Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - June 21st, '03

[JackSpratts]

Booby Hatch

I was thinking about writing a broadside criticizing the spectacularly asinine comments of U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, who if you haven’t heard yet warned people sharing files their computers would be obliterated. “I'm all for destroying their machines” he said on Tuesday in an angry, apparently off the cuff remark.

It happened when Randy Saaf of MediaDefender, a company that makes software to harm filesharing networks said “No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer."

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted.

He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." As if the Utah voters sent the Great Man to Washington to teach them that lesson; sell out to big media and use the federal government to wreck their property. It was foremost in their minds. If they’re like most people they consider sharing copyrighted files on par with jaywalking. As a matter of fact angry constituents flooded Hatch’s office with letters condemning him, and with good reason. His comment is at once so ignorant, arrogant and offensive that it’s simply not worth spending much time on. It’s one for the history books, that’s for sure, and one no doubt he’ll regret.

I will say that the government and the courts have their fair share of idiots whose brains (mis)function in ways similar to Hatch’s, of that I have no illusions. But it is our job as citizens to make sure that these institutions have less and less of them. So get involved. Register to vote if you haven’t already. Join a party so you can vote in your primaries. Then talk to these idiots, write them letters, send them faxes, call their offices (no emails – they don’t read them), and explain why they’re wrong. Try not to be as sarcastic as I am (I fired off a letter and it was all I could do to keep from calling him an **s***e). But make sure they do not get re-elected. Get rid of them. Support their opposition. The power in a democracy comes from its people. If you don’t want to go to jail for sharing a movie with your neighbor you won’t – as long as your representatives are doing what you elected them to do; and for that to happen they have to know that you’ll support them, and that your support is instrumental to their political well being and their continued presence in Washington.









Enjoy,

Jack.








Senator Hatch Violating Copyright Laws Himself article says

On Wednesday, Hatch came under attack for allegedly being a copyright pirate himself. His hatch.senate.gov Web site's menus use JavaScript code created by the U.K. company Milonic Solutions. Milonic Solutions charges between $35 and $900 for the right to obtain a license number for its JavaScript menu, but Hatch's site does not include a license number. Instead, this comment appears in the site's HTML code: "i am the license for the menu (duh)."

A Hatch representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hatch's proposal for legislation left public interest groups puzzled and alarmed. Mike Godwin, an attorney at Public Knowledge, said, "Much as I respect Sen. Hatch, he is virtually alone in believing that the destruction of computers could even be a last-ditch remedy for copyright infringement."

"I wish he hadn't said that," Godwin said. "And over time I suspect he'll wish he hadn't said that either."

Hatch is a conservative Mormon and former church bishop who was a presidential candidate in 2000 and is an amateur songwriter.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1018845.html



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

Radiohead Sales Stronger After New Album Leaked On P2P’s – Up 30%

Radiohead's latest effort for Capitol, "Hail to the Thief," enters at No. 3 with sales of 300,000 copies. This bests the first-week sales totals of 2000's "Kid A" and 2001's "Amnesiac," despite the fact that "Hail to the Thief" was illegally available online 10 weeks prior to hitting stores. "Kid A" entered at No. 1 with 207,000 copies, and "Amnesiac" arrived at No. 2 with 231,000 copies.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1916718



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

File-Sharing Network Users Are Told to Stop
AP

The Recording Industry Assn. of America said it has sent cease-and-desist letters to five users of online file-sharing networks, demanding that they stop offering free music for others to download.

A U.S. appeals court ruling earlier this month compelled Verizon Communications Inc. to give the RIAA the names of four subscribers accused of violating copyrights by offering songs on file-sharing networks. The fifth name was supplied by EarthLink Inc., which had balked at complying with an RIAA subpoena until the appeals court rejected Verizon's request for a delay.

A spokesman for the RIAA declined to identify the subscribers or release copies of the letters.

Verizon and EarthLink resisted handing over the subscribers' names, citing privacy concerns. A federal judge in Washington sided with the RIAA, although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was still reviewing the case.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...,2545425.story


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

Americans Take Digital Piracy Lightly
Kevin Coughlin

Trading copyrighted songs and software over the Internet is wrong -- but not wrong enough to justify prosecuting anybody.

That's how a majority of Americans feel about digital piracy, according to a poll released yesterday by the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

"People view it like ... jaywalking," said Jeff Plaut of the Global Strategy Group, which conducted the national survey of 600 adults this month.

"Americans are not losing sleep about peer-to-peer file-sharing networks -- and they don't want to treat it as an offense to cause them to lose sleep," Plaut said.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index....1695301840.xml


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

People Having An Effect
As reported in Michael Geist’s Internet Law News service:

CANADA TO SCRAP COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS ON UNPUBLISHED WORKS

Decima’s Canadian New Media reports that the Canadian government plans to drop controversial provisions from a bill that would have extended the term of copyright for unpublished works by deceased authors.

