citizens.

"States are not only making their voice heard, but they're bringing down the cost" for filing credit freezes, Hillebrand said. Montana recently passed a law allowing citizens to freeze their credit file for $3 per credit bureau. "States want this to work for their constituents. Even if companies hold their data and don't protect it, the freeze is the ultimate protection."

In response to a string of high-profile data breaches at companies, universities and government agencies over the past three years, at least 35 states have enacted legislation requiring companies to notify consumers if they have a data breach or loss that jeopardizes consumers' personal and financial information. Faced with the prospect of complying with all of these often disparate state data breach laws, business groups have been pressuring Congress to enact a federal data-breach bill that would unify and override corresponding statutes at the state level.

Among the many data breach notification measures currently being crafted in Congress, only one bill -- a measure currently under consideration by the Senate Commerce Committee -- contains a specific allowance for consumers to freeze their credit. Under the proposed "Identity Theft Prevention Act," consumers would need to spend $30 to place a credit freeze on their files that covers all three major credit reporting bureaus. A couple would have to spend $60 to place a credit freeze jointly. The legislation, sponsored by Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and ranking Republican Ted Stevens (Alaska), would allow consumers to lift a freeze twice annually for free, with subsequent lifts costing $15 per person.

Under current federal law, individuals can place a 90-day "fraud alert" on their credit files, and are entitled to a free copy of their credit report from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus annually. However, unlike the security freeze, a fraud alert merely notifies the consumer if an inquiry has been made against their credit file. It does not prevent identity thieves or other business from accessing a consumer's credit file or obtaining new lines of credit in their name.

Consumers Union maintains a detailed list of state laws related to data privacy. The page includes links to the individual laws and instructions for how a consumer can file a credit freeze.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...900429_pf.html





CNN Plans to Release Upcoming Debate Footage Uncopyrighted
Arlen Parsa

CNN announced that it plans to release all debate footage it broadcasts in their upcoming presidential debates under a Creative Commons type license Saturday.

“Due to the historical nature of presidential debates and the significance of these forums to the American public,” CNN said in a statement, “CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate.”

“We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process. This decision will apply to all of CNN’s presidential debates, beginning with the upcoming New Hampshire debates in June,” continued in the media advisory sent to other news organizations and posted online.

Several prominent liberal and conservative bloggers had joined together to endorse a proposal by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig in April requesting that all television debates during the 2008 Presidential election cycle be released without restriction for internet usage.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) was the first candidate to endorse Lessig’s proposal, saying that “As you know, the Internet has enabled an extraordinary range of citizens to participate in the political dialogue around this election.”

“Much of that participation will take the form of citizen generated content. We, as a Party, should do everything that we can to encourage this participation,” Obama continued, later saying he believed that the legal principle of fair use should apply to presidential debates.

Fellow Democratic presidential hopeful and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards joined the call shortly afterwards, saying that the debates should be released specifically under a Creative Commons license and noting that “Much of the content on my own campaign web site is available under just such a license.” Senator Obama’s website is also published under Creative Commons.

So far, no Republican candidates have called for their debates to make their debates copyright free, however several prominent conservative bloggers and the former internet director of the Republican National Committee have called on the RNC to pressure the news organizations it has partnered with for the debates to make them available freely.

Among the others calling for the debates to be released under a Creative Commons license are the founders of Craigslist, Wikipedia, BraveNewFilms a former FEC Chair, representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, PBS, the Center for American Progress, MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, and other media organizations.

MSNBC, which broadcast the first Democratic and Republican debates, has refused to release the footage it shot from copyright, preferring to offer only segments of the broadcast on its website in Windows Media format (MSNBC is a dual venture between NBC and Microsoft). MSNBC even went a step further, prohibiting any broadcast of clips on competing television networks after May 26.

But that hasn’t stopped dozens of YouTube users from posting clips of the debate online. No instances of YouTube removing a clip from the debate due to copyright violation have occurred yet. YouTube has tried to attract presidential candidates themselves, and most of the frontrunners have their own accounts.

CNN’s debates, broadcast from New Hampshire, will be in June. Their Democratic debate will be held on June 3rd from 7 to 9PM EST, while their Republican debate will be on June 5th at the same time.
http://www.thedailybackground.com/20...uncopyrighted/





Webcomic Author Deemed a Terrorist Threat
CaptainCarrot

Writer/IT contractor Matt Boyd, formerly the man who made up the words for webcomic Mac Hall and who now does the same for his and Ian McConville's new comic Three Panel Soul, was recently fired from his government job. His conversation with a co-worker about a gun he intended to buy for target shooting was overheard by someone in a nearby cubicle. As it was unfortunately the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, the eavesdropper panicked and reported him to management. That was bad enough. But when he used the comic to document the meeting where the reason for his firing was explained, he was visited by representatives of local law enforcement investigating him on suspicion of making a "terroristic threat" using the Internet. No charges have been filed. Yet. FLEEN interviewed Matt about the incident.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/05/1913245





Ex-Army Officer Finds Healing in New Military Record Label
Eric Tucker

Sean Gilfillan served 15 months in the Iraq war, then endured a rougher homecoming than he ever expected.

A diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder made him wary of crowded places. Friends who weren't in the military didn't understand what he had been through. Prospective employers questioned whether the Army captain had enough real world experience.

After returning home last year, Gilfillan, 28, spent months casting about for work before taking a job that paid less than what he earned as an Army officer and made him feel like he was starting from scratch.

He ultimately settled on a new career - and received a measure of catharsis - by joining with a friend to form a record label reserved for members of the military.

"It's just something that puts meaning and purpose back into my life - which I kind of lost when I left the military," Gilfillan said.

To The Fallen Records released its first CD in February, a compilation of 14 hip-hop tracks from current and former service members who mix sobering reflections on war with thumping rap beats and catchy choruses.

"We want it to appeal to everyone, whatever your beliefs are," said co-founder Sidney DeMello.

The label keeps Gilfillan rooted in the military, an institution that's been part of his family for generations. His grandfathers, uncle and father all served before him, and Gilfillan, who lives in Newport, received an ROTC scholarship to military college.

Deployed to Iraq in May 2003, he said his unit initially encountered little resistance, giving him the chance to teach English classes in civilian clothes and mix with the Iraqi population. He speaks with pride about his work as an Army officer.

But his memories are colored by the deaths of seven close Army friends in the war.

An intricate tattoo on back his memorializes them. It stretches from shoulder to shoulder and includes his slain friends' names, as well as a picture of a helmet that hangs atop a rifle standing upright inside combat boots - a symbol for a fallen soldier.
Across the top of his back is the inscription that inspired the record label's title: "To The Fallen."

Gilfillan says his "visions of grandeur" about coming from the war never materialized. He coped with post-traumatic stress - something he says is common for anyone mortared every night in a war zone. The job opportunities also weren't there, nor was a sustained hero's welcome.

"For a couple of weeks, you're something," Gilfillan said, "and then you're right back to being on an even playing field with everyone else in the nation."

His sister, Casey, 25, said it was frustrating for her brother to return to a "world that really doesn't have any idea about what you did."

Starting the label has helped him channel his energy into something constructive, she said, and Gilfillan said it's something to look forward to each day.

The label developed after Gilfillan met DeMello, 31, at a university business course last year. "To the Fallen" promotes a voice they say is underrepresented - soldiers themselves. They say one of its aims is to reach younger listeners with minimal knowledge about a war that Gilfillan calls "arguably the biggest social issue of our time."

"I think it's just a way to get information out to them in something that's very palatable - hip hop or rock, country," DeMello said.

The pair advertised the label online and began soliciting submissions. They work with a recording engineer to ferret out the best songs. Many were recorded in professional studios but others were recorded in the midst of war.

Brandon Boggs, an Army specialist, who goes by the name Bank-Roll on the CD, recorded "My War Cry" while in Iraq. He said used a mic, computer and a rap beat he found online.

The performers represent various branches of service and include active-duty soldiers and veterans. They touch on themes including pride in service, homesickness and an awareness that death could be imminent.

In one track, "Walk With Me," an Army sergeant performing under the name Soldier Hard worries he's heading into a death trap as he prepares for another day's mission: "Are we living on borrowed time/Will today be my last/'Cause soldiers dying every day y'all/They're killing us fast."

Several performers said the label affords them a unique outlet for creative expression.

"I love the fact that I can actually write something and talk about my issues, and people will actually listen to it," said Michael Thomas, an Air Force member who served in Iraq and recorded a track called "Soldiers Prayer" from a base in Germany.

The label plans new releases every six months; the next two will be country and rock. The CD sells for $15 on the label's Web site, and Gilfillan and DeMello recently signed a deal with a national distributor.

Gilfillan refuses to share his own opinion of the war.

"Our message is, if you want to know about it, listen to the CD, listen to the different opinions of the guys and girls that are actually involved directly there," he said. "And gauge what they have to say and then form your own opinions."

---

On the Net:

To The Fallen Records: http://www.tothefallenrecords.com
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...05-05-12-02-35





Senior dedicates project to 'pop'

Connecticut Student Produces CD to Show Healing Power of Music
Nanci G. Hutson

One memory 18-year-old Jenna Bollard treasures from early childhood is sneaking into a drawer in her grandfather's home to find his harmonica, then bringing it to him so she could sing along as he played.

Across the years, the two often played duets.

"His face would always light up. It was really cute," Bollard said.

So she was heartbroken when Alzheimer's disease left her grandfather, World War II Navy veteran Walter Pfeffer, incapacitated. He was not only unable to play his harmonica, he had no memory of those special times with his granddaughter, at least none he could articulate.

The Washington, Connecticut Shepaug Valley High School senior was riveted when her almost-incoherent grandfather, on his deathbed, started humming along to a familiar tune on the radio.

"He was despondent, and then suddenly when a song came on the radio that he had once loved, 'The Last Waltz' by Englebert Humperdinck, he started humming the melody," Bollard said.

She was completely awed by the transformation. Her grandfather died a short time later -- a year ago Veterans Day -- but that moment stayed with Bollard.

From her freshmen year at Shepaug, Bollard looked forward to senior year, when she could pursue under faculty guidance a year-long project of her choosing.

For Bollard, a vocalist and theater lover who played the leading role in this year's production of "Annie Get Your Gun," the clear choice was to produce an original CD of music and lyrics to reflect her lifelong passion.

What was less clear was how she might tie music into a broader theme.

She told choral director Chris Shay, a technical advisor for her project, what happened with her grandfather and he recommended she read a book by Don Campbell, "The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit."

She read the book and discovered how she might link her love of music with what she witnessed with her dying grandfather. She also decided to make music therapy her career.

She came to embrace the quote "When words leave off, music begins."

"One night, it all just clicked," Bollard said of the project she titled "Exploring the Healing Powers of Music."

She started writing lyrics in earnest for songs for her first CD. She tracked down a music therapist to follow to learn what they do on a day-to-day basis.

Serendipitously, Bollard found music/psychotherapist Leesa Sklover-Filgate of Brookfield, who became another technical adviser for her project and a close friend.

They went to a conference at New York University and then to the Hebrew Home in West Hartford, where Bollard performed for some of the Alzheimer's patients.

"And that was awesome," she said.

She proved dreams can come true by producing a 13-song CD with the help of friends, family and fellow musicians. Titled "Falling Into Place," it's a personal fairy tale illustrated with a fairy theme.

"It was kind of music therapy for myself," said Bollard, whom Shay described as a "one in a million" student.

Beyond the "smoky jazz" talent Shay predicts will one day bring her fame, he said Bollard has a contagious exuberance.

"I think what is so extraordinary about Jenna is that it's not 'all about me,'" Shay said. Instead, she is generous and genuine.

Bollard is donating all proceeds from the 1,000 CDs she made to Alzheimer's research. Already, she has sold enough at $10 each to cover her $2,200 investment and will donate whatever else she raises to Alzheimer's research.

The CD is dedicated to her grandfather, "Pop," and has his Navy photo on the inside cover.

On Saturday, Bollard will perform original music at the Bridgewater pavilion between 3 and 5:30 p.m. and has also invited fellow Shepaug Valley senior Tom Kean and Oxford jazz group "Scrapyard Blues" to perform.

Shay will most definitely be in the crowd.

On May 17, Bollard is scheduled to complete her final project with a slide presentation of her body of work, including the CD and concert performance.

"A lot of kids complain about their senior project, but I was so excited to start mine. It became an obsession for me," said the vivacious brunette who will study music therapy and voice at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston next year.

"Music can help you remember; music can help you feel; music can and will improve the quality of life," she said.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1052814





Fistfight Mars Boston Pops' Opening Night

A fistfight in the balcony stopped the music on opening night at the Boston Pops, drawing gasps from hundreds of well-heeled guests at one of the country's oldest and best-known city orchestras.

Famous for light classical music and family pop tunes from decades past, the orchestra briefly halted its performance on Wednesday evening as two men wrestled in the side balcony of the 107-year-old Symphony Hall.

Concert-goers looked up after a woman's scream interrupted a rendition of the Hollywood musical "Gigi" about 20 minutes into the performance.

Shortly afterward, conductor Keith Lockhart stopped the orchestra with a motion of his hand as the murmuring crowd turned to watch the scuffle, apparently caused after one man told another guest to be quiet.

One of the men could be seen with his button-down shirt ripped open as a security guard pulled the two apart, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene. A man had his arm wrapped around another's neck, pulling him backward.

"House security and Boston police stopped the fight, and the audience members were escorted out of the hall," the Boston Symphony Orchestra said in a statement on Thursday. "The concert resumed and ended with cheers and a standing ovation."

No charges were filed against the men.

The Pops, comprised of the Boston Symphony minus its principal players, is perhaps best known for July 4th concerts along Boston's Charles River that began in 1974 and include fireworks accompanying Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture."

Its concert hall is considered among the best in the world.
http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMos...14922020070511





A Loving Look at a Cinematic Tough Guy: Gangster, Hit Man, Gunslinger
Manohla Dargis

Lee Marvin moved across the screen like a shark coming in for the kill. Long and lean, with shoulders that looked as wide as his hips and hair as silver as a bullet, he seemed built for speed. He roamed across genres, excelling at gangsters and cowboys. Romance was not his thing. He could make you laugh, at times uneasily, but it’s his bad men that stick in your head. They are scary as hell, sometimes seductively so, because their every punch and twist of the knife seems delivered not in the heat of violence but in its chill.

Marvin did much of his greatest work in the 1960s; he was passed over by New Hollywood auteurs who could have immortalized him for succeeding generations. He died in 1987 at 63 of a heart attack. For younger audiences, especially those who believe film history starts with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Marvin may well represent a question mark. (“Who?” a young friend asked.) I can find no DVD box sets of his work, though he shows up in a few John Wayne collections playing second fiddle and comic foil. Several of these titles, notably John Ford’s melancholic western “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” (1962), are included in the first-rate series “Lee Marvin: The Coolest Lethal Weapon,” opening today at the Walter Reade Theater, courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

He’s cooler than cool in Don Siegel’s pulpy 1964 classic “The Killers,” where he plays an intellectually curious hit man, and in John Boorman’s masterfully fractured 1967 thriller “Point Blank.” In “The Killers,” the hit man turns detective because he can’t figure out why one of his victims (John Cassavetes) doesn’t run when he has the chance. (Later, when a woman tries to talk him out of killing her, the hit man says, “Lady, I just haven’t got the time.”) The eye-popping cast includes Ronald Reagan wearing a meringue of glossy hair, Angie Dickinson as the prettiest of poisons and a fabulous Clu Gulager. Marvin, who showed up drunk on the first day of production, owns the film up, down and sideways.

Booze played a recurring role for Marvin behind the scenes and on screen: he took his noisy cues from a real biker called Wino Willie for “The Wild One” and brings real hurt to the role of the tragic, alcoholic Ira Hayes, one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers, in John Frankenheimer’s 1960 television drama “The American.” In 1966 he won the best-actor Oscar for his dual roles in the strenuously unfunny western “Cat Ballou,” including that of a hired gun so pickled in alcohol his horse looks soused. (Accepting the statuette, he joked that the horse deserved half the credit.) Yet even this cringingly dated comedy, made when terminal drunks were still good for laughs, can’t disguise his graceful gestural performance, the way he doesn’t so much fall as sway.

He was a remarkable physical specimen. Born in New York in 1924 to an advertising executive and a fashion editor, he knocked around prep schools before joining the Marines. In 1944, the year he turned 20, he was a scout sniper in the Pacific Theater, where, on Saipan, a bullet severed a nerve. He spent 13 months recuperating in a hospital and was awarded the Purple Heart. Decades later, in the last great film he made — Samuel Fuller’s World War II epic, “The Big Red One” (1980) — Marvin’s sergeant leads a group of young soldiers who are around the same age he was when he took on the war for real. Neither the tenderness nor the hate in this performance seem feigned.

After he healed, he apprenticed as a plumber before moving into stage work. He performed on and off Broadway and frequently on television. He first hit the big screen with a small role in a 1951 film, “You’re in the Navy Now,” and soon began specializing in reprobates. Bosley Crowther’s take on him in “The Wild One” in 1953 is worth quoting at length from The New York Times: “And in a second wolf-pack leader, whom Lee Marvin gruesomely portrays as a glandular ‘psycho’ or dope-fiend or something fantastically mad, there is briefly injected into this picture a glimpse of utter monstrosity, loose and enjoying the privilege of hectoring others in a fair society.” I’m not sure about the fair society, given the populace, but fantastically mad is right on.

The Walter Reade series doesn’t include “The Wild One,” perhaps because it’s so familiar, but it’s amazing to watch Marvin holding his own easily against that new force in cinema: Marlon Brando. With his lewd laugh and loose gestures that give him the jangling affect of a marionette without the strings, the grizzle-faced, gravelly-voiced Marvin comes across as the realer and rawer deal. Flanked by his gang of toughs in their matching motorcycle jackets and cute little hats, his plush mouth jutting suggestively, the beautiful Brando looks almost prissy. By comparison, Marvin looks dirty in body and in spirit; he’s rough around the edges and, you imagine, just about everywhere else too.

His character is trying to play it smoother in Fritz Lang’s noir standard “The Big Heat,” which was also released in 1953 and, happily, is in the series. This is the film in which Marvin brutally ups the bad-boyfriend ante by tossing a steaming-hot pot of coffee into the face of his girl (Gloria Grahame), leaving her terribly scarred. Decades earlier, James Cagney was content to push a grapefruit into his moll’s kisser. These days, movie scum feed their prey to the dogs, but there is something still shockingly raw about the fervor that Marvin brings to this scene, as if his character were experiencing sexual pleasure from his violence. Part of this is Lang, a sadist of the screen, but Marvin is the one with the wet lips.

There’s a little softness and a lot of shading in one of his best villains, a gold-hungry gunslinger in Budd Boetticher’s magnificent western “Seven Men From Now.” The first in a series of westerns that Boetticher made with the older Randolph Scott, this near- perfect film gives Marvin plenty of room to prove what he can do, whether he’s taking another man down with brutal psychology or practicing his quick draw. There’s soul in this characterization as well as a hint of the dandy, notably in the green scarf knotted at his neck. Marvin wears similarly silky scarves in both “The Wild One” and “The Comancheros” (1961), a slog of a western that he steals from John Wayne for his 10 showboating minutes onscreen.

Those scarves are lovely flourishes. Maybe he liked the way they looked on him, or maybe he didn’t like his neck. Or maybe this professional tough guy, who lived through World War II and was paid handsomely to keep the fight going on the big screen, wanted to show a side of himself that wasn’t immediately obvious. He twirls his guns with flair in “Seven Men From Now” (off screen, he often handled a gun) and takes on a veritable army without batting an eyelash in Richard Brooks’s entertaining western “The Professionals” (1966). In real life Marvin had been a good guy, but with his hooded eyes and a voice that sounded as if all the gentleness had been scraped from it, he seemed destined for villainy.

He was, certainly. But the best of these are not cartoon creeps or thrill-kill sadists. They are generally complex men, interested, trigger tempered, yes (watch how impatiently he moves through a school for the blind in “The Killers”), but also nimble-witted and at times dry-as-dust funny. In the 1970s, during an infernally long court battle that dragged on for almost the entire decade, he became more famous for being the defendant in the first legal test of palimony (spurring the sale of “Free Lee Marvin” T-shirts) than for any of his contemporary roles. There were still worthy parts and juicy performances, including Michael Ritchie’s venomous satire “Prime Cut” (1972) and, of course, “The Big Red One.” It seems fitting that after 30 years of playing the heavy, the sap, the sneak and the clown, here he was: a hero.

“Lee Marvin: The Coolest Lethal Weapon,” a comprehensive retrospective by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, runs through May 24 at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Lincoln Center, (212) 496-3809, filmlinc.com. In connection with the series, the Museum of Television and Radio is showing two dramas in which Marvin appeared, including “The American,” today through Sunday and May 18-20; 25 West 52nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 621-6600, mtr.org.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/movies/11marv.html





A Prince of Pulp, Legit at Last
Charles McGrath

ALL his life the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick yearned for what he called the mainstream. He wanted to be a serious literary writer, not a sci-fi hack whose audience consisted, he once said, of “trolls and wackos.” But Mr. Dick, who popped as many as 1,000 amphetamine pills a week, was also more than a little paranoid. In the early ’70s, when he had finally achieved some standing among academic critics and literary theorists — most notably the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem — he narced on them all, writing a letter to the F.B.I. in which he claimed they were K.G.B. agents trying to take over American science fiction.

So it’s hard to know what Mr. Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, would have made of the fact that this month he has arrived at the pinnacle of literary respectability. Four of his novels from the 1960s — “The Man in the High Castle,” “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,” “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and “Ubik” — are being reissued by the Library of America in that now-classic Hall of Fame format: full cloth binding, tasseled bookmark, acid-free, Bible-thin paper. He might be pleased, or he might demand to know why his 40-odd other books weren’t so honored. And what about the “Exegesis,” an 8,000-page journal that derived a sort of Gnostic theology from a series of religious visions he experienced during a couple of months in 1974? A wary, hard-core Dickian might argue that the Library of America volume is just a diversion, an attempt to turn a deeply subversive writer into another canonical brand name.

Another thing that would probably amuse and annoy Mr. Dick in about equal measure are the exceptional number of movies that have been made from his work, starting with “Blade Runner” (adapted from “Do Androids Dream”), 25 years old this year and available in the fall on a special “final cut” DVD. The newest, “Next,” taken from a short story, “The Golden Man,” starring Nicolas Cage as a magician able to see into the future and Julianne Moore as an F.B.I. agent eager to enlist his help, opened just last month. In the works is a biopic starring Paul Giamatti, who bears more than a passing physical resemblance to the author, who by the end of his life had the doughy look of a guy who didn’t spend a lot of time in the daylight.

Mr. Dick died while “Blade Runner” was still in production, already unhappy about the shape the script was taking, though not the kind of money he hoped to realize. “Blade Runner” is probably the best of the Dick movies, if not the most faithful. (That honor probably belongs to “A Scanner Darkly,” released last year, in which Richard Linklater’s semi-animated technique suggests some of the feel of a graphic novel.)

There’s no reason to think Mr. Dick would have approved any more of the others, especially “Total Recall,” in which Quail, the nerdish hero of Mr. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” turns into Quaid, a buffed-up Arnold Schwarzenegger character. Meanwhile, as several critics have noted, movies like the “Matrix” series, “The Truman Show” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” though not based on Dick material, still seem to contain his spark, and dramatize more vividly than some of the official Dick projects his essential notion that reality is just a construct or, as he liked to say, a forgery. It’s as if his imaginative DNA had spread like a virus.

Part of why Mr. Dick’s work appeals so much to moviemakers is his pulpish sensibility. He grew up in California reading magazines like Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories and Fantastic Universe, and then, after dropping out of the University of California, Berkeley, began writing for them, often in manic 20-hour sessions fueled by booze and speed. He could type 120 words a minute, and told his third wife (third of five, and there were countless girlfriends: Mr. Dick loved women but was hell to live with), “The words come out of my hands, not my brain, I write with my hands.”

His early novels, written in two weeks or less, were published in double-decker Ace paperbacks that included two books in one, with a lurid cover for each. “If the Holy Bible was printed as an Ace Double,” an editor once remarked, “it would be cut down to two 20,000-word halves with the Old Testament retitled as ‘Master of Chaos’ and the New Testament as ‘The Thing With Three Souls.’ ”

So for the most part you don’t read Mr. Dick for his prose. (The main exception is “The Man in the High Castle,” his most sustained and most assured attempt at mainstream respectability, and it’s barely a sci-fi book at all but, rather, what we would now call a “counterfactual”; its premise is that the Allies lost World War II and the United States is ruled by the Japanese in the west and the Nazis in the east.) Nor do you read him for the science, the way you do, say, Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein.

Mr. Dick was relatively uninterested in the futuristic, predictive side of science fiction and embraced the genre simply because it gave him liberty to turn his imagination loose. Except for the odd hovercar or rocket ship, there aren’t many gizmos in his fiction, and many of his details are satiric, like the household appliances in “Ubik” that demand to be fed with coins all the time, or put-ons, like the bizarre clownwear that is apparently standard office garb in the same book (which is set in 1992, by the way; so much for Dick the prophet): “natty birch-bark pantaloons, hemp-rope belt, peekaboo see-through top, and train engineer’s tall hat.”

To a considerable extent Mr. Dick’s future is a lot like our present, except a little grungier. Everything is always running down or turning into what one of the characters in “Do Androids Dream” calls “kipple”: junk like match folders and gum wrappers that doubles itself overnight and fills abandoned apartments. This sense of entropy and decline is what Ridley Scott evokes so well in “Blade Runner,” with its seedy, rainy streetscapes, and what Steven Spielberg misses in his slightly schizoid “Minority Report,” in which Tom Cruise waves his hands at that glass console, as if it were a room-size Wii system.

The theme of “Minority Report” — pre-cognition, or the idea that certain people, “precogs,” can foresee the future, with not always happy results — was an idea that Mr. Dick began exploring in the mid-’50s, along with themes of altered or repressed memory, which became the subject of “Total Recall,” “Impostor” and, more recently, John Woo’s “Paycheck.” Most of the Dick-inspired movies come from short stories of this period — several of them, including “The Golden Man,” written in the space of just a few months.

In the ’60s Mr. Dick turned his energies to novel writing, and with the exception of “Do Androids Dream” (considerably dumbed down in “Blade Runner”) and “A Scanner Darkly” (published in 1977 and, incidentally, the first book Dick wrote without the assistance of drugs) the novels don’t lend themselves so readily to the Hollywood imagination.

That’s because they’re much harder to reduce to a single concept or plot line. Three of the novels collected in the Library of America volume — “Do Androids Dream,” “The Three Stigmata” and “Ubik — are arguably Mr. Dick’s best. (Some diehards hold out for “VALIS,” his last major work, but that’s really his “Finnegans Wake” — a book more fun to talk about than to read.) All three are less gimmicky than the stories and are preoccupied with two big questions that became his obsession: How do we know what is real, and how do we know what is human? For all I know, you could be a robot, or maybe I am, merely preprogrammed to think of myself as a person, and this thing we call reality might be just a collective hallucination.

This kind of speculation — the stuff of so many hazy, bong-fed dorm-room bull sessions — takes on genuine interest in Mr. Dick’s writing because he means it and because he invests the outcome with longing. His characters, like Rick Deckard, the android-chasing bounty hunter in “Do Androids Dream,” desperately want something authentic to believe in, and the books suggest that the quality of belief may be more important than the degree of authenticity.

“The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” and “Ubik,” written five years apart, are in many ways two versions of the same story, one tragic and one mostly comic. The title character of “The Three Stigmata” (1964) is not much to look at — his stigmata are steel teeth, a robotic arm and replacement eyes — but he still possesses Godlike, or perhaps Satanic, powers, and is able, with the help of a drug called Chew-Z, to enmesh people in webs of hallucination, one within another, so slippery and perplexing that even the reader feels a little discombobulated. The book is a horror story of the imagination gone amok.

“Ubik” (1969) is more redemptive. The godlike figure here is an entrepreneur named Glen Runciter, who runs what’s called a “prudence organization”: for a fee, he will debug your company and rid it of “teeps,” or secret-stealing telepaths. He manages to communicate with some of his former employees even when they’re dead and supplies them with a salvific aerosol spray, called Ubik, that appears to at least temporarily resist the tendency of everything to regress backwards to the way it was in 1939. Mr. Dick describes Depression-era artifacts — Philco radios, Curtis Wright biplanes — with great affection, however, and in this book death turns out not to be so bad; it isn’t eternal extinction, but a kind of half-life partly imagined by a restless young man (also dead) named Jory.

Jory is a bit of menace, but Mr. Dick has a soft spot for him as a dreamer and fantasist, as he does in “The Three Stigmata” for the colonists on Mars who, bored silly, like to get stoned and play with their Perky Pat layouts, elaborate Ken and Barbie sets that let them make up nostalgic stories about life on Earth. He also likes to embed in his books still other books, emblems of imaginative possibility, like the novel in “The Man in the High Castle” that postulates an Allied victory.

There is doubtless an autobiographical element to Mr. Dick’s novels; they read like the work of someone who knows from experience what it’s like to hallucinate. Lawrence Sutin, who has written the definitive biography of Mr. Dick, says that he took LSD only a couple of times, and didn’t particularly like it. On the other hand his regular regimen of uppers and downers, gobbled by the handful, was surely sufficient to play tricks with his head, and Mr. Dick worried more than once that he might be turning schizophrenic.

The books aren’t just trippy, though. The best of them are visionary or surreal in a way that American literature, so rooted in reality and observation, seldom is. Critics have often compared Mr. Dick to Borges, Kafka, Calvino. To come up with an American analogue you have to think of someone like Emerson, but nobody would ever dream of looking to him for movie ideas. Emerson was all brain, no pulp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/06mcgr.html





Hepburn, Revisited



William Mann

KATHARINE Hepburn, who demolished brontosaurus skeletons and male egos in “Bringing Up Baby” and held her own with the King of England in “The Lion in Winter,” would have been 100 today. When she died four years ago at 96, she was hailed as an American icon, celebrated for her strength and independence.

But there was another side to Hepburn, too — more vulnerable, conflicted and ambitious than we knew. Though she liked to appear indifferent to vulgar stardom, she worked hard — very hard — for fame. And she never stopped, enduring fickle tastes and changing times because her desire to be great never waned. While she made us believe she was somehow above Hollywood hoopla, the truth was that long before stars employed staffs to micromanage and refine their public images, Hepburn was inventing a path for others to follow.

The extraordinary enterprise of her life is revealing. Never just the suitable-for-framing, one-dimensional heroine of legend, Hepburn learned early on that if she wanted to maintain both a career and a private life, she was going to have to play the game — and she played it well, perhaps better than any other star of her generation. She milked her romances with Howard Hughes, Leland Hayward and, at times, Spencer Tracy for coverage as shamelessly as Bennifer or Brangelina. When compromises were needed — for an independent woman in Hollywood, that was just about all the time — she was prepared to make them.

For all her alleged iconoclasm, Katharine Hepburn was an exquisitely tuned balancing act who toed the line between rebellion and pragmatism. She did what she had to do to win and survive. Consider a night in December 1935, when the distraught 28-year-old actress paced the parquetry floors of the director George Cukor’s house in the Hollywood hills. She’d just flopped in Cukor’s “Sylvia Scarlett,” for which she’d spent most of her time masquerading as a boy. She hadn’t feared rocking the boat, but now the boat was sinking. “Oh, George,” she said (pronouncing his name “Jo-udge”). “We’ve got to cook it up for ourselves, really cook it up.”

According to Cukor’s friend Michael Pearman, who witnessed the exchange: “What she was saying was that they had an image problem and they had to fix it. They had to make it up to the public somehow.”

Hepburn, who brought a fair share of East Coast entitlement to the film colony, had seemed at first to believe herself immune to the rules that governed other stars. She lived openly with a woman widely assumed to have been her lover, wore men’s trousers and aired unfashionably left-wing opinions that scandalized the fan magazines. One critic sniffed that Hepburn had been “stirring up trouble” ever since she’d arrived in Hollywood. Lessons like the “Sylvia Scarlett” debacle finally convinced her to start following the Hollywood playbook. And so began her metamorphosis from tomboy to glamour girl, from subversive to perpetual honoree.

Through it all, flashes of the original rebel still flared: In May 1947, an “angel in a red dress” (as one audience member described her) made a surprise appearance at Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles to deliver a fiery speech in support of former vice president (and liberal hero) Henry Wallace. Hepburn lambasted the House Committee on Un-American Activities. “The artist, since the beginning of time, has always expressed the aspirations and dreams of his people,” she said. “Silence the artist and you have silenced the most articulate voice the people have.” The appearance led critics to brand her a “Red appeaser.”

Still, she was shrewd enough to gauge what the traffic would allow: Eventually she would claim that the red dress (“flaming” in some accounts) was really “pink,” and certainly not worn to make a statement. Ultimately she offset all the negative publicity by making “The African Queen.” As the Eleanor Roosevelt-inspired preacher’s daughter, she extolled God and country, chasing from collective memory the fact that she’d barely escaped a summons from the House committee and her career had almost imploded.

In this manner, Hepburn would “cook it up” over six decades — there was a Kate for every era. Remaking herself as a classic movie star, she had Philip Barry tailor “The Philadelphia Story” for her so she might, as spoiled rich girl Tracy Lord, be brought down a few pegs for all her previous “uppity” behavior. Indeed, her stylish career women — so popular during the war years — were never as independent as we like to remember them, and she usually submitted to some kind of onscreen drubbing from her male co-star. Those memorable battles of the sexes with Spencer Tracy? Hepburn always ends up on the losing side. She seemed to understand that her culture extracted certain forms of payback from the independent females whom it occasionally celebrated ... and kept reining in.

Hepburn became an American Rorschach test, mirroring the ways we wanted to see ourselves. Each generation redefined her, rubbing out and adding to her myth. In the ’60s, she fell into step with the counterculture, promoting interracial love in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and exposing the folly of war in “The Trojan Women.” When the times took another rightward lurch in the 1970s, she made “Rooster Cogburn” opposite the conservative icon John Wayne, and told the press how refreshing it was to work with a “real man.” Hepburn had remade herself from a sexually and politically suspect outsider into an exemplar of true-blue Americana.

By the time of her death, Katharine Hepburn had come to stand for Yankee common sense, Emersonian self-reliance and an all-American ethic of hard work. There’s no question she possessed all of those things. But there was so much more.

It’s taken 100 years to see Hepburn in all her complexity, and we are still trying to figure her out. The limited fictions used to elevate and sell the lives of public figures often form a cloudy chiaroscuro that covers their true humanity. Like many men and women of her time and every other, she had to deal with being different.

Hepburn’s drive for fame meant she would spend her life struggling between the demands of “the creature” (what she called her public image) and the more bohemian, unconventional life to which she was drawn. She was forced to invent a role for the kind of woman she was — her own kind. Labels — sexual, political, artistic — hold little meaning when talking about her. Sex, love and marriage were only the beginnings of the things she had to learn, re-make and often reject.

Hepburn was human, a fact we sometimes forget about the very famous. Too often our public figures remain wrapped in unchallenged “truths,” the cheap garments of hacks and press agents who keep their wayward charges safely moored to the boundaries of convention. But this gives only a partial glimpse into Hepburn’s life, and a distorted one at that. Only the whole truth can do credit to what our heroes did with the actual challenges they faced. People who live worthy lives can stand up to scrutiny. In Hepburn’s case, the real woman makes the icon seem like a bo-ah, bo-ah, bore.

Happy birthday, you old troublemaker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/opinion/12mann.html?





Defending Goliath: Hollywood and the Art of the Blockbuster
Manohla Dargis

SUMMERTIME and the viewing is lousy and noisy and deedle-dee dumb, or so the received wisdom has it. It is our season of stupidity, summertime, that interminable stretch when adults surrender the nation’s theaters to hordes of popcorn-chugging, sugar-jonesing, under-age nose-pickers for whom the cinematic experience means nothing more than recycled big, bigger, biggest bangs. It is the season of mass distraction, of the tent pole, the event movie, the blockbuster.

Blockbuster is really just descriptive, but it often carries with it a down-market whiff, as do many pop-cultural products that come with eye-catching price tags and seem precision-tooled for young audiences. Critics, including, yes, yours truly, often use blockbuster as easy (too easy) shorthand for overinflated productions that rely more on special effects than words and characters, and that distract rather than engage the audience. At its most reductive the negative spin on blockbusters is that they signal the death of cinema art and mark the triumph of the corporate bottom line, of marketing strategies, product placements and opening-weekend returns. And here you thought you were just watching Tobey Maguire run around in a unitard.

But just because a movie blows stuff up doesn’t mean it automatically stinks. A good blockbuster, like the recent Bond flick “Casino Royale,” takes you places you might never otherwise go and shows you things you could never do. It brings you into new worlds, offers you new attractions. It takes hold of your body, making you quiver with anxiety, joy, laughter, relief. When great blockbusters sweep you up and away — I’m thinking about watching “The Matrix” for the first time with a few hundred other enraptured souls — they usher you into a realm of communal pleasure. In a culture of entertainment niches, they remind you of what going to the movies can still be like.

They also remind you that without the human factor a blockbuster is nothing but a big empty box. Blockbusters that endure strike a balance between the spectacular and the ineffably human, whether it’s Peter O’Toole framed against the never-ending desert in “Lawrence of Arabia” or Keanu Reeves coming down to earth in “The Matrix” as he realizes that he knows kung fu. It’s the epic story of America refracted through one family in the “Godfather” films. It’s a mechanical shark and Robert Shaw remembering the U.S.S. Indianapolis in “Jaws.” It’s Tom Cruise hanging by a thread in “Mission: Impossible” and Christian Bale standing amid a cloud of bats in “Batman Begins.” It’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s wild eyes in “Titanic” and Kirsten Dunst’s sad ones in “Spider-Man.”

BLOCKBUSTER usually describes products sold in enormous quantities, like movies, but also theater productions, museum shows, hit songs, books and even pharmaceuticals. The word probably originated with the powerful bombs that the British Royal Air Force used to decimate German cities during World War II, the so-called blockbusters. It soon entered the vernacular, appearing in advertisements before the end of the war, and as a clue in a 1950 crossword puzzle in this newspaper (46 across). In the early 1950s the heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano was known as the Brockton Blockbuster, after the city where he was born, and the word blockbuster routinely appeared in articles about the Hollywood vogue for super-size entertainments.

These days highbrows dismiss movie blockbusters because they are often based in fantasy rather than reality, which is generally a bad thing unless the fantasy comes with a literary pedigree like “The Lord of the Rings.” Blockbusters tend to be made for adolescents instead of adults, which is also a bad thing because youngsters are untrustworthy cultural consumers. (One exception: blockbusters based on children’s books that also appeal to adults, like the Harry Potter cycle.) Blockbusters based on comics are invariably questionable unless they are called graphic novels and then not always. Blockbusters that open on thousands of screens are also considered dubious because anything that appeals to a wide audience is inherently suspect. I’m joking, but not really.

In recent years it has become axiomatic that the 1970s special-effects-laden blockbusters “Jaws” and “Star Wars” helped bring an end to New Hollywood’s flirtation with creative freedom (think of “Nashville”), ushering in the era of juvenile diversions like “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Never mind that “Jaws” is a good movie, far better at least for some than “Nashville.” As Martin Scorsese says in “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” Peter Biskind’s history of 1970s American cinema: “ ‘Star Wars’ was in. Spielberg was in. We were finished.” Well, not exactly, as suggested by the little gold statue presented to Mr. Scorsese in February by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, whose 1972 blockbuster, “The Godfather,” also happens to be a masterpiece.
The movie industry has been in the business of big — big stars, big stories, big productions, big screens and big returns — about as long as it’s been a business. And as long as the movies have told stories, they have used spectacle to sell those stories. In the silent era motion-picture producers employed spectacle to help distinguish the new medium from that of the theater, creating what were essentially protoblockbusters. In the 1950s the faltering movie industry went into the business of the supercolossus, delivering epic-size stories on ever-widening big screens in part to distinguish itself from that small-screen menace called television. Much has changed about the movies in the decades since, but not so the uses of pyrotechnics, sweeping landscapes and all manner of cinematic awesomeness.

Nowadays the armies of sword-brandishing soldiers may be largely computer generated, as in “300,” but film spectacle works more or less the same now as it did in 1912 when the Italian epic “Quo Vadis?” hit screens with a cast of literally thousands and extreme action in the form of a chariot race. That film’s pageantry, its gladiators and sacrificed Christians earned an enthusiastic thumb’s up from the sculptor Auguste Rodin, who declared it “a masterpiece.” (Everyone really is a critic.) The Italians were among the first in the film-spectacle business, but the Americans soon jumped in with costly productions like D. W. Griffith’s benighted masterpiece, “The Birth of a Nation,” which dramatically advanced the art.

Spectacle didn’t just enthrall audiences; it was instrumental to the very development of feature filmmaking, as directors learned how to make longer-running entertainments. Not that spectacle and narrative always mesh, then or now. In 1923 an anonymous critic for The New York Times wrote that Cecil B. DeMille’s “Ten Commandments” was divided into two sections, “the spectacle and the melodrama,” that might as well have been directed by two different men. The critic’s admiration for the spectacle (“done with meticulous precision”) tempered the larger criticism. (“It would have needed an unusually perfect modern drama to stand up in comparison.”) Somewhere the producer Jerry Bruckheimer is shaking his head, wondering why he can’t catch a similar break with today’s reviewers.

Yet if audiences dig spectacle, critics often view it with suspicion, as sneers about the modern blockbuster suggest. The negative rap on blockbusters is partly due to the literary bent of a lot of critics, who privilege words over images and tend to review screenplays, or what’s left of them, rather than the amalgamation of sights and sounds in front of them. But the sneers also suggest an underlying and familiar contamination anxiety. In the 1980s “Top Gun” wasn’t just a glib divertissement; it was evidence that MTV had infected the movies like a deadly virus. In the same grim light “300” isn’t just a shell of a movie; it’s proof that the movies have been infiltrated by an outside force, namely video games.

The threats have changed over the years — from television to music videos, comic books, digital technologies and so on — yet what has remained constant is the idea that the movies are under siege. But if the movies have taught us anything it is that they are brilliant adapters. They mutate and shift, stretch and adjust, and they neutralize those threats the way an organism absorbs nutrients, by assimilating them. We call some of these movie mutations comic-book flicks and compare still others to music videos, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes with a smile. We complain about car chases and forget that D. W. Griffith was among the first to put pedal to the metal on screen. And we condemn blockbusters for, if we’re lucky, doing the very thing we say we want from the movies: giving us a reason to watch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/mo...al/06darg.html





Why the Movies Keep Digging Into TV’s Bottomless Dustbin
A. O. Scott

SAMUEL JOHNSON notoriously compared a woman preaching to “a dog walking on its hind legs.” “It is not done well,” he mused, “but you are surprised to see it done at all.” Johnson’s view of animal behavior may be as dated as his ideas about women. At least in movies, the spectacle of a dog walking, talking, dancing and flying does not seem especially surprising.

It is thus no great shock to see that Disney has adapted “Underdog,” a moderately popular television cartoon originally broadcast from 1964 to 1973, into a live-action feature film. A canine spin on the Superman legend, the series chronicled the adventures of a mild-mannered beagle (the voice of Wally Cox) who, when not shining shoes, flew around in a cape fighting the dastardly schemes of his nemesis, Simon Barsinister. In the film Barsinister is played by Peter Dinklage, and Underdog is an actual pooch who speaks in the voice of Jason Lee.

“Underdog’s” imminent arrival (on Aug. 3) at a theater near you is hardly likely to raise an eyebrow. Even as feature-length animation — mainly of the computer-generated, three-dimensional kind — continues to be part of Hollywood’s commercial bedrock, the somewhat more dubious practice of retrofitting old cartoons into non- or semi-animated features shows no signs of dying out. Before going any further, I should note that “Underdog,” which I have not yet seen, may well turn out to be a delightful motion picture and a box office smash. The title almost requires that you root for its success.

But that success, if it comes, will make “Underdog” something of an exception, a version of Dr. Johnson’s perambulating beast after all. Very few movies of its kind have been hits. According to boxofficemojo.com only four of them — “The Flintstones,” “Scooby-Doo,” “George of the Jungle” and “Casper” — have passed the $100 million mark in theaters. Not that any of these movies were especially good. But they were, perhaps, not as bad as the movies spun out of “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “Josie and the Pussycats,” “Fat Albert” and “Mr. Magoo.”

These films are a particularly unfortunate subgenre in the none-too-distinguished category of movies based on old television shows, animated or not. The “Mission Impossible” pictures have transcended their small-screen origins. Apart from them, however, the record is artistically and commercially unimpressive.

Those “Brady Bunch” movies were amusing in their way, and the first “Addams Family” was actually pretty good. But “Bewitched”? “The Honeymooners”? “The Mod Squad”? “McHale’s Navy”? You might think — or indeed hope — that the moment for such projects would have passed.

Affectionately mocking the throwaway entertainment of the past feels dated in its own right, part of the mid-’90s craze for attaching air quotes to everything in sight and dredging up half-forgotten treasures from the collective pop memory. But mid- and late-20th-century American popular culture is a barrel without a bottom, full of junk that apparently cries out to be repackaged, recycled and resold.

Plenty of raw material remains. Given the current penguin craze, why not bring back Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog’s old pal (or at least his fellow shill for General Mills)? Or Chilly Willy? There are a lot of martial arts fans out there. Anyone else remember “Hong Kong Phooey”? I bet he’d beat “Underdog.”

Whether or not there is demand, in other words, there is endless supply, and an equally persistent willingness to tap into it. Nostalgia for the pleasures of childhood is a disease without a cure. Baby-boom and Gen-X writers, directors and studio executives are as reluctant as others in their cohorts to let go of the comfort and predictability of Saturday mornings on the family room couch or prime time in the den. Why not give some of that magic back to their own kids?

So today’s youngsters, who can in any case watch the old stuff (including an “Underdog” boxed set) on DVD, are presented with bigger, shinier, safer versions of the cartoons their moms and dads (and by now grandparents) allegedly used to love. Compared with the originals, which could turn cheapness into a virtue, the new products spare no expense when it comes to technology and casting. And yet for all their lavishness, they tend to feel shoddy and uninspired.

The simplest explanation for this is that something made to be viewed in 15- or 30-minute increments on a small screen does not easily translate into a feature-length movie. This hypothesis is borne out by movie versions of currently popular cartoons, from “Hey, Arnold!” and “The Powerpuff Girls” to “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” (“South Park,” which breaks every other rule, is the exception to this one.) But the cinematic rehashes of ’50s, ’60s and ’70s television are not disappointing simply because they are clumsy attempts to extend the running times and expand the aspect ratios of the originals. They are acts of narcissistic aggression aimed at the young even as they are undertaken in the name of generational harmony.

The basic, benign selling point is that parents, fondly remembering their own experience of these shows, will bring their children along to the theater, initiating the youngsters into a charmed circle of endless parody. Many of the original programs were benign satires of familiar genres and conventions: “Underdog” poked fun at superheroes; “Rocky and Bullwinkle” made anarchic hay of spy fiction and, most brilliantly, of its own artifice; “The Flintstones” sent up “The Honeymooners.”

In the movies, though, that mild, occasionally thrilling sense of subversion is betrayed not only by the overblown scale but also by a tone of vulgar smirkiness that makes the grown-ups feel smarter than they should and the kids feel dumber than they need to. The adults, that is, laugh knowingly at the in-jokes and moments of pastiche, while their children chuckle at the easy physical humor and the inevitable scatology. And then the grown-ups can lecture the youngsters about how much better — smarter, more innocent, more fun — the originals were.

Which is so frequently true that you begin to suspect it may be the point, that built-in inferiority is part of the formula. What better way for filmmakers and executives to pay sincere tribute to the cartoons they grew up on — and to hold on to a fading vision of the good old days — than to turn memorable television into forgettable cinema? They don’t necessarily set out to do so. They just can’t help themselves.

As I’ve suggested, “Underdog” may surprise us all by turning out to be fresh and true to the silly spirit of the original. And if it isn’t, we’ll just have to wait until December, when the long-awaited “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie comes out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/mo...al/06scot.html





Wizards in the Studio, Anonymous on the Street
Ben Sisario

THE songwriting session was so fresh that the aroma of the evening’s chicken wings still lingered. Behind the vast mixing board of a dimly lighted Manhattan recording studio, two producers and their co-writer greeted a record executive who had come to hear their work. With the press of a button, the room filled with sound: somber guitar arpeggios over a slow, sleek hip-hop beat, with layers of falsetto harmonies leading to a big, glittery, instantly memorable chorus. It was pure candy — sweetly melodic, but just funky enough to have a dance groove.

“I’m thinking Jennifer,” the executive said. “It’s perfect for Jennifer Hudson.”

As three more songs that had been written in the last 24 hours blared from enormous speakers, the producers sat calmly, waiting to hear which superstars their songs would be pitched to. But they weren’t the Neptunes or Timbaland or Dr. Dre or anyone else ardent followers of the Top 40 would be likely to recognize. They were Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen, wholesome-looking, milk-complexioned Norwegians who, despite having no public persona, have quickly become two of the most in-demand figures in pop music.

Better known as Stargate, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen have had an enviable string of hits since arriving in the United States two years ago, including Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” Rihanna’s “Unfaithful” and “So Sick” by Ne-Yo, a rising 24-year-old singer from Las Vegas who is a frequent co-writer. (Ne-Yo’s new album, “Because of You,” released Tuesday on Def Jam, includes two Stargate songs.) Add to those Lionel Richie’s comeback single, “I Call It Love,” and “Beautiful Liar,” the steamy track by Beyoncé and Shakira, which shot to the top of the iTunes best-seller list when released in March. At a time when the music industry is starved for hits, Stargate has had repeated success with a relatively simple approach: sugary, lilting R&B in the Michael Jackson vein leavened with the kind of melody-rich European pop that paints everything in bright primary colors.

More potential hits are in the works. The executive visiting them, Larry Jackson, senior vice president of A&R (artists and repertory) at J Records, confirmed that Ms. Hudson would be recording their song “Can’t Stop the Rain.” And the Stargate name is attached to many other “priority releases” — projects that record labels, managers and radio programmers are expecting to be the most popular and profitable.

“In the industry, their name recognition is as powerful as Timbaland’s,” said Jeff Rabhan, who manages Elliott Yamin, the “American Idol” alumnus whose self-titled new album has two Stargate tracks.

But in this age of the superstar producer, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen are an exception, and not just for their perky Scandinavian accents and the plain T-shirts and sweats that make them look like refugees from a college soccer team. Like the Brill Building songwriters of the 1950s and ’60s, they are behind-the-scenes workaholics, preferring to spend their time in a cramped studio.

“We have the No. 1 record in the country for 10 weeks, but when we walk down the street no one knows who we are,” said Mr. Hermansen, who like his partner is 34, shiny of scalp and beanstalk thin. “It’s great.”

With no videos to shoot, no tour dates and no solo albums to record, they are able to devote themselves to writing and recording, and they churn out new songs with astonishing speed and regularity. While labels and artists frequently wait weeks or even months for a new song from a top producer, a typical Stargate workday yields two, three, four or more.

“A lot of American producers have a great difficulty with pop,” said Barry Weiss, president of Jive Records, who recently hired Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen to work with Usher, Chris Brown and Joe. “But these guys were raised on pop. They grew up on Abba. They grew up on Boney M. Those influences lend themselves to them making very melodic pop records, with great hooks and choruses. You plug in the right top-line writer and you got one plus one equals three.”

Arriving at noon at their studio on West 25th Street six days a week — “We get Sundays off,” Mr. Eriksen said — the men of Stargate keep the music industry’s equivalent of banker’s hours. Working in a modest room so crowded with recording gear that they spend much of their time toiling inches apart, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen say they usually finish up by midnight or 1 a.m. — around the time many of their competitors might be beginning their own sessions.

Life in a recording studio can be slow and numbingly repetitive, but on a recent afternoon Stargate was a blur of musical multitasking. After tweaking some instrumental tracks, the producers convened with a co-writer over lyrics to a new song, and recorded it a couple of hours later. On and off throughout the day, as one restaurant delivery after another came through the door — eggs and bacon, Chinese, burgers — they sketched out yet another tune and discussed their favorite topic: the pride and constant stimulation of working in the United States.

“We can be in the studio till 1 o’clock in the morning,” Mr. Hermansen said, “and then we walk out on the street and right outside we meet the president of Atlantic Records and the head of A&R over at Def Jam. And we’ll talk about projects — ‘O.K., we’ll come by your office tomorrow.’ Then we’ll be up there at 11 o’clock playing songs.”

Their work carries on a tradition of Scandinavian bubble-gum artistry that stretches from Abba to Max Martin, the Swedish mastermind behind the late-’90s heyday of Britney Spears, ’N Sync et al. But while Mr. Martin has lately been developing a more rock-influenced sound in songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Stargate has followed a lifelong love of the Michael Jackson-Prince school of R&B.

“In Europe we’ve only been hearing the biggest American hits,” said Mr. Eriksen, the quieter of the two, who has a thin, blond goatee and moves in quick, precise jolts at the console, like a video-game virtuoso. “That’s what we’ve been listening to and trying to measure up to.”

Formed a decade ago in Norway as a trio — the third member, Hallgeir Rustan, left two years ago because he did not want to come to America, and remains a producer in Norway — Stargate had its first successes in Britain, with dozens of singles by teen-pop acts like Blue, Atomic Kitten and Hear’Say reaching the Top 10. The three men remixed American hip-hop and R&B songs, sweetening them for European radio with layers of added melody. Soon they began to set their eyes on a studio in New York.

“We knew that to make the records we really wanted to make, we had to go to America,” said Mr. Eriksen.

After some exploratory missions, they settled in New York in the spring of 2005. Work was slow at first until a chance meeting with Ne-Yo (whose real name is Shaffer Smith) in a hallway at Sony Music Studios on West 54th Street. “They told me they did R&B, and honestly I didn’t believe them,” Ne-Yo said.

But he was impressed by their work, and on their first joint songwriting date they knocked out six songs, among them “So Sick,” which was No. 1 for two weeks. Then came Ne-Yo’s next hit, “Sexy Love,” then Rihanna, then Beyoncé. ...

In the usual Stargate M.O. — common in pop and hip-hop production — Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen create an instrumental backing track and then let a collaborator write the lyrics and vocal melody.

For Ne-Yo, Stargate’s strength has as much to do with the music it makes as the music it doesn’t.

“You hear some tracks where the producer is absolutely trying to be the star,” he said, “the way they do so much with the track that it’s almost difficult to write — you can’t find any space to put a song in there. But I never had a problem with these guys. They are the epitome of simple and to the point.”

For their recent writing session with Ne-Yo, in Studio D at Sony Music, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen brought a CD with sketches of 11 songs. Scanning through it, Ne-Yo picked one midtempo track with sharp, resonant acoustic guitar — “That’s nasty!” he said — and sat down with a notepad, playing the track on a loop while Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen sat for an interview a few feet away.

After about 40 minutes, the singer leaped out of his seat. “I got it,” he announced, and sang his brand-new verse and a chorus. Everyone agreed that the song was hot, and once Ne-Yo removed his heavy gold chains — to keep them from clanging while at the microphone — assumed their recording positions.

In about two hours, they had finished a textbook Stargate song. Over a spare beat that would not be out of place in a vintage Run-D.M.C. track, the guitar laid out a palette of bright, bold chords and the weaving melody that remains a focal point throughout the song. Ne-Yo’s vocal — recorded in a couple of takes, with layer upon layer of harmonies added in quick succession — was soft and soulful, climaxing in a chorus that, with a swell of synthesizers behind it, seemed to glow with neon. “No matter what I do,” Ne-Yo sang, “I can’t stop the rain.”

Stargate’s speed is a big attraction to clients. The duo’s unobtrusive production style is another, and cannily plays to the ego dynamics of pop stars: everybody wants a hit, but nobody wants to be upstaged by the producer.

“Most pop, hip-hop and R&B producers,” said Mr. Rabhan, the manager, “are so distinctive that their music becomes instantly recognizable and overshadows the artist. Stargate has really been able to make a footprint without making it all about them.”

But that footprint is often faint. While a song produced by Timbaland or the Neptunes is recognizable no matter who the artist is, the Stargate signature is more difficult to detect, because to some degree the duo’s style is an adaptable method, not a specific sound.

“They’re chameleons,” said Steve Lunt, an A&R executive at Atlantic Records who last worked with Stargate on songs by the teenage singer Gia Farrell. “But if you put a bunch of Stargate songs together you will see the thread running through them.”

Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen dismiss the idea that their remarkable productivity might be helped by songwriting formulaics.

“There’s a craft to any art form,” Mr. Hermansen responded. “You have to master the craft, but at the same time you have to be creative within the format you’re working in. We have a certain ...”

“... musical language, so to speak,” said Mr. Eriksen, finishing his colleague’s sentence as if picking up a verse. “You shouldn’t be afraid of that either. Even though it might remind you of something else you shouldn’t shy away from it. Because it’s our expression.”

In the largely black milieu of R&B, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen have gotten their share of double takes. More than once, they said, visitors to their studio have misdirected their obeisances to the people they meet at the door: the two black British men who are Stargate’s managers.

But there are a growing number of well-known white R&B producers, including Scott Storch, Mark Ronson and Jonathan Rotem, as well as performers like Justin Timberlake, Amy Winehouse and Robin Thicke (who is also a successful producer).

What sets Stargate apart from producers black or white is its image. Or rather, the lack of one. The two do not stake their reputations on hip-hop authenticity; Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen, who are both married and have young children, remain deliberately invisible and clean-cut. When a photographer was about to snap their picture, Mr. Eriksen carefully moved an empty beer bottle so it wouldn’t appear in the shot. A laptop computer in their studio is set to Norwegian time, and they make it clear that the biggest draw of living in New York is the work.

“We’re like players who just got off the bench and started scoring,” Mr. Hermansen said.

Beginning their recent studio date with Ne-Yo, they took their places behind the console, unloading discs and various devices from a backpack. A young member of Ne-Yo’s entourage who was surfing the Internet on a studio computer caught Mr. Eriksen’s eye and asked him if they have a MySpace page.

Mr. Eriksen shook his head no.

“Why not?” the young man asked.

“Don’t have time,” Mr. Eriksen said, and began punching buttons at the mixing board.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/ar...ic/06sisa.html





Mixed Media
Rupert Murdoch

Traditional companies are feeling threatened. I say, bring on the changes.

Everyone knows that networking--once a face-to-face affair, sometimes captured in a Rolodex--is now worldwide, instant, and impervious to constraints of distance, time or cost.

Those of us in so-called old media have also learned the hard way what this new meaning of networking spells for our businesses. Media companies don't control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options. Of course a film is going to be a success if it's the only movie available on a Saturday night. Similarly, when three networks divided up a nation of 200 million, life was a lot easier for television executives. And not so very long ago most of the daily newspapers that survived the age of consolidation could count themselves blessed with monopolies in their home cities.

All that has changed. Options abound. Fans of small niches can now find new content they could never before. Going elsewhere for news and entertainment is easier and cheaper than ever. And people's expectations of media have undergone a revolution. They are no longer content to be a passive audience; they insist on being participants, on creating their own material and finding others who will want to read, listen and watch.

Consequently the old media are threatened by the erosion of our traditional profit centers. Certainly we can't count on things like print classified advertising being around forever. Similarly, DVRs undermine the mainstay of broadcast television's business model: the commercial.

Nonetheless, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the age of content is over. On the contrary, people want content more than ever, and there is a role for companies that can provide good stuff--"good" being the operative word. Quality is more important than ever, because the marketplace is more ruthlessly competitive. Options are not merely one click of the remote away; devices undreamed of a few short decades ago are at least as tempting as a change of the channel.

Old media can survive--and thrive--in this new environment, but they must adapt. We must learn how younger generations of consumers prefer to receive their news and entertainment, and we must meet those expectations.

The good news is that we are learning--and fast. Take the type of media I know best--news. News is in more demand than ever, but the vast network of Internet-savvy news junkies want their news with several fresh twists: constantly updated, relevant to their daily lives, complete with commentary and analysis, and presented in a way that allows them to interact not just with the news but with each other about the news. They won't wait until six o'clock to watch the news on television or until the next morning to read it in isolation. This plainly provides a challenge for news providers but also an opportunity to be far more engaged with the audience.

Companies that take advantage of this new meaning of network and adapt to the expectations of the networked consumer can look forward to a new golden age of media. Far be it from me to suggest that either I or my company have all the answers. No one does. But the future of media is a future of relentless experimentation and innovation, accelerating change, and--for those who embrace the new ways in which consumers are connecting with each other--enormous potential.
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/138.html





Computer Adoption: Buzzword
Glenn Derene

Last week, I wrote about home servers in a column that eventually got posted on Slashdot, which, predictably, led to an all-out nerd pile-on by venomous legions from the geekosphere who took issue with just about everything I said. (Hint to aspiring tech pundits: Don’t ever question a future wherein Google is anything short of the ultimate arbiter of every bit of information on earth.)

My point last week wasn’t to glorify Microsoft’s Windows Home Server approach to home data storage and management, just to say that there is a growing need for some sort of server to play traffic cop—whether it’s a box in your home or a service that you pay for. Personally, I think that the future of both applications and data storage will not be totally Web-based or home-equipment based, but an amalgam of both. In fact, I’m willing to posit that the line between your home digital equipment and Web-based services will grow ever fuzzier as time goes by.

Interestingly, one reader took issue with my comment that it is “not uncommon in the modern American household to have two, three or more computers networked together.” PM user "BB" brought up the point that, according to the latest census data, only 55 percent of American households have a computer with any sort of Internet access.

That data, for the record, is from 2003. The closest recent data I could find was a 2006 study by the Pew Research Center, claiming that 70 percent of U.S. adults go online and that broadband penetration is at 45 percent. And a brand-new study released by Pew this week claims that 49 percent of Americans “only occasionally use modern gadgetry” and 15 percent is considered “off the network,” with no telephone or Internet access to speak of. And while we’re parsing numbers, a 2007 study by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) puts desktop computer ownership in 2007 at 66 percent of households—actually down from 70 percent the previous year—and laptop computer ownership at 37 percent (I can only assume some overlap, or the total household computer ownership would be 103 percent).

So which of these statistics paints today's most accurate portrait of computer and Internet usage in America? As is always the case with statistics, none of the studies give an entirely accurate picture, but taken together, you can get a rough idea of the landscape: Two-thirds of Americans have desktop PCs, a growing number are getting laptops, and most use the Internet in some capacity (whether that's just at the office seems to go unasked). So both computer ownership and Internet familiarity are firmly in the mainstream.

Nevertheless, my reader has a point: Even if we give computer usership the benefit of the (statistical) doubt, 15 to 30 percent of the population still doesn’t even bother to use the most important and powerful communication tool since the telephone. And the PC's been around for more than 30 years! Televisions, by contrast, were in 70 percent of U.S. homes within 10 years, and now have an adoption rate of 98 percent (according to the CEA). DVD players were in 82 percent of households within nine years of introduction. There’s a conclusion to be drawn here, perhaps, about the (lazy) priorities of some Americans: that they’d rather sit back on the couch and watch The Chronicles of Riddick than clean up the grammar in the Wikipedia entry on the Boxer Rebellion. But I think that there is more going on here than just a battle between passive entertainment and active engagement with cyberspace.

What keeps the personal computer from being a universally accepted technology? For a while, I’m sure that it was simply the cost of ownership; it’s only in the past few years that computers fell below $1000. But I’m willing to guess that it goes deeper than that. The computer has always been an awkward consumer electronics device. Unlike televisions, telephones and DVD players, PCs require constant updates and regular maintenance. And they have a failure rate that is astoundingly high. Furthermore, until recently, objects like TVs didn’t change that much. If you bought a color television in 1975, you could pretty much be assured that it wasn’t going to be rendered obsolete in five years. And if some new television technology came along, it was going to deliver a noticeable improvement from what you already had (if you liked “I Love Lucy” on your black and white TV, you were going to love “The Flintstones” in color). Computer users, on the other hand, must constantly upgrade their hardware just to keep pace with software and services. What’s more, because of their inherent complexity, personal computers still have a steep learning curve, even though they are at a relatively mature stage of their evolution.

So it is no surprise that a large population of people would rather not bother. In fact, the aforementioned 2003 census study asked people who didn’t have Internet access in the household the reason why they didn’t have the service. For most people over the age of 45 the answer was less likely to be “costs are too high” than “don’t need it, not interested.”

The obvious lesson from all of this is that, even though computers are far more useful to the consumer than televisions, more people embraced television technology faster because it was easier to understand and use. So are we trying to make PCs as simple as TVs? No. Actually we’re making TVs more complicated, with multiple HDTV standards, confusing jargon and dozens of complex connections (pick up the brand-new issue of Popular Mechanics for our untangling of 10 HDTV myths). Of course, as younger generations emerge that have grown up with computers, the percentage of computer and Internet users is guaranteed to rise, as is our tolerance, as a nation, for complex technological objects—just maybe not as fast as those of us in the world of technology would expect.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blog...s/4216501.html





Virgin Throttles National Cable Network

Tens of thousands choked
Chris Williams

Virgin Media has quietly rolled out bandwidth throttling nationwide, after successful technical trials in the North West, which the ISP says means a group of heavy users will sacrifice high speeds for the benefit of the majority.

Speeds on the cable network will be limited between 4pm and midnight for traffic which Virgin considers "potentially abnormal". Virgin says the top five per cent heaviest downloaders among its three million customers will be affected - about 150,000 broadband users across the country.

Virgin has criticised rival ADSL providers for their "unlimited" marketing, where opaque fair use policies can mask a monthly GB download limit. It made it clear that national bandwidth throttling would be needed for its network, however, but argued that this increasingly common practice would be fairer than an unpublished monthly cap. Under its new regime, Virgin subscribers will not face restrictions on the amount they can download, but on the speed.

Customers on the "M" package will be throttled from 2Mb/s to 1Mb/s download speed and 128Kb/s upload once they have downloaded 350MB during the eight hour period. "L" subscribers will be allowed to run at full 4Mb/s speed until they hit 750MB, when downloads will be capped at 2Mb/s and uploads at 192Kb/s. Premium "XL" punters, paying £37 per month for 10Mb/s broadband, will be rationed to 3GB at full clip: anything more will come downstream at 5Mb/s and go upstream at 256Kb/s.

Virgin is in the process of upgrading the cable network for its top-paying subscribers to allow downloads at 20Mb/s. Theoretically, this speed would exhaust the 3GB limit in just 20 minutes.

While most now accept that technological limits mean bandwidth throttling is a necessary measure to ensure equality of access, Virgin customers have been getting in touch to criticise the limits for being too low. "M" customer Chris wrote: "I am on their 4Mb/s tier and it looks like I will be throttled as soon as I have downloaded 750MB, which in today's internet is next to nothing - not even one DVD. I use Skype with 2-way video most evenings to chat to my girlfriend when she is abroad...I certainly wouldn't say I am abusing the network - but Virgin Media would."

The imminent public release of Joost could fire a bigger revolt from customers. The P2P/streaming TV application downloads 350MB per hour, and Virgin will apply the new limits across the whole of prime viewing period, meaning viewers will trigger throttling very quickly.

Virgin PR chief John Moorwood told us: "We don't cut customers off, cap on bandwidth, or charge extra for going over a set limit, so our customers would still be able to use the P2P TV service at peak times if they were to experience traffic management controls - albeit at a slower speed.

"That can't be said of some other ISPs, who would be cutting off a connection or charging extra. As ever, we will naturally keep an eye on all significant internet developments."

The firm hasn't announced plans to tell users when they are going over their limit, and instead has advised customers to download a piece of trialware called DU Meter. Critics argue this would not help a modern home with several PCs, a Slingbox, and XBox, to easily monitor its usage without decent router setup skills - not a very Virgin Media "experience". Moorwood said developing a tool of Virgin's own is "something we might investigate long term".

Virgin's customer information page is here. Returning to everyone's favourite vintage internet metaphor, it promises "a lot fewer traffic jams on the information superhighway".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05...de_throttling/





Comcast Boosts Cable Upload Speeds

Comcast officially announced Tuesday what customers around the United States have been noticing for months: no bandwidth caps when uploading files less than 10MB. The feature, called PowerBoost, follows a similar upgrade in download speeds last year.

Customers will be able to upload at speeds reaching 2 megabits per second, far greater than the standard limit of 384 kilobytes. The service is being rolled out on a market-to-market basis, with the entire Comcast network expected to be upgraded by the end of the year. Comcast customers already see download speeds of 12Mbps to 16Mbps for files under 10MB.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Comc...eds/1178653787





160Mbps Downloads Move Closer for US Cable Customers
Eric Bangeman

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is holding its annual convention in Las Vegas (where else?) and this year, super-high-speed cable service is finally moving into the limelight. Announcements from hardware providers like Motorola and Texas Instruments suggest that we're finally moving closer to the promised land of DOCSIS 3.0.

DOCSIS 3.0 offers two immediate benefits over what cable ISP subscribers are currently stuck with (DOCSIS 1.1): faster speeds and support for IPv6. The technology has the potential to bump download speeds to 160Mbps and upload speeds to 120Mbps, although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.

In the first widespread deployment of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, a South Korean cable ISP was able to pump 100Mbps service into the homes of its subscribers. This week's announcements provide hope that the kind of speeds seen in Korea will be making their way across the Pacific before too long.

Motorola, Singapore-based StarHub, and cable hardware provider Vyyo announced that they have successfully tested DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, delivering speeds in excess of 145Mbps. Testing was performed over StarHub's hybrid fiber-coax network in Singapore and used a combination of Motorola hardware and Vyyo's spectrum overlay products.

Texas Instruments has also announced a new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem architecture that it says will enable "fast adoption and deployment of advanced DOCSIS 3.0 specification-based products." Called Puma 5, TI's solution provides advanced home networking support and is optimized for data, voice, and video traffic.

The announcements demonstrate that while the cable companies will have to invest in some new equipment, wholesale infrastructure improvements will be largely unnecessary. This is especially true for cable companies that have already deployed mixed fiber/coaxial networks. The upside? Faster DOCSIS 3.0 deployments in the US.