Dubbed the Lucy Maud Montgomery Copyright Term Extension Act, members of a committee considering the bill noted that they had been flooded with calls and emails of people concerned with the copyright extension.

Help us flood more members with calls and emails!

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/...6.shtml#001288


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

iPod P2P - Still Working

iCommune site announcement

iCommune is a standalone open source application for Mac OS X that extends Apple's iTunes to share your music over a network. You can share the music in your iTunes library and access other iCommune music collections. iCommune music collections appear as playlists in your iTunes window. You can browse through them, and choose to stream or download the music they contain.

The new version of iCommune is finally available for download. It's definitely an alpha version, but it seems to work pretty well for me. Enjoy!

System Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.2.3 or greater
iTunes 3.0.1 or higher
http://icommune.sourceforge.net/


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

Judge: Millions of CD Buyers Owed Money
AP

PORTLAND, Maine A judge has approved a settlement agreement in a music antitrust lawsuit that will result in more than 3.5 million consumers receiving nearly $13 each.

Judge D. Brock Hornby issued a 51-page ruling Friday in the case that began in 1996 when attorneys general across the country began investigating whether distributors and retailers had conspired to inflate CD prices.

"This settlement will put cash in the hands of millions of consumers and music CDs in libraries and schools throughout the country, and will ensure that the challenged distributor/retailer practices will not resume," Hornby wrote.

The ruling, however, does not stipulate exactly how much consumers will receive or when the checks will be distributed. More than 3.5 million consumers filed claims, now estimated at $12.63 each.

Hornby asked lawyers to present him with a report by the end of the month on how much it will cost to distribute the checks and how much each check will be.

He also deferred ruling on a plan on how millions of CDs will be distributed to the schools and libraries.

The lawsuit, signed by the attorneys general of 43 states and territories and consolidated in Portland in October 2000, accused major record labels and large music retailers facing competition from discounters like Target and Wal-Mart of conspiring to set minimum music prices.

The defendants -- Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corp., Universal Music Group and Bertelsmann Music Group, and retailers Tower Records, Musicland Stores and Transworld Entertainment -- deny any wrongdoing. Attorneys representing the companies declined to testify in court.

Of the total settlement, $75.7 million would be distributed in the form of 5.6 million music CDs sent to libraries and schools throughout the nation.

The proposed cash settlement in the case totals $67.3 million, with roughly $44 million to be distributed to the public. The remaining cash will go toward distribution costs and legal fees.

Hornby disapproved a settlement agreement regarding music club sales that would have been just over $1 million in cash and provided 50 percent discounts for club members on one to three new CDs.

Hornby wrote that virtually all the cash would go to attorney fees, leaving little value to club members. He added that music club defendants have not proven that they were part of any pricing conspiracy.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html


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

Mary Bono Eyes Top Spot At RIAA
Bill Holland

Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) has tossed her hat in the ring as a potential successor to Hilary Rosen as chairman/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Billboard Bulletin reports. According to her chief of staff, it "would be a dream job" for Bono, the 41-year-old widow of performer, songwriter, and Congressman Sonny Bono.

"She hasn't pro-actively gone after the job," says the spokesperson, "and RIAA has not yet approached her directly, although friends and colleagues have asked her about it. If [the] RIAA were to do so, it would be very hard for her to turn it down."

Bono fulfilled her husband's last term as representative of California's 44th Congressional District after his fatal skiing accident in January 1998. She has since been elected to three more terms. She has served on the Judiciary Committee, which oversees copyright issues, and is seen as a lawmaker who understands the agendas of both record companies and artists.

The RIAA would not comment on the search or the possibility of Bono taking over, beyond Rosen saying, "I love Mary Bono; she's great."
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1913691

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

A 'Business Napster' Launches Here
Ben Rand

On appearance alone, you might identify Jason Curtis and Adam Grossman as charter members of the Napster generation. They just have the look: young, energetic and smart enough to know how to swap songs with other music fans online, a phenomenon known as “peer- to-peer” computing.

The high school buddies know plenty about Napster, the California company that rocked the music industry by making song-swapping an everyday activity. You could say their future depends on ideas pioneered by the now-defunct company.

Curtis and Grossman have launched a company here that wants to move “peer-to-peer” computing out of the home and into the office. Their PeerConnect Inc. was formed to market cutting-edge file-sharing software that provides a faster and more secure method for businesses to exchange documents and other critical information online.

Simply put, it’s Napster for business. PeerConnect licenses and sells software that moves pre-selected images and information between companies and their trading partners or between products in a network when needed.