Cable companies have another incentive to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 in a rapid manner. Verizon and AT&T are investing heavily in fiber networks of their own. While AT&T's fiber-to-the-node solution won't break any speed records (DSL download speeds are capped at 6Mbps), Verizon's FiOS network offers the kind of bandwidth that is out of reach even for DOCSIS 3.0. Of course, much of that 3.5Gbps of bandwidth is reserved for television programming (leaving around 622Mbps for broadband), but FiOS has the potential for even faster speeds as more technological advances are made and FiOS TV is migrated to an IPTV system.

Comcast plans to demo DOCSIS 3.0 at The Cable Show this week and, more importantly, plans to begin DOCSIS 3.0 trials later this year, according to Cable Digital News. Large-scale DOCSIS 3.0 deployments are unlikely to begin until next year, and a November 2006 report estimated that only 40 percent of the cable modems in use will support the technology by 2011—by that time, FiOS will be available to well over 18 million households in the US. Still, it's encouraging to see one of those "three-to-five-years-away" technologies poised to finally hit the market.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...customers.html





With Liberty and 100 Megabit/Second Broadband for All
Eric Bangeman

The sad state of US broadband policy has been on the minds of a lot of people for some time. Federal Communications Commission Kevin Martin has affirmed that broadband policy is a "priority" for the Commission, and President Bush said back in 2004 that he wanted universal access to broadband by 2007. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is on board with the broadband love and has an even more ambitious goal: universal 100Mbps broadband from sea to shining sea by 2015, with an interim goal of 10Mbps by 2010.

In a nonbinding resolution introduced to the Senate yesterday, Sen. Rockefeller noted that at the current pace of deployment, "next-generation" broadband networks (which the resolution defines as being capable of 100Mbps) will not be deployed throughout the US for another 20 years. The resolution calls on Congress to work with the President to develop a strategy with the goal of passing legislation by year end, but since a resolution doesn't carry the force of law, there's no guarantee that it will have any tangible results.

In remarks delivered to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Sen. Rockefeller pointed to the examples of Japan and Korea. "In Japan, tens of millions of people have access to a direct fiber connection, and 100 megabit connections are commonplace," said the senator. "Korea has been the leader in DSL for years, and now it also is extending fiber all the way to the home."

Korea is also hitting the 100Mbps benchmark via cable Internet via deployments of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear, and recent developments indicate that the US might not need to run fiber to every household in order to reach the elusive megabit download speeds. At The Cable Show in Las Vegas this week, Comcast demoed some of its own DOCSIS 3.0 equipment that was able to suck down content at 150Mbps.

But as those living in rural areas know all too well, broadband options—let alone next-generation broadband service—can be few and far between. That, too, may change as wireless broadband technologies mature and are brought to market. Perhaps the most compelling of these is the so-called "White Spaces" broadband device currently being tested by the FCC. White spaces broadband would take advantage of unused television spectrum after the transition to digital television in February 2009 to deliver speeds of up to 80Mbps to subscribers.

Sen. Rockefeller credits "healthy competition developing between telephone companies and cable television companies" for the 30Mbps speeds that are available to a mere handful of US residents. However, the definition of broadband competition used by the FCC—where competition is between different modes of broadband delivery rather than the providers themselves—has left millions of Americans with little or no choice when it comes to fast Internet service. And if the telecoms deploying their next-generation networks get their way, that will not change any time in the near future, as they continue to limit their fiber deployments to more profitable and affluent neighborhoods within a municipality while bypassing others.

Universal megabit broadband is not only a noble goal but is arguably a strategic imperative for the US. Sen. Rockefeller's resolution is a first step in the right direction, but the future legislation envisioned by the senator needs to reflect and correct the many failings of current broadband policy in the US if it is to have any meaningful impact.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...d-for-all.html





Harvard, BBN Use Streetlamps to Light Up Wireless Network
Ben Ames

Researchers at Harvard University and BBN Technologies have designed an intriguing wireless network capable of reporting real-time sensor data across an entire city, Cambridge, Mass. Scientists will initially use the CitySense network to monitor urban weather and pollution. The network could eventually provide better public wireless Internet access.

The system solves a constraint on previous wireless networks—battery life—by mounting each node on a municipal streetlamp, where it draws power from city electricity. Researchers plan to install 100 sensors on streetlamps throughout Cambridge by 2011, using a grant from the National Science Foundation. Each node will include an embedded PC running the Linux OS, an 802.11 Wi-Fi interface and weather sensors, says Matt Welsh, assistant professor of computer science at Harvard.

For the sensors, the streetlamp approach opens up a new range of uses—for example, performing long-term experiments like real-time environmental monitoring, correlating microclimates with population health or tracking the spread of biochemical agents, according to BBN.

A large challenge was how to design a network that allows remote nodes to communicate with the central servers at Harvard and BBN. CitySense will do that by letting each node form a mesh with its neighbors, exchanging data through multiple-hop links. This strategy allows a node to download software or upload sensor data to a distant server hub using a small radio with only a 1-kilometer range, Welsh says.

People have built such networks on smaller scales before, but for private purposes, or to provide wireless Internet links in towns such as Madison, Wis., and Champaign, Ill., Welsh says. In contrast, CitySense will let academic researchers worldwide log on to the project website and submit their own research programs to run on the network.
http://www.cio.com/article/108413/Ha...reless_Network





Free-Internet Plan Gets S.F. Controller's Office OK

Cost savings, citywide Wi-Fi connections make EarthLink-Google offer attractive
Ryan Kim

The San Francisco controller's office issued a favorable review Friday on a proposal by EarthLink and Google to provide the city with free wireless Internet access.

The report estimates residents could save $9 million to $18 million in Internet bills annually by having the option of choosing the EarthLink service, which will offer free access as well as a paid service that is cheaper than other broadband options like DSL and cable.

The report said the service will help the city bridge the digital divide, providing many residents with Internet service for the first time. It also noted it would be a boon to EarthLink, giving it a foothold in the San Francisco broadband market.

"I think this is one more reason for the board to approve free Wi-Fi as soon as possible," said Nathan Ballard, spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom. "It shows that Wi-Fi creates a favorable impact for the city."

Newsom said in January that the city had finalized language for a contract with EarthLink and Google to provide paid and free Wi-Fi service. EarthLink would pay the city $2 million over four years for the right to build, own and maintain the network. Subscribers would pay $22 a month for 1 megabit per second of broadband service or receive free service with speeds topping out at 300 kilobits per second.

But several city supervisors, led by Jake McGoldrick, have pushed for a municipally owned and operated network. McGoldrick has proposed competing legislation that could be heard by the Board of Supervisors later this summer at the same time as the EarthLink-Google deal.

Supervisor Chris Daly, who has supported a city-owned system, said he wasn't swayed by the controller's report. He said a city-owned network could provide even greater benefits than the EarthLink system.

A city-owned project "could potentially offer better service at lower rates for customers, and that might have a bigger impact on the economy and local businesses," Daly said. "That's what we have to be thinking about."

The report by the controller's office, which acts as the city's auditor, comes just three days after EarthLink won approval from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to use its light poles to build a network of Wi-Fi antennas.

The EarthLink-Google proposal will be heard Monday by the Board of Supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee before moving to the full board.

"We're really pleased to have a city agency evaluate the deal with this level of diligence and look at the areas where we'd have an impact, whether it's providing funds for digital inclusion or the impact on the economy and savings for consumers," said Cole Reinwand, vice president of product strategy and marketing at EarthLink.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...UG6FPPLB21.DTL





Vonage Says It May Have Way Around Disputed Patents
Amy Thomson

Vonage Holdings Corp. said it may have technology that could rescue its Internet-phone service, after a jury found the company infringed patents that allow customers to call standard telephones.

``We will begin rolling these workarounds out shortly, hopefully in the next few weeks, and we believe they will work,'' Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Citron said on a conference call today as the Holmdel, New Jersey-based company reported a narrower first-quarter loss.

Vonage shares have plunged 80 percent since the company went public a year ago. Citron's remarks pushed the stock up 11 percent today on optimism that Vonage can stay in business if the new technology eliminates future patent fights with Verizon Communications Inc.

``They're saying they're well under way, but still not making any guarantees that they'll be successful,'' said Clayton Moran, an analyst at Stanford Group Co. in Boca Raton, Florida. He rates the shares ``hold'' and doesn't own them. ``Investors should remain skeptical.''

Shares of Vonage rose 33 cents to $3.38 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They were first sold to the public for $17 apiece in May 2006.

Vonage's new technology can be installed through software downloads and shouldn't be costly to deploy, Citron said. The company will continue to appeal the court decision that requires it to pay Verizon damages for infringing patents on technology that translates Internet-based calls to standard lines.

Narrower Loss

The first-quarter net loss shrank to $72.3 million, or 47 cents a share, from $85.2 million a year earlier, Vonage said today. Excluding some items, the loss was 39 cents, better than a 44-cent average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Sales rose 64 percent to $195.9 million, in line with the preliminary figures released last month. Growth slowed as the company won 166,000 subscribers in the first quarter, compared with 328,000 a year earlier.

Legal bills and spending to acquire customers contributed to the loss. Vonage reported sales and subscriber numbers early when announcing the resignation of CEO Michael Snyder. Founder Citron took over as his interim replacement at that time.

Vonage will give an update on the CEO search on its next earnings call, Citron said, adding it is unlikely a new leader will be named before the Verizon case is completed.

`Very Aggressive'

``Citron can be very aggressive, and I think he is the best person for that job right now,'' said Yankee Group analyst Patrick Monaghan, who is based in Boston and doesn't own Vonage shares. He spoke before the announcement. ``He's willing to take on the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world.''

Vonage spent an average of $275 to acquire each new customer in the quarter. The rate of customer defections rose to 2.4 percent from 2.3 percent three months earlier. The company wouldn't say what it expects churn to be in the second quarter.

Last month, Vonage also said it would cut its advertising budget by $110 million to $310 million for 2007 and reduce its workforce by 10 percent. Vonage will have costs of $5 million in the second quarter, mainly related to firings, Citron said today.

``The first five months of this year have obviously been very difficult. We have made some very hard choices as a company,'' he said in an interview. ``We made those hard choices because we don't want to do this again.''

Lower Sales

The smaller ad budget will reduce customer additions and hurt sales in 2007, Chief Financial Officer John Rego said on the conference call. He wouldn't confirm Vonage's previous forecast for sales of as much as $900 million in 2007, saying the patent lawsuit and spending cuts are making the year unpredictable.

A U.S. district court judge ruled in March that Vonage must pay Verizon more than $58 million in damages and 5.5 percent of future revenue from phone lines. Vonage has said in court filings it may need to seek bankruptcy protection if it loses the use of the technology.

Yesterday Vonage filed written arguments with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, which specializes in patent law. Vonage said the trial judge's interpretation of Verizon's patents was erroneous and the jury's verdict, as well as its determination the patents are valid, should be thrown out. Verizon's reply is due May 23, and the appeal will be argued before a three-judge panel on June 25.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...1FTM0&refer=us





Paedophiles Use Skype ‘Loophole’ to Woo Children
Daniel Foggo, Claire Newell and Martin Foley

INTERNET chatrooms run by Skype, the online telephone giant, have become a magnet for paedophiles and sexual predators who want to groom children as young as 10 for sex, an investigation has found.

The software, which enables users to make free phone calls and also “chat” by typing messages while online, has become the preferred method for many paedophiles to find their victims.

Other internet chat facilities have strengthened their child protection measures or closed down entirely because of concerns over internet “grooming”.

Skype, which was bought two years ago by eBay, the online auction site, for £1.3 billion and has nearly 200m users worldwide, has been accused of leaving under16s vulnerable to abuse. It was contacted last week by concerned Metropolitan police child protection officers.

During a two-week investigation, Sunday Times undercover reporters posed online as children aged between 10 and 14. They were bombarded with sexually overt messages from adult men in Britain and overseas who wanted to meet the children and asked them for pornographic images of themselves.

One, a 50-year-old professional and father of two from southern England, arranged to meet a reporter who he believed to be a girl aged 14 from West Sussex. He turned up at a railway station near to his home on Friday after arranging to take her to his home to “watch a video”.

The man, who had also said that he thought the girl’s clothing would “look great on my bedroom floor”, greeted a reporter who he believed to be the 14-year-old by draping his arm across her shoulders.

Another man, a 33-year-old supervisor for a home counties company and a father of one, attempted to get a reporter masquerading online as a 13-year-old girl to send him lewd pictures of herself and to attend a pornographic photo shoot at a friend’s “mansion”.

A third man, a 32-year-old engineer based in northeast Scotland, took delight in ordering a “13-year-old girl” to engage in a sex act online. He also told her to buy “sexy” underwear, boasted that he had just bedded a 16-year-old and became aggressive when his commands were questioned.

It is illegal for an adult to meet a child following “sexual grooming” over the internet and it is also an offence to ask a child to become involved in pornography.

The Sunday Times has decided not to identify the men after fears were expressed for their safety.

Michele Elliott, director of Kid-scape, the child protection group, said: “The Sunday Times has uncovered not only a loophole, it has uncovered where the paedophiles are going when they are being blocked at other places. What’s Skype going to do about it?

“We know that paedophiles will use anything they can to get in contact with children. There are no checks and you’ve proven that it is so brilliantly easy.”

Skype differs from many other chat facilities because it is run on a system known as “peer-to-peer”. This means individuals communicate directly with each other instead of being hosted through a central server that can be scrutinised by moderators.

It takes just a few minutes to download Skype’s free software and enter the chatroom. The only apparent warning to children is a single sentence found in an obscure corner of the site: “If your children are using Skype, educate them about the threats of communicating with strangers.”

By contrast, children using the Yahoo! chatroom, a centrally hosted service, encounter clear warnings throughout the registration procedure and, once enabled, can communicate only with others of the same age group.

A panic button alerts the service provider to abusive messaging and the chatrooms are “patrolled” by volunteers approved by Yahoo! who are known as “navigators”.

On Skype, users have only to create a “profile” with optional details of their age and then place themselves online. Other users from around the world can then send messages and call.

The profiles created by The Sunday Times, which made clear the girls’ ages and little else, proved irresistible to sexual predators.

The 50-year-old professional messaged an undercover reporter posing as a 14-year-old named Anne, asking what she liked to do at night. He asked her if she was really 14 and, when told that she was, he suggested: “Well, if you ever get up this way, I could take you clubbing.”

He then suggested a rendezvous and gave “Anne” his mobile number. In a subsequent telephone call he arranged to pick her up from the train station on Friday morning.

“I can take you home so to speak and we can sit and watch a video or something like that if you like?” he said, adding that he also had the latest James Bond film.

“How you going to work this with your mum, that’s what I want to know?” he added. When “Anne” said she did not know, he said: “What she doesn’t know, she won’t worry about.”

Later on he sent the “girl” a text saying: “See u tomorrow at station 10am. I am not going to get arrested by pc if I turn up am I?”

When the girl suggested that she did not understand the text, the man seemed reassured.

The next day he appeared at the station half an hour early, looking agitated. After approaching the person he believed to be “Anne”, he was confronted by reporters. He said he had intended to make further checks on her age after meeting her, although he did not explain how.

The man added that he had been behaving strangely lately “because of a recent bereavement” and vowed never to contact children again.

A second man, the 33-year-old supervisor, contacted “Lucy” from Cheshire whose Skype profile described her as “14 soon”, and quickly asked if she was a virgin and if she would perform various sex acts.

“So if your [sic] only 14 have you had sex before?” he asked. When “Lucy” said she had not, the man steered the conversation towards her sending him pornographic pictures of herself.

“I can help [you be a model] but I need to see your body naked,” he messaged. The man also sent her messages from his work e-mail account and texts. “Just watch out for the perverts on Skype ok?” he added.

In a subsequent telephone call he said he had a friend with “a mansion” where he could take her for a photographic session. “If you want to start doing stuff we’ll have to start thinking about arrangements, when you’re available, cause obviously you’re at school and stuff like that, so maybe a weekend thing for you?” he said.

He then suggested she send him a package of graphic pictures to his work address. “Obviously put [them] for the attention of myself yeah? Else my boss will open them probably.”

When confronted, the man, who also contacted another underage profile set up by The Sunday Times, said: “If she was 14 or not I didn’t know that. I genuinely misunderstood. I’m not interested in talking to a 14-year-old. I’ve got my own kid, do you know what I mean?”

A third man, the 32-year-old from Scotland, who spent a long time messaging “Lucy” urging her to masturbate online, said when confronted: “This isn’t going to end well, is it? I haven’t really got a defence. It was a mistake. I wouldn’t even have to think twice before doing it again. I just wouldn’t do it.”

Kurt Sauer, Skype’s chief security officer, said: “This raises some very practical issues. However, we have not found a way to address each of the issues.”

Easy connection

Skype customers make free international telephone calls to other users and message each other via the internet, writes Daniel Foggo.

Skype. masterminded five years ago by the entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, was sold for £1.3 billion in 2005 and now has more than 196m users in 200 countries. The software has been downloaded 500m times.

Although calls between computers are free, connections to landlines and mobile phones must be paid for with credits bought online.

Computer-to-computer connections, known as peer-to-peer, enable users to see each other on webcams and to key in messages that are transferred instantly.

The technology encrypts the messages, providing privacy for users and their personal details. There is no way of monitoring the chat.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle1752240.ece





States Ponder Laws to Keep Web Predators From Children
Jennifer Medina

Nearly every American teenager, it seems, has a Web page displaying his or her life details. And nearly every parent has nightmares that someone might visit those pages, easily discovering where the children live and what they like.

It happened in Fairfield County in Connecticut in October 2005, when an F.B.I. task force arrested two men in unrelated cases who were suspected of trolling social-networking sites to lure young girls for sex. One of the predators, a 22-year-old man, molested an 11-year-old girl in her home while her parents slept upstairs. In the other case, a 39-year-old man met a 14-year-old girl at a mall and had her perform oral sex on him in his car.

It also happened in Youngsville, N.C., last June, when girls ages 12 and 13 were found at a swimming pool with a 21-year-old woman at 4 a.m. The girls told the police that they had met the woman through MySpace.com, where they had lied and said they were 17 and 18. The police charged the woman with two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The woman, who did not have a previous criminal record, said she had not been planning anything inappropriate.

[And just last week, a 27-year-old Texas man was charged in Michigan with criminal sexual conduct involving a 14-year-old girl he met on MySpace.]

Now, after years of exponential growth of such Web sites and dozens of high-profile cases of criminal activity stemming from them, politicians in a half-dozen states are pushing legislation aimed at protecting children by requiring sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com to verify the age of every user and require parental permission for those under 18.

But while the proposals have earned praise from worried parents, those who run the sites and independent technology experts say they are little more than grandstanding and would be impossible to enforce.

Indeed, MySpace already requires that users be at least 14 to create profiles, and limits access to those belonging to anyone under 18, while Facebook requires that users be older than 13 and shows profiles only to other members in the same social network.

Neither set of rules has stopped children like those in North Carolina from lying about their ages or blocked adults from masquerading as teenagers.

“Everyone looking at this has good intentions at their core, but there are some solutions that sound like they are the easy silver bullet and there is just no such thing,” said Hemanshu Nigam, the chief security officer for MySpace, warning that the proposed restrictions could create a false sense of safety. “You’ll see teens who are going to get around it and probably end up in a place where it is more difficult to protect them.”

Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, who has spearheaded the growing movement to crack down on the sites, frequently brushes off such concerns by arguing that “if we can put a man on the moon, we can verify someone’s age.”

“This is a basic issue of safety,” he said in a recent interview. “These kinds of Web sites have created this complete delusion that this is a private world that an outsider does not get into, but it is a total misnomer. Anyone can get in.”

Mr. Blumenthal and Roy Cooper, the North Carolina attorney general, both Democrats, started a national task force last year on the issue that now includes attorneys general from nearly every state. The initial focus was on pressuring MySpace to raise its minimum age for registration to 16 from 14, but when the company resisted, Mr. Blumenthal and others began introducing legislation to force its hand.

In Connecticut, the bill sailed through two committees and is awaiting a vote by the full legislature. In North Carolina, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee is scheduled to address the matter in the coming days. Similar proposals have been introduced by state lawmakers in New York and Georgia, while a legislator in Illinois has proposed blocking access to social-networking sites in public libraries and schools.

Fears about unsuspecting children being stalked by tech-savvy predators are as old as the Internet itself. But far more than their predecessors, chat rooms and bulletin boards, the social-networking sites often feature intimate details and pictures, including a child’s hometown and school, and can be easily seen by anyone, without the creator’s explicit permission.

Still, experts worry that the proposed restrictions would stymie overall participation, since requiring users to verify their age would give the sites access to a person’s true identity. Currently, users must enter an e-mail address and basic information like a birthday and a ZIP code, but there is nothing to stop people from making them up.

Detective Frank Dannahey, who specializes in Internet crimes for the Police Department in Rocky Hill, Conn., said that verification “of course, would be helpful,” but that it was not clear whether the proposed legislation would actually make children safer.

“It’s a quandary,” said Detective Dannahey, who has worked with both MySpace and Mr. Blumenthal over the years. “If you are a teenager, are you going to go ask your parents for permission, or are you just going to go around it and use another Web site, which might be less safe? The only way you will really know whether or not it will work is if it is done.”

None of the proposed bills specifically outline the way the sites should verify the age of users, but the politicians pushing them suggest they could hire private contractors to do so. Most models of identity verification on the Internet involve financial transactions, typically using a credit card. Several sites that sell cigarettes or alcohol use existing databases like those for state driver’s licenses to verify that customers are above the minimum legal age.

But Internet experts say verification would be exponentially more difficult for minors, who typically do not have government-issued or other easily verifiable forms of identification. It would also significantly increase costs for running the sites, which are now almost entirely automated.

“They don’t have driver’s licenses, or for that matter any public records useful for determining age, and present a tremendous challenge to accurately identify,” Jeff Schmidt, the chief executive of Authis, an information security company, wrote in a paper circulated to the attorneys general this spring. “We’re trying to match an identifier and attribute to someone we’ll never see and who is probably located thousands of miles away in another city, state or country.”

Despite the fears of parents — and the warnings of politicians — researchers say that many teenagers are already self-policing the sites.

According to a recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than half of all teenagers with an Internet profile somehow either limit access to their Web pages or leave out sensitive information like proper names and addresses.

Nearly half of those with public profiles, according to the survey released in March of more than 900 users ages 12 to 17, said they lied about the more telling details, and more than two-thirds of those who have been contacted by strangers said they ignored them.

“The good news is that most teens already have a pretty healthy sense of paranoia,” said Mary Madden, an author of the Pew report. “The teens who say they are using the network to make new friends that they only know online make up a fairly small portion of users.”

Adam D. Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation who has studied sexual predators on the Internet, said that while age verification is the “argument du jour,” research shows that limiting convicted sex offenders’ access to the Internet would be more effective. Several states, including New York, have enacted legislation requiring sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses with law enforcement; New Jersey has a similar proposal pending.

“It’s the same thing as saying to a kid, ‘You can’t hang out in video arcades, because someone might try to come and get you,’ ” Mr. Thierer said. “The better thing to do would be to stop the criminal from getting there. This worrying just creates a new kind of moral panic.”

But with parents packing forums on Internet safety and frequently wary of technology their children navigate better than they do, the proposals have met with relatively little opposition so far. Many argue that stopping even one predator would make regulations worth it.

Beyond the question of feasibility, opponents of the age-verification rules are concerned about unintended consequences, like limiting participation on blogs or other sites, since the legislation does not explicitly define “social-networking sites.”

In Connecticut, several political blogs have posted warnings that they could be shut down if the bill passes. On Wednesday, one blogger posted a petition against the legislation. Lawmakers, in turn, have written their own posts to assure Web-savvy politicos that they were weighing the potential minefields of regulating the Internet.

“While there is a real concern for children, there is also a concern that we don’t sweep in all kinds of other problems by trying to fix this one,” said State Senator Andrew J. McDonald, a Democrat who represents Stamford and Darien. Mr. McDonald was one of the four legislators, out of 39 who voted, to oppose the Connecticut proposal in one committee.

“I am afraid we are dealing with this by coming down with a sledgehammer,” he said, “where a small mallet would be more appropriate.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/ny...=1&oref=slogin





Connecticut Film Critic Charged With Sex Crime
AP

A film critic for The Hartford Advocate newspaper is accused of soliciting sex from a minor.

John Boonstra, 54, of Canton was arrested Friday in Stamford where police say he had gone to meet an underage girl, who turned out to be undercover police officers.

Boonstra and the officers had about a dozen contacts during a two-month period in an online chat room that became graphic and sexual in nature, said Stamford Police Sgt. Joe Kennedy.

Boonstra initiated the conversations and even told the undercover officers what he did for a living, talking about his review of the new Spiderman movie, Kennedy said.

He arranged a meeting on Friday in Stamford and was arrested when he arrived, Kennedy said. Police who searched his car found alcohol the undercover officers had asked him to bring, a disposable video camera, Viagra and condoms.

"He was anticipating having sex with an underage girl," said Kennedy, who oversees the department’s recently formed Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Boonstra was charged with criminal attempt at risk of injury to a minor and criminal attempt at second-degree sexual assault.

Boonstra has been a part-time employee of The Hartford Advocate since 1995, but was a free-lance writer for years before that, said Vivian Chow, vice president of human resources and corporate affairs for the Hartford Courant, which owns the newspaper.

He resigned on Monday, before the arrest became public. He also owns The Book Exchange in Plainville.

Calls to the bookstore went unanswered Wednesday.

Boonstra is free on $200,000 bond and is due back in court on May 18.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1052507





Taxpayers Picking Up the Tab for Company's Legal Troubles
Linda Fantin

As lawmakers try to avoid a costly court fight over Utah's trademark protection program, they have taken the unusual step of making taxpayers pick up the legal fees for a private company caught up in litigation over another troublesome registry.

In August, the Attorney General's Office quietly hired private attorney Brent Hatch, who had been defending Unspam Technologies and its money-making interests in Utah's Child Protection Registry. So far, Hatch has been paid $100,000 - half of what his contract allows, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said.

Unspam President Matthew Prince said Hatch's bills were threatening to strangle his company, adding the state would benefit from his lawyer's expertise. Hatch, son of U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, came up with many of the legal arguments that have prevailed in court, Prince said.

"If we shut down, that means the entire program shuts down," Prince said. "We went to the state and said, 'We just can't keep doing this.'"

It's a stunning development for a program that was supposed to generate millions of dollars for the state but is instead a financial flop. The situation also raises questions about the fate of Prince's other brainchild, the Trademark Protection Act, and a legislative process that conceals the potential legal costs of controversial bills.

The trademark law, set to take effect April 30, also was sold to lawmakers as a huge money-maker for Utah. The law allows companies to register electronic trademarks, providing a mechanism for them to sue competitors who try to use those keywords to sell their own products through Utah-based Internet searches.

"This bill will cost the state nothing," Rep. David Clark announced on the House floor during the last day of the legislative session, "In fact it may actually generate revenue."

Sen. Dan Eastman predicted "a nice little cottage industry could spring up and be profitable to all those who participate."

How profitable? With about 1.3 million patent holders, and a $250 state registration fee, Utah could reap a small fortune, Prince said last week during a coffee-shop interview. At the very moment he was touting the potential of the program, senior executives from Google, Microsoft, America Online and other new media giants were on Capitol Hill, arguing they would have no choice but to challenge the program in court.

Lawmakers wondered afterward why industry representatives hadn't spoken up during the session. Taxpayers may be wondering the same thing about lawmakers.

According to audio recordings of legislative proceedings, not a single legislator openly questioned the legitimacy, constitutionality or cost of the innocuous-sounding bill, despite written warnings from legislative analysts that it faced a "high probability" of being overturned in court.

As a result, the Attorney General's Office estimated it would cost $65,900 a year to defend the law against a likely legal challenge, but the financial footnote was ignored, Shurtleff said.

In fact, of six fiscal notes forwarded by the AG's office this year, only one made it onto the bill, Shurtleff said, and the legislative fiscal analyst cut the amount by 25 percent. In Utah's budget-conscious Legislature, even the most conservative fiscal notes can doom harmless bills.

John Massey, head of the Legislative Fiscal Analysts Office, said his analysts almost never attach fiscal notes for litigation. "Until a case goes to court, we just don't know" how much it will cost, Massey said, defending the practice of disregarding the AG's estimates. Usually, Massey said, there is an expectation that the attorney general will "just allocate the work load among existing staff."

That's what happened with the Child Protection Registry, which contained no fiscal note for defending the law in court, and is now being challenged by a cornucopia of porn industry, free speech and advertising advocates. The Utah law requires companies that sell adult-oriented products and services to submit their e-mail lists to Unspam to be "scrubbed" of addresses to which minors have access. The cost is half a cent for every address they submit, and Unspam gets 80 percent of the money.

Only the registry, nearly two years old, has been a financial failure. As of March, the Division of Consumer Protection had collected just $187,224 of the $3 million to $6 million that was anticipated. The state's share is a measly $37,445 - not nearly enough to cover the $58,000-a-year in prosecutorial fees and the $75,000-a-year full-time Department of Commerce investigator estimated in the original legislation. Now the costs also include up to $200,000 for an outside attorney.

Prince said he was surprised to learn a private vendor can be sued along with the state. He claims the plaintiffs named his company in hopes of putting him out of business and neutering the new law. Prince said the company paid Hatch about $70,000 before deciding it could pay no more, saying the money helped defend the state's interests as well.

"I'm happy we subsidized that cost to the extent we did," Prince said.

Hatch also argued the burden should be on the state, not Unspam, to defend the state law.

"It's like you need your engine rebuilt and all you can afford is a tuneup," said Hatch, describing the complex litigation and Unspam's inability to pay.

Shurtleff said he is happy to have Hatch's help on the case, but he did not request it. Rather, he said legislative leaders told him "this is what the Legislature wants" and agreed to supplement the AG's budget to cover the costs.

Shurtleff doesn't like to hire outside attorneys, he said, because they are expensive and have a tendency to overbill. So when lawmakers approached him about putting Hatch on the payroll, Shurleff said he insisted they cap his fees at $200,000.

The contract, signed in August, pays for Hatch, who charges $395 an hour, and an associate attorney, who gets $225 per hour, though Hatch agreed to give the state a 15 percent discount, Shurtleff said.

Still, that's three times what state attorneys make.

Shurtleff and his veteran assistants could not recall another case in which the state paid to defend a private company, let alone assume the fees of its attorney.

That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, said Assistant Attorney General Jim Soper. A case could be made for defending a private company's interests when they coincide with the state's, Soper said.

"If the company was unable to defend itself and there were adverse consequences to the state, then there might be a sound, underlying reason for us to handle it," Soper said.

It's more common for vendors and contractors to indemnify the state, he said. There is some question about whether Unspam agreed to do just that.

Shurtleff and Commerce Director Francine Giani recalled a meeting in 2004 when the registry legislation was being debated in which Pat Shea, an attorney who represented Unspam at the time, pledged to" represent the state for free" in any litigation, they said.

Shea, a mentor and adviser to Unspam's Prince, said he never promised to represent the state in court, only in negotiations and discussions with critics. His legal work for Unspam was limited and mostly pro bono, Shea said, although Prince did give him options in the company should it ever go public.

Senate President John Valentine, whose recollection of the meeting included who was present and where he was sitting, said he didn't take Shea's offer seriously. "It was an off-hand remark," Valentine said, "not a written guarantee."

Valentine had more trouble remembering last summer's conversation about hiring Hatch. "I have no idea," he said. "I don't remember anything about this." House Speaker Greg Curtis also had difficulty recalling the meeting.

After conferring with his chief deputy, who kept notes of the meeting, Valentine insisted Shurtleff came to him and Curtis, saying his office did not have the expertise to handle the case. Valentine also said it was leadership's idea to cap the fees.
"At the time I was trying to protect children from pornography and be responsive to the needs of the attorney general," Valentine said. "I might think differently in hindsight."
lfantin@sltrib.com

A money pit

The Utah Child Protection Registry was expected to generate millions for the state, but instead has only produced about $37,500 for the state in two years. Now the company that sold the program as a money-maker is defending itself in court, and has persuaded the state to pay for its lawyer - at a cost of up to $200,000.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5778185





Should Copyright Be Abolished?
Greg Bulmash

There's an old joke in which a man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. After some thought, she says yes. Then he asks her if she'd sleep with him for 50 dollars. She says, "of course not! What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"We've established what kind of girl you are," he replies. "Now we're just haggling over the price."

When it comes to a lot of the more vocal proponents of abolishing copyright, that punch line applies.

The problem with a large part of the anti-copyright crowd is that they don't understand or won't admit what copyright entails as a concept. That is the right of the creator of a work to exert some control over how it's used, who can copy and distribute it, and a right to have their authorship acknowledged.

These members of the anti-copyright crowd cite the GPL (GNU Public License) as an alternative to copyright without any sense of the ironic fact that the GPL can't exist without copyright. They're proposing a solution while simultaneously advocating the destruction of the thing that makes their solution workable. While the GPL is less restrictive than other licensing methods, it's a license and it does impose some restrictions on or conditions for use of the work. It is a method of controlling your work. But without copyright, the GPL could not be enforced.

Without copyright, the creator would have no power to dictate any licensing terms, even the GPL's licensing terms. Their work would go into the public domain and anyone anywhere could use it in any way they wanted. Drop the argument of whether or not profit motive drives creation sufficiently enough that it needs to be retained. Let's look at what happens if the GPL is unenforceable.

You create some cool open source app. Then some megacorporation comes along, removes all your claims of credit, adds 10% more code, compiles it, and distributes the executable binary locked up in DRM. Under the GPL, you could retain your own lawyer or appeal to the FSF to sue them and force them to open up their application. But without copyright enabling you to dictate licensing terms such as the GPL, you have no legal recourse. They get away with it and the worst they suffer is some bad publicity... maybe.

Would that theft of your work act as a disincentive to creating more works? Would you say to yourself, "why bother slaving away to create this when some megacorporation can just steal it, put their name on it, and lock it up in DRM"? Perhaps you would. Perhaps you wouldn't. But some people would and that would take more creators out of the market and lower the quantity and quality of content that's available.

Those who hold up the GPL, Creative Commons, or any licensing option other than the public domain as an alternative to copyright are expressing a preference for allowing creators to exert some control, however small, over how their work is used and distributed. But if you abolish copyright, you take away even that small element of control.

Now we can argue until we're blue in the face over the details of what copyright should allow and should not. The extension of copyright terms, the constant chipping away at the doctrine of Fair Use, the evils of DRM... these can all be cited as things that are wrong with current copyright law and things that need to be abolished. But that's reforming copyright, not abolishing it. It's surgery on the patient, not euthanasia.

If you support the GPL, support an author's right to dictate any terms regarding how their work is used, then you support the concept of copyright even if you don't support the current law and practice of copyright. Then the argument becomes not whether copyright should be abolished, but what form it should take. In short, we've established what kind of girl you are. Now we're just haggling over the price.
http://www.brainhandles.com/2007/05/...-be-abolished/





Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright
K.Fogel

Recently, Slashdot carried an interesting — and in my opinion mistaken — piece by Greg Bulmash about copyright and open source. Here's Slashdot's summary:

Reader gbulmash sends us to his essay on the fallacy of those who would abolish copyright. The argument is that without copyright granting an author the right to set licensing terms for his/her work, the GPL could not be enforced. The essay concludes that if you support the GPL or any open source license (other than public domain), your fight should be not about how to abolish copyright, but how to reform copyright.