There’s a big difference between Napster and PeerConnect, though: security. When Napster was in business, users could literally search for files on millions of hard drives across the world. PeerConnect’s software, known as Hypership, does not expose either the sender’s or the receiver’s computer networks to random searching. The networks open only long enough to send or receive a document or other data.

Hypership, owned by Hyperspace Communications Inc. of Easton, Md., will also deliver to each partner an official notarized receipt that carries an electronic U.S. postmark. The receipt is stamped with the date and time and represents legal proof of delivery.

PeerConnect is conducting an advanced test with the Social Security Administration, which wants to use Hypership to collect birth, death and other records on a regular basis from state and local governments. It has similar pilot projects under way with companies or agencies in the advertising and publishing medical and legal industries, Curtis said. All told, PeerConnect already does business with nine federal agencies and 12 state governments.

Information transfer between computers is not the only potential use.

Hypership could also be installed into products, which are increasingly computerized and formed into networks. Peer-to-peer technology, as a hypothetical example, could be used to move pictures from self-service digital imaging kiosks to photofinishing machines.

“We think the potential of peer-to-peer is amazing,” Curtis said.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/...business.shtml


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

The MP3 Economy
How Labels And Artists Divvy Up Your MP3 Dollar
Nancy Einhart

The going rate for downloading songs from online music services like Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Music Store, MusicNet, Pressplay, and Rhapsody is about $1 a pop. Yet the economics of recorded music sales haven't changed much since the vinyl era -- despite the fact that digital files cost very little to produce and distribute. So how much of your buck makes its way back to the artists? Not much, though it's clearly a better deal than they get from piracy.

The Site's Cut
The biggest chunk of your dollar goes to the online music provider. This explains why sites like Rhapsody can offer promotional discounts: When you buy a song for 49 cents, the site sacrifices its profit but the label still gets paid.

The Publisher's Cut
This sliver goes to the music publisher in the form of "mechanical royalties," the amount paid to license the written music. While other fees can vary from artist to artist, mechanical royalties are always a flat-fee transaction.

The Label's Cut
The record company receives "performance royalties" that are paid to license an actual recording (not the written music). That explains why some performers, like alt- rocker Aimee Mann, run their own labels -- it allows them to keep a larger share of these royalties for themselves.

The Middlemen's Cut
A small portion is reserved for various other intermediaries. Sites like Liquid Audio, MusicNet, and Rhapsody often sell their services through secondary distributors like Amazon and AOL, so they, too, get a cut.

The Artist's Cut
Twelve percent is average, but successful bands often hammer out better contracts. In many major-label contracts, charges for "packaging" and promotional copies are subtracted from the artist's cut, leaving the talent with a measly 8 percent. BMG, Universal, and Warner have announced plans to do away with such deductions for digital downloads.
http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,49472,00.html


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

Driving In Cars With MP3s
PhatNoise can replace your vehicle's CD player with an MP3 player, but true integration with your car stereo is years away.
Rafe Needleman

When the new BMW 7-series was introduced in the United States in 2002, I talked to some of the company's engineers about all the gadgets this beast carries -- and doesn't. In particular I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players (although some will play CDs that have MP3s recorded on them).

Are we drivers limited to the radios and CD players installed in our cars? Well, you can always hook up an iPod, or other portable MP3 player, via a small FM transmitter or a tape deck gizmo, but this solution has two problems. First, sound quality suffers. Second, it can be dangerous to fiddle with the portable device while you're driving.

Automotive electronics While we wait for carmakers to give us our digital tunes the right way, a company called PhatNoise is marketing a plug-in solution that solves a lot of the problems with the current work-arounds. The company has a deal with Volkswagen dealers whereby PhatNoise's Digital Car Audio System is sold alongside other VW-approved options -- which means you pay for it via your regular car payments and it's covered under the car's warranty.

The $795 system connects directly to your car's sound system and takes the place of the trunk-mounted CD changer. The car's stereo thinks it's a changer, which means the system responds to the normal CD buttons like "Next Track." It is, however, a hard-disc-based MP3 player. You load the hard drive with tunes from your PC using a desktop dock. (Future products might use wireless networking so users can beam tunes from computer to car.)

Since CD changers neither store as much music as hard discs nor know what tracks are in the changer, the PhatNoise solution does require some hacks to work with standard CD controls. For example, in the VW installation, a disc-selection button turns on the artist-selection mode, and the device, which can't actually display MP3 data tags on the CD player's readout, uses voice synthesis to tell you the artists' names (and other information) through the car's speakers. When you hear the artist you want, you select it with another button.

Chief technology officer Dan Benyamin explains that most of the PhatBox user interface is audio based, so operating it is safer than fiddling with tiny car-stereo buttons or a display screen. But I believe that's just an argument of convenience -- and Benyamin does admit that it'd be easier and safer still if the button to bring up the artists on your hard disc were labeled "Artists," not "Disc 4."