The piece contains flaws in both its reasoning and its rhetoric, and deserves a rebuttal, in part because it reached such a wide audience.

The piece's most obvious problem is its conflation of copyright with "creditright". For example, here's how Bulmash asks us to imagine what would happen if the GPL (a copyright license that allows derivative works, but only if they are also under the GPL) were unenforceable:

You create some cool open source app. Then some megacorporation comes along, removes all your claims of credit, adds 10% more code, compiles it, and distributes the executable binary locked up in DRM. [...] Would that theft of your work act as a disincentive to creating more works? Would you say to yourself, "why bother slaving away to create this when some megacorporation can just steal it, put their name on it, and lock it up in DRM"?

This mixes up two completely different concepts: the right to be credited for a work, and the right to control distribution of that work. Attribution and copying are not the same thing: those who download songs illegally from the Internet do not typically replace the artist's name with their own, after all, and yet the RIAA is still filing lawsuits. So attribution is not really the issue here (and in general, letting data be copied freely actually helps prevent plagiarism, a topic covered in more detail here). In any case, no one objects to laws that protect credit. By all means, let's prevent the megacorporation from distributing your work without crediting you proportionally. But it would be a misnomer to call such protection "copyright" law, because it wouldn't have much to do with controlling copying. It would be a creditright, because it would simply enforce proper crediting.

That passage also shows a larger problem in Bulmash's piece, which is that, circularly, his language often assumes the very points he's arguing for. He talks of "theft" and "stealing", as though when the megacorporation gets your work, you somehow lose the work. Again, if he had objected to the theft of your credit, that would be perfectly reasonable, since the degree to which someone else claims credit for your work is exactly the degree to which you lose credit. But he's apparently talking about the theft of the work itself, and this makes little sense when applied to works of the mind. If I steal your bicycle, now you have no bicycle; if I copy your computer program, now we both have it.

All these problems can be seen at once in a paragraph near the opening of his article:

The problem with a large part of the anti-copyright crowd is that they don't understand or won't admit what copyright entails as a concept. That is the right of the creator of a work to exert some control over how it's used, who can copy and distribute it, and a right to have their authorship acknowledged.

Notice the rhetorical sleight-of-hand there: he presents copy control as a natural and uncontroversial "right" — and then accuses his targets of simply not understanding (or refusing to admit) that copyright entails that right! But it is precisely this so-called "right" that copyright doubters are questioning in the first place. If he wants to argue that it should be a right, that's fine, but instead he just asserts the right as though it's a fact of nature, beyond reasonable dispute. And again, he conflates control of distribution with acknowledgement of authorship.

Now let's move to the core of Bulmash's piece, which is his claim that open source software licensing depends on copyright. Here he does have a point, just not as broad or lasting a point as he thinks. For one thing, he tries to apply the argument to all open source software licenses, when it really only applies to the GPL. That's why all of his examples use the GPL, and not other licenses. The GPL is unusual among open source licenses in that it has a "copyleft" provision: it requires that if you make and distribute a derivative work based on a GPL'd original, your derivative must also be under the GPL. It is true that this provision currently depends on copyright law for enforcement, and on various occasions it has had to be enforced, sometimes publicly, sometimes behind the scenes.

But while Bulmash is technically correct that this part of open source licensing depends (today) on copyright law, he's missing the forest for the trees. The basic argument of copyright abolitionists is that people should be free to share when sharing does not result in any diminution of supply. The GPL simply uses copyright law in a jiujitsu-like manner to enforce this principle, in a legal environment where sharing is prohibited by default and must be explicitly permitted to be legal. All the GPL does is create a space where permission to share is enforced. Take his exercise in imagination all the way: imagine if we had laws that did away with most prohibitions against sharing, but that enforced crediting and permitted authors to enforce GPL-like provisions requiring sharing.

We probably would not call such laws "copyright", since they wouldn't prohibit copying. Even if we did call them "copyright", the word would mean something so different from what it means today as to render Bulmash's arguments inapplicable. Indeed, the GPL today doesn't really prohibit people from copying, it merely imposes certain requirements on those who make and distribute derivative works. If you just want to copy and use a GPL'd work yourself, or even make a private derivative work from it, you're free to do so, and many organizations in fact do that. The GPL's requirement is just that if you want to share, you must enable others to share likewise.

This runs completely counter to the modern notion of copyright, and could be enforced using laws so drastically different from our laws today as to be unrecognizeable. Thus, to say that the GPL depends on copyright is like saying that reading depends on scribes. It may be true for a period of time, but it's certainly not built into the nature of things, and it's not an argument for supporting scribes after something better comes along. Later, we might even use the same word, "scribes", to refer to the new, better thing, but that doesn't mean it's the same as the old thing. (Compare what the word "printer" means today versus what it meant in the seventeenth century.)

Claiming that copyright abolitionists depend on copyright for enforcement of their principles is just playing a name game — it's thinking with words instead of with concepts. The real question is whether their principles actually require today's copyright for enforcement, and I think the answer is that they don't: they could be enforced by means that few people would label "copyright", if come to with no preconceptions. The fact that copyright law is the tool available today doesn't change that.

I'm not arguing, by the way, that total abolition of copyright is necessarily the best thing. I do think it's a defensible position, though, and that either abolition or very fundamental changes to copyright terms and restrictions are needed to save our culture from being stuffed into a vending machine and sold back to us dollar by dollar. But that's a topic for another article. With respect to Greg Bulmash, my point is just that copyright abolitionists are being consistent when they use the open source movement as an example.
http://www.questioncopyright.org/cop...nd_open_source





Downloading is Here to Stay
Jon McDonald

In the early '80s, the movie industry was entrenched in another war against technology. It was not file sharing that worried them but video copying.

Sony had just unveiled the VCR, and the movie industry -- certain that people would only use this new technology to copy and steal movies -- tried to block it entirely. Even more, they feared a loss to theater revenues as people stayed home to watch their purchased, rented or, worst of all, copied movies.

Rather than embracing or endorsing the new distribution models created by home video players, movie studios sought to stop their production and the spread of rental services that used them.

But in landmark legal battles (especially Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., in 1984) the courts held that the benefits of these new technologies far outweighed their potential criminal uses.

These decisions benefitted consumers and the movie industry alike. Even though the copying of tapes did continue, the sale and rental of home videos proved a profitable venue for media rather than a threat to the industry.

Despite this recent precedent, a modern technological revolution, the Internet, has produced an almost identical response.

Distributing media online is cheaper and more convenient for both producers and consumers. Cheap bandwidth and technologies like torrents allow companies, bands and filmmakers, big and small alike, to distribute their work without the exorbitant costs once associated with publication.

In this new digital frontier, established industry leaders initially saw only a threat. Just as the VCR can be used to copy movies, the Internet can be used for file-sharing and subverting the established market, first for music and later for film, television and other media.

But rather than learning from the history of media technology and taking advantage of the Internet's boons, companies and groups like the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America worked ceaselessly to suppress it, and continue to do so despite the success of those who have embraced the Internet.

These zealous associations quickly shut down file-sharing centers like Napster and SuperNova.org. But downloading did not stop or even slow.

Downloaders migrated to new services, which quickly took up the cause. Their activity moved underground, becoming more difficult to track and prosecute.

New downloading networks have no central location or are located in countries with no clear stance on file-sharing, such as Sweden. Without a clear foe, the RIAA, MPAA and other corporations began to pursue individual file-sharers, which is the situation we find ourselves in today.

Their campaign has become overdrawn and impossible to win, but they continue to spend excessive amounts of money pursuing victory.

An example of the inadequacy and cost of this crusade is Sony's 2005 scandal with digital rights management software.

Sony, who once fought for the VCR, attempted to prevent people from sharing music off their CDs by hiding protection software on them. This software secretly installed itself on a computer when the disc was inserted. It opened up security holes in the Windows operating system, but did not actually prevent copying.

In the face of several class-action lawsuits and widespread consumer discontent, Sony had to recall millions of CDs. The whole stupid business cost them as much in reputation as it did financially.

Rather than wasting time and resources targeting downloaders and angering customers in the process, media industries should look to the loyal customers who have embraced legal downloading venues such as iTunes.

Downloaders are not going away. They persists in the face of the constant threat of legal action and overcome the hurdles of new and costly security protocols, such as Sony's protection software, often in a matter of hours.

These media guerillas want free stuff, and no amount of bullying will stop them from taking it. Downloading, legal and illegal, is here to stay.

In the meantime, the image of companies and organizations that carry out Internet inquisitions has gone down the toilet. They are the bane of poor college students and teenage girls out to test the latest offerings of Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z.

But these groups are also dinosaurs with eyes only for the pricey store-bought albums and DVDs that made them rich. They are dead set on an increasingly archaic mode of distribution and blind in their rage against anything that threatens to change it.

If the recording and movie industries would only learn to function within these new models of distribution rather than railing against them uselessly, they would find a profitable new venue, just as they did with the home video market. Instead, they're committed to a foolish and costly crusade they can never hope to win.

Who exactly are these organizations fighting for? Is it the artists they claim to protect or the producers and record labels that have for so long gotten rich acting as middlemen, and who see the end of their fortunes in the free territory of the Internet?
http://media.www.thesantaclara.com/m...-2899005.shtml





Cannabis Website Wins Dogfight Over Stealth Jet Brand
Jack Malvern

It can build aircraft that are invisible to enemy radar and travel at three times the speed of sound, but Lockheed Martin met its match when it took on a small shop in Bexleyheath that sells cannabis paraphernalia.

The multibillion-dollar company brought a complaint against Skunk Works, motto “In the leaf we trust”, over the domain name ukskunkworks.co.uk .

The web address should be awarded to Lockheed Martin, lawyers for the aircraft manufacturer claimed, because Skunk Works is the name of its secret research laboratory in California where it developed the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter and the F-22 Raptor. It was also responsible for building the U-2 spy planes that flew over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The aircraft manufacturer sent a 1,000-page document to Nominet, the company that administers British domain names, in October asserting that it was already the owner of several European trademarks for “Skunk Works” and that the cannabis accessories shop was sullying its reputation.

The Bexleyheath business responded in November with a single sheet of paper. It won both the first hearing in January, when Nominet dismissed the complaint, and the appeal at the end of last month.

Max Mulley, owner of the London shop, said that Lockheed Martin’s claim that customers would be confused was ridiculous. “I don’t know what the confusion would have been — they sell aeroplanes and we sell smoking equipment. They are a multimillion-dollar company making aeroplanes and we’re a small shop in Bexleyheath.”

Mr Mulley, who estimates that his shop makes about £2,000 a month, did not hire any lawyers for the case. “I’ve done it all myself. They’ve got highflying lawyers. I’m guessing the whole thing has cost them about £40,000.”

Lockheed Martin declined to comment on how much it had spent, but said that it was considering other options. “Lockheed Martin respectfully disagrees with the conclusions of the panel but plans to continue to enforce its trademark rights in its famous mark.”

It could attempt to bring a claim against the shop for trademark infringement at the High Court, but a legal expert told The Times that the case would be difficult and expensive.

Mark Hickey, of Murgitroyd and Company, said that Lockheed would have to argue that it was an upstanding company and that its reputation was being undermined.

“The argument would be that it is like taking the name Rolls-Royce and using it on toilet cleaner,” he said. “But it is difficult to see on what basis they could win because you need to have a presence in the mind of the consumer in the first place. Skunk Works is not Rolls-Royce.”

The judging panel for Nominet disputed the claim from Lockheed Martin, also known as LMC, that British consumers would associate “Skunk Works” with aircraft manufacture.

“LMC’s original use of the name ‘skunk works’ was humorous, and a sense of humour may be appropriate to this situation,” it said. “There may be some comfort for LMC in the fact that many people have as little wish to be associated with military aircraft as have LMC to be associated with illegal drug use.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle1749930.ece





Apple Admits to Faulty Laptop Batteries

Macbook users have been issued with a software update to fix 'visibly deformed' battery packs, among other problems
Jonathan Richards

Apple has admitted that some batteries in its Macbook and Macbook Pro line of laptops have 'performance issues' and has issued a software update to fix the problem.

Among the symptoms of batteries that are affected are swelling, the battery not being recognised or not charging, and a shorter than expected battery life.

The company said that the problem, which could affect any laptop or batteries bought between February 2006 and April 2007, 'is not a safety risk' and has offered to replace any defective batteries. In the meantime, users could continue to use their current battery, Apple said.

Reports of swollen batteries have circulated since the Macbook range was introduced early last year and 'visibly deformed' battery packs were among the problems the update was designed to address, the company said.

If symptoms persist after the update, which can be downloaded here, users should contact their local store to arrange for replacement battery free of charge, Apple said.

Despite the problems, Macbook remains a successful range for Apple. The company recently reported that sales of its portable computers rose from 498,000 to 891,000 over the 12 months to March 31, helping boost quarterly profits to $770 million (£386 million).
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle1725627.ece





Survey Shatters Technology Assumptions
AP

A broad survey about the technology people have, how they use it, and what they think about it shatters assumptions and reveals where companies might be able to expand their audiences.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that adult Americans are broadly divided into three groups: 31 percent are elite technology users, 20 percent are moderate users and the remainder have little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.

But Americans are divided within each group, according to a Pew analysis of 2006 data released Sunday.

The high-tech elites, for instance, are almost evenly split into:

-- ''Omnivores,'' who fully embrace technology and express themselves creatively through blogs and personal Web pages.

-- ''Connectors,'' who see the Internet and cell phones as communications tools.

-- ''Productivity enhancers,'' who consider technology as largely ways to better keep up with their jobs and daily lives.

-- ''Lackluster veterans,'' those who use technology frequently but aren't thrilled by it.

John Horrigan, Pew's associate director, said he started the survey believing that the more gadgets people have, the more they are likely to embrace technology and use so-called Web 2.0 applications for generating and sharing content with the world.

''Once we got done, we were surprised to find the tensions within groups of users with information technology,'' Horrigan said.

Many longtime Internet users, the lackluster veterans, remain stuck in the decade-old technologies they started with, Horrigan said. That a quarter of high-tech elites fall into this category, he said, shows untapped potential for companies that can design next-generation applications to pique this group's interest.

The moderate users were also evenly divided into ''mobile centrics,'' those who primarily use the cell phone for voice, text messaging and even games, and ''connected but hassled,'' those who have used technology but find it burdensome.

Mobile companies, he said, can target the mobile centrics with premium services, especially once faster wireless networks become available.

The Pew study found 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it currently does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently and find connectivity annoying.

Eight percent -- mostly women in the early 50s -- occasionally use technology and might use more given more experience. They tend to still be on dial-up access and represent potential high-speed customers ''with the right constellation of services offered,'' Horrigan said.

The telephone study of 4,001 U.S. adults, including 2,822 Internet users, was conducted Feb. 15 to April 6, 2006, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

------

Take the quiz:

Find out which category you fall under: http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...rnet-Study.php





Tech Investors Cull Start-Ups for Pentagon
Matt Richtel

The nation’s military, in its search for the next surveillance system, bioterror vaccine or robot warrior, has decided to take a peek into the garage.

Through a program that recently emerged from an experimental phase, the Defense Department is using some of the nation’s top technology investors to help it find innovations from tiny start-up companies, which have not traditionally been a part of the military’s vast supply chain.

The program provides a regular exchange of ideas and periodic meetings between a select group of venture capitalists and dozens of strategists and buyers from the major military and intelligence branches. Government officials talk about their needs, and the investors suggest solutions culled from technology start-ups across the country.

It is in some ways an odd coupling of the historically slow-moving federal agencies and fast-moving investors, who deal in technologies that are no sooner developed than they are threatened with obsolescence.

But the participants argue that the project, called DeVenCI for Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative, brings together two groups that have much to gain from each other and that have had trouble finding easy, efficient ways to work together. Those on the military side of things have adopted the Silicon Valley vernacular to explain the idea of systematically consulting investors to find new technology.

“We’re a search engine,” said Bob Pohanka, director of DeVenCI, noting that the program is a chance for military procurement officials to have more intimate contact with investors who make a living scouring laboratories and universities for the latest innovations.

Venture capitalists “have knowledge of emerging technology that may be developed by companies as small as two guys in a garage,” Mr. Pohanka said. “These are companies that are not involved in the D.O.D. supply chain.”

For the investors, it is a chance to get closer to a branch of government with vast spending power that is a potential customer for the start-ups they have backed. That can be particularly valuable because the venture capital industry, far from enjoying the success of the dot-com boom, has languished in recent years and is looking for new markets and sales opportunities.

The military is “like a Fortune No. 1 company,” said E. Rogers Novak Jr., managing director of the venture capital firm Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and one of the investors who consults with the government. “We may get a customer and the D.O.D. gets something that helps them.”

The project is in its early stages, having convened three meetings since October. And there are questions about whether a bureaucratic and careful system built around long-term relationships between the military branches and their contractors can be compatible with the quicker culture of Silicon Valley.

“Everybody is feeling their way through this relationship,” Mr. Novak said. “The potential is there. The devil is in the details.”

There is nothing fundamentally new about the military trying to gain access to cutting-edge technology. For much of the 20th century, it financed and led that development. But that has changed in the last several decades as innovation has started to move at light speed in the private sector.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the military has reached out more to the private sector, trying to make use of a range of technologies in pursuing security and fighting wars. Some venture capitalists have catered to those demands, creating firms aimed at military and security needs.

On the public sector side, the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999 started In-Q-Tel, a venture that identifies and invests in start-ups and technologies whose products could be used in intelligence. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency backs new technology and has helped create many important advances, including the Internet.

What makes DeVenCI unusual, its participants say, is that by bringing together military procurement agents and technology investors it is creating a kind of brokerage for ideas. But it had humbler beginnings, starting out on more of a special case basis not long after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

One of the early participants was Ted Schlein, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Mr. Schlein said he and a handful of other venture capitalists met with military officials to hear about their needs and then looked for useful technologies. The relationship bore fruit, Mr. Schlein said. He cited a meeting he had several years ago with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was carrying a confidential file.

“Rumsfeld said, ‘I can’t show you what’s in this folder, but you solved some problems for us,’ ” Mr. Schlein recalled.

By the end of 2005, this team had made suggestions that led to the adoption of 15 technologies for military and intelligence uses, DeVenCI participants said. In early 2006, the Defense Department decided to expand the project, and it paid for an office with four full-time staff members led by Mr. Pohanka.

They signed up 11 venture capitalists from 30 applicants to serve two-year terms. These investors are sent hundreds of pages of information, most of it unclassified, about the needs of military agencies. Then the members of the group get together in person, as they did in March in Arlington, Va., with representatives from about 50 procurement agencies for various military branches.

The idea of these meetings is not necessarily to short-circuit the usual military procurement process, which usually involves doing business with one of a handful of big companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, DeVenCI officials said. Rather, the idea is that the military buyers will see technology that they can recommend to those massive contractors for new or continuing projects, or, conceivably, that they will sign small initial contracts with the start-ups so they can further develop a technology for military use.

“Most of these companies wouldn’t dream of approaching the government because they’ve heard about a three-year procurement process,” Mr. Pohanka said. He said he tells the venture capitalists and start-ups that the Defense Department signs 6,000 or more contracts a week with various companies. “There are more than ample opportunities,” he said.

Some companies have already profited from the program. In 2003, when DeVenCI was in its experimental phase, the Defense Information Systems Agency was looking for ways to protect computer networks. After speaking to several companies through DeVenCI and evaluating their technology, the agency wound up working with ArcSight, a software company based in Cupertino, Calif., which won $3.6 million in related contracts over the next few years, DeVenCI officials said.

Mr. Novak of Novak Biddle said he brought with him to the March DeVenCI meeting two executives from a small start-up developing biometric technology that could be used for things like advanced fingerprinting or eye scans. Mr. Novak said the chief executive and chief technology officer from the Virginia company, which he declined to name for competitive reasons, gave a presentation to the roughly 50 assembled procurement agents.

The executives took questions and were approached afterward by buyers from several agencies for a more detailed conversation, and business cards were exchanged.

But it is not all business, the venture capitalists say. For some, there is a patriotic component, one that sometimes tests their own philosophies about the role of the military.

In 1969, Kevin Fong, a high school student, attended antiwar protests on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto. Now 52 and a managing director with the Mayfield Fund in Menlo Park, he said he believes that American soldiers need the best equipment possible. He is one of the new participants in DeVenCI.

“There’s a part of me that says the military and conflict are going to happen and you have to be prepared for it,” he said, explaining part of the reason for his interest.

But he said his first impulse to help came from a recognition that participation in DeVenCI could be good for business. “When the DeVenCI people approached me, they said the magic words to a V.C.: ‘We’ll hook you up with buyers,’ ” Mr. Fong said. “How can you resist that?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/te...07venture.html





Verizon Says Phone Record Disclosure is Protected Free Speech
Nate Anderson

Verizon is one of the phone companies currently being sued over its alleged disclosure of customer phone records to the NSA. In a response to the court last week, the company asked for the entire consolidated case against it to be thrown out—on free speech grounds.

The response also alleges that the case should be thrown out because even looking into the issue could violate state secrets, of course, but a much longer section of the response tries to make the case that Verizon has a First Amendment right to "petition" the government. "Based on plaintiffs' own allegations, defendants' right to communicate such information to the government is fully protected by the Free Speech and Petition Clauses of the First Amendment," argue Verizon's lawyers.

Essentially, the argument is that turning over truthful information to the government is free speech, and the EFF and ACLU can't do anything about it. In fact, Verizon basically argues that the entire lawsuit is a giant SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, and that the case is an attempt to deter the company from exercising its First Amendment right to turn over customer calling information to government security services.

"Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity," says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company's owner promises to its customers. Verizon argues that, if the EFF and other groups have concerns about customer call records, the only proper remedy "is to impose restrictions on the government, not on the speaker's right to communicate."

With all of the phone company cases consolidated into one master case, Verizon is hoping to have the case thrown out on free-speech grounds, putting an end to its legal troubles over the issue. Should it fail, the Bush administration is already preparing to ask Congress for retroactive immunity for all telecommunications companies that assisted the government after September 11, 2001. The government is also fighting hard in court on behalf of the phone companies, filing repeated briefs which claim that "state secrets" trump even the legality of the alleged security programs.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ee-speech.html





Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story
Ryan Singel

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, sits quietly at the center of a high-profile legal storm hitting the nation's largest telecommunications companies for allegedly helping the government spy on American citizens' phone and internet communications without court approval.

In 2006, Klein stepped forward and handed sensitive AT&T documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that was preparing a class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications giant. That case and more than 50 similar suits have been consolidated into five master complaints that are now proceeding in a federal court in San Francisco. This summer, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear AT&T's appeal of a key ruling that rejected the government's national security concerns and allowed the suit to continue.

Those documents are under seal, but Wired News independently acquired and published a significant portion of them last year. They show that AT&T built a network-monitoring facility in a nondescript room at an internet switching hub in San Francisco, at 611 Folsom St. Diagrams in the document show that AT&T technicians split fiber-optic cables handling AT&T's WorldNet internet service -- as well as traffic to and from other major ISPs -- diverting copies of the traffic into the room, which was packed with internet-monitoring equipment.

In this rare interview, Klein supplies details of how he first learned about the secret room even before being transferred to the Folsom Street office. He also lashes out at Congress for failing to hold hearings, and says he won't be satisfied until he can visit the AT&T building and see that the room has been dismantled.

Wired News: How did you first find out about the special room at the Folsom Street building?

Mark Klein: In 2002, we -- the union technicians -- were notified by support that the (National Security Agency) was coming to interview someone for a special project. That's when I got wind of something. I though it was odd that the NSA was coming to a phone company because I thought they weren't supposed to be spying domestically after the law was changed in the 1970s. They told us (it was) because the place was small and we had to know to let the person in. I happened to answer the door and I directed him to the guy he was interviewing for this special job. (Editor's note: This took place at the Geary Street central office in San Francisco, where Klein worked before he was transferred to the Folsom Street office.)

In January 2003, as we gradually moved under a Folsom Street supervisor.... The Geary Street technicians had a tour of the Folsom building, and one of the technicians on the tour pointed at a door and said, "That's the new secret room and only one guy is allowed in there."

In a small office word gets around. People called it So-and-So's secret room and So-and-So worked at my office. (Klein declined to identify the person who worked in the room.)

WN: What did you think about the room at the time?

Klein: I thought, this is not right. But we were in a tough situation at Geary Street and the company kept making cutbacks, and if I made things worse I might not have had a job. Four jobs were in jeopardy at Geary and I saved my job by getting into Folsom....

Who the hell am I? Who was going to listen to me? So I decided to stay quiet and just take notes.

WN: How did you get the three documents?

Klein: Two had been given to the techs when they did their cuts. (Editor's note: "Cuts" here refers to splitting optical fiber.) One guy whose job I was taking on was cleaning out his desk and was about to throw them out, and he said, "Hey, do you want these?" The third document was one a management technician left lying around on top of a router.

WN: How many people worked in or on that room?

Klein: Two people worked in the secret room, and they were management technicians. The first was downsized out of his job at the end of 2003, and was replaced by a second. A third management tech did not work in the secret room but knew what was going on. I knew all three of them. These guys would occasionally stop by the water cooler to chat with the union technicians in their office area on Folsom Street and they said things they probably shouldn't have.

WN: How did you learn more about the room?

Klein: Another guy -- he was bragging one day and he pulled out a batch of keys hanging on a chain from under his shirt. And he started saying "this one is for San Diego" and "this one is for Seattle."

Later on, I was trying to troubleshoot the network. And I found that when I bypassed the splitter (into the secret room) the network would work. They were screwing up their own network. They were degrading their own network.

I called the support line for help and told her what was happening with the cabinet and she said, "That's odd. They are having the same thing at the other offices." I said, "What other offices?" and she said, "San Diego, Seattle, San Jose." I got her information first, so that information matched with the key guy. And I realized this was bigger than I thought.

WN: Wired News published some of the documents you provided to other sources. How much did we miss? (Editor's note: Parties in the AT&T case are forbidden from discussing or sharing the documents, but neither Wired News nor Klein is under a gag order.)

Klein: I think you got the essence.

WN: What information have people missed about the documents?

Klein: J. Scott Marcus (who served as the FCC's senior adviser for internet technology from July 2001 until July 2005) actually knows more about AT&T at the high-level internet engineering level than I do. (Editor's note: Marcus filed an independent analysis on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

In the redacted declaration, at pages 10-11, Marcus says that the documents confirm this is not just for network security, and that it is for government spying. He argues that the unit installed has its own backbone. You wouldn't need a separate backbone for network security -- but for government surveillance they do.

WN: What made you decide to go public?

Klein: What got me back interested was The New York Times' story in December 2005. (Editor's note: The Times reported that the government had been secretly monitoring Americans' phone calls and e-mails that crossed the nation's border since shortly after 9/11 without getting approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA.)

The president admitted the program existed, but only admitted that part which had been exposed -- and he avoided talking about the part that wasn't, which was the internet.

The administration sent officials out to defend the program, including (Vice President) Dick Cheney, and they said they didn't think they had to obey FISA.... This was the defense of the indefensible. So I decided if they are going to perpetuate this fraud then I'm going to blow their cover.

(Editor's note: Klein gave the documents to several civil rights groups, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet killed reporter Joseph Menn's story on the documents and allegations after meeting with then-director of national intelligence John Negroponte and then-NSA chief Michael Hayden.)

Baquet's argument for killing it was weak -- that they didn't understand the documents because they were too technical. That's what outside experts are for. That's what the New York Times did when they got the documents.

They were basically afraid to touch it after the government suggested they shouldn't.

WN: Has AT&T been in contact with you?

Klein: They haven't done anything to me, which is confirmation to me that they are doing this.

Qwest did the right thing. They asked for a legal document and when the government wouldn't give them one, they said no. The other companies volunteered -- that's my speculation. Maybe they did get some document, but I am skeptical.

WN: What do you want to happen now?

Klein: I want this program ended. I will be satisfied when I can get a tour of the Folsom Street building and I can see the equipment has been ripped out. I want to see the physical stuff ripped out. I will not be satisfied with assurances from the government that this program is stopped or being overseen by a court.

They have embedded spying into the infrastructure of the internet. I'm not sure people are fully conscious of what is going on, and I want it exposed and stopped.

WN: Have you tried to talk with members of Congress?

Klein: I've called and sent letters to senators and Congress members. They haven't called back. I don't think they want to pursue it. They want to talk about this behind closed doors. These days I am angry at Congress for helping them keep it secret.

They could hold hearings and subpoena people and give them immunity. Right now there are people who could come forward and say what they know, but they need immunity. That's the bottleneck. I don't see a resolution coming from this Congress. It's a conspiracy against the American people.

WN: Were you scared when you decided to come forward?

Klein: I was concerned about taking on the government by myself. When I heard the director of national intelligence was getting involved, that's when I decided to get a lawyer. (Editor's note: Klein is now represented by a team of four lawyers. All four formerly worked as federal prosecutors.)

WN: Have you heard from former co-workers after you came forward?

Klein: Some of the people I used to work with, I would exchange e-mails or see them when someone retired. But I've cut myself off. I haven't wanted to put them in jeopardy, especially the ones that still work there. I still consider them friends. But I'm not lonely. I have other friends.
http://www.wired.com/politics/online...kleininterview





Bill Bans Illegal Govt Eavesdropping

The US house of representatives today passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government.

An amendment to the House Intelligence Reauthorization Bill by Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) states that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) shall be the exclusive means by which domestic electronic surveillance for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information may be conducted, and makes clear that this applies until specific statutory authorization for electronic surveillance, other than as an amendment to FISA, is enacted.

"Congress has signaled that it will not allow the president to continue the National Security Agency’s illegal eavesdropping," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. "Passage of the Schiff/Flake amendment is Congress drawing a line in the sand. This amendment reaffirms that FISA is the law and it needs to be followed."

Congress originally passed FISA to provide the exclusive authority for the wiretapping of people in the United States in foreign intelligence investigations to protect national security.

As the Senate Report noted, FISA "was designed . . . to curb the practice by which the Executive Branch may conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on its own unilateral determination that national security justifies it."

The Bill ends plans by the Bush Administration that would give the NSA the freedom to pry into the lives of ordinary Americans.

The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about "modernization" and "technology neutrality," the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them.

"We applaud Congressmen Schiff and Flake for their work to uphold the rule of law," said Michelle Richardson, ACLU Legislative Consultant. "Today is the first move towards Congress growing a backbone. We hope that the Senate will follow their lead and not be swayed by the administration and Department of Justice’s unconstitutional attempts to eviscerate FISA."
http://pressesc.com/01178899253_bill...vedropping_NSA





Reminder: Monday is Wiretap the Internet Day

May 14th is the official deadline for cable modem companies, DSL providers, broadband over powerline, satellite internet companies and some universities to finish wiring up their networks with FBI-friendly surveillance gear, to comply with the FCC's expanded interpretation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

Congress passed CALEA in 1994 to help FBI eavesdroppers deal with digital telecom technology. The law required phone companies to make their networks easier to wiretap. The results: on mobile phone networks, where CALEA tech has 100% penetration, it's credited with boosting the number of court-approved wiretaps a carrier can handle simultaneously, and greatly shortening the time it takes to get a wiretap going. Cops can now start listening in less than a day.

Now that speed and efficiency is coming to internet surveillance. While CALEA is all about phones, the Justice Department began lobbying the FCC in 2002 to reinterpret the law as applying to the internet as well. The commission obliged, and last June a divided federal appeals court upheld the expansion 2-1. (The dissenting judge called the FCC's position "gobbledygook." But he was outnumbered.)

So, if you're a broadband provider (separately, some VOIP companies are covered too) … Hurry! The deadline has already passed to file an FCC form 445 (.pdf), certifying that you're on schedule, or explaining why you're not. You can also find the 68-page official industry spec for internet surveillance here. It'll cost you $164.00 to download, but then you'll know exactly what format to use when delivering customer packets to federal or local law enforcement, including "e-mail, instant messaging records, web-browsing information and other information sent or received through a user's broadband connection, including on-line banking activity."

There are also third party brokers who will handle all this for you for a fee.

It's worth noting that the new requirements don't alter the legal standards for law enforcement to win court orders for internet wiretaps. Fans of CALEA expansion argue that it therefore won't increase the number of Americans under surveillance.

That's wrong, of course. Making surveillance easier and faster gives law enforcement agencies of all stripes more reason to eschew old-fashioned police work in favor of spying. The telephone CALEA compliance deadline was in 2002, and since then the amount of court-ordered surveillance has nearly doubled from 2,586 applications granted that year, to 4,015 orders in 2006.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...er_monday.html

[JackSpratts]

Simple Canadian Quarter Led To Huge U.S. Spy Warning



Now it can be told - the secret weapon Canada was using to spy on the U.S. was: a quarter! A special 25-cent piece has been revealed as being the catalyst that sparked American army contractors to issue a top secret espionage memo about nano-technology being used for nefarious intelligence purposes.

Apparently, it was the Canadian Mint's issuing of a quarter with red poppy highlights honouring this country's war dead in 2004 that created an uproar in the corridors of U.S. Intelligence. Officials down south had never seen anything like it and became suspicious when an agent found one in a rental car. Documents released under the Access to Information Act show concerned contractors described the coin as being "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology."

"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one of those who examined the mysterious 'device'. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."

The "discovery" actually led to a ridiculous warning from the U.S. Defence Department that coins with radio transmitters had been found on three contractors with top secret clearance as they came through Canada. Conspiracy theories exploded behind closed doors, with one agent telling his superiors he didn't know where the mysterious talisman came from. "[My] coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the "victim" wrote.

Canadian officials were alarmed as the rumours spread, and the story began reaching the highest levels of power. "That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defense contractors will not go away," Luc Portelance of Canadian Security Intelligence Service wrote in a January e-mail. "Where do we stand and what's the story on this?"

The U.S. would eventually withdraw its warnings, but the reasons for the alarms were never revealed - until now. "We know where we made the mistake," Defence Department spokesperson Cindy McGovern admits. "The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there."

And to add insult to injury, because of the rate of exchange, these so-called 'spy coins' aren't even worth a full 25 cents in the U.S. Unless, it seems, misinformed intelligence agents decide to throw their own two cents in.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_10737.aspx





Journalists Intend to Sue Hewlett-Packard Over Surveillance
Damon Darlin

In an unusual step for the news media, three journalists whose private phone records were scrutinized by investigators working for Hewlett-Packard intend to sue the company for invasion of privacy.

The dispute stems from an investigation of Hewlett-Packard’s directors initiated under the company’s former chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn. To try to uncover leaks from board members, private investigators examined the phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, as well as the records of some of their relatives.

While the dispute revolves around the issue of how the journalists’ careers may have been damaged by having their phone records examined, the threat to sue also raises the question whether it is proper for a news organization or its reporters to sue a company they cover. It is certainly not common.

“We are preparing to file a lawsuit,” said Kevin R. Boyle, a lawyer in the Los Angeles firm of Panish, Shea & Boyle, which was hired by three reporters for CNet Networks, an online technology news service, Dawn Kawamoto, Stephen Shank-land and Tom Krazit.

CNet does not plan to join their lawsuit, but said that it might sue separately.

Mr. Boyle said the suit would not ask for a dollar amount of damages but would seek punitive damages against Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer company, which admitted acquiring the records through subterfuge, a practice called pretexting. Mr. Boyle said that while his clients are still employed by CNet, they are no longer allowed to cover Hewlett-Packard.

The threat to sue comes after several months of negotiations with the company. In December, Bill Lockyer, then California’s attorney general, met with a majority of the nine journalists in an attempt to get settlement talks started; the journalists’ lawyers were at the meeting, as were lawyers for some of the news organizations they represented.

The original plan was to seek an amount equal to about $250,000 for each journalist to be donated to an agreed-upon cause, like a journalism school program, Mr. Lockyer had said at the time.

Over the next several months, a group of seven journalists, whose phone records or whose families’ records had been examined, debated whether to proceed and what the implications would be for their profession. The three CNet reporters split off from the group and sought separate representation.

The other four reporters — three from BusinessWeek and one from The New York Times — continue to pursue settlement discussions as a group, together with The New York Times Company.

Two reporters for The Wall Street Journal investigated by Hewlett-Packard, Pui-Wing Tam and George Anders, declined to seek compensation. The Wall Street Journal indicated in December that it would not take part in settlement talks or any legal action.

BusinessWeek also opted out of any involvement, though its three reporters — Peter Burrows, Ben Elgin and Roger O. Crockett — decided to pursue the matter privately. They are represented by a San Francisco lawyer, Terry Gross, who also represents John Markoff, a reporter for The New York Times, as well as The Times itself.

David E. McCraw, a lawyer for The New York Times, said Hewlett-Packard’s spying operations were “designed to interfere with our journalism and, ultimately, to deprive our readers of information of importance to them.”

He added that the newspaper was not looking for financial gain, but a settlement with the money donated to a worthy cause.

“The New York Times Company appreciates the steps that H.P. has taken to remedy the situation,” Mr. McCraw said, “but we believe H.P. can and should do more to acknowledge the harm that was done and to demonstrate to other companies that may be tempted to engage in similar conduct that this is not an offense that carries no consequences.”

At The Times, Mr. Markoff was not regularly assigned to cover Hewlett-Packard, but has written articles that mentioned the company. He can continue to do that, and does not write about the company’s pretexting or related legal issues, according to Lawrence A. Ingrassia, the business editor of The Times.

At BusinessWeek, Mr. Elgin and Mr. Burrows had covered Hewlett-Packard in the past, but no longer do, and Mr. Crockett had contributed reporting to articles about the company. Patricia Walsh, a spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill, the parent company of BusinessWeek, said it would not comment on future coverage of H.P.

In an April meeting with H.P.’s outside law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius of Philadelphia, the seven journalists requested an amount equal to several million dollars each, paid to them directly with their promise that most of the money, though not all, would be donated to charity. Hewlett-Packard’s offer was closer to $10,000 per reporter, roughly enough to cover the reporters’ legal bills, according to several people involved in the talks.

“The discussions have not been fruitful to date, and we hope to resolve this without litigation,” said Mr. Gross, of the firm Gross & Belsky in San Francisco.

News organizations and reporters generally decline to pursue financial settlements with companies or individuals they write about because of the possible perception that they might be trading coverage for compensation. Tom Bivins, a media ethics professor at the University of Oregon, called the Hewlett-Packard case “an odd one,” but said he saw no ethical problem with journalists undertaking a suit.

“A journalist is a citizen, after all,” he said.

But Professor Bivins said he saw potential problems going forward for the journalists involved. “If they tried to cover the company again, that would be an ethical problem.”

The revelation of Hewlett-Packard’s investigation led to the resignation of Ms. Dunn and two company lawyers, as well as the filing of felony charges in California against Ms. Dunn and four others.

A California judge dismissed the charges against Ms. Dunn in March and reduced the charges against three other defendants to misdemeanors.

The company agreed in December to pay $14.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the California attorney general in connection with the spying. The company has also apologized to the journalists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/bu...edia/07hp.html





Massachusetts Officials Fight Real ID Act

Federal anti-terrorism program provokes outrage
John J. Monahan

A new federal antiterrorism program, aimed at setting up nationally linked computer databases in every state with information on personal ID cards and higher-security driver’s licenses, is running into opposition from states, including Massachusetts. Officials here say it would be expensive for the state, inconvenient for residents, may fail to improve security and would launch a black market for fake IDs.

The Real ID Act, passed by Congress in 2005 and signed by President Bush, requires all U.S. residents without a passport to obtain a new state-issued type of driver’s license or ID card in order to board commercial airplanes, enter federal buildings, get Social Security benefits or get into other federal government programs, starting next May.

Because residents of states that do not adopt the new high security licenses would be barred from boarding airplanes or accessing government programs, the controversy is developing into a major state-federal standoff. The act’s draft comment period ends Tuesday.

State Sen. Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, has filed a bill seeking to stop implementation of the Real ID Act here, and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley also has come out in opposition, saying the measure would create a false sense of security, create a lucrative black market for fake “Real IDs” and pose major new risks of identity theft.

Mr. Moore said the law would “create a huge bureaucratic nightmare and a nightmare for the traveling public,” starting next May.

In January, the Maine State Legislature adopted a bill refusing to participate. Some 20 other states are considering legislation to either block participation, delay implementation or seek revisions in the federal law. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security advanced the program further last month, issuing regulations to implement the Real ID program next spring.

In announcing those plans last month, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff noted that two 9-11 hijackers who boarded a 757 airliner out of Dulles International Airport and crashed it into the Pentagon — Hani Hanjour and Khalid al-Mihdhar — obtained paperwork for their phony Virginia driver’s licenses by paying $100 to an illegal alien in a convenience store parking lot. The Real ID law, he said, “gives law enforcement and counterterrorism officials a critical new tool to prevent terrorism.”

If states need them, he said, “we will give extensions” to the May 11, 2008, compliance date.

Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s public safety officials, meanwhile, are recommending that the state seek the repeal of the federal law, or at least revamp it.

Mr. Moore claims the system could cost the state hundreds of millions to implement and would create a national data base subject to abuse by the government and identity thieves.

Under the proposed regulations, states would require all residents to provide documents verifying their Social Security number, proof of birth, citizenship or legal immigration status in person while renewing their driver’s licenses or obtaining new ones. The licenses, which would have to be of the same type of paper, would also have to include a computerized “facial image,” as well as the bearer’s signature, date of birth, home address and driver’s license number on computer-scannable bar codes.

Mr. Moore said the idea of a national ID card has been repeatedly opposed in the United States, and the Real ID proposal would create a virtual national ID system, with 50 states and territories maintaining separate databases, linked electronically.

“Historically, Americans have resisted the idea, which totalitarian governments have tended to do, of having a national ID. That’s the broad philosophical issue. I don’t think it’s a good move and I would be reluctant to see why we are going to that step,” Mr. Moore said. Since Sept. 11, he said, most states already have upgraded security regarding driver licenses they issue.

While the 9-11 Commission recommended higher security on state licenses to prevent foreign terrorists from boarding planes, it did not propose a national ID card, he said.

Proponents say a Real ID program would facilitate “state-to-state queries” by government agencies to find out if a person has a suspended license or tickets in other states, criminal warrants, etc. Another major feature of the act is the implicit institution of a ban on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants or those unable to prove their legal status.

The wide use, and possible abuses, of an interlinked national system, Mr. Moore said, “certainly were never discussed and debated through normal hearings in the Congress.”

In his bill, pending in the Massachusetts Legislature, Mr. Moore notes that information from the “massive government database” would be accessible at tens of thousands of locations by a variety of federal state and local agencies, including motor vehicle employees and police nationwide. The measure would prevent any state spending to implement the Real ID Act in Massachusetts, except for whatever may be spent by the attorney general to mount a constitutional challenge to the new federal law.

Ms. Coakley, meanwhile, has called on Congress to either repeal the law or postpone its implementation until it can be revised.

The attorney general said that she believes the Real ID system will be very inconvenient, especially for citizens who will have to find proof of citizenship and birth certificates in order to renew a driver’s license. She is convinced the new law also will give rise to a new underground market for fake identity cards. Beyond that, she said, estimates are that it would cost states $10 billion to $14 billion to implement, and would not make people safer.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Ms. Coakley said.

Not only is it an unfunded federal mandate that will tap large amounts of state tax funds, she said, it will prove logistically difficult for states to implement.

Calling the security benefits intended by the Act “illusory,” Ms. Coakley said “People will still get around it and we will have a black market,” for fake Real ID cards.

Mr. Moore contends the Real ID Act conflicts with more than a century of law surrounding state control of driver’s licenses. A strongly worded commentary attached to his bill complains that, “under the guise of protecting Americans from terrorism, implementation of the Real ID Act has the consequence of restricting the freedoms and privacy of Americans, while imposing a costly financial burden and inconvenience.”

Congress enacted the law “without sufficient deliberation and without any public hearing or vote specifically on its merits” despite opposition from more than 100 different organizations, he said. It was adopted as an amendment to a tsunami relief and military spending bill.

Juliette N. Kayyem, Massachusetts’ undersecretary for homeland security, said the state hasn’t approved any money to implement Real ID in the 2008 state budget.

Mr. Patrick is among those who have signed on to a National Governors Association objection that it is an unfunded and unaffordable federal mandate on states.

“Massachusetts citizens could not fly on airplanes unless they have an international passport, so there will be some real burdens on Massachusetts citizens if the state is not compliant,” Ms. Kayyem said.

“We really can’t afford it,” she said. “The best solution is federal legislation to amend or repeal it and have a real discussion of whether we should have a national ID card.

“On the security side, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.”
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dl...705060682/1116





Too late

Real ID Update: Only Four Hours Left to Tell Homeland Security What You Think
Declan McCullagh

If you don't like the idea of a national ID card, you have only four hours left to let Homeland Security know your thoughts.

That's because the deadline to file comments on the Real ID Act is 5pm ET on Tuesday. Probably the best place to do that is a Web site created by an ad hoc alliance called the Privacy Coalition (they oppose the idea, but if you're a big Real ID fan you can use their site to send adoring comments too).

Alternatively, Homeland Security has finally seen fit to give us an email address that you can use to submit comments on the Real ID Act. Send email to oscomments@dhs.gov with "Docket No. DHS-2006-0030" in the Subject: line.

In case you haven't been following this, Real ID compels state governments to follow Homeland Security's rules for federalized ID cards that will be required for state residents to do things like open bank accounts, enter government buildings, and fly on commercial flights. A national database will be created to make all this work. Here's some background from when this scheme was enacted in 2005 as part of an "emergency" military spending bill.

More recently, Homeland Security has published details -- in the form of draft regulations -- on how these federalized IDs will work.

Because Congress ordered the department to implement Real ID, Homeland Security can't do nothing, and any real fix to the law will have to come through a legislative rewrite or appeal. But the draft regulations could be improved in terms of privacy, autonomy, and security, and those are some areas that it would be good to address in comments sent today.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9716997-7.html





Book Not Ready for Print? You Can Whip Up an Audiobook for a Podcast for Now
Andrew Adam Newman

When you are a budding author and you appear on television, it is sure to enhance book sales.

But what do you do if your book is not even written, never mind in stores?

For Mignon Fogarty, who is host of a popular podcast called Grammar Girl, the answer is to scramble to record a short audiobook in just a few days between the time the show tapes and is shown.

Ms. Fogarty signed a contract a few months ago with Henry Holt & Company, the publisher, but her book is not scheduled to appear until next year. Meanwhile, her audiobook climbed to the top of iTunes’ best-selling books list after she appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Ms. Fogarty’s feat comes at a time when Henry Holt and other presses are rethinking their audiobook divisions, which have negligible marketing budgets and typically ride on the coattails of the hardcovers. Because audiobooks are so fast, inexpensive and easy to record, the dynamic seems to be changing, with publishers looking to the audio format to fuel interest in paper books that aren’t quite ready for the printing press.

And with the ubiquity of iPods, that interest can be generated quickly: recordings need not be pressed onto CDs and packaged, but can quickly be uploaded to iTunes. Sometimes these recordings will be made with well-known authors whose next release isn’t quite ready for bookstores, and other times with newcomers like Ms. Fogarty whose work has gained a following another way.

Ms. Fogarty said that when she was first contacted by Ms. Winfrey’s show, she thought, “I’m going on ‘Oprah.’ Gosh, I wish my book were done.”

Unlike most authors, Ms. Fogarty owns a mixing board for recording her podcasts, which allowed her to gin up a quickie audio version of the book she plans to write. The effort was spearheaded by Mary Beth Roche, publisher of Audio Renaissance, the audiobook division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, which also publishes Henry Holt.

About 100,000 people a week download her free podcasts, which consist of five minutes of grammar tips, from grammar.qdnow.com and iTunes. She produces them on about $600 worth of equipment in her home in Gilbert, Ariz., she said. (When the phone or doorbell rings, or the central air-conditioner kicks on, she stops and re-records.)

“I was working on the book on the airplane on the way home” from Chicago after recording the “Oprah” segment, Ms. Fogarty said. That was March 21, a Wednesday. By that Friday, she had finished the recording, and it was sent electronically to Audible.com, which provides audiobooks through Apple’s iTunes and on its own Web site.

On March 26, the day the show was broadcast, iTunes’ home page highlighted “Grammar Girl’s Quick & Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing,” an hourlong audiobook that could be downloaded for $4.95. By the end of that week, Ms. Fogarty’s presentation had bumped “The Secret,” the advice book that espouses positive thinking which also had been promoted by Ms. Winfrey, from the top spot.

“ ‘The Secret,’ is the phenom of the moment, and here we are basically improvising, creating a digital audiobook in a matter of days, and out of nowhere we’re No. 1 on iTunes,” said John Sterling, the president and publisher of Henry Holt.

He placed the number of sales in the thousands, but would not specify; Ms. Fogarty’s audiobook remains among the top 10 sellers on iTunes.

“We didn’t break out Champagne because we weren’t selling tens of thousands, but we certainly broke out the sparkling water,” Mr. Sterling said. “We are accustomed to working with product cycles one measures in months, but in this case we were working with a product cycle of days and even hours.”

An audiobook would normally appear after — or simultaneously with — a published book, not before. “Traditionally, we would see the audiobook as the tail on the dog, and here the tail is wagging the dog,” Mr. Sterling said.

Other publishers also are experimenting with such changes, including Hachette Audio (formerly Time Warner Audiobooks), which in 2005 released the audio version of Jon Stewart’s “America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction” on Audible and iTunes several weeks before the book.

“Publishers always want to hit the best-seller list at No. 1, and there had been some concern that releasing an audio version first would drain away sales from the hardcover,” said Beth Anderson, senior vice president of Audible, which, along with iTunes, had brisk download sales before Mr. Stewart’s book and a CD-format audiobook were simultaneously released. “But the publisher told us releasing the audio helped to sell the print version, because having the audio out there really helped to build the buzz for the book.”

Publishers also increasingly are releasing recordings that may never materialize in book form. Simon & Schuster Audio, for example, will put out Jimmy Carter’s “Measuring our Success: Sunday Mornings in Plains,” the second of three collections of the former president teaching adult Bible classes, on May 15.

On May 22, Simon & Schuster will release “You: On a Walk,” an original audiobook by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, authors of “You: On a Diet.” (The authors speak during half-hour walks that are integral to the diet.) Simon & Schuster has also released audio-only versions of Stephen King reading his stories.

Ms. Anderson of Audible called the alternative format “a great way to bring a new audience in” for popular works. “It helps to have a steady stream of product from major authors so we have something to sell between their big books,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/te...y/07audio.html





The Awesome Power of Spare Cycles
Chris Anderson

In physics, the greatest (theoretical) latent power in the universe is dark energy, waiting only for us to find a way to tap it (and to prove it actually exists; in the meantime it powers fictional superheroes). In people, the equivalent is "spare cycles"--the human potential that isn't tapped by our jobs, which for most of us is a lot of it. People wonder how Wikipedia magically arose from nothing, and how 50 million bloggers suddenly appeared, almost all of them writing for free. Who knew there was so much untapped energy all around us, just waiting for a catalyst to become productive? But of course there was. People are bored, and they'd rather not be. The guy playing Solitaire on his laptop at the airport? Spare cycles. Multiply it times a million.

I am at this moment, somewhat randomly, in the Salisbury (MD) regional airport. It is tiny airport like thousands of others across the country. But, like all the others, it has to meet standard TSA security standards. There is a flight (which I am on) at 2:30 pm. It is the only flight out of this airport for the past hour. There will not be another flight out of this airport for another hour. Yet we need our full TSA apparatus. That includes the local police, who are represented by a sheriff.

I'm watching him right now. He's in his room, labeled "Sheriff". Young guy. He's watching a movie on a portable DVD player. That's fine--he won't be needed for another half hour. But of course "needed" isn't quite the right word. "Required" is closer to it. He will be required by policy to stand by, gun in holster, while I take my laptop out of my nerd backpack. He may, fingers crossed, go his entire career without a terrorist going through that security checkpoint. He may indeed never unholster that gun in the line of duty.

That sheriff is watching a movie because he has spare cycles. Spare cycles are the most powerful fuel on the planet. It's what Web 2.0 is made up of. User generated content? Spare cycles. Open source? Spare cycles. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life? Spare cycles. They're the Soylent Green of the web.

In the next issue of Wired we've got a great story about a woman who cyberstalked the lead singer of Linkin Park. She correctly guessed the password to his cellphone account. The rest was easy. She was a technician at a secure military facility, the Sandia National Labs. When eventually confronted, she explained that her job only took her half an hour a day. The rest was spare cycles. She used them to stalk the lead singer of Linkin Park.

Web 2.0 is such a phenomena because we're underused elsewhere. Bored at work, bored at home. We've got spare cycles and they're finally finding an outlet. Tap that and you've tapped an energy source that rivals anything in human history. Solitaire Players of the World Unite!
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tai...esome_pow.html





AACS LA Versus Digg, Google in DMCA Showdown Over Leaked Key
Scott M. Fulton

Beginning two weeks ago, attorneys for the licensing authority for the Advanced Access Copy System used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD issued letters to multiple Web sites and services, including search engines, demanding they remove direct references to a 32-hexadecimal digit code they claim is a processing key that could be used to circumvent DRM protection in HD DVD discs.

"It is our understanding that you are providing to the public the above-identified tools and services at the above referenced URL," reads one letter sent by AACS LA's attorneys to a representative of Google, "and are thereby providing and offering to the public a technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed, produced, or marketed for the purpose of circumventing the technological protection measures afforded by AACS (hereafter, the "circumvention offering"). Doing so constitutes a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

The letter goes on to demand the removal of references to four Web sites whose articles include the code, as well as to any other material where the code may appear, otherwise "failure to do so will subject you to legal liability." In an extra bit of irony, the document filename in one of the four URLs the attorneys cite is actually the 32-bit code itself.

The key in question appears to be the same one discovered by the Doom9 Forum user whose screen handle is arnezami, back in February as reported then by BetaNews. What this user discovered, other forum members verified, was a media key that software could use to identify itself as a validly licensed media player of HD DVD discs. While Linux media players could theoretically read the code from HD DVDs, they cannot decrypt that code since AACS LA has thus far declined to issue licenses - and thus, licensed media keys as well - to creators of open-source software, who could theoretically share that code in the act of source code distribution.

Word does not travel as fast as those who repeat online what they read elsewhere online believe it to; and thus, the existence of the discovered media key was only widely reported after a Digg user posted a link to an article where that key happened to appear. That article, appearing Monday on the blog Rudd-O.com - almost two and a half months after the key's discovery - begins with the key itself, explains its discovery on the Doom9 Forum, and links to a 17-page autobiographical feature of the fellows who found it on Doom9 (through Digg) and repeated it on Rudd-O.com, entitled, "Stickin' It to the Man: The Illustrated Report of an Epic Event."

That article which links to "Stickin' It to the Man" was itself Dugg, by way of another blog post - this time entitled, "Spread This Number. Now." - which the author then self-Dugg, and in so doing, generated by his count 15,492 Diggs (votes of approval from Digg.com users).

It is that article with the high Digg count which caught the attention of AACS LA's attorneys, who immediately issued a takedown notice. At first, Digg complied, removing references to "Spread This Number" and other material. In an explanation on Digg's corporate blog, CEO Jay Adelson wrote, "We've been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.

"Our goal is always to maintain a purely democratic system for the submission and sharing of information," Adelson continued, "and we want Digg to continue to be a great resource for finding the best content. However, in order for that to happen, we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down."

Digg also apparently suspended the accounts of individuals who provided the original Digg links, including the one to "Spread This Number," as its author posted on his own blog last night. However, multiple Diggs to the original Digg, including comments generated there, apparently remained.

There was an immediate public outcry from Digg users - which, for a story that took two and a half months to germinate, is perhaps noteworthy. However, many of the thousands of comments posted to already long threads appear to consist of meaningless data, side discussions irrelevant to the topic, spam, and even cute little pictures drawn with ANSI characters.

Regardless of the substance of the protest, it was enough to provoke Digg's executives to reverse their course. In a blog post late last night whose title actually includes the media key code, Digg founder Kevin Rose wrote, "Today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code. But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company.

"If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying," Rose concluded. Exactly what action Digg takes from this point on was not stated.

The entire uproar over whether the posting of a 32-hex digit code should be censored as copyright infringement or upheld like a banner of liberty, overlooks a fairly significant technical issue: specifically, whether the media key, discovered last February after all, still works.

Last month, AACS LA began its first wave of distribution of so-called revocation keys. Through Internet connections and through the distribution of new HD DVD discs, these keys are matches to media keys considered to have been compromised, and this list is believed to contain the now-celebrated 32-hex digit code.

Whether a site posting a software patch that contains revocation keys may, in so doing, be distributing the media keys that were compromised - and thus violating the terms of the DMCA, as maintained by AACS LA's lawyers - remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, members of the Doom9 Forum, including arnezami, have been working since last month to apply a homebrew patch to Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD attachment drive, after having reverse-engineered the firmware from two drives to compare the differences in their code and determine the locations of secret keys. Their stated objective is to make it possible for software to decrypt the contents of a disc using its volume key only - which is more easily located.

If they are successful, then theoretically software could be permitted which enables Linux users to play HD DVD movies without a processing key at all, which would have made this whole two-and-a-half month discovery process another chronicle of wasted time.

In his Freedom to Tinker blog yesterday, engineer Ed Felten - who last year demonstrated the ease in which an unauthorized party could break into a Diebold voting machine - made a poignant comment about this whole affair.

"It's hard to see the logic in AACS LA's strategy here," Felten wrote. "The key will inevitably remain available, and AACS LA are just making themselves look silly by trying to suppress it. We've seen this script before. The key will show up on T-shirts and in song lyrics. It will be chalked on the sidewalk outside the AACS LA office. And so on."

5:35 pm May 2, 2007 - A spokesperson for the HD DVD Promotions Group denied to BetaNews late this afternoon that the organization had any involvement in the sending of takedown notices to Web sites and search engines. Press reports have cited, in addition to the AACS Licensing Authority, the HD DVD Promotions Group and the Motion Picture Association of America as being behind these notices; to the best of BetaNews' knowledge, and based on the spokesperson's comments to us, we believe these reports to be inaccurate.
http://www.betanews.com/article/AACS...Key/1178121088





Fox Interactive Nears Deal to Buy Photobucket
Brad Stone

Photobucket, a four-year-old, rapidly growing Web company, is in advanced talks to be acquired by Fox Interactive Media, a division of the News Corporation, a person briefed on the negotiations said Monday.

Photobucket allows its users to store photos and videos and then easily drop them into their pages on prominent sites like Facebook, eBay and particularly MySpace, which is also owned by the News Corporation.

The deal is not yet complete, but the parties have ironed out major issues and are focusing on finer points, according to this person, who said the price could be as high as $300 million. The person asked not to be further identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Representatives of MySpace, Fox Interactive Media and Photobucket all declined to comment.

News of the discussions was first reported earlier Monday on a Silicon Valley blog, Valleywag. Photobucket said last month that it had hired Lehman Brothers to explore a possible sale of the company.

Photobucket, which has offices in Denver and San Francisco, has catapulted over older sites to become the largest and fastest-growing photo-sharing service on the Web. Unlike rival photo sites such as Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly and Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo, Photobucket positioned itself as a tool for people using sites like MySpace, rather than a place to get prints made or to interact with other photographers.

The company has had the kind of booming growth that make larger media companies envious. A year ago, it said it had 14 million members. On its Web site on Monday, Photobucket cited 41 million users.

The site is free for basic use, but charges $25 a year for a premium subscription that includes extra storage space and the ability to store videos more than five minutes long. It also displays advertisements to users when they manage their accounts.

The company already has a symbiotic, if sensitive, relationship with MySpace. According to the research firm Hitwise, for the week ended Saturday, 60 percent of Photobucket traffic came from MySpace users who had placed their photos and videos on Photobucket. It was also the third-largest destination for people leaving MySpace, after Google and Yahoo.

“There’s clearly a synergy between these two sites,” says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

That close relationship has made MySpace uncomfortable in the past.

Last month, MySpace blocked slide shows and videos stored on Photobucket, saying the company was violating its terms of service by embedding its own advertisements in the media files. After a week of discussions, the two companies resolved their differences and MySpace removed the block.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/te...y/08photo.html





OLPC Project Rollout Begins In Uruguay
Acer500

The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality Thursday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of school number 24 in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers. The learning tools came directly from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez. It has become a matter of national pride that Uruguay is the first country to realize the project's goal. The target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project. From the newspaper articles: "The happiness of having a PC in their hands, some of them for the first time, had the kids in ecstasy, which didn't wait to turn on their computers, introduce their personal information (required the first time they're turned on), choose the screen colors, and start experimenting with them. What initially made them more enthusiastic was the possibility of taking photographs and filming each others with the included webcams."

According to the unofficial blog of the Uruguayan project, named proyecto Ceibal, the infrastructure for wireless is not yet in place but will be provided in the next few days by the national telco ANTEL. No photos of the event have been posted online, but you can see an institutional video on Youtube. One interesting point is that it has not yet been decided that the XO will be the laptop of choice for the entire project. Two other companies want to be considered: Intel, with their Classmate PC, and Israeli-manufactured ITP-C. In a press conference, Intel manager for the southern cone Esteban Galluzzi went as far as to compare the XO to a Pentium II, and stressed that the Classmate is able to run Windows XP. As advisor and local guru Juan Grompone stated, "who will ultimately benefit from this is education?" This will be an interesting test to see if the OLPC project meets its intended goals of "learning learning". Let's hope this project is the means that will foster among some of the children the desire to learn and to tinker.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/12/077205





A Big Stretch
Suketu Mehta

I GREW up watching my father stand on his head every morning. He was doing sirsasana, a yoga pose that accounts for his youthful looks well into his 60s. Now he might have to pay a royalty to an American patent holder if he teaches the secrets of his good health to others. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks. There’s big money in those pretzel twists and contortions — $3 billion a year in America alone.

It’s a mystery to most Indians that anybody can make that much money from the teaching of a knowledge that is not supposed to be bought or sold like sausages. Should an Indian, in retaliation, patent the Heimlich maneuver, so that he can collect every time a waiter saves a customer from choking on a fishbone?

The Indian government is not laughing. It has set up a task force that is cataloging traditional knowledge, including ayurvedic remedies and hundreds of yoga poses, to protect them from being pirated and copyrighted by foreign hucksters. The data will be translated from ancient Sanskrit and Tamil texts, stored digitally and available in five international languages, so that patent offices in other countries can see that yoga didn’t originate in a San Francisco commune.

It is worth noting that the people in the forefront of the patenting of traditional Indian wisdom are Indians, mostly overseas. We know a business opportunity when we see one and have exported generations of gurus skilled in peddling enlightenment for a buck. The two scientists in Mississippi who patented the medicinal use of turmeric, a traditional Indian spice, are Indians. So is the strapping Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga, who has copyrighted his method of teaching yoga — a sequence of 26 poses in an overheated room — and whose lawyers sent out threatening notices to small yoga studios that he claimed violated his copyright.

But as an Indian, he ought to know that the very idea of patenting knowledge is a gross violation of the tradition of yoga. In Sanskrit, “yoga” means “union.” Indians believe in a universal mind — brahman — of which we are all a part, and which ponders eternally. Everyone has access to this knowledge. There is a line in the Hindu scriptures: “Let good knowledge come to us from all sides.” There is no follow-up that adds, “And let us pay royalties for it.”

Knowledge in ancient India was protected by caste lines, not legal or economic ones. The term “intellectual property” was an oxymoron: the intellect could not be anybody’s property. You did not pay your guru in coin; you herded his cows and married his daughter, and passed on the knowledge to others when you were sufficiently steeped in it. This tradition continues today, most notably in Indian classical music, none of whose melodies have been copyrighted.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Indians do not feel obligated to pay for knowledge. Pirated copies of my book are openly sold on the Bombay streets, for a fourth of its official price. Many of the plots and the music in Bollywood movies are lifted wholesale from Hollywood. I have sat in on Bollywood script meetings where we viewed American films and decided that replication was the sincerest form of flattery.

Still, Indians get upset every time they hear reports — often overblown — of Westerners’ stealing their age-old wisdom, through the mechanism of copyright law. They were outraged by a story last year of some Americans trying to copyright the sacred Hindu syllable “om” — which would be like trade-marking “amen.”

The fears may be exaggerated, but they are widespread and reflect India’s mixed experience with globalization. Western pharmaceutical companies make billions on drugs that are often first discovered in developing countries — but herbal remedies like bitter gourd or turmeric, which are known to be effective against everything from diabetes to piles, earn nothing for the country whose sages first isolated their virtues. The Indian government estimates that worldwide, 2000 patents are issued a year based on traditional Indian medicines.

Drugs and hatha yoga have the same aim: to help us lead healthier lives. India has given the world yoga for free. No wonder so many in the country feel that the world should return the favor by making lifesaving drugs available at reduced prices, or at least letting Indian companies make cheap generics. If padmasana — a k a the lotus position — belongs to all mankind, so should the formula for Gleevec, the leukemia drug over whose patent a Swiss pharmaceuticals company is suing the Indian government. But the drug companies are playing rough. Abbott, based in Chicago, has decided to sell no new medicines in Thailand, in retaliation for that country’s producing generic versions of three lifesaving drugs.

For decades, Indian law allowed its pharmaceutical companies to replicate Western-patented drugs and sell them at a lower price to countries too poor to afford them otherwise. In this way, India supplied half of the drugs used by H.I.V.-positive people in the developing world. But in March 2005, the Indian Parliament, under pressure to bring the country into compliance with the World Trade Organization’s regulations on intellectual property, passed a bill declaring it illegal to make generic copies of patented drugs.

This has put life-saving antiretroviral medications out of reach of many of the nearly 6 million Indians who have AIDS. And yet, the very international drug companies that so fiercely protect their patents oppose India’s attempts to amend World Trade Organization rules to protect its traditional remedies.

There’s more at stake than just the money involved in the commercial exploitation of traditional knowledge. There is also the perception that the world trading system is unfair, that the deck is stacked against developing countries. Unless the World Trade Organization and developed countries correct this, the entire project of globalization is at risk.

If the copying of Western drugs is illegal, so should be the patenting of yoga. It is also intellectual piracy, stood on its head.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/op...11d&ei=5087%0A





Vendors’ Removal Brings a Venezuelan Gem Back to Life
Simon Romero

“They made Caracas into Calcutta,” the Venezuelan writer Fausto Masó lamented in the epilogue of a recently reissued memoir of bohemian exploits in the 1970s and 1980s along Sabana Grande, the boulevard that once symbolized this city’s effervescent intellectual life.

Until recently, it was hard for anyone with the nerve to exit a subway stop on Sabana Grande to disagree with that assessment. About 3,000 street vendors associated with black-market sales and crime had taken over the boulevard since the start of the decade, and the area had become emblematic of the city’s decline into lawlessness and neglect.

But at the beginning of this year, buoyed by President Hugo Chávez’s re-election victory, the local government allied with him responded to the many complaints about the area and cleared the vendors out. Pedestrians have flowed back, giving hope of renewal to many people in the area.

“This place has gone from being an area in which you risked your life to something approaching pleasurable,” said Ramón Martínez, a waiter at a restaurant on the boulevard for the last four years.

Returning Sabana Grande to its past grandeur is no easy task in Caracas, a city of four million struggling with violent crime. Citing morgue records, newspapers here reported 265 killings last month, which would make it one of the deadliest in the city’s recorded history. The police disputed the figure, saying that there were 169 killings.

Along Sabana Grande, pickpockets flourished under the vendors’ plastic tarps, where products like pharmaceuticals of dubious origin, smuggled Colombian lingerie and pirated Hollywood DVDs were available.

Considered a contingent of Mr. Chávez’s urban political base, the vendors had for several years successfully prevented the authorities from removing them or collecting taxes. Many of the boulevard’s exclusive shops and outdoor cafes had shut down, as their customers avoided the area.

Before the efforts began to restrict them, the city had about 150,000 of these vendors, according to Cedice, a research organization. The vendors have created an anarchic feel to many streets and plazas, including hundreds perched around the National Assembly downtown, fueling criticism of a government that preaches socialism but tolerates unfettered capitalism on its streets.

“The government should be ashamed to be walking hand in hand with Cuban socialism without acknowledging there are no street vendors nor anything even remotely similar in Havana,” the newspaper El Nacional said in an editorial. “At least they should use Cuba as an example in this respect.”

Along Sabana Grande, whose name refers to a region of savannas and tabletop mesas in southern Venezuela, the facades of Art Deco apartments remain crumbling or covered in grit. Squatters have occupied some abandoned buildings. But the police are more visible, and mimes and street musicians now attract growing crowds.

A few reminders of the boulevard’s past survive, like Suma, a cavernous bookstore, and the open-air Gran Café. Clearing out the vendors has also started a debate about the boulevard’s future, with fervent supporters of the president trying to transform it into an area for discussing the direction of Venezuelan politics.

“The vendors have a right to work, but they should be given the opportunity to do something more creative,” said Janette Rodríguez while passing out copies of La Mancha, a leftist newspaper. Ms. Rodríguez said the challenge was to prevent the boulevard from again becoming “a place full of boutiques for the bourgeoisie.”

Whatever their political stripe, urban planners are enthusiastic about reinvigorating what is considered the city’s premier public space. They point to its surviving examples of the fanciful architecture and public art that blossomed in Caracas after World War II, like a sculpture of dangling plastic tubes by Jesús Soto that graces one end of Sabana Grande, or the Chacaíto shopping center, whose open-air design feels innovative more than four decades after it was built.

Unlike other Latin American capitals that were seats of colonial power, Caracas was long a backwater. Then oil wealth paid for the services of Maurice Rotival, the French urban planner who developed the city’s master plan, and of Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, who advised Caracas on its freeway system.

The modern city they designed has gone through a wrenching transformation, though, after migration surged from other regions. The change is characterized by the growth of shantytowns on its hills and the cloistering of the privileged in gated communities and air-conditioned shopping malls.