So, how long until a car's factory "head unit" can display the MP3 data on its own screen? "Seven years," Benyamin says. It takes that long, he claims, for the auto companies to fully adopt new technology. Benyamin's exaggerating -- it didn't take satellite radio companies XM Radio (XMSR) and Sirius (SIRI) seven years to get their technology built into car radios -- but he does have a point. And in the meantime, you can get a better-integrated PhatNoise system by buying a Kenwood Music Keg, which is based on the PhatNoise technology. Music Keg head units are fully integrated with the MP3 player.
http://www.business2.com/articles/we...,50267,00.html


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

iTunes Distribution Deals Are Nice, But They're Nothing Compared With Ipod Bundling Arrangements
Jimmy Guterman

The hottest thing in digital media right now is Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Music Store. Although iTunes lacks two of the key features that made/make Napster/Kazaa so appealing -- peer-to-peer sharing and a huge library of unreleased material -- it is easier to use and has more to offer than do the "legitimate," major-label-blessed digital-music- selling services, like MusicNet and Pressplay.

Although there are still some major holes in the iTunes catalog, it's no surprise that labels have licensed it more than 200,000 songs, including exclusive performances from acts you've actually heard of. Also, since more than 9 out of 10 computers can't connect to the iTunes store -- it works only for Macs -- iTunes is an easy way for the major labels to experiment without giving up their proprietary Net- music-selling plans.

That's all well and good, but it leaves out the most lucrative short- term opportunity for Apple in the music business. The portable music device of choice is Apple's iPod, which set the stage for the elaborate iTunes store.

Since record companies are desperate for new means of distribution, shouldn't they be looking for access to the iPod rather than just iTunes? It's a classic bundling arrangement. Consider how software makers have pursued big deals to get on the Windows desktop because they know that preinstalled material gets the user's attention. Take this idea to the iPod: What would a broadcast network pay a television manufacturer to ensure that the network was the first station anyone saw when turning on a TV? Apple has an opportunity, first of all, to release a series of customized, high-priced iPods. This would bring large fees into Apple's coffers. The record companies would get a premium, plus outstanding distribution. And for both companies, such a move would mark a first step toward even bigger deals.

Indeed, the company has missed out on an opportunity to do this already. Last year, Apple marketed a "limited-edition Beck version" of its iPod with no actual Beck music on it, just a little engraving of Beck's name on the back of the device. Imagine how much more successful and buzzworthy (a crucial concept for Apple) it would have been if that iPod came with everything the guy ever recorded (capturing casual fans) and a generous helping of unreleased material (pulling in hard-core fanatics) -- which still leaves room for hundreds of CDs' worth of music. But such customized iPods are just a necessary stepping-stone toward the biggest opportunity: premium placement on all iPods. If Apple's portable music players retain their hegemony in the market and the market keeps growing, there will be no better place for record companies to present new music to potential customers.

None of this will happen soon. I called Apple, and a spokesperson said the company was not in discussions on selling iPod real estate. Then I spoke to three executives at the five major labels (two never called back) and they confirmed that no such talks are going on. But before he got off the phone, one of them shouted into his speakerphone, "Damn, we should do that. You know who at Apple we should talk to about that?"
http://www.business2.com/articles/we...html?ref=hp102


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

Blue Light Special

A novel way to squeeze more data onto CDs and DVDs.
Charles Q. Choi

Sony's high-capacity blue laser DVD recorder, set to debut in the United States this fall, crams five times more information on a disc than the standard red laser version does and heralds the arrival of next-generation technology. Enthusiasts eager to get their hands on that much data capacity, however, may think twice after learning that production snags boosted the DVD's price to about $3,500. But researchers at BlackLight Power in Cranbury, New Jersey, say they have made a discovery that may help overcome technical hurdles and get reliable blue lasers to market.

When the kinks are worked out, blue lasers will likely be the heart of next-generation DVDs, CDs, printers and scanners. Having shorter wavelengths than their red brethren, they can etch more data on a disc. It's the optical equivalent of taking a sharper pencil to paper.



But manufacturing flaws have plagued the emerging technology. The standard way to generate blue laser light is to run an electric current through a crystal or chemical. Excited electrons in the substrates then emit blue light rays. Trouble is, the substrates tend to crack under extreme heat, a glitch that ruins up to a third of all batches. And the solutions are pricey.

Liquids, however, don't crack. Enter the world's first water-based blue laser. Researchers at BlackLight Power heated water vapor with microwaves to generate energized hydrogen atoms which emit multispectrum light rays, including infrared, blue and violet. A prototype blue laser device is expected by the end of the year.