“Sabana Grande has exceptional importance in the urban fabric of Caracas,” said Marcos Negrón, a prominent architect here. “It’s one of the few areas where different social classes can mingle with each other outside.”

Though officials are clearing street vendors from other areas, much of their focus has been on Sabana Grande. Critics of the municipal government say the vendors’ removal was opportunistic because it took place only after the president won re-election in December.

Freddy Bernal, mayor of the district encompassing the boulevard, said political allegiances were not a factor. “This place does not belong to those who voted for President Hugo Chávez or those who did not,” he said in a statement. “It belongs to all Caraqueños and needs to be defended.”

He had earlier told reporters, “It’s no secret to anyone that there were years of madness between the government and the opposition, and it wasn’t the political moment to advance.”

Many of the street vendors themselves scoff at their removal to a nearby lot, even as city officials hang banners there saying, “Dignifying the Popular Economy.” The vendors say promises of government loans have gone unmet.

“Chávez used the vendors,” said Jairo Castro, a former vendor on Sabana Grande who voted for Mr. Chávez in December. “We’re no good to him anymore.”

Still, many residents seem delighted that Sabana Grande, and perhaps even a tidied-up Caracas, may have a place in Mr. Chávez’s revolution. Pedro Aponte, 72, a retired fruit seller, relied on nostalgia to discuss the boulevard’s potential.

“We have to conserve this place,” Mr. Aponte said as he set up chess sets one recent morning under an awning, where a growing crowd gathers each day to play. Officials even organized a small Carnival celebration on Sabana Grande this year, though it paled in comparison with Carnivals of decades past in Mr. Aponte’s opinion.

“We would throw something called smile powder on the girls,” Mr. Aponte reminisced.

“They would smile,” he said. “That was beautiful.”

José Orozco contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/wo...=1&oref=slogin





How the Inca Leapt Canyons
John Noble Wilford

Conquistadors from Spain came, they saw and they were astonished. They had never seen anything in Europe like the bridges of Peru. Chroniclers wrote that the Spanish soldiers stood in awe and fear before the spans of braided fiber cables suspended across deep gorges in the Andes, narrow walkways sagging and swaying and looking so frail.

Yet the suspension bridges were familiar and vital links in the vast empire of the Inca, as they had been to Andean cultures for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish in 1532. The people had not developed the stone arch or wheeled vehicles, but they were accomplished in the use of natural fibers for textiles, boats, sling weapons — even keeping inventories by a prewriting system of knots.

So bridges made of fiber ropes, some as thick as a man’s torso, were the technological solution to the problem of road building in rugged terrain. By some estimates, at least 200 such suspension bridges spanned river gorges in the 16th century. One of the last of these, over the Apurimac River, inspired Thornton Wilder’s novel “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.”

Although scholars have studied the Inca road system’s importance in forging and controlling the pre-Columbian empire, John A.Ochsendorf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here said, “Historians and archaeologists have neglected the role of bridges.”

Dr. Ochsendorf’s research on Inca suspension bridges, begun while he was an undergraduate at Cornell University, illustrates an engineering university’s approach to archaeology, combining materials science and experimentation with the traditional fieldwork of observing and dating artifacts. Other universities conduct research in archaeological materials, but it has long been a specialty at M.I.T.

Students here are introduced to the multidisciplinary investigation of ancient technologies as applied in transforming resources into cultural hallmarks from household pottery to grand pyramids. In a course called “materials in human experience,” students are making a 60-foot-long fiber bridge in the Peruvian style. On Saturday, they plan to stretch the bridge across a dry basin between two campus buildings.

In recent years, M.I.T. archaeologists and scientists have joined forces in studies of early Peruvian ceramics, balsa rafts and metal alloys; Egyptian glass and Roman concrete; and also the casting of bronze bells in Mexico. They discovered that Ecuadoreans, traveling by sea, introduced metallurgy to western Mexico. They even found how Mexicans added bits of morning-glory plants, which contain sulfur, in processing natural rubber into bouncing balls.

“Mexicans discovered vulcanization 3,500 years before Goodyear,” said Dorothy Hosler, an M.I.T. professor of archaeology and ancient technology. “The Spanish had never seen anything that bounced like the rubber balls of Mexico.”

Heather Lechtman, an archaeologist of ancient technology who helped develop the M.I.T. program, said that in learning “how objects were made, what they were made of and how they were used, we see people making decisions at various stages, and the choices involve engineering as well as culture.”

From this perspective, she said, the choices are not always based only on what works well, but also are guided by ideological and aesthetic criteria. In the casting of early Mexican bells, attention was given to their ringing tone and their color; an unusually large amount of arsenic was added to copper to make the bronze shine like silver.

“If people use materials in different ways in different societies, that tells you something about those people,” Professor Lechtman said.

In the case of the Peruvian bridges, the builders relied on a technology well suited to the problem and their resources. The Spanish themselves demonstrated how appropriate the Peruvian technique was.

Dr. Ochsendorf, a specialist in early architecture and engineering, said the colonial government tried many times to erect European arch bridges across the canyons, and each attempt ended in fiasco until iron and steel were applied to bridge building. The Peruvians, knowing nothing of the arch or iron metallurgy, instead relied on what they knew best, fibers from cotton, grasses and saplings, and llama and alpaca wool.

The Inca suspension bridges achieved clear spans of at least 150 feet, probably much greater. This was a longer span than any European masonry bridges at the time. The longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span between supports of 95 feet. And none of these European bridges had to stretch across deep canyons.

The Peruvians apparently invented their fiber bridges independently of outside influences, Dr. Ochsendorf said, but these bridges were neither the first of their kind in the world nor the inspiration for the modern suspension bridge like the George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges in New York and the Golden Gate in San Francisco.

In a recent research paper, Dr. Ochsendorf wrote: “The Inca were the only ancient American civilization to develop suspension bridges. Similar bridges existed in other mountainous regions of the world, most notably in the Himalayas and in ancient China, where iron chain suspension bridges existed in the third century B.C.”

The first of the modern versions was erected in Britain in the late 18th century, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The longest one today connects two islands in Japan, with a span of more than 6,000 feet from tower to supporting tower. These bridges are really “hanging roadways,” Dr. Ochsendorf said, to provide a fairly level surface for wheeled traffic.

In his authoritative 1984 book, “The Inka Road System,” John Hyslop, who was an official of the Institute of Andean Research and associated with the American Museum of Natural History, compiled descriptions of the Inca bridges recorded by early travelers.
Garcilasco de la Vega, in 1604, reported on the cable-making techniques. The fibers, he wrote, were braided into ropes of the length necessary for the bridge. Three of these ropes were woven together to make a larger rope, and three of them were again braided to make a still larger rope, and so on. The thick cables were pulled across the river with small ropes and attached to stone abutments on each side.

Three of the big cables served as the floor of the bridge, which often was at least four to five feet wide, and two others served as handrails. Pieces of wood were tied to the cable floor. Finally, the floor was strewn with branches to give firm footing for beasts of burden.

More branches and pieces of wood were strung to make walls along the entire length of the bridge. The side covering, one chronicler said, was such that “if a horse fell on all fours, it could not fall off the bridge.”

Still, it took a while for the Spanish to adjust to the bridges and to coax their horses to cross them. The bridges trembled underfoot and swayed dangerously in stiff winds.

Ephraim G. Squier, a visitor to Peru from the United States in the 1870s, said of the Apurimac River bridge: “It is usual for the traveler to time his day’s journey so as to reach the bridge in the morning, before the strong wind sets in; for, during the greater part of the day, it sweeps up the Canyon of the Apurimac with great force, and then the bridge sways like a gigantic hammock, and crossing is next to impossible.”

Other travelers noted that in many cases, two suspension bridges stood side by side. Some said that one was for the lords and gentry, the other for commoners; or one for men, the other for women.

Recent scholars have suggested that it was more likely that one bridge served as a backup for the other, considering the need for frequent repairs of frayed and worn ropes.

The last existing Inca suspension bridge, at Huinchiri, near Cuzco, is virtually rebuilt each year. People from the villages on either side hold a three-day festival and gather stiff grasses for producing more than 50,000 feet of cord. Finally, the cord is braided into 150-foot replacement cables.

In the M.I.T. class project, 14 students met two evenings a week and occasional afternoons to braid the ropes for a Peruvian bridge replica 60 feet long and 2 feet wide. They were allowed one important shortcut: some 50 miles of twine already prepared from sisal, a stronger fiber than the materials used by the Inca.

Some of the time thus gained was invested in steps the Inca had never thought of. The twine and the completed ropes were submitted to stress tests, load-bearing measurements and X-rays.

“We have proof-tested the stuff at every step as we go along,” said Linn W. Hobbs, a materials science professor and one of the principal teachers of the course.

The students incorporated 12 strands of twine for each primary rope. Then three of these 12-ply ropes were braided into the major cables, each 120 feet long — 60 feet for the span and 30 feet at each end for tying the bridge to concrete anchors.

One afternoon last week, several of the students stretched ropes down a long corridor, braiding one of the main cables. While one student knelt to make the braid and three students down the line did some nimble footwork to keep the separate ropes from entangling, Zack Jackowski, a sophomore, put a foot firmly down on the just-completed braid.

“It’s important to get the braids as tight as possible,” Mr. Jackowski said. “A little twist, pull it back hard, hold the twist you just put in.”

No doubt the students will escape the fate of Brother Juniper, the Franciscan missionary in Wilder’s novel who investigated the five people who perished in the collapse of the bridge of San Luis Rey.

Brother Juniper hoped to discern scientific evidence of divine intervention in human affairs, examples of “the wicked visited by destruction and the good called early to Heaven.”

Alas, he could not; there is some of both good and evil in people. So his written account was judged heretical. He and his manuscript were burned at the stake.

If the students’ bridge holds, they will have learned one lesson: engineering, in antiquity as now, is the process of finding a way through and over the challenges of environment and culture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08bridg.html





A Museum for Artifacts of the News Media’s Hunters and Gatherers
Katharine Q. Seelye

Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

These stark reminders of the hazards of newsgathering will be displayed at the new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduled to open on Oct. 15. Cranes still hover over its steel-and-glass structure, but workers have now installed the facade’s showstopper — a 50-ton, 74-foot-high marble engraved with the First Amendment — and are preparing the exhibitions.

Slowly, the Newseum — a bigger, more dramatic, higher-tech reinvention of of the former Newseum in Arlington, Va. — is taking shape. More than six years in the making and costing $435 million, it may be one of the world’s most expensive museums now under construction. It is certainly among the most prominent, perched on the last buildable site on the presidential inaugural parade route between the Capitol and the White House.

And it is one of the most ambitious, both in design and aspiration. Polshek Partnership Architects designed the museum, and Ralph Appelbaum Associates created its exhibits. (Their earlier collaborations include the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.)

The building’s transparent exterior is meant to convey the idea of a free press and an open society. A mammoth rectangle frames the facade, suggesting a television or computer screen that provides what the museum calls a “window on the world.” Visitors enter through a Great Hall of News, where they can see breaking stories on a giant digital “zipper” before setting out on a 1.5-mile path of displays and interactive kiosks. The building, which has seven floors, also contains 135 upscale apartments, Newseum shops and Wolfgang Puck’s three-story restaurant, the Source.

The Appelbaum firm, specializing in interpretive exhibits, is known for infusing ordinary objects with meaning. Its past projects include the Holocaust Museum here and the original Newseum. The Newseum will have 600 artifacts on display, one-tenth of its collection. There’s a pencil, but it was used by Mark H. Kellogg, a reporter killed at Little Bighorn with Custer in 1876, and since blogging is best done in pajamas, Newseum also showcases the turquoise slippers worn by Ana Marie Cox when she wrote as Wonkette, the sassy Washington blogger. (She now writes for Time.com.)

The museum has already obtained the cellphone that a Virginia Tech student used last month to capture a video of the campus massacre. It is in the process of trying to obtain the video itself.

“We trace the way news is perceived and digested and remembered,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “All the elements here are devoted to revealing this extraordinary discipline of journalism that has shaped how we see history.”

The Newseum’s goal is to present the “first rough draft of history” in all its glory and some of its shame, impressing upon visitors the importance of the First Amendment’s protections of a free press. In the glory department are Edward R. Murrow’s rooftop broadcasts from London during the Blitz; he is among the heroes of a short movie to be shown in the Newseum’s 4-D theater, where the seats will literally shake as German planes roar overhead.

The shame is evident in exhibits examining, among other things, Jayson Blair’s manufactured articles in The New York Times and Jack Kelley’s fabrications in USA Today. Videos address the use of anonymous sources and how bias can find its way into news accounts.

One of the museum’s major challenges will be to attract visitors at a time when surveys show that public respect for the news media has been ebbing. Charles L. Overby, chief executive of the Freedom Forum, the nonprofit organization that underwrites the Newseum, discussed the problem in an interview in his temporary office adjacent to the construction site.

“Our annual survey shows that 40 percent of the American public believes the press has too much freedom,” he said, adding that the museum’s job is to educate — in an engaging way.

The Newseum, he emphasized, is not meant to be a monument to the press, but to its freedom.

“We try to show that the press has been hostile, arrogant and irresponsible since the beginning of the republic, and that this is not a new phenomenon that comes from being anti-Bush or anti-Clinton,” Mr. Overby said. “It’s the nature of a free press. And when the public sees the making of this sausage, they begin to say, ‘Well, that’s democracy.’ ”

Peter S. Prichard, president of the Newseum and a former editor in chief of USA Today, said that the original Newseum, which opened in 1997, drew 2.2 million visitors over its five years. “It was like a pilot project,” he said. “We got to see what worked and what didn’t, and we saved all the comment cards.”

Like the original Newseum, the new one will be filled with interactive bells and whistles. Visitors will be able to tape themselves doing stand-up broadcasts as if they were reporting from the White House. They can ham it up in a weather forecast. Various spaces in the new building offer that classic Washington photo op, a drop-dead view of the Capitol. The Newseum also has 15 theaters and two state-of-the-art broadcast studios for public-affairs events.

One of the galleries will be devoted to journalistic ethics. It allows visitors to race one another to answer some basic yes-or-no questions on deadline. You are reporting on shoplifting and learn that your neighbor has been arrested, a potential conflict; should you tell your editor? (Yes, according to a Newseum panel of journalism experts.)

But there is also a chance to consider more complex issues, based on real events. Should a photographer in Sudan have taken a picture of a starving child as a vulture lurked nearby, or tried to save the child? At a click, visitors can learn more information about the photograph, which appeared in The New York Times and won a Pulitzer Prize, read the views of journalists and vote on what they would have done. (They can also see how journalists voted.)

The original Newseum was off the beaten path and had no room to expand. After searching for a more tourist-friendly location, the Freedom Forum made an unsolicited offer of $75 million to the District of Columbia for this site. As a sweetener, it offered an extra $25 million for low-income housing.

The Freedom Forum closed the deal in December 2000 and broke ground three years later. So far it has received pledges for $79 million in donations, including $15 million from the Annenberg Foundation; $10 million from the Ochs-Sulzberger family and The New York Times Company; and $10 million from the News Corporation, which owns Fox News and The New York Post and has made a bid for The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Overby said that without “major missionary work” like the Newseum, the First Amendment could lose political support and “cease to exist” by the end of the century.

“But,” he added, “if, in the middle of an ethics game, people can begin to see the complexity of making decisions, that news judgment is not just black and white, that there’s an awful lot of gray that goes into this, we will have achieved our purpose.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/ar...gn/08muse.html





A Misunderstanding, and a Simple Life Descends Into a Nightmare
Michiko Kakutani

The Unknown Terrorist

By Richard Flanagan

325 pages. Grove press. $24.

The heroine of Richard Flanagan’s stunning new novel is an Australian pole dancer known as the Doll, and like Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart in a Hitchcock movie, she finds herself being mistaken for someone else and falling, abruptly, down a black rabbit hole, her identity stolen, her daily life torpedoed, her most fundamental expectations about life blown to smithereens.

Because of a one-night stand with an attractive stranger named Tariq, the Doll suddenly finds herself being hunted by the police and described on TV as part of a Bonnie-and-Clyde terrorist team determined to set off a bomb, quite possibly a dirty bomb, in downtown Sydney, perhaps even at the city’s iconic opera house.

SWAT teams fan out across the city in search of her; her apartment is ransacked; her friends are grilled and threatened with imprisonment. Images of her and her supposed terrorist boyfriend play on an endless loop on television sets and Jumbotrons across the city, while television reporters and radio shock jocks psychoanalyze her, defame her, mythologize the paltry facts of her life as they reinvent her as an avatar of all that is evil.

The Doll not only sees her modest hopes of a better life — “a life in which she had an apartment and an education and a job that people admired” — abruptly erased, but also realizes that she has been caught up in a gigantic political and media machine that she is helpless to stop. In three days her existence has been transformed. She is now running for her life.

Although the basic outlines of this story come from Heinrich Böll’s novel “The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum,” written in response to the terrorism scares that Germany suffered in the late 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Flanagan has turned the story into an armature for a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world, a globalized world in which fear is a valued commodity for terrorists and governments alike, a world in which rumors and misinformation circumnavigate the globe in the flash of an eye, and narratives — constructed by politicians and tabloid reporters, and avidly consumed by a spectacle-hungry populace — replace facts and truths. Identity has become a commodity and construct in this world: something that can be manufactured, stolen or counterfeited.

“The Unknown Terrorist” may not be as ambitious as this author’s last novel — the astonishing “Gould’s Book of Fish,” a phantasmagorical portrait of a 19th-century forger that opened out into a Melvillian meditation on art and politics and nature, the evils of colonialism and the limits of Enlightenment reason. But if the focus of “The Unknown Terrorist” remains the contemporary world — rather than the cumulative philosophical and cultural underpinnings of several centuries of Australian history — it does an just as dazzling a job job of limning its subject, conjuring up the postmodern, post-sci-fi world of globalized terror and trade, where drugs and weapons and human beings are smuggled with equal brazenness across borders and oceans, and money and power flow back and forth between the legitimate and criminal worlds, unnoticed by the crowds clamoring for more bytes and pixels and bandwidth.

Mr. Flanagan makes the reader see the teeming, seamy streets where the Doll lives and works, and the swank neighborhoods where many of her customers have homes with views of the harbor and the city and the sky. He captures the nervous jujitsu that passes for debate and conversation in the streets, and the frenetic, strobe-lit pulse of the urban wasteland that is modern Sydney — T. S. Eliot’s unreal city gone Aussie and electric. And he’s written a book that deserves to win him the sort of readership enjoyed by two much better-known novelists with whom he has much in common: Don DeLillo and Martin Amis.

As we get to know the Doll — whose real name is Gina Davies — we see that she thinks of herself as a cynic, as a tough-minded survivor, whose abusive childhood has inoculated her against big dreams of love and happiness ever after. Time and again, she has picked herself up and started over — after the stillbirth of her son, Liam; after the death of Liam’s father — and she has set herself the practical goal of dancing until she has made enough money to buy a starter apartment and turn it into a home.

Then: “She would put herself through university, train herself, and have a job that was secure and from which she might derive some small pride. And always she would hold her soul close and precious, allow no one to take it from her and trash it. These seemed neither large nor foolish things, but something solid, a rock, on which to build a life.”

And so she puts up with the daily humiliations of dancing at the Chairman’s Lounge in front of leering men. Among the patrons of the club is one Richard Cody, a has-been TV reporter, adept at embroidering stories, be it at the dinner table or on the screen. When Cody offers to pay the Doll for sex, she rebuffs him, and he will remember her — when a picture of her on a surveillance camera turns up the following day — hugging a man named Tariq, who has become the chief suspect in a terrorist bombing plot.

Cody comes to see Doll’s story — an Aussie girl turned terrorist — as his ticket back to the top of the tabloid television heap; it does not occur to him that she may be an innocent caught up in a series of random events and misunderstandings. And as the public frenzy, hyped by his television special, grows, the possibility of her innocence is also shrugged off by the politicians eager to use the terrorism scare to promote their own agendas.

The Doll’s best friend, Wilder, urges her to turn herself in to the police, to trust that “in Australia things always get sorted out in the end,” but the Doll becomes increasingly convinced that no one will believe her, that the people she’s up against can “take a truth” and “turn it into a lie.”

In Mr. Flanagan’s earlier novels “Gould’s Book of Fish” and “The Sound of One Hand Clapping,” there were glimpses of transcendence amid the senseless violence and degradation sustained by his characters — an appreciation of humanity’s resilience, its ability to alchemize suffering into art or to transmute anger into tenderness and redemption.

Here, however, the Stygian world inhabited by the Doll and her pursuers is without relief: Darwinian rules are the order of the day, and ruthlessness and self-interest are the ways to get ahead or survive. Indeed, Mr. Flanagan’s vision seems to have darkened considerably since his last book: in this stark and unsparing novel, set against the backdrop of the global war on terrorism, he gives us a Hobbesian world, devoid of grace and forgiveness and light, and headed, headlong, toward irredeemable disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/books/08kaku.html





The Streisand Effect
Andy Greenberg

A Web user and his information are like a grizzly and her cub. Come between them, and you're likely to get mauled.

That's what a group of heavyweight tech and entertainment companies learned last week when they tried to keep the lid on the code that could help break the electronic locks on HD-DVDs. On May 1, someone posted the code, which allows software developers to copy content from high-definition discs, to the social news portal Digg.com.

A consortium of companies such as Disney, Microsoft and IBM, who have invested in the disc format, responded with a cease-and-desist letter, trying to strong-arm the site's owners into removing the code.

Digg's administrators cooperated; its users didn't. Crying censorship, they staged a digital riot, covering Digg's pages with links to the banned digits, printing them on T-shirts and immortalizing them in a song that's been played on YouTube more than 200,000 times.

Thanks to Digg's rebels, the HD-DVD encryption code has become another victim of the "Streisand effect," an increasingly common backlash that occurs when someone tries to muzzle information on the Web. When the Streisand effect takes hold, contraband doesn't disappear quietly. Instead, it infects the online community in a pandemic of free-speech-fueled defiance, gaining far more attention than it would have had the information's original owners simply kept quiet.

The phenomenon takes its name from Barbra Streisand, who made her own ill-fated attempt at reining in the Web in 2003. That's when environmental activist Kenneth Adelman posted aerial photos of Streisand's Malibu beach house on his Web site as part of an environmental survey, and she responded by suing him for $50 million. Until the lawsuit, few people had spotted Streisand's house, Adelman says--but the lawsuit brought more than a million visitors to Adelman's Web site, he estimates. Streisand's case was dismissed, and Adelman's photo was picked up by the Associated Press and reprinted in newspapers around the world.

The Internet has been mainstream for more than a decade. But what Streisand and others fail to realize, says Michael Masnick, the tech consultant and writer who named the Streisand effect in his blog, Techdirt, is that the rules of privacy and information control have changed. "Before, you took the hardest legal stance you could," says Masnick. "You sent out cease-and-desist letters with a lot of nasty language. But the Internet has turned that around and allowed people to fight back and get a lot more people outraged."

Michael Fertik owns ReuptationDefender, a start-up company that helps individuals and companies manage their online reputation--essentially a Web-centric crisis PR firm. He says he would have taken a subtler approach to Streisand's situation. "You have to reason with people and approach them politely," he says. "People don't like that a large entity can beat up on a little entity, and the power of the Internet has been arrayed to support victims."

Despite these new rules of publicity control, the Streisand effect has its limits. When the celebrity gossip blog Gawker published leaked photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's newborn baby in June of last year, Time Inc. threatened them with a lawsuit for infringing its exclusive right to publish the star-child's pictures in the U.S. After a heated exchange between the two media outlets and threats of a lawsuit, Gawker gave in and removed the photos--at least until Time's People magazine had a chance to publish its own spread.

But as the Digg revolt shows, damage control can be difficult even when Web sites respond to legal threats. Last September, Brazilian model and TV personality Daniela Cicarelli demanded that Google's YouTube remove a video clip of her indiscreet sexual behavior on a Spanish beach, which had been filmed by a paparazzo. YouTube obediently pulled the clip, but users continued to upload the file with different names, evading YouTube's filters.

Eventually, a Brazilian judge ordered that the site be banned in Brazil until YouTube could effectively remove the video. But the ban only brought more attention to the clip outside of Brazil, as well as inspiring a boycott of her shows by angry Brazilian YouTube fans. Today, YouTube has been unblocked in Brazil, and though Cicarelli's sex clip seems to have disappeared from YouTube, a host of other video sites still feature the footage.

The government of Thailand has run up against similar limits to its power to control the international Web. Last April, an anonymous YouTube user posted a 44-second video portraying Thailand's king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, as a monkey. The Thai government charged the site with "lèse majesté," insulting the monarch, and rather than ask for the offending video to be removed, banned the site altogether.

YouTube users around the world responded by posting a series of Bhumibol-bashing clips, portraying the king as a clown, as various types of animals and as a pedophile. Each clip has been viewed tens of thousands of times, and this week Thailand responded by suing the video site.

But Thailand's lawsuit is more likely to fuel the videos' distribution than to stop them. Attorney Kevin Bankston argues that unlike the laws of Thailand, U.S law ensures that sites like YouTube are free to act as a platform for defamatory materials posted by users. Bankston, a free-speech advocate for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cites a provision in the Communications Decency Act stating that communication services aren't responsible for the speech that they enable.

That law may have some bearing on the Digg case as well, as the consortium that owns the HD-DVD encryption code considers how to prevent more users from seeing the digits posted on the site. As for Bankston, he was happy to see Digg's users rebel last week in what he calls "a great flowering of civil disobedience," and he says it should serve as a warning to future censors about the power of the Streisand effect.

"The Web," Bankston says, "is like the mythical Hydra. Cut off one of its many heads, and two will grow back in its place."
http://www.forbes.com/home/technolog...streisand.html





Thailand to Sue YouTube Over King Clips

The webpage of YouTube. Thailand's army-backed government plans to sue Internet video-sharing site YouTube over clips it deemed insulting to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Thailand's army-backed government plans to sue Internet video-sharing site YouTube over clips it deemed insulting to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

"We are considering taking legal action against the website," said Vissanu Meeyo, a spokesman for the information ministry.

Thailand plans to sue YouTube, owned by Google, over charges of lese majeste -- insulting the monarchy, a serious crime here that carries up to 15 years in prison, the spokesman said.

The government, which came to power after a September coup, has continued to block YouTube since the first clip showing the king next to a photograph of feet, considered deeply offensive here, appeared in April.

The YouTube ban came a week after a Thai court jailed a Swiss man for 10 years for insulting the monarch by vandalising his portraits.

But the king later pardoned the man, who was then deported from Thailand.

Since the first clip, more new videos mocking the king have appeared on YouTube, including pictures of the monarch that had been digitally altered to make him resemble a monkey.

Thailand's 79-year-old king, almost universally adored by Thais, is the world's longest-reigning monarch, and one of the few who is still protected by tough laws that prohibit any insult against the royal family.
http://www.physorg.com/news97734698.html





Central server model showing weakness

YouTube to Remove Some Clips Mocking Thai King
Mei Vandenberghe

Video-sharing Web site YouTube has agreed to block four clips Thailand says insulted its revered king, the latest twist in a spat that has stirred fierce debate about freedom of expression on the Internet.

However, in a letter to Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, YouTube owner Google said two other videos that had incurred the wrath of Thailand's military government would stay as they did not break lese majeste laws.

"They appear to be political comments that are critical of both the government and the conduct of foreigners," the letter said.

"Because they are political in nature, and not intended insults of His Majesty, we do not see a basis for blocking these videos."

Insulting royalty is a serious offence in Thailand, but the generals who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a military coup in September have also used the strict lese majeste laws to stifle criticism of themselves or their actions.

Sitthichai, who blocked the entire YouTube Web site last month when clips mocking King Bhumibol Adulyadej first appeared, gave copies of the letter to reporters on Friday.

The letter was on Google-headed paper and signed by senior company lawyer Kent Walker. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

The letter said Thailand had sent YouTube bosses a list of 12 video clips it deemed offensive. Six of the clips had already been removed by their creators or because they violated YouTube's "code of service", it said. Sitthichai, who threatened to sue Google earlier in the week, said he no longer wished to take legal action but did not say whether the company's concession was enough for him unblock YouTube for Thai Internet surfers.

"The Thai police will not take any action against any company. Instead they will look into ways of fighting the person who uploaded the video onto the Web site," he told a news conference.

The first king-bashing clip appeared a few days after a 57-year-old Swiss man received a 10-year jail sentence for spraying graffiti on pictures of the king on his birthday in December -- a rare conviction of a foreigner.

Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch who has been on the throne for more than 60 years, has since granted a pardon and the Swiss man has been deported.
http://www.reuters.com/article/inter...K1807320070511





Joost Gets A Jolt From Warner Bros. As Hollywood Focuses On PC Screen
Brian Deagon

Online video sensation Joost added two more partners to a growing stable of media companies willing to have their content stream over the Web onto viewers' computer screens.

Joost announced Monday that Time Warner's (TWX) Warner Bros. Television Group will offer a smattering of vintage TV shows. Separately, the video Web site Heavy.com said it will showcase original programming on Joost's service.

The deals come less than a week after Joost announced its commercial launch. Though still open only to invited users, the service has secured 32 advertising partners that include blue chip brands such as Coca-Cola, (KO) Intel, (INTC) Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Nike. (NKE)

Joost boasts 150 separate Web TV channels that offer everything from vintage episodes of "Lassie" to National Geographic specials and fare from Comedy Central.

Joost was founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis; the two also created Internet phone service Skype, which eBay (EBAY) acquired for $2.6 billion in 2005.

Though it's one of dozens of Web sites that stream TV shows, Joost has received a bevy of media attention lately due to some major deals. Fans praise its video quality and easy-to-use controls.

In May, Joost announced content deals with Turner Broadcasting, Sony's (SNE) movie and TV unit, Time Warner-owned Sports Illustrated magazine and the National Hockey League. CBS came aboard in April, following Viacom (VIAB) in February.

"Joost is trying to position itself as a true TV service over the Internet," said Len Feldman, an analyst at Multimedia Research Group. "They are trying to be a content aggregator that acts almost like a cable company, with an enormous store of content that you can watch on demand whenever you want."

It's not clear whether Joost and companies like it will pose a threat to cable companies, analysts say. The producers of popular TV shows themselves are not sure where things are headed. They want to avoid making the same mistakes the music industry made by trying futilely to prevent music-file swapping.

"The media entertainment companies are eagerly rushing into unknown territory," said James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research. "They're saying that if people want to watch their shows over the Internet, then they want to be the ones that get the ad revenue for this."

Joost will share advertising revenue with content providers but has not disclosed any details. And the networks are providing Joost with content even though some of the same shows can be viewed on their own streaming TV Web sites. For example, CBS will offer Joost viewers episodes of "Jericho" even though that show can also be viewed on the CBS site Innertube.

Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, Joost's executive vice president for content strategy and acquisition, says CBS wants to distribute its content as widely as possible.

"In conversations we've had with CBS, they want their audiences to have a good experience," she said. "People don't want to jump from Web site to Web site. They want to find it in one place. "

Streaming video has been on the scene for years, but now it's coming on like a fright train, analysts say. Just as music was copied and swapped illegally from user to user on file-sharing networks — which the industry says costs billions in lost sales annually — the same is now happening with TV .

Dozens of Web sites make available for viewing all manner of TV shows, often without copyright permission. Many of the sites profit from their own on-site ads.

David Graves, chief executive of PermissionTV, another online video service, says the TV networks see syndication as a good strategy.

"Effectively they've said, 'Our content is up for sale,' " Graves said. "And rather than making it available only on their company-owned Web sites, they've agreed to sell the programming to other sites as long as they think it's a good business."

For now, TV executives are treading carefully. Much of what's on Joost "is second- or third-rate content," Feldman said. That could change if the business model works.

"We'll see a lot of experimentation," he said.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/I...issue=20070507





Most Children Younger Than 2 Years Watch TV Despite Warnings

Approximately 40 percent of three-month old children and about 90 percent of children age 24 months and under regularly watch television, DVDs or videos, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

"The public health implications of early television and video viewing are potentially large. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that the effects of media exposure on children’s development are more likely to be adverse before the age of about 30 months than afterward," the authors note. Recent studies suggest that what children younger than two years watch and whether they watch it alone or with a parent may be important for their vocabulary development.

Frederick J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues, conducted a telephone survey of 1,009 parents of children age 2 to 24 months. The study analyzed four television and DVD content categories: children’s educational, children’s non-educational, baby DVDs/videos and grown-up television (such as talk shows or sports programming). Average daily viewing, reasons parents gave for their child’s viewing, who was present during viewing and socio-demographic factors were reported.

The median age of initiating viewing was 9 months. The average amount of viewing time for the children was 40.2 minutes per day. At 3 months of age children watched less than an hour per day and by 24 months they watched more than 1.5 hours per day. "Approximately half of the viewing was of shows that parents reported to be in the children’s educational category," the authors note. "The remaining half was approximately equally split among children’s non-educational content, baby DVDs/videos and grown-up television."

Of the reasons given by parents for allowing television and DVD/video viewing, 29 percent believe that television is educational or good for their child’s brain, 23 percent believe that it is enjoyable or relaxing for their child and 21 percent believe it gives them time to get things done while the child is entertained. Parents watched with their children more than half the time.

Researchers also reported that compared with children without siblings, children with two or more siblings were less likely to view grown-up television and watched about 18 minutes less per day in all content types.

"These results suggest that it may not only be the amount or content type that children view, but also the role of siblings in helping to process this content that may affect whether television viewing helps or hinders development," the authors conclude. In addition, "these results suggest that the widespread notion that parents turn to television only as an electronic babysitter is a misconception…Parents are clearly hungry for truly educational content for children younger than 2 years. More research is urgently required to determine whether it is realistic to produce genuinely educational content for children younger than 2 years, and if so, what it would be."

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals
http://www.physorg.com/news97776813.html





I-H-A, T-E-Y, O-U-A-L-L

Hamas TV Refuses to Axe Copycat Mickey Mouse
Sakher Abu El Oun

A Hamas-run television station defied Israel and the Palestinian government on Thursday by refusing to axe a controversial children's puppet show in which a Mickey Mouse lookalike calls for resistance.

"Al-Aqsa TV refuses this pressure and refuses to cull its programme or alter any of its content," said Fathi Hamad, chairman of the Al-Aqsa Television board in Gaza City, lashing out at Israeli and Western "interference".

"This campaign of criticism is part of a plan orchestrated by the West and the occupying power to attack Islam on the one hand and the Palestinian cause on the other," he said.

"We have our own ways to educate our children and any criticism of this approach is shocking interference in our internal affairs," said Hamad.

The programme entitled "Tomorrow's Pioneers" seeks to educate Palestinian children to stand up for their nation and their rights, especially the right of return, said Hamad, slamming a "violation on freedom of journalism".

In the programme, the Mickey Mouse lookalike named Farfur and a little girl urge resistance against Israel and the United States -- along with stressing the importance of daily prayers and drinking milk.

A senior official working for Al-Aqsa said the show would air as normal this Friday in defiance of a request from information minister Mustafa Barghuti to shelve the programme.

"The programme will continue and it will be broadcast tomorrow at 4:00 pm (1300 GMT). Mustafa Barghuti misunderstood the issue," said the official on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the information ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah had said the "politically-oriented children's television programme" was withdrawn by Al-Aqsa following a request to do so by the ministry.

Barghuti said the programme adopted a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and that it was wrong to use children's programmes to convey political messages.

The programme drew strong protests from Israel and Jewish groups.

"Hamas television is producing and broadcasting a children's programme in which a Mickey Mouse lookalike character indoctrinates Palestinian children to violence, hatred and murder," Israel's foreign ministry said.

"The Hamas-led
Palestinian Authority has deliberately created a culture of hatred that encourages Palestinian children to take an active role in violent activities," it added.

The US-based Anti-Defamation League similarly accused the station of promoting a message of radical Islam, anti-Semitism and hatred of the West.

"When you take a Mickey Mouse-like character and deliberately use it to promote an ideology of hatred, obviously it's going to have an impact on children and their thinking," said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director.

"For all of their attempts to appear more moderate, Hamas is still willing to indoctrinate children into their culture of hate," added Foxman.

Hamas is the senior partner in the Palestinian national unity government and blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in the West.

The Islamist movement controls a television and radio network both called Al-Aqsa, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and it has also just launched a newspaper.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070510...n_070510145353





Puffing Away That PG Rating
Michael Cieply

WARNING: Smoking may be hazardous to your movie rating.

In a significant change to its movie ratings system, the Motion Picture Association of America on Thursday said portrayals of smoking would be considered alongside sex and violence in assessing the suitability of movies for young viewers. Films that appear to glamorize smoking will risk a more restrictive rating, and descriptions of tobacco use will be added to the increasingly detailed advisories that accompany each rated film.

Antismoking groups, already successful in much of the country in banning smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places, have ratcheted up the pressure on Hollywood in recent years to purge movies of images that might promote tobacco use. Some have even demanded that virtually any film with smoking be rated R, shutting out those under 17 unless they are accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

Under the new policy, a film’s rating will consider all tobacco use, rather than just teenage smoking, as in the past. But the board stopped short of guaranteeing that tobacco use would be considered as heavily as sex, violence or drug use in assigning a rating. (Film ratings are assigned by a panel of about a dozen parents through an apparatus called the Classification and Ratings Administration, and overseen by the Motion Picture Association and the National Association of Theater Owners.)

“It’s an art, not a science,” said Joan Graves, chairman of the ratings board, of the actual weight that would be placed on smoking in assigning a rating. “It all depends on how impactful the smoking is.”

In deciding whether a tougher rating is appropriate, board members will be expected to consider whether smoking is pervasive, whether it tends to be glamorized and whether the context or historical fact mitigates the portrayal. David Strathairn’s portrayal of a chain-smoking Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” said Ms. Graves, would probably still get the PG rating it received in 2005, because it was historically accurate. The rating would now be likely to include an advisory about pervasive smoking.

Some critics were quick to assail the new policy as inadequate. “It’s an anemic response,” said Dr. Cheryl Healton, president of the American Legacy Foundation, which in recent years has led a drive to minimize exposure of young people to films that depict the habit without clearly showing its dangers.

Financed with money from state lawsuits against tobacco companies, the foundation has joined with dozens of state attorneys general and health organizations like the American Lung Association and the Harvard School of Public Health to push for changes on the screen. They have asked the film industry to confront smoking with tighter ratings, more antismoking messages attached to films and broad prohibitions against tobacco product placement or brand depictions in films.

In tandem with the shift in its ratings policy, the Motion Picture Association and an allied producers group, the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers, said on Thursday that they would join “Hollywood Unfiltered,” an initiative by the Entertainment Industry Foundation to reduce smoking among film industry workers and to spread information about the health effects of tobacco.

But the industry groups did not meet the various demands to eliminate recognizable tobacco brands in films, or to cut smoking altogether from films in the G, PG, and PG-13 ratings categories, to which children and teenagers are freely admitted.

In announcing their revision of the ratings system, Motion Picture Association officials said a comprehensive internal review showed that smoking had declined in movies recently. Between July 2004 and July 2006, any glimpse of the habit dropped from 60 percent to 52 percent. In the same period, the officials said, 75 percent of all films to depict smoking had already been rated R.

Some of the most appealing images of smokers — say, Scarlett Johansson with her seductive cigarette in “The Black Dahlia” — occur in movies that have already been restricted for violence and sexual content.

But Dr. Healton said her own group’s research showed that teenagers were not receiving fewer impressions of onscreen smoking, thanks in part to a tendency by film raters to assign PG-13 ratings to films that might have received an R in past years.

Dr. Healton said her group advocated an R rating for all smoking references unless they were historically accurate or “unambiguously demonstrate the health issues.” Lindsay Doran, a veteran Hollywood producer known within the film community for her opposition to onscreen smoking, applauded the ratings revision.

“It would be nice if we could leave this to the filmmakers,” said Ms. Doran, producer of last year’s PG-13 rated “Stranger Than Fiction,” in which Emma Thompson played something of a human ashtray, and quite deliberately deglamorized her tobacco addiction. But, Ms. Doran added, even socially conscious Hollywood types could use a nudge.

“This makes people say, ‘Wait a minute, what are doing here, and why are we doing it?’ ” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/bu...11smoking.html





Apple Inc. Seeking End to Music Copy Restrictions in iTunes Talks
Alex Veiga

The last time Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs took on major recording companies, he refused to budge on his 99-cent price for a song on iTunes.

As a new round of talks ramp up this month, however, Jobs has opened the door to higher prices—as long as music companies let Apple Inc. sell their songs without technology designed to stop unauthorized copying.

Jobs contends that would "tear down the walls" by allowing consumers to play music they buy at Apple's iTunes store on any digital music player, not just the company's iPods.

Although most of the major labels insist that safeguards are still needed to stave off online piracy and make other digital music business models work, one company has already struck a deal with Apple.

Last month, Britain's EMI Music Group PLC, home to artists such as Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone, agreed to let iTunes sell tracks without the copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management. The DRM-free tracks cost 30 cents more than copy-restricted versions of EMI songs and feature enhanced sound quality.

The other major labels—Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi's Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG—will be watching closely to see how the unrestricted EMI tracks sell.

"At this point, no one can ignore Apple or what Apple wants, given its position in the marketplace," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "The fact that they were able to do this deal with EMI puts more pressure on some of the other labels to follow suit."

For their part, at least two of the recording companies will ask Jobs to sell a wider variety of content in digital bundles of songs, videos and other multimedia, according to two recording company executives familiar with their companies' plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the negotiations.

Apple already sells some bundled tracks, but the music companies hope expanding those offerings will boost online revenue and help offset lagging CD sales.

Apple and the recording companies declined official comment on their negotiations.

Four years ago, the majors bought into Jobs' one-price-fits-all vision and agreed to such licensing terms at a time online music services were failing to attract significant interest from music fans.

Since then, the popularity of Apple's iPods has swelled and the sleek devices now dominate more than 70 percent of the digital music player market, by some estimates.

While studies have suggested that only a fraction of the music on most iPods is actually purchased on iTunes, the service has ridden the iPod's coattails and helped cement its position as the top-selling online music service and one of the biggest music retailers overall.

That's given Apple considerable leverage in its dealings with the recording industry.

Last year, the main issue that dominated iTunes licensing talks was pricing, as some of the big music companies urged Jobs to entertain charging more for some songs than others.

The dispute percolated for months, but Jobs didn't budge, not wanting to complicate iTunes' simple pricing scheme for singles.

Eventually, the music companies each agreed to one-year deals, which expire this spring.

Now, Apple is facing pressure in Europe to license its brand of DRM technology to rivals, so consumers can play the music they buy on iTunes on any digital music player, not just iPods.

Critics of the recording industry have argued for years that the labels are alienating customers by placing copy restrictions on legal music downloads, especially as many CDs have been sold without them.

The technology behind such measures differs, depending on the retailer and the music device. Apple, for example, has its own version, called FairPlay, that only works with iPods, making it cumbersome for consumers to transfer songs they bought across other portable digital devices. Likewise, DRM systems used at other online stores won't work with iPods.

Many music fans who don't want to deal with the hassle simply turn to online file-sharing networks to download no-strings tracks for free.

The recording industry has argued that copy protection software itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of the technology in use. The music companies have called on Jobs to license out FairPlay to makers of rival devices.

Jobs has countered that the best way to get rid of technological barriers is for record labels to strip the copy safeguards from their music. He defends keeping FairPlay closed, saying that if it was widely available, it would become easier for hackers to figure out how to bypass it.

No matter what, Apple plans to continue selling standard, copy-restricted versions of songs for 99 cents each. With the EMI deal, Apple will this month start selling $1.29 premium tracks that are not only DRM free but also of higher quality, compressed at twice the usual bit rate.

John Heard, an iTunes user in Santa Monica, said he would jump at the chance to buy no-strings download, even if it costs more.

"If I have the choice between something that doesn't have copy protection or it does, I'm always going to choose the thing that doesn't have copy protection," said Heard, 28, a television producer who spends about $300 a year on music, almost all on iTunes.

Buying a better-sounding track is appealing to David Sholle, 54, of Long Beach, a college professor who has purchased several hundred songs from iTunes.

"I'd be willing to pay for that," he said.

Anticipating a more competitive market, other companies are looking to break into online music sales. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. first approached the major recording companies 18 months ago about launching an online music store.

A recent meeting prompted speculation that Amazon might begin selling unrestricted MP3s and other music downloads as early as this month. The company has declined to comment.

David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, said the elimination of copy protection could help his company mine the rare, catalog recordings owned by major labels but not typically available on iTunes.

EMusic already sells music from independent labels in the MP3 format and boasts some 300,000 subscribers.

Pakman believes the major record labels will also eventually relent on requiring copy restrictions.

"We really think the market is breaking our way," Pakman said. "A noteworthy major will probably take some steps in this direction later this year."
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5...source=sb-digg





The Pirate Bay Launches Music Sharing Site

Promises online musical treasure chest
Jan Libbenga

The Pirate Bay, the controversial Swedish piracy torrent tracker, is launching a music site where users can share as much music as they want.

Playable.com is a collaboration between The Pirate Bay, members of the Swedish rock band Lamont, and their manager Kristopher S Wilbur. A statement said: "The shared insight that the record industry is outdated inspired the birth of Playable.com."

Playable.com will allow users to support artists financially. Users will have to pay a monthly fee, but it is up to them how much they want to spend. Artists will receive a portion of that money every time one of their songs is downloaded.

It is unlikely that many record companies will join the initiative, in particular since The Pirate Bay intends to make transactions through its current torrent tracker almost "completely untraceable".

Co-founder Peter Sunde approached several record companies in the USA and told the Los Angeles Times that one record boss even accused him of "perpetrating a disturbingly Viking-like act" on the executive's livelihood.

It is more than likely Playable.com will face law suits for copyright infringement.

Last year, the popular file sharing network eDonkey agreed to pay $30m to settle a case brought by six music labels. P2P networks have succumbed one by one since the US Supreme Court ruled in June 2005 that file sharing services are illegal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05...to_the_groove/





The Pirate Bay Admits Links With Right-Wing Benefactor
Jan Libbenga

A spokesman for the Swedish torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, has admitted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1S9n81ras) on Swedish TV that their servers and broadband bandwidth were financed by Carl Lundström, one of the alleged sponsors of Swedish far-right political party Sweden Democrats. "We needed the money," spokesman Tobias Andersson told Bert Karlsson, a former politician and front figure of the New Democracy (Ny Demokrati) party.

Carl Lundström is the CEO and largest shareholder of Rix Telecom, a large provider in Sweden, where at least one member of The Pirate Bay used to work.

Lundström is also believed to be a major financier of Sweden Democrats, a nationalist movement which opposes all forms of racism. However, it was also modeled after other "euronationalist" parties, most notably the French National Front. Several members have criminal records (http://www.psa.ac.uk/2007/pps/Widfeldt.pdf) or extremist connections. "I think he liked file sharing," Tobias Andersson said about Lundström.

Almost a year after a police raid on the Pirate Bay's servers, a Swedish prosecutor last week announced (http://www.thelocal.se/7205/) that he intends to press charges against the individuals behind the file-sharing site for violating copyright. Tobias Andersson says he expected a move of this kind and doesn't believe that it stands a chance in the courts. The Pirate Bay, Andersson argues, merely points to other pages, and doesn't contain copyright protected material.

Just last week the torrent tracker announced a new all-you-can-download music site with members of the Swedish rock band Lamont.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05...ht_wing_money/





What is Liberty News TV?
WebBlurb

Liberty News TV is a half-hour long monthly television program, dedicated to unraveling the spin, lies and misguided policies of corporate-owned politicians, media outlets and misinformed pundits. We combine careful research with humor and satire to create a show that is both entertaining and informative. We aim to reach and activate the apathetic viewer/voter as well as the progressive thinker.

Written by professional journalists, LNTV is one of the few outlets left on the television airwaves where the truth about the Invasion of Iraq, corruption in Washington, loss of individual freedoms and the dangerous growth of corporatism and religious intolerance can be exposed to a general audience. We do not have any formal affiliation with any political party, and are not funded by any political PAC.

The program plays nationally on the Dish network, via Free Speech TV. It also plays on about 70 additional cable access television stations nationwide. The show also streams on the Internet, and most recently, podcasts.

LNTV is funded entirely by donations, including a small stipend (about $250 per month) from Free Speech TV. We recently received a small grant from the Glickenhaus Foundation. All of the rest of our operating expenses come from individual donors. In 2005, we received about $13,000 total and spent about $28,500 producing the show. At present, most of our staff work on a volunteer basis.
http://www.libertynewstv.com/index.htm





Reuters, Thomson Outline Proposed Combination
Robert Barr

Reuters Group PLC and Connecticut-based Thomson Corp. confirmed Tuesday that they are discussing a combination of their businesses which values Reuters at $17.7 billion.

Thomson would pay $7.03 per Reuters share in cash and 0.16 Thomson shares for each Reuters share. Analysts at ABN Ambro called it a "knockout offer."

Reuters shares opened 6.6 percent higher Tuesday at $13.10.

On Friday, Reuters announced that it had received a takeover approach, which sent the media company's shares 25 percent higher. Stamford, Conn.-based Thomson announced Monday that it was the suitor.

In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange, the two companies said there was a "powerful and compelling logic for the combination which would create a global leader in the business-to-business information markets."

The announcement added that "much has still to be resolved and there can be no assurance that agreement will be reached."

Projected savings of $500 million within three years "is greater than we would expect to be deliverable in a deal with any other suitor," said Charles Peacock, analyst at Seymour Pierce in London.

A rival bid may emerge, commented Numis Securities, but it also noted the expected synergies and said Thomson was "the bidder best placed to secure Reuters."

Reuters said the proposed terms, involving cash and equity, would value the stock at $14.07 per share, compared to its closing price on Friday of $12.24.

Woodbridge, the Thomson family holding company, would own approximately 53 percent of Thomson-Reuters, other Thomson shareholders would have 23 per cent and Reuters shareholders about 24 percent, the companies said.

Richard Harrington, Thomson's president and chief executive officer, will retire when the transaction is completed, and Tom Glocer, Reuters' CEO, will succeed as chief executive officer of the new company, the announcement said.

Thomson, Reuters and Bloomberg LP compete in providing data terminals to the world's major banks and brokerages. Reuters, which also has a general news service, was the market leader for many years, though it has steadily lost ground to Bloomberg.

By combining with Reuters, Thomson would pull close to Bloomberg in market share. An April report from Inside Market Data Reference said Bloomberg has 33 percent of the market share, with Reuters at 23 percent and Thomson at 11 percent.

Thomson, based in Stamford, Conn., has transformed itself in the last decade from an owner of newspapers and other print products. It has built up its legal information business, and is about to sell Thomson Learning, its book division for about $5 billion.

The company has 32,000 employees and had sales in 2006 of $6.6 billion.

While Reuters is known internationally for its general news operation, that is just a small part of the company's business. Of Reuters' 2006 revenue of $5.11 billion, $338.3 million of that came from the media segment - although its news is a key selling point for terminals, as well.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...05-08-06-59-23





PC World Brings Editor Back, Removes CEO

In a surprise reversal, IDG management removed Colin Crawford as PC World's CEO and reinstated Harry McCracken as Editor in Chief, after a dispute over a canceled Apple story led McCracken to quit. A memo just sent to PC World and Macworld staffers by IDG president Bob Carrigan states that McCracken "has decided to remain with PC World."

Crawford, meanwhile, is being kicked back upstairs, assigned to "driving IDG's online strategy and initiatives" -- a nice, safe, strategic role where he can't do any more harm to the company's editorial reputation.

It's good to see the IDG bosses standing behind principled editorial, even if it is a fluffy piece of Digg bait. It's even better to see a stand-up guy like McCracken keeping his job, while the shill takes a hike.

Continue reading for Carrigan's memo.

I am very pleased to tell you about two important staff changes. Harry
McCracken has decided to remain with PC World as vice president,
editor-in-chief. Colin Crawford will be rejoining the IDG management team
as executive vice president, online. In this role, he will be responsible
for driving IDG's online strategy and initiatives in support of our
web-centric business focus.

Harry says, "I'm thrilled to be back with the PC World team. IDG is a
company I've loved working for over the past 16 years, and one with a
remarkable history of enabling editors to serve our customers--the millions
of people who depend on our content online and in print."

Colin has been very successful in helping set online strategy and
communicate it both inside and outside IDG. As he told me, "I am glad to
return to a position where I can raise our profile and contribute to the
exciting transformation of our company around the world."

We will conduct a search for a new CEO to lead PC World and Macworld.

I have tremendous confidence in the teams at PC World and Macworld, who
have accomplished great things and who will continue to grow these leading
IDG brands.

Bob Carrigan

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/...ld_brings.html





Warner Bros. Bans Canada Previews in Piracy Move
Etan Vlessing

In a pre-emptive strike against movie piracy originating from Canada, Warner Bros. Pictures said Monday it will cancel preview screenings of its movies north of the border.

Frustrated with unauthorized camcording of its new releases in Canadian cinemas, the studio said it will immediately halt all "promotional and word-of-mouth screenings" of upcoming releases.

"We regret having to cancel our screenings in Canada, but our studio must take steps to protect not only our branded assets but our commitment to our filmmakers and to our distributors," Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman said.

The Canadian ban will begin with the upcoming release of "Ocean's Thirteen" and continue with the July 13 release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

Warners said it is reacting to the failure of the Canadian government to introduce legislation here to make camcording of films for trafficking around the world illegal and a punishable offense.

"Canada is the No. 1 priority in terms of anti-camcording legislation," said Darcy Antonellis, senior vp worldwide anti-piracy operations at Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Warners is the first studio to take action against Canada to stem movie piracy. Last year, 20th Century Fox threatened to delay releases of its movies in Canada to eliminate the threat of unauthorized camcording.

"Within the first week of a film's release, you can almost be certain that somewhere out there a Canadian copy will show up," Antonellis said.

The action from Warners came the same day as representatives for the major studios told a parliamentary committee probing domestic counterfeiting and piracy that unauthorized camcording of Hollywood movies in Canadian theaters was rampant.
http://www.reuters.com/article/enter...42386220070508





Video-On-Demand Deal Bars Ad Skipping: WSJ

Walt Disney Co.'s two big TV networks, ABC and ESPN, have struck a deal with cable operator Cox Communications Inc. to offer hit shows and football games on demand, but with the unusual condition that Cox disables the fast-forward feature that allows viewers to skip ads, according to a media report Tuesday.

The deal between Disney (DIS : 36.55, +0.49, +1.4% ) and Cox is expected to be announced today at the National Cable Television Association convention in Las Vegas, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).

Cox, the nation's third-largest cable operator with 6 million subscribers, was willing to nix fast-forwarding to gain access to popular ABC and ESPN content, the Journal said, adding that on-demand programming, aggressively rolled out by cable operators over the past three years, provides cable operators a competitive edge over satellite-TV providers such as DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV : 24.38, -0.09, -0.4% ) in the race for subscribers.

Cox viewers will be able to watch episodes of ABC's hit series "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," and "Ugly Betty" free whenever they choose starting in the fall, The Journal said, adding that episodes will be available 12 hours after they premiere on ABC, and ESPN will chip in a package of college football games.

In an important component of the deal, the companies will also test technology that will place ads in shows based on ZIP Codes and geographic area, The Journal said. The test will start in Orange County, Calif., where Cox has about 250,000 subscribers, the Journal said.

Cox and Disney will also test a system to place fresh commercials in available episodes every few days so that ads don't grow stale, according to the report.

The agreement only applies to programs on Cox's video-on-demand menu, so it doesn't affect viewers using digital video recorders to fast forward through ads, The Journal said.

The deal sets a valuable precedent for broadcasters because TV networks have been struggling as audiences erode and ad sales drop as new technology, including rapidly growing video-on-demand services, allows viewers to avoid commercials altogether, The Journal explained.

The deal could make it easier for the major networks to make their most popular shows available on demand free, according to the report. Because networks have found it difficult to sell advertising for on-demand broadcasts, most offered only a few shows, and viewers usually have had to pay a fee of 99 cents per episode to watch those, The Journal said.

"Advertising is critical to the financial health of our business and this agreement marks the first time one of our cable-operator partners is acknowledging that," The Journal said it was told by Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group.

The agreement could also provide broadcast networks a way to give viewers an alternative to the convenience offered by digital video recorders , without allowing them to avoid the ads, according to the report. With DVRs now in almost 20% of U.S. households, the number of people watching television when it is broadcast has dipped noticeably so far this season, The Journal said..
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...FDECF91CAE8%7D





Indie Labels "Revolting" Against eMusic's Low Prices?
Nate Anderson

Billboard recently ran a piece discussing a label "revolt" at eMusic, the number two US retailer of downloadable music. According to the article, at least six independent labels are dissatisfied with their eMusic contracts and are considering pulling their catalogs from the service if they don't get more money per track sold.
eMusic's European expansion

The low price of music on eMusic is the biggest issue. Labels do get nearly half the money from each sale, but with eMusic offering tracks from $0.25 to $0.33 apiece, the label cut can be as little as $0.12 per song. That's not much money, and some labels worried that eMusic is using low prices as a way to build its subscriber base, after which executives will sell the company, pocket mad cash, and walk away—leaving the labels with nothing.

We've profiled eMusic and its CEO David Pakman in the past, so naturally we're curious about the company's fortunes. Is a mass defection in the ranks? Is eMusic simply offering indie music too cheaply? We contacted the company, who pointed us to this blog entry by Pakman that gives his take on the current situation.

His basic premise is that raising prices on music is the surest way for the industry to keep pulling the trigger on the shotgun pointed at its feet. Music sales have been dropping over the last several years, but Pakman points out that the industry response has been to raise prices on CDs, and we're seeing the big music labels trying to do the same thing now with iTunes (where EMI agreed to sell DRM-free versions of songs for a $0.30 premium). All this has done, Pakman argues, is contribute to the decline.

The "problem" is that people simply have so many options when it comes to spending entertainment dollars that music is getting a smaller slice of the pot (widespread file-sharing may also contribute to a sense that music is less valuable, though this isn't an argument that Pakman makes; the death of the album may have something to do with it, as well). Music is an elastic good, he claims, which means that lowering the price leads to a disproportionate increase in sales and therefore to more money. Raising prices has the opposite effect; total revenue actually goes down.

To prove his point, he claims that the average iTunes user spends only $12 per year at the store, but the average eMusic customer spends $168. To labels who don't believe that low prices are the way to increased profits, Pakman simply says, "Sure, on occasion, a few labels will come and go. And we wish them well. We love their music and wish they would work with us. Our model may not work for everyone."

The Billboard article did not include any mention of total label revenue from the different download services, instead focusing only on revenue per track. As eMusic has kept prices low and brought in higher-profile indie acts like the Arcade Fire, Barenaked Ladies, and Spoon, its growth has been remarkable. In the last four months, subscriber growth has soared from 250,000 to 300,000, and all of those people are paying month-over-month fees of $10 to $30 in order to download a set number of songs per month.

Billboard also points out at the beginning of its piece that three of the six indie labels being discussed "were listed among eMusic's top 60 labels this week." Why "top 60," of all things? Likely because at least one of the labels is quite close to that sixtieth spot; the non-top 60 labels are ranked even lower. This may be a "revolt," but it's a revolt that's going to need much larger guns if it wants to pressure the king into raising taxes eMusic into raising prices.

In Pakman's view, it all comes down to a reality of the Web 2.0 era, a reality that some industries are studiously attempting to avoid: the user is in control. "The biggest shock to entertainment companies, in the era of Web 2.0," writes Pakman, "is that the customer sets the value of the music... The customer now decides which music is successful and how much they're willing to pay for it. And, the truth is, our customers tell us that $0.99 a song is not the right price for most music—particularly for music that they haven't heard of before."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...es-hardly.html





Regarding Fake ID's
Rachel Hyman

The last few days have had some interesting things occur in the life of my little blog here. First, I've had an amazing amount of readers referred here by a link from facebook. Then, realizing that someone had the lack of forsight to use their real name on a fake ID and had found my blog from my posting, as I do, of their fake ID with text about the confiscation of the ID. I removed their last name from the posting in a gesture of good faith.

See, I collect the fake ID's by confiscating them from underage people who attempt to buy alcohol. I've been informed that I'm required to do this. I don't mind because frankly, our bar is for adults, and not a NYU undergrad hangout. My bar has not had a problem with underage drinking, only other bars that my bar's owner also owns. I have never knowingly served a minor, and never will. Enough of my friends work in the service industry in the neighborhood that if I don't confiscate the ID's, I'm putting their jobs and livelihoods at risk.

I seem to be making an amazing amount of enemies from doing this. Sadly, they don't realize that their real enemy is probably the community board that is cracking down on underage drinking in the East Village, and the Liquor Board that would revoke our license to serve beer legally if we too didn't do everything in our power to stop underage drinkers from obtaining beer at our bars.

Why people would use their real names to make a fake ID?
The obvious advantage is that their credit cards then function as backup identification. The amazingly obvious drawback is that their name is on the illegal piece of identification.

When I went to college, at freshman orientation, we were given a lecture by the Boston Police about the consequences of our actions. If we were caught with a Fake ID, our drivers license would be suspended in our home state, and we would suffer penalty from the University, and legal action from the state of Massachusetts.

Perhaps NYU freshman aren't informed with the same zest that I was. Perhaps the idea of actions having consequences hasn't been ingrained in their minds yet. College is about learning, developing a capacity for critical thought, and sometimes professional training. Education in general is also a method of socializing individuals to society. I should hope that the admission standards of NYU would be enough that the students would be at least mildly socialized to common laws and basic ethical arguments.

The choices you make in life will always carry consequences, some good, some bad, some extreme, some minor, some avoidable- with interaction comes vulnerability to the reaction of others. The justice system, whose laws you can choose to break, might also protect you from the consequences of breaking those laws, but only if you admit those laws are broken first. You could face a choice. You can engage that system while considering, is the admission of my initial breaking of the law going to cause more extreme consequences than my attempt to protect myself? or you can try to talk to the person who you threatened by breaking the law or you can let the consequences play out.

The differences between being a minor and being underage

A minor is under 18, an underage drinker is under 21. The advantage of being a minor is that you can have all records sealed at 18 of any mis-doings in your youth. The disadvantage of being 18 -21 is that you are an adult, and while that does not include being able to purchase alcohol until you are 21, you are considered responsible for your actions.

What has happened over the last few days

I posted a blog entry about a girl who tried to use a fake ID at the bar I work at. I posted a picture of that fake ID. I used her full name in the text of the post. Friday, she commented that she found it and was furious about my noting a political affiliation in the post. Subsequently, she wrote about it in her facebook notes, or someone did, because hundreds of people have visited this blog from that reference point over the weekend.

I realized that it could be a great disservice for her to have this blog show up on every google search of her name. Good intentions in my heart, I deleted the last name in every part of the article so when the cache was refreshed by google, it would no longer show up for searches of her name. I even emailed one of the people who commented, claiming they knew her, so she could rest easy that I didn't have malicious intent. Let's see what I get for being nice.

Then I checked my other email account, which is listed on my other website with an old address of an old studio space. I had been subscribed to some wild internet sites, and a few magazines too. Identity theft is a big deal kids. I unsubscribed myself to a bunch of these things, and sent notices to the magazines (which will not be forwarded to my new address because they will be less than first class in shipping, and aren't covered by the postal service's forwarding service.)

I wonder if the people who thought that using my email and address was a great idea were smart enough not to use their home computers, or school computer accounts. Those ISP addresses would be so trackable. I suppose the police will figure it out if I decide to call them up about all this.

So then the friend of the girl in question and I exchanged a few emails about the situation. He had some rather confused logic justifying a DMCA takedown notice, but informed me that "this young lady is going places". huh. sure, right. Like everyone at NYU. It seems they're all going to drive up the rent in the neighborhood.


This morning I got a notice from Blogger that read:

Hello Rachel,

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of your images allegedly
infringe upon the copyrights of others. The URLs of the allegedly
infringing images may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information
removed, may be found at the following link:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=3261

Please note that it may take several weeks for the notice to be posted on
the above page.

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for
online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We
are in the process of removing from our servers the images that allegedly
infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be
subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits.
See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information
about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process
that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these images upon receipt of a counter notification
pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information
about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample
counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter.

Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in
further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have
legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal
counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please
let us know.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team


Affected URLs:
rachelhyman.blogspot.com/2007/04/fake-id-confiscation-5.html

So I immediately called up some friends of mine who are lawyers. First, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't confused about what a DMCA notice is. It is a way to make sure that copyrighted images, text, etc aren't published without permission. Fine. I definately published her fake ID without permission. But can you have a copyright on a fake ID?

Nope.

"Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture." says the U.S. Copyright office.

A fake ID, besides being illegal to create in the United States, is a derivative work of the United States Government, and is not an original creative work of authorship.

I think it's really interesting that someone would try to claim that the fake ID was their own creation, and subject to their copyright. Admitting you make fake ID's is a serious bath of trouble. More so even than just trying to use one, or possessing one.
http://rachelhyman.blogspot.com/





New Bill to Give Bloggers Same Shield Law Protection as Journalists
Jacqui Cheng

The House of Representatives has amended the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 to include provisions to protect bloggers from being required to divulge their sources under certain situations in the same way as journalists. Instead of requiring journalists to be tied to a news organization, the bill now defines "journalism" to focus more on the function of the job: "the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

Introduced last week by Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA), the bill is meant to offer a federal version of reporter "shield" laws that are in place in some 32 states in the US. Legislation at state level has struggled in the past to determine exactly how to define journalism, with bloggers who don't often write for traditional news organizations finding themselves in a murky gray area. However, in 2006, a California court ruled in favor of two rumor sites (often considered "blogs")—AppleInsider and Powerpage—after they divulged details about unreleased Apple products. The ruling concluded that there was no relevant legal distinction between journalistic blogging and journalism when it came to the shield law.

The Free Flow of Information Act was reworked after its introduction with the specific intent of including bloggers under the broader definition of journalism. According to a section-by-section analysis of the bill, "The act would apply to web logs ('blogs') that engage in journalism." Although the law is not likely meant to include every person who writes on the Internet, it doesn't create a litmus test for what constitutes "engaging in journalism."

Under the wording of the bill, journalists are protected from divulging their sources for news stories except in cases where there is imminent harm to national security, imminent death or significant bodily harm involved, a trade secret "of significant value in violation of State or Federal law," individually identifiable health information, and in instances where "nondisclosure of the information would be contrary to the public interest."

The bill will likely be met with some resistance from some companies that are constantly in the spotlight—such as Apple, who has targeted bloggers in the past—but it's being supported heavily by press associations such as the Newspaper Association of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, and the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press. "The bill is a carefully constructed measure which will provide a broad new and much needed privilege for reporters to refrain from revealing confidential sources," said Boucher in a statement. "Given the broad bipartisan support this measure enjoys, I am optimistic that it will be reported by the Judiciary Committee and passed by the House this year."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...urnalists.html





US Spy Chief Wants 'Some Control' Over Satellite Imagery

Government intervention isn't going away
Lewis Page

An American intelligence boss has hinted at curbs on commercial satellite imagery to prevent its use by enemies of the USA.

"If there was a situation where any imagery products were being used by adversaries to kill Americans, I think we should act," vice Admiral Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), told AP yesterday.

"I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas."

The NGA has actually been more of a military mapping bureau than a movie-style satellite-using spy outfit. Its motto is "Know the Earth...Show the Way," and most of its products are more on the lines of Google Earth than live satellite monitoring of people or individuals.

But Murrett is a former naval intel analyst, and "NGA provides accurate, up-to-date geospatial intelligence...NGA's strategy supports operational readiness through a set of geospatial foundation data...fused with other spatially referenced information such as intelligence, weather and logistics data. The result is an integrated, digital view of the mission space".

In other words, NGA gets to look at the secret poop from the proper spies in order to put the various counters onto the big map which it has provided. So it may not be the CIA, NSA, DIA, or whoever, but it really is "a crucial member of the intelligence community", as it insists.

In particular, NGA has lately provided $1bn in funding to commercial sat-imagery operators such as Digital Globe and Geoeye. Firms such as these provide much of the imagery used by the likes of Google Earth, and Murrett is no doubt thinking of them when he talks about the US government imposing restrictions. In the case of US-based companies where the NGA controls the money, this would be a simple matter.

There are also means whereby even foreign-based providers can be muzzled. During the 2001 US-special-forces-led invasion of Afghanistan, for instance, the NGA bought up all the imagery over that country for several months, preventing anyone else from getting it. This led to a lot of criticism on the grounds that the US government was muzzling the media and hampering relief work.

Murrett clearly believes that such methods may be justified, however.

"I think we may need to have some control over things that are disseminated. I don't know if that means buying up all the imagery or not. I think there are probably some other ways you could do it," he said.

Just what other ways these might be - especially in the case of non-US organisations disseminating images from non-US satellites - was not made clear. Diplomatic pressure or international law could often be brought to bear, no doubt; and if a future US government felt the need were urgent enough it could resort to electronic/information warfare or even shooting down troublesome satellites, like the Chinese.

But it's likely that Admiral Murrett was really talking more about keeping useful commercial satellite images out of the hands of terrorist groups planning attacks on US facilities or personnel abroad. That could be quite a difficult tightrope to walk. Blanking out big areas for long periods by commercial or other means would cause a storm of complaint; narrowing the time/space curtain might risk giving away the very information one wishes to keep secret.

One thing's clear, however. Commercial satellite-imagery operators will need to tread warily in future. This is one market in which various national governments will feel a frequent need to interfere.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05...ndfold_powers/





Spy Chief Backs Study of Impact of Warming
Mark Mazzetti

Stepping into the middle of a partisan debate on Capitol Hill, the United States’ top intelligence official has endorsed a comprehensive study by spy agencies about the impact of global warming on national security.

In a letter written earlier this week to the House Intelligence Committee, the official, Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, said it was “entirely appropriate” that the intelligence community prepare an assessment of the “geopolitical and security implications of global climate change.”

The question of whether the country’s spy agencies, already burdened by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the global hunt for members of Al Qaeda, ought to investigate the security implications of global warming has been debated in Congress for several weeks.