The team says such a multispectrum laser light could be miniaturized to micron dimensions for many microelectronic applications. "A hydrogen laser may prove to be the most useful of all," says Randell Mills, BlackLight Power's CEO.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/compute...456097,00.html


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


DVD Piracy Poses A Dilemma
David Canton

Twentieth-century copyright law and 21st-century technology are clashing once again, this time in a courtroom in San Francisco. The court is being asked to consider the ramifications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) on the distribution of DVD copying software. In essence, the DMCA makes it illegal to provide technology that defeats copy-protection measures contained in a product. DVDs contain such protection measures to make it difficult to copy them. That is why DVD players don't work if they are connected to a TV set through a VCR.

American-based software company 321 Studios recently introduced software to the consumer market that would allow users to circumvent copy protections on DVDs. Unleashing that ability to the public prompted the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to launch the action against 321 Studios on the basis that allowing consumers to copy DVDs in this matter violates the restrictions imposed by the DMCA.

Technologists argue that a narrow interpretation of the DMCA would create an extremely hostile environment for innovators, who wouldn't pursue new products for fear of legal reprisal. Entertainment industry supporters advocate a strict imposition of the DMCA to ensure their copyrights and corresponding profit margins are given full protection.

So far, the judge in the San Francisco case has indicated that she has been significantly persuaded by the entertainment industry's arguments, but has acknowledged that strict adherence to the DMCA would create the potential for the unjustified prosecution of "grey-area" copiers. These include those who would use the software to make personal backup copies of commercially produced DVDs or those who use copied DVDs for employment purposes such as writing movie reviews.
http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/Londo...13/109915.html


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

The Power Of Peering
While peer-to-peer computing seems intrinsically linked to piracy, it is actually a legitimate technology that can help disseminate data efficiently.
Louis Chua

Peer-to-peer software is going to be with us for a long time. However, truth be told, most peer-to-peer software seem to have been written for the sake of breaking the law. The United States' court rulings aside, tools like Kazaa and the now defunct Napster are mostly used by people sharing copyright materials illegally.

This unfortunate turn of fate puts a terrible spin on the concept of peer-to-peer computing. Conceptually, peer-to-peer is a powerful concept that has been hijacked and which has left a bad taste in the mouths of most copyright owners. This need not be so. A new angle is thrown into the peer-to-peer file-sharing concept with the introduction of BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is a remarkably small and neat piece of Python software engineering with Windows ports, created by a programmer called Bram Cohen, that addresses several problems that exist on almost all other file- sharing systems. It refers to both the program as well as the protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file.

Like Napster and Kazaa, there is a central server (called a tracker) which co-ordinates the action of all such peers. However, the tracker only manages connections and it does not have any knowledge of the content of the files being distributed. Therefore, a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth.

A key philosophy in the design of BitTorrent is that users, while downloading files, should also contribute to the uploading effort by uploading the same files at the same time. This allows network bandwidth to be utilised more efficiently. As more nodes interested in a certain file join the swarm, the better would be the transfer speed. This is an ideology improvement over other file transfer protocols.

Another feature of BitTorrent is that unlike Napster, Kazaa, eMule or eDonkey, which are all file indexing and searching services, the design of BitTorrent does away with the need of a centralised server that helps to index files to enable searching. For services like Napster and Kazaa, it is always possible to shut down the entire network by turning off, say, Kazaa's server farm entirely. For BitTorrent, should illegal material be set up as a torrent, copyright owners can target the more significant distribution networks, providing the trackers to shut them down.

A problem that BitTorrent has solved is the case of users who only take, take and take, without giving back anything as seen in some peer-to-peer networks. BitTorrent forces the user to upload as they download a file. The BitTorrent server, which can be supplied by anyone willing to offer a little space, will index your willingness to upload and the amount you have uploaded so far.

As there is usually more download capacity than upload capacity, for a popular file where there are many copies already existing on participant PCs, a small upload stream will get you several times that in download capacity.

BitTorrent could even be more secure than other file-sharing programs, as there is no risky "shared folder". Users only share that which they are currently downloading or have completely downloaded. A torrent file can describe a collection of files just as easily as a single file. So you could even download a whole directory from one torrent file. Files offered are published as links on regular web pages. This solves a major problem of reliability and efficient distribution of files among clients where there are users who sometimes "poison" the pool by providing files that are not what they purport to be. This does not happen for BitTorrent.

There is also less of a risk of data error as BitTorrent uses file fragment checksum to ensure no invalid data is offered to the network. When a download is cancelled, you can start again anytime. The BitTorrent client will figure out what part of a file you have got and what you are missing. The data may arrive in chunks, depending on what is available on the network. BitTorrent will create a blank file with the correct file size when users initiate the download, and will reassemble the file on the fly, filling in the holes until it gets the whole thing.