A provision requiring a national intelligence estimate on climate change was in the 2008 intelligence authorization bill that the House passed early Friday morning. The exact amount of the authorization is classified, but it is believed to be approximately $48 billion, which would be the largest intelligence authorization ever considered by Congress.

Republicans had tried to defeat the provision on the national intelligence estimate, saying that intelligence resources were too precious to be used to study the impact of climate change.

“Let other federal agencies, as more than a dozen already do, cover the ‘bugs and bunnies.’ But let our spies be spies,” Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote Thursday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed article.

But intelligence officials have already recognized the importance of studying how crises caused by climate change, like famine and rising sea levels, could affect the United States’ security. Even as Congress was debating whether to order a national intelligence estimate, intelligence agencies had already planned to include a discussion of global warming in a report next year on the main security challenges facing the United States through 2025.

The proposed national intelligence estimate would project the impact of global warming over the next three decades, examining political, social, economic and agricultural risks.

In his letter to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell said that intelligence analysts would not do primary scientific research about climate change, but would instead rely on analyses by other government agencies for global warming projections.

Last month, a report written by several retired generals and admirals concluded that climate changes posed a “serious threat to America’s national security,” and could further weaken already unstable governments in developing countries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/wa...n/12intel.html





Los Alamos Blocks Researcher Access to Archives

Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has "no policy in place" that would allow such access.

"Policies that had previously applied to the University of California relating to the disclosure of information directly to you are no longer applicable," wrote Judy Archuleta of the Los Alamos Information Practices Office to Alex Wellerstein, a graduate student at Harvard.

Mr. Wellerstein had sought copies of Lab records on the history of nuclear secrecy policy and he had been led to believe that access to such material would be granted, in accordance with past practice.

"Because LANS is a private company, the policies that applied [previously] are no longer in place," she said.

"No policy is presently in place that authorizes the direct disclosure of the information you seek," she wrote.

Instead, Mr. Wellerstein was told that he should pursue his research through the Freedom of Information Act.

"The FOIA process, however cumbersome, currently provides the only means of accessing our records," wrote Roger A. Meade, the Los Alamos Archivist/Historian on April 17.

But FOIA requests are poorly suited to archival research since they can easily take years to process and must specify in advance the records that are sought.

In effect, when it comes to historical or other public research, the Los Alamos archives are closed for business.

It's "terrible news" for scholars, said Hugh Gusterson, an anthropologist who has studied the culture of the nuclear weapons labs.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007...rcher_a_1.html





Germany Swoops on Militants Before G8 Summit
Noah Barkin

German authorities on Wednesday launched raids in six northern states and said they would impose new border controls over fears left-wing radicals were planning attacks to disrupt a June G8 summit on the Baltic coast.

Some 900 security officials were searching 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement, adding it had opened two separate investigations.

"We suspect those targeted, who belong to the militant extreme-left scene, of founding a terrorist organization or being members of such an organization, that is planning arson attacks and other actions to severely disrupt or prevent the early-summer G8 summit in Heiligendamm from taking place," the prosecutor's office said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States at the June 6-8 summit, which will focus on climate change, African poverty and economic cooperation.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble announced a tightening of border controls ahead of the G8 summit. The actions are similar to those taken by Germany during last year's World Cup tournament to prevent an influx of soccer hooligans.

"We are particularly focused on dangers arising from violent globalization opponents," the ministry said.

Prosecutors suspect the left-wing militants they are investigating of being behind nine minor attacks in the Hamburg area and three in the Berlin region in the past two years.

Those attacks include an incident last December when a car was set on fire in front of the home of deputy finance minister Thomas Mirow and windows and walls of his house were splattered with paint.

"WAVE OF REPRESSION"

Anti-G8 group "Gipfelsoli" denounced the raids, accusing authorities of a "wave of repression" to dismantle the movement's communication network

"All attempts to criminalize us do not change the fact that we will use the G8 (summit) to cast a spotlight on the injustices of this world," Hanne Jobst, a Berlin-based member of the group said in a statement.

Germany has not experienced any major left-wing violence since the militant Red Army Faction (RAF), which waged a bloody two-decade long campaign of killings and kidnappings, announced in 1998 that it was disbanding.

But authorities are taking aggressive pre-emptive measures to ensure the summit goes as smoothly as the World Cup did.

A 2.5-metre high steel fence, topped with razor wire, has been placed in a 14-km ring around Heiligendamm and police will control access through airport-style X-ray machines.

Around 40 km down the coast from the Kempinski Hotel where the leaders will meet, officials in the city of Rostock are expecting a demonstration of up to 100,000 people on the weekend before the event.

(Additional reporting by Philip Jarke in Hamburg, Sabine Siebold and Markus Krah in Berlin)

Story





Attribution Problems Plague File Sharing
Jonathan Bailey

Harry Potter fans hoping to download a “leaked” copy of J.K. Rowling’s final book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows”, may have received an unusual surprise.

At least one of the files being distributed on BitTorrent claiming to be the book was, in truth, a copy of a fan fiction work entitled “The Seventh Horcrux” by Melindaleo.

Though Melindaleo already gives her fan fiction work away for free on the Web, the misattribution was very disturbing for her. As she said in an email, “I got nervous that I’d be jinxing the whole fanfic writing thing for everyone.”

Worse still, she was also worried about ending up in the cross hairs of J.K. Rowling, her publisher and her lawyers.

Even though Rowling has supported and condoned the fan fiction community that has sprung up around Harry Potter, this does not bode well for her either. After all, some may believe the book to be the actual release and not bother picking up a real copy when it is release, at least not until they discover the error.

No one wins with this misidentification but it is a situation that is becoming all too common on file sharing networks. Misattributed files are hurting authors, including those who want their work on the networks, and are limiting the usefulness of the services to promote new music, art and literature.

A Musician’s Dilemma

Though piracy has gotten the lion’s share of attention when it comes to file sharing, those who have wanted to use the file sharing networks as a tool to promote their art have been haunted by a different problem, misattributed files. This has been especially true for musicians that have been trying to grow their careers using the various networks.

Some, especially lesser known artists, have had their music attributed to other groups, usually more popular musicians. Others, such as Weird Al (see May 2000 column), have had other people’s music misattributed to them, often tarnishing their reputation.
Sometimes the misattribution is intentional. Both movie studios and record labels are known for flooding the file sharing networks with false files in an attempt to hinder the downloading of pirated material. Most of the time though, the misattribution is accidental, the uploader unsure or misinformed about the creator of the work uploads it with incorrect credentials.

This is extremely frustrating to artists that want to use file sharing networks in an attempt to promote their careers. If the music files they share don’t have the correct name on them, then all of the free downloads do them no good, serving instead as false promotion for artists that had nothing to do with the song.

However, even the bands getting the promotion gain nothing. With no albums containing the song and means of playing them at concerts. They can not live up to the expectations the file creates. They also run the risk of being accused of plagiarism down the road, even if they had nothing to do with the change in attribution.

It’s an annoying problem that is now spreading to other genres.

A Spreading Problem

Of course, file sharing has not been limited to music for many years. Now, any type of file can be shared including video, software, music, images and text.

Sadly, all of them suffer, in varying degrees from misidentification.

Video and image files suffer the least, those files are easily watermarked visually and those marks are very difficult to remove. Audio files, however, rely upon embedded tags that can either be easily changed or, depending on how the song was ripped, added incorrectly in the beginning.

Text, however, is the easiest to plagiarize and misidentify. File names can be changed easily and attribution can be removed, lost or altered very easily. It is also easy to mistakenly not copy attribution when selecting a large block of text and accidentally pass around a file with no author information attached at all.

In this regard, the content is exactly like the rest of the Web in what is and is not easy to plagiarize. However, books are very rarely traded on file sharing networks (Note: study done by bandwidth, not file count, still searching for new study) and only major authors, such as Rowling, are sought after on them.

In that aspect, Melindaleo’s case is exceptionally rare. With very few books being traded on file sharing networks, it is unlikely that many authors will have significant issues with file sharing networks, unless they become very popular offline first.

Still, artists working in other types of media need to consider taking precautions to prevent their work from being misattributed, or even outright plagiarized, over the file sharing networks.

Preventing the Problem

If you’re a content producer, especially if you work heavily in audio or video, you need to take some basic precautions to ensure the integrity of your attribution:

1. Post It Yourself: If you are comfortable with users sharing your files, don’t just tell them they can legally rip and download them, do it yourself. Rip your own files and post them to the various networks. This not only ensures the quality of the media, but that the attribution takes the exact form you want.
2. Watermark Everything: Images and video both should be visibly watermarked if they are going to be distributed. Small, out of the way watermarks on both are very hard to remove and will carry with the work as it is copied and redownloaded, no matter how many times the name is changed.
3. Don’t Rely On Tags: ID3 tags on MP3s are too easily altered and removed. If you plan on using file sharing to promote your music, an audio tag at the end of the file is a better solution. Though it can be cut off with editing software, that is less likely to happen that it be overwritten by a program that can manipulate ID3 tags.
4. Multiple Attribution Points for Text: If you plan on posting a very lengthy work of text, include several points of attribution inside the work, perhaps one at each chapter, to avoid it from being easily or accidentally removed.
5. Hashing For Protection: If you plan to offer your files for download on file sharing networks, have an official page where you post the hashes for the files. This way downloaders can be certain they got an authentic copy of the file and that all of the information in it is correct.

The problem with file sharing is that, once a misattributed file gets out, there’s almost no way to reel it back in. Though one can use the matching files feature to find works with the same content but different names, there’s almost no way to stop their distribution other than sending messages to the people distributing the misidentified files and asking them to change it.

It is far more productive to focus on prevention and flood the market with properly attributed files than try to stop erroneous ones creep out.

Conclusions

Fortunately, the Melindaleo story seems to be coming to a nice enough conclusion. Though the misattributed file is still available, Melidaleo has been in contact with Rowling’s agents and they are very understanding about the situation, leaving the next course of action up to her.

As the truth has gotten out about her story, she has drawn some very real and very positive attention for her efforts. The story has even gartered high praise from some who have downloaded it and later learned of the source.

However, others who have their works plagiarized and misattributed on file sharing networks may not be so lucky. Some songs and videos that are passed around regularly may never be traced back to their origin, not without serious research, and those creators are unlikely to see any significant benefit from the sharing.

The hope is that, as technology advances and sharing becomes both more common and more acceptable, that better ways to ensure attribution will be protected.

After all, file sharing may constitute piracy in some cases, but it is not supposed to be about plagiarism. Attribution costs nothing and giving credit where it is due is still good manners.

Hopefully that will improve as time goes on.
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2007/...-file-sharing/





File-Swapping: As "the Man" Says No, Students Say Yes
Nate Anderson

New academic research suggests that neither social norms nor the threat of lawsuits are enough to keep college students from illegally downloading music. The study, which appeared in the most recent issue of Cyberpsychology & Behavior, provides no answers to a music industry that is desperately seeking ways to put the brakes on file-sharing. It does suggest that such sharing doesn't hurt the music business, though; according to the authors, "downloading intentions also had no direct relationship to either compact disc purchases or to subscriptions to online paid music services."
RIAA launches propaganda, lawsuit offensive against college students

"Share, Steal, or Buy? A Social Cognitive Perspective of Music Downloading" was authored by Professors Robert LaRose and Junghyun Kim (and highlighted by the superb Chronicle of Higher Education), and it examined the motivations of 134 students at a Midwestern university. All of the students had downloaded music illegally in the past, and their answers to the survey questions indicated that most intended to continue downloading in the future. It turns out not to matter whether the university or a student's parents believe that such music downloads are wrong; these norms were simply not absorbed by the students.

Two things did affect student behavior. One was a sense of moral justification; students who believed that downloading music was an ethical behavior were likely to download more of it. That's a fairly predictable result, but more surprising was the finding that students were more likely to download music if they believed that their classmates were downloading more than they were. As the researchers put it, "the less excessive one's downloading was perceived to be compared to others, the more deficient was self-regulation [of downloading]." This is "keeping up with the Joneses," college style.

It turns out that many students simply care more about downloading music than they do about rightness, wrongness, or consequences. The researchers have two theories for this, one of which is that file-sharing is more of a social phenomenon than an economic one. "That is," say the researchers, "downloaders of free, so-called 'pirate' music seemed to be more motivated by the social aspect of trading and sharing music with other music enthusiasts rather than the proposition of saving money on music purchases." This certainly seems to be the case for the students who run darknet servers for no profit, even as their school cracks down on the practice.

There's also a darker explanation: addiction. How else to explain the fact that some students persist in their behavior even after repeated disciplinary action and suspensions? A personal story recounted by one of the authors provides a useful example:

"In the first author's class a student reported that he was among those caught up in the most recent dragnet of the Recording Industry Association of America and as a consequence had been subjected to an escalating series of punishments by the university, ending in his disenrollment from the university. This individual expressed a casual attitude towards the actions of his university, rationalizing that in the end he could just move on to university in the next state and begin downloading again!"

With few effective ways to convince students to stop swapping music, should the music industry be worried about its survival? According to the students surveyed (keep in mind that the survey measured future "intentions" rather than actions), downloading music had no negative effect on their plans to purchase CDs or sign up for online music services. This fits with other recent research, but don't expect the RIAA to buy the argument. According to the trade group, the music business loses more than $4 billion a year to piracy. If recent academic studies are correct, however, none of this loss is due to P2P swapping.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...s-say-yes.html





RIAA Pre-Litigation Letters Sent to MIT

23 Students Accused of Copyright Violations
Nick Semenkovich

Twenty-three MIT students have been sent pre-litigation settlement letters after allegedly illegally downloading copyrighted audio recordings, according to a press release from the Recording Industry Association of America.

MIT received the pre-litigation letters last Wednesday, May 2, said Daniel Jacobs, legal assistant in MIT's Senior Counsel's Office. At that time, Jacobs said that the letters would have to be analyzed before MIT considered forwarding them to students. These are the first RIAA pre-litigation letters received by MIT, according to Jacobs.

As of yesterday, MIT had forwarded the letters on to students, said Timothy J. McGovern, manager of IT Security Support for Information Services and Technology. McGovern also said that MIT suggested students talk with advisers, family members, or attorneys in considering a response to a pre-litigation letter.

McGovern declined to discuss legal specifics regarding the cases, saying the letters were part of a student's permanent record and thus legally protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

According to a spokeswoman from the RIAA, the letters are part of a new anti-piracy initiative announced in February that offers students a chance to avoid a lawsuit by settling outside of court. The spokeswoman also said that the letters allow students to settle at a discounted rate compared to the damages sought in a civil suit.

The new initiative is a shift from the RIAA's previous strategy of filing "John Doe" lawsuits and subpoenas that order MIT to divulge the name of a student. Instead, the RIAA contacts schools directly with pre-litigation letters containing IP addresses — addresses used to uniquely define computers on the Internet — of allegedly infringing users and the dates of the offenses. The RIAA then requests that schools forward the letters on to users, according to an RIAA press release. The spokeswoman said that the majority of schools that received letters had forwarded them on to students.

According to a sample pre-litigation letter provided by the RIAA, the settlement process involves "lump sum" payment to record companies and deletion of all material infringing on copyright. The agreement also states that the party accused of copyright infringement agrees to not infringe on "any other sound recording protected under federal or state law … whether now in existence or later created" or the agreement may become void.

A sample pre-litigation settlement agreement is available at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N24/riaa/letter.pdf.

Jeffrey I. Schiller '79, Network Manager for IS&T, said that the letters also act as a preserve order for MIT, requiring the Institute to save information about the user of a specific IP. MIT maintains a database of IP addresses assigned to users and stores the information for 30 days, said Schiller. "Suppose on day 29 we get one of the pre-litigation notices. Once we get one of these, we basically … have to save the information forever."

Increased enforcement

McGovern stated that "most" of the students who were sent pre-litigation letters had previously received Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices regarding the music in question. Schiller said that MIT, acting as an Internet Service Provider, forwards DMCA notices to students accused of violating copyright law.

According to the IS&T Web site, a student's first case of alleged copyright infringement results in a warning, as long as the student responds that the copyrighted material was removed from their computer. A second violation results in temporary suspension of network access and a meeting with IS&T representatives. A third violation results in an indefinite suspension of network access and referral to the Committee on Discipline.

McGovern said he saw "an unusual increase in the total number of takedown notices" between the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 academic years, estimating that infringement notices increased by "several hundred percent."

McGovern did not have statistics immediately available, but attributed the spike to increased enforcement by television, movie, and software industries. McGovern also said he hoped MIT students would not be the target of future lawsuits but said that there had been no talks about restricting access to peer-to-peer (P2P) services. Other universities restrict bandwidth available to P2P applications in an effort to stem copyright infringement and some have begun to ban P2P applications altogether. Last month, Ohio University banned all P2P applications, writing in a statement on their Web site that peer-to-peer traffic "consumes a disproportionate amount of resources, both in bandwidth and human technical support."

A statement on MIT's Office of Intellectual Property Counsel's Web page says that MIT "is firmly against the unauthorized uploading or downloading and sharing of … copyrighted material" but also that "MIT recognizes the many legal benefits of P2P software."

Schiller said that MIT has "no plans" to restrict P2P traffic or block P2P applications, and seemed confident that those policies were unlikely to change. "We view ourselves as an ISP," said Schiller, describing MIT's hands-off network policy.

Schiller also said that P2P programs were becoming increasingly difficult to detect, as applications can conceal traffic in a variety of ways, including encrypting payload data.

Moreover, Schiller cautioned that not all students who receive DMCA notices necessarily violated copyright law. Shiller said that it is becoming "quite difficult" to ensure IP addresses were actually used for infringement. "I've seen notices for random IP addresses that we would have never assigned," said Schiller.

Furthermore, the complexity of some protocols such as BitTorrent has caused erroneous DMCA notices to be sent. A discussion on the EDUCAUSE Security Discussion Group last month included concerns that HBO had sent a series of inaccurate DMCA notices with incorrect infringement times. The discussion also suggested that HBO was relying on questionable and possibly forged data from BitTorrent "trackers" — directory servers that contain information about IPs downloading a file — that could be readily forged.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N24/riaa.html





'A Terrible Precedent'
Brock Read

Officials at Ohio University say their recently enacted partial ban on peer-to-peer networking is working very well, but skeptics still argue that the institution will come to regret the aggressive policy.

Campus officials decided to prohibit peer-to-peer usage after Ohio placed first on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of institutions with song-swapping programs, released in February. According to Bruce Bible, Ohio's chief information officer, the university is careful to let students continue to use peer-to-peer networks for legal file sharing.

But Ashwin Navin, president of the peer-to-peer service BitTorrent, is unconvinced by that claim. In an opinion piece for CNET News, he argues that the ban will have a "devastating effect" on Ohio's computer-science department, and a negative impact on the university's general enrollment:
By applying a short-sighted, arbitrary ban on a technology with so many redeeming uses, Ohio University has deprived its students, faculty, and staff of a powerful tool, as well as censored a treasure trove of information and entertainment that is not available through any means other than P2P. It has created an environment that doesn't prepare its people for the "real world" where P2P technologies are being adopted in powerful, constructive ways. Worse yet, the university's administration has set a terrible precedent for its staff on the desirability of seeking creative ways to support new technologies.

A question for CIO's and professors: If your college shut down peer-to-peer networking, would your computer-science program suffer?
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2048





Peppermint Jam Attacks Italians
p2pnet.net news

With Canada apparently about to succumb to an attack from Hollywood with Warner Bros spearheading the action, Italy is also under siege, but from a "notorious recording label from Germany".

Peppermint Jam, "has sent 3,636 recorded mails to as many file-sharers 'found' guilty of uploading some copyrighted songs (by Mousse T, founder of the label, and other artists in the Peppermint rooster: Warren G, James Kakande, Colin Rich) on such P2P platforms as eMule, eDonkey and BitTorrent," says P2P Forum Italia.

Says the post:

In the letters, sent via the law firm Mahlknecht & Rottensteiner, the Hannover-based label enjoins the 3636 swappers from persisting in their infringement of copyright laws and commands them to remove any "song" (or, better, any supposedly song-related file) whom Peppermint Jam has rights upon from the shared folders. Moreover, the users must committ themselves to «deposit 300 euros into the bank account in Malhknecht & Rottensteiner's name within the 14th of May», if they don't want to have a criminal and/or a civil lawsuit brought against them. 300 euros are in "symbolical" compensation for damage caused by sharing a single song (every user involved in the case has been accused to share only one specifical file/song)!

That would sound like an attempt to formalize what the anglophones call «off court resolution»; yet the price to pay is established only by the "plaintiff" and there's very few time left for swappers to come to an agree with discographics' legal advisers. In fact, it's worth noting that the time space between mails arrival and the set term for payment is just one week. All this brings us to mind some "expensive" methods (read: payment orders) already used by RIAA in USA; particularly, the extremely short gap left for accused users to make a pondered-over decision gives those mails a semblance of an ill-concealed menace. I.e: Peppermint Jam is leveraging the lack of time and people's fears to force, in a way that's not yet been proven perfectly legal, file-sharign boys to pay 300 euros for a song.

Last year the Court of Rome ruled Italian ISPs must disclose user data to Peppermint Jam's legal representatives, says P2P Forums, going on:

"The attorneys have, so, come into possession of the physical names and addresses matching the IPs that an unorthodox (let's call it so...) first phase of 'investigation' - involving the infamous Logistep software for monitoring filesharing networks - had detected as engaged in the uploading of the Peppermint-copyrighted songs. The strange thing is that the Court of Rome has ruled the disclosement of private data relying upon 'evidence' found in a way that is not contemplated by current Italian laws.

The Italian case also bears a resemblance to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG's RIAA 'settlement' tactics.

RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) victims are induced to pay $3,000 and up to avoid a possible court appearance. But in the process, they virtually admit they're guilty of the non-existent criome of file sharing and in addition, give the Big 4 informatin about themselvesm, and leave themselves open to possible further harassment in the future.

In the Peppermint case, "The lawyers backing the German indie label write that paying for the 'established' compensation remove the risk of being subject to criminal charges for copyright infringement, but that's not exactly true," says the Italian story, going on:

There could also be the eventuality of a "querela d'ufficio" (legal action of-office). Moreover, once paid, the compensation is tantamount to an admission not only of the misdeed (proven as such by controversial methods) but also of the paid price fairness. We accept to pay 300 euros for just one song; even considering the "legal and investigation" expenses, it's an over-compensative price for damages that are only supposed.

Another point: a massive admission of guilt shall surely set a precedent which every infamous or, simply, not-selling recording label could easily take advantage of. And that is definitely neither the best way to face the perpetuous sliding down of CD sales, or the most brilliant urging to buy online downloads.

P2P Forum Italia, Italy's largest online p2p community, says it's, "trying to give Peppermint Jam victims support and a form of organization for facing the menacing ways of the German jingle-sellers, hoping that file-sharers will be united enough to stand for a tangible, propositive force".
http://p2pnet.net/story/12198





Man Appeals Internet Piracy Verdict
AFP

The first person worldwide to be convicted of distributing movies over the popular online BitTorrent network appeared in Hong Kong's highest court on Wednesday to appeal his jail sentence.

Chan Nai-ming, sentenced to three months in prison here in 2005, sought to overturn a guilty verdict for distributing three Hollywood movies onto the Web via the peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.

A lawyer for the unemployed 38-year-old, who used the screen name 'Big Crook', said Chan only uploaded the movies without distributing them, local radio RTHK reported.

Even if there was any act of distribution, it was done on the part of the downloaders who initiated the process, the lawyer was cited as saying by RTHK.

BitTorrent allows downloads from multiple sources, each supplying a small part of the file, making it much easier and faster to share large files like films and software.

Chan was charged in April 2005 for uploading the movies 'Daredevil', 'Miss Congeniality' and 'Red Planet' without a licence. He has already had an earlier appeal rejected.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1095681





NBC, Viacom Join in Copyright Battle With YouTube

US television giant NBC Universal sided with Viacom in a legal campaign to force YouTube to vigilantly filtering copyrighted material from its popular video-sharing website.

NBC and Viacom are backing Los Angeles newsman Robert Tur, who filed suit against YouTube in July for letting users post his video of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during riots in Los Angeles in 1992 in Los Angeles riots.

"We are confident in our legal case, and more importantly in the tremendous benefit of giving creators a place to post and discuss their videos, whether it be an individual's family video or the BBC's decision to partner with us to host their content," Google said on Monday in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We meet and exceed our responsibilities under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which balances an easy takedown process and provides complete safe harbor for hosts such as YouTube."

The Viacom-NBC alliance, revealed in a US district court filing in California on Friday came as YouTube was hit with a class-action copyright violation suit filed by English football's Premier League in New York State.

The league's suit was filed on behalf of copyright owners "whose works were reproduced, distributed, publicly displayed, performed or otherwise transmitted or disseminated on youtube.com without authorization," according to court paperwork.

In March, US media giant Viacom launched a billion-dollar (736 million euro) lawsuit against YouTube, accusing it of illegally showing clips from its television shows.

However, the jointly crafted brief filed in the Tur case marked the first time NBC took copyright concerns about YouTube to court.

NBC and YouTube have a "strategic partnership" launched in June of last year and depict themselves as partners in efforts to devise ways for YouTube to protect copyrights of film and television show owners.

NBC and Viacom are out to back Tur's position in a potentially precedent-setting court case in which a "little guy" is up against Internet giant Google's vast financial and legal resources.

"Any ruling on YouTube's motion will have far-reaching ramifications for the owners of video content," attorney Russell Frackman wrote in the Viacom-NBC brief.

"In light of the importance of these issues, Viacom and NBC Universal have prepared their brief to provide the court with their position and perspective."

Google and YouTube lawyers want the Tur case be dismissed on the grounds the website is protected by the DMCA, which simply requires it to remove copyrighted material after owners complain.

YouTube contends that holding it accountable for not filtering copyrighted works posted by users threatens a key underpinning of today's Internet lifestyle.

Viacom and NBC counter that YouTube, which Google bought last year for 1.65 billion dollars worth of stock, filters out pornography and copyrighted material of firms it has deals with so it can do the same for others.

"YouTube incorrectly contends that the DMCA permits it to avoid any responsibility for the content on its commercial website and completely shift the burden to content owners to discover and notify it of infringements," Frackman wrote in the brief.

"In the meantime, the presence of the infringing content draws users to the YouTube website, and in turn generates revenue for YouTube. Regardless of the precise scope intended by Congress in enacting the DMCA, it certainly did not intend that the statute be used to escape liability for the commercial activities of the nature engaged in by YouTube."
http://www.physorg.com/news97779538.html





Premier League: Google, YouTube Are an IP 'Protection' Racket
Scott M. Fulton

In the latest intellectual property rights holders' legal attack on YouTube, and perhaps using the most blistering language to date, England's predominant football (soccer) league has launched a class-action lawsuit against Google and its YouTube division. In its complaint, the Premier League literally accuses the newly merged companies of forming an organized "protection" racket, whose methods are to deceive Congress while extorting low license fees from selected partners in exchange for IP protection.

"In a Twenty-First Century embodiment of an age-old scheme," the League's attorneys write for a filing in US District Court in New York last Friday, "Defendants have agreed to provide 'protection' against their own infringing conduct through a series of 'partnership' agreements with various copyright owners. Put another way, when the license fee sought by a copyright owner is low enough to be deemed satisfactory to Defendants, Defendants find themselves able to shed their blinders and employ technology to safeguard the rights of their new 'partners."'

Such partners include Warner Bros., though the complaint implies that if Google had intentions on partnering with everyone in the business -- for instance, with Viacom as well -- it would have already done so.

Earlier in the complaint, the League claims YouTube already knows how to exercise rights controls over the content it enables users to share, but deliberately chooses not to do so, for that would take away its key bargaining chip. Instead, the League alleges, YouTube and Google willfully contribute to the public's misconception of digital media as being something too complex and unwieldy for rights management measures to control.

Anyone wishing to challenge Google legally, the complaint goes on, must assume the burden of proof: specifically, to prove Google's alleged assertion that the Internet cannot be controlled, wrong.

"Defendants have feigned blindness and an inability to reduce the wholesale infringement that occurs, constantly and unremittingly, every day on the YouTube website," reads the complaint, "distorting the balance created by Congress and forcing the victims - the content producers themselves - to go through the meaningless exercise of pointing out to Defendants what Defendants plainly already know: that there is copyrighted material being exploited on the YouTube website without the authorization of the rights owners."

The complaint lists 17 major Premier League matches during last month whose content was recorded off-air. Premier League soccer is a huge draw, and either the most expensive or second most expensive sporting event for telecast produced anywhere in the world depending upon whom you ask, with American NFL football being the alternate.

In May 2006, a European Commission effort to prevent one British broadcaster, Sky Sport, from holding a monopoly on Premier League football resulted in a second bidder helping the League to raise its rates to astronomical levels. Together, Sky and Irish broadcaster Setanta paid GBP 1.7 billion ($3.1 billion under last year's exchange rates) for the rights to show a mere 138 matches starting this August.

That's not counting international rights and retransmission rights to other media -- for instance, cell phone and Internet -- for which broadcasters also pay handsomely. Estimates are that all these subsidiary rights collectively bring in 159% the revenue of national rights.

Although the Premier League complaint omits any suggestion of a formula for damages, it explicitly claims, "For the length of time each infringing video was or is posted on YouTube...Lead Plaintiffs' and the Class' rights of reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, preparation of derivative works, and/or to transmit digitally over the Internet were violated."

The complaint also directly refers to the fact that Google and YouTube are advertiser-supported, and draws the parallel between YouTube's ability to show supported content without permission or license and the League's rights to license TV broadcasters to do so for a fee. It's this business which YouTube is working to circumvent, the complaint suggests; and it also refers to the $1.8 billion that Google spent in the acquisition of YouTube.

The Premier League is no stranger to allegations of monopolization. Though it is far from the only soccer league in the UK, its exclusive licensing relationship with Sky Sport was called into question last year, raising allegations that Sky -- owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox in the US -- was engaging in abuse of monopoly power. This led to the League assuring the presence of a second bidder in the latest round, while the EC finally concluded that while Sky was dominant, it was not abusing its dominant position.

So all the EC accomplished with that inquiry was skyrocketing rates even further, perhaps to the eventual detriment of YouTube.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Prem...ket/1178568967





Yar! Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched
Andy Greenberg

Pirates don't just plunder. In Sweden, it seems, they also believe in sharing.

As the world's largest repository of BitTorrent files, ThePirateBay.org helps millions of users around the world share copyrighted movies, music and other files--without paying for them.

That's illegal, of course--at least it is in the U.S. But when Time Warner's Warner Bros. studio accused them of breaking U.S. copyright law in 2005, the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in "the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls."

Based in Stockholm, The Pirate Bay serves as a massive worldwide hub for copyright infringement but is shielded by its home country's lax copyright laws. The site lives in a comfortable legal loophole, one of many available to Web sites that offer users copyrighted content. Some exploit vagaries in U.S. law, while others depend on their international immunity.

That rankles big media outfits like Sony, General Electric-owned NBC, News Corp. and Viacom as they vie to hang on to their sales and carve out a slice of the Web's growing audience--hence Viacom's ongoing $1 billion suit against Google's YouTube. But no matter the outcome of that trial, sites like The Pirate Bay show that the Web will always offer safe harbors for clever copyright violators.

Take the growing guerrilla army of YouTube clones. Video sites like DailyMotion, Veoh, GoFish, OuOu, Vimeo, Peekvid, LiveDigital and 1Dawg work on the same model as YouTube, allowing any user to upload content. But they don't suffer from as much legal scrutiny as better-known video sites, nor do they limit the length of clips uploaded by users.

That means practically any television show or movie can be dug up on one of these YouTube imitators, and another subindustry of Web portals has sprouted just for that purpose. Sites like Alluc.org, VideoHybrid.com, Peekvid.com, TVlinks.co.uk and YouTVPC.com all collect and organize links to movies and shows on these second-tier video sites, offering streaming, on-demand video copyright infringement.

These two classes of video sites--one that lets users upload videos and another that links them to movies and shows located elsewhere--work together in a careful symbiosis. Alluc.org, for instance, links to Lost episodes on Veoh, Scrubs episodes on LiveDigital and kung-fu movies on DailyMotion, bringing in about 500,000 unique visitors a day. The site’s creators, three teenagers living in a suburb of Hamburg, Germany, say they're making plenty of money, though they won't say how much. They also say they're not breaking any copyright laws, since they merely link to content instead of hosting it on their own site.

Their argument is rooted, ironically, in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that U.S. lawmakers approved in 1998. The Alluc.org kids, as well as the operators of most sites that let users upload content, argue that they're not violating copyright law if they're not the ones putting it up and if they take it down at the copyright holder's request. It's the same argument Google is making in its YouTube case.

But there are more practical reasons that sites like Alluc.org get away with what they're doing. One is that there are simply too many of them to keep track of. Media companies' lawyers rarely have time to police so many obscure sites, and even when they do, users can always upload the infringing files again. So the flow of copyrighted streaming video continues.

Not every scheme to evade intellectual property laws is so subtle. The music-selling site AllofMP3.com uses a simpler business model: Base your company in Russia, steal music from American labels and sell it cheaply. AllofMP3 allows users to download full albums for as little as $1 each--10% of what they would cost on iTunes. From June to October 2006 alone, the Recording Industry Association of America says that 11 million songs were downloaded from the site. AllofMP3 claims those sales adhered strictly to Russian law, but that doesn’t satisfy the RIAA; the record labels have launched a lawsuit, asking for $150,000 for each stolen file, totaling $1.65 trillion.

As Russia seeks to join the World Trade Organization, it may be forced to step in line with international copyright licensing and stamp out sites like AllofMP3. But there's still hope for international pirates: Despite Sweden's membership in the WTO since 1995, The Pirate Bay's copyright sabotage campaign is alive and well. The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. Though Swedish police raided the site's headquarters and confiscated its servers in May of last year, the site was soon back online, running on donated hardware. Since then, Pirate Bay administrator Peter Sunde says, the site has started distributing its servers and bandwidth to other locations to avoid the possibility of another raid. Sunde claims even he doesn't know exactly where the servers are stashed.

Still, Sunde and his partners in piracy are waiting for the Swedish government to press charges. If they are prosecuted, Sunde suspects it will most likely be in the next month, before the servers confiscated from their headquarters last year become inadmissible as evidence. But he isn’t worried. "If the Swedish government presses charges, they’ll lose. If they don’t, the U.S. government will be mad at them," Sunde says. "They’re in quite a pickle."

So, he might have added, are the world’s copyright holders.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/200...ml?partner=rss





All your pass are belong to them

We Were Hacked

User data stolen but not unsecured
The Pirate Bay

Hi, we have some sad news, but don't be alarmed...

Some people (and yes, we know who) found a security hole on our web site (in fact, actually in this blog).

They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords. But, the passwords are stored encrypted, so it's not a big deal, but it's still very sad that it's out there. All e-mails are for instance encrypted as well, they will most likely not be able to decrypt them either (they are _very_ encrypted).

We encourage all our users to change passwords as soon as possible - and if you have the same password on the bay as other places, you should update them as well.

Sorry for the mess, but we are all human and we miss something sometimes.
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/68

















Until next week,

- js.



















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