Companies can use BitTorrent to disseminate data, both for internal consumption as well as external. For unlike providers like Kazaa and eMule, the locator metafiles need not be released to the general public at large.

An example of external usage is a company that is offering free sample programs online.
http://www.computerworld.com.sg/pcws...A?OpenDocument


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


Offload Those Music Files
Sebastian Rupley

File sharing of music and other kinds of digital content via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks has grown explosively and so has the bandwidth drain on Internet service providers (ISPs) who are supporting the trading of these very large files. A UK company, CacheLogic, has a unique strategy for alleviating the problem—its Cachepliance line of caching routers.

The company's CacheLogic software, which runs on its Cachepliance routers, re-architects the protocols used by Gnutella and FastTrack—the underlying technology of most P2P file-sharing networks—and used by the Kazaa and Morpheus clients. By doing this, P2P file trading is encouraged on the ISP's own network, as opposed to the traditional approach of seeking out other peers across continents. The re-architecture of the protocols is complemented by file caching on CacheLogic's routers.

CacheLogic officials estimate that ISPs can expect network bandwidth savings of 95 percent related to network protocol "chatter" and 50 percent on file transfers by installing sufficient caching appliances to support broadband users. They describe file sharing as a double-edged sword, a view which Michael Hoch, research director for Internet infrastructure at the Aberdeen Group, agrees with in a report. "While ISPs are desperately seeking to reduce their spiraling bandwidth costs related to P2P file trading, they also recognize file sharing as a significant driver of new broadband subscribers to their networks," Hoch says. Adam Twiss, CEO of CacheLogic, characterizes the bandwidth cost of P2P file sharing as "the biggest problem facing ISPs today."

CacheLogic takes the position that caching file transfer activity can save some ISPs millions of dollars per year, and the company has routers aimed at fielding P2P traffic for both large and small ISPs. The Cachepliance 4000 is designed for big ISPs to place at the core of a network. Each unit can support 50,000 subscribers and the devices can be deployed in clusters to support large subscriber bases. The Cachepliance 2000 is for smaller ISPs and can support 30,000 subscribers. Both routers support large RAID subsystems, and the Cachepliance 4000 comes with 1.4 terabytes of RAID hard drive storage.

CacheLogic officials say that they've been operating "in stealth mode" by concentrating their business in England thus far, but they see a big opportunity in the US. Cachepliance routers are currently in trial with four of the five tier-one ISPs in England, and CacheLogic survey data shows that 60 to 70 percent of background traffic online in England consists of P2P file sharing.

The Cachepliance 4000 sells in England for 50,000 pounds with a service cost of 10,000 pounds per year for protocol updates. A pound was equivalent to $1.64 as of the end of May. The Cachepliance 2000 costs 30,000 pounds and carries the same service cost.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1126275,00.asp


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

Japan Movie Copyright Extended From 50 To 70 Years

TOKYO — The Diet on Thursday passed a bill to revise the copyright law to extend the protection period for movies from the current 50 years to 70 years after their release.

The House of Representatives approved the bill unanimously at its plenary session, some three weeks after the House of Councillors endorsed the proposed revision. The revision takes effect Jan 1 next year.
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&id=262928


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

Risks Of Downloading Movies Don't Deter People Who Want Free Entertainment
Hailey Heinz

Picture yourself on a Friday night, hanging out with friends, family or significant other and in search of diversion. You opt to take in a movie, perhaps "2 Fast 2 Furious," released last week.

So you head into the computer room, go to your preferred peer-to-peer network, peruse the selection and click the download button. Then you wait a few hours, perhaps get a bite to eat, and when you return, the movie is there, waiting for you to kick back and enjoy. All without spending a penny.

This scene is becoming increasingly common in homes and at college campuses across the nation, much to the chagrin of film studios nationwide.

Downloading digital media, a trend that has plagued the music industry for years, is becoming a major concern for the movie industry, cutting into profits from theaters, rentals and sales.

According to Rich Taylor, vice president of public affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, it's difficult to track how much money the industry loses to this new form of digital piracy. Because it is digital, it leaves no paper trail.

Viant, an Internet consulting firm based in Boston, says that 400,000 to 600,000 movies are downloaded illegally everyday.

"We watched 'X-Men 2' the night before it came out, then watched it at the theater the next day," said Craig Lewis, who has just finished his first year as a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Lewis said this is a common practice on campus and that most students, even the less tech-savvy, know how to get movies for free.

"One tech-savvy person on a floor is enough," he explained.

So how exactly is it done? Movies can be easily downloaded using peer-to-peer networks similar to the infamous Napster, a sharing network shut down by courts in 2001 after a lengthy lawsuit brought on by the Recording Industry Association of America. The most well known of these new copycat networks is KaZaA, but it is certainly not alone among many others, such as Gnutella, Morpheus and iMesh.

These networks allow users to download music and movies from the computers of hundreds, even thousands of other users at once. Any media that has been uploaded from the computer of one user onto the network becomes available to everyone else. In this way, the media is "shared" and can be accessed by the downloader free.

Lewis said the moral implications of downloading copyrighted material bother him a little but not too much.

"They want $8.50 to go see a movie, and a lot of the movies are (not very good)," he said. "I like to think of it as previewing. If it's good enough, we're going to buy it because we love it so much, but we're poor college students."

Lewis shares this perspective with plenty of others. Brian Lyke, who will be a sophomore at Polaris K-12 School, acknowledges he uses peer-to-peer networks to download movies and other media.

"I like treating anything I download as a preview; try before you buy, you know? I'm a big fan of that ... Most of the movies I (also) see at the theater or pay for at least once."

Lyke concurred that not everyone has this same pay-at-least-once philosophy. "There's a lot of idiots out there who just download," he said, and that's wrong.

"People who do good work should get something for it," Lyke said. People who just download movies and never pay to see any of them are abusing the system and harming everyone else. "I'm not sure where that line is, but you know it when you see it," he said.

For the MPAA, that line is very clear. Any material downloaded free on the Internet is illegal.

"People need to stop acting like it's an innocent act," the MPAA's Taylor said. "Folks have tried to write it off as a harmless act, but people in Hollywood are all affected, from the rank-and-file workers to the people behind the camera, all the way down to the people selling popcorn. ... They're not all Steven Spielbergs."

Taylor said many people don't understand that only two of every 10 movies actually make back their production cost during their theatrical release. Most movies rely on sales, rentals and pay-per-view. "If that chain is severed, we've got a real problem," Taylor said.

The MPAA has taken numerous measures to minimize piracy, including encryption on DVDs to prevent copying, guards with night vision goggles in movie theaters to spot bootleggers and litigation against networks providing peer-to-peer media sharing.

"We're not about to sit idly by," Taylor said. "The music industry has been decimated by piracy; we're not going to let that happen to the movie industry."

Online piracy is subject to the same copyright laws that apply to nondigital intellectual property. This means it may not be used without compensating the copyright holder or getting direct permission.

Additionally, two fairly recent pieces of legislation apply exclusively to Internet piracy. The No Electronic Theft Act, which became federal law in 1997, increases the penalties for electronic piracy, including large fines and up to six years in prison, depending on the magnitude of the offense. The other act is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998. This act makes it illegal to manufacture or distribute hardware or other devices that circumvent piracy-resistant technology.

So why have peer-to-peer networks like KaZaA been able to stay open even though Napster was shut down by the courts?

It's certainly not for lack of trying on the part of the copyright holders. The MPAA and the RIAA recently took KaZaA, MusicCity (the company that runs Morpheus) and Grokster, another peer-to-peer server, to court. Much to the disappointment of the copyright holders and to the jubilation of recreational pirates, the courts ruled in favor of the servers in April. Unlike Napster, the ruling said, these peer-to-peer networks have no centralized server, which means there is no record of who is using it and what they're swapping. While Napster could verify that copyrighted material was, in fact, being shared through its network, this is not the case for these decentralized networks.

For this reason, the courts ruled the copyright infringement was not committed by KaZaA and other peer- to-peer networks but by those who use them for illegal purposes. Although the vast majority of the traffic on these networks is copyrighted material, the networks could also be used to send noncopyrighted movies, music or other media across the world. The networks were likened to copier machines and VCRs, which can be used for piracy but shouldn't be denied to people who wish to use them legitimately.

Taylor said the MPAA will appeal and he is "pretty sure we'll prevail." Although the courts have ruled that individual users are the ones guilty of copyright infringement, the MPAA continues to focus on the servers that give them the tools to do so.

College campuses around the country provide a hive for media-sharing activity, mainly because most college campuses have computer networks connecting all the computers on campus. The University of Alaska Network allows students to peruse the computers of fellow students from the comfort of their dorms and have access to any media stored in their shared folders.

This oncampus sharing is facilitated by individual students, who can download a small piece of software and host their own little peer-to-peer network for other students on campus. Although students could just use the larger networks like KaZaA, these little hubs make it a lot easier.

One student who hosted such a hub and requested to remain anonymous, says the ethical aspect of it doesn't bother him.

"We'd get on DirectConnect almost every day just to see if anyone had anything new," he said. For him, it was just part of campus culture.

When these peer-to-peer networks pop up on campuses, universities can be held liable for the copyright infringement. For this reason, college and universities are taking precautions to avoid getting hit with $30,000 fines for copyright infringement.

According to Chirk Chu, the chief security officer for the University of Alaska, the university responds when copyright holders complain that students on campus are violating copyright laws. These complaints are generally about students uploading content for others or hosting networks, he said.

"Technologically speaking, it's virtually impossible for copyright holders to enforce their claim on people who (only) download," Chu said.

Rich Whitney, the associate vice provost for information technology at UAA said that when complaints come in that a student at a particular computer address is generating a lot of traffic on a peer-to-peer network (usually Kazaa), that student is required to sign a letter stating that he or she understands the offense and won't do it again.

Penalties increase with repeat offenses, and by a third offense, the student's port is shut off. The campus can tell whether they have stopped their activities by monitoring that student's computer, or IP, address.

Chu says copyright complaints have risen steadily over the last few years. In 2001, he dealt with four cases. In 2002, it was up to 49, and this year, as of June 11, he's handled 86 cases.

Another problem that universities face is that the downloading and uploading of media takes up an extraordinary amount of bandwidth, much more than normal Internet use.

"When you search the Web, you go to an address, make a connection and terminate that connection when you're through," Chu explained.

"If I'm looking for a song title, I have to look in hundreds, even thousands, of computers." This is the same for movies and any other media found on a peer-to-peer network.

The university's solution is to "shape" the bandwidth of the university. This means that only a certain fraction of the total bandwidth is allotted for types of use.

"What it's aimed at doing is to create higher priorities for educational research purposes," Whitney said. "The leftover bandwidth is then allotted for peer-to-peer traffic."

Despite these measures taken by the university, use of KaZaA is still alive and well on campus. According to Whitney, 18 percent of the inbound bandwidth used at UAA during May was KaZaA-related traffic, while a 29 percent of outbound bandwidth traffic was related to KaZaA.

Gnutella, another well-known peer-to-peer network, accounts for just 2 percent of outbound bandwidth usage but is still among the top 10 categories of use.

Although the university staff is aware of how much KaZaA is used on campus, they only take disciplinary action against students in response to complaints.

"We don't see ourselves as traffic cops; we see ourselves as providing the most effective and efficient network for our users," Whitney said.

In some cases, however, downloading can make a user's system anything but efficient. Chu said media files sometimes contain viruses and "Trojan horses" that can get inside the computer and open a back door for a hacker to enter. A large amount of media downloading will make a computer much more susceptible to hacking, Chu said. Solutions are education and technological precautions like filters and firewalls, he said.

These ethical and technical risks don't seem to be stopping movie fans however, and the traffic on peer- to-peer networks is as heavy as ever. Until something changes, the Internet will continue to provide a haven for free entertainment.

"People are behaving in a way that they would never behave on firm earth," said the MPAA's Taylor. "Most of these people would never go into Blockbuster, grab a DVD and slip out of the store. Yet somehow, when they're sitting there with a mouse, they have no problem slipping a digital DVD under their digital jacket and slipping right out of the store without paying."

Hailey Heinz is senior at Polaris K-12 and an editor of Perfect World, the Daily News high school journalism section published every Friday in Life.
http://www.adn.com/perfectworld/stor...-3316103c.html



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

Sony To Offer Music Downloads In U.K.
Reuters

Sony Music said Monday that it would begin selling music downloads in Britain for its top artists, making it the last among the major recording labels to join Europe's music download bandwagon.

But the long-awaited announcement comes with a hitch. Sony, home to such artists as Michael Jackson and Jennifer Lopez, will not sell song downloads to European Internet users outside the United Kingdom.

"We're in negotiation with Sony for the other territories," said Charles Grimsdale, chief executive of OD2, the technology provider that brokered the deal. "Hopefully, we'll be able to bring Sony onboard across Europe fairly soon."

During the next six weeks, Sony will supply music to OD2 partners that include BT Group's Dotmusic.com, Ministry of Sound, the U.K. Web sites of MTV, Microsoft's MSN, retailer HMV Group, and Internet service providers Tiscali and Freeserve.

OD2 supplies roughly a dozen sites with the technology to run music download services. It is the only company in Europe to have secured licenses from the five major music labels and a bevy of independents.

With Sony onboard, OD2 has more than 200,000 tracks on offer.

As in the United States, the major labels have been backing subscription music download services in Europe to combat the proliferation of online song- swapping, a phenomenon eating into global CD sales.

But the nascent industry-sanctioned services have had little success in persuading Internet users to abandon file-sharing sites such as Kazaa and Grokster, which carry a larger selection of music and are free.

Grimsdale though said the recent media commotion around Apple Computer's two-month old iTunes music download service, which is available only in North America, has created a lift for the privately held OD2.

"Revenues are growing rapidly and there's been a huge amount of activity on our partner sites, (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs is my favorite person right now," Grimsdale said.

Industry sources told Reuters the labels are in active negotiations with Apple to bring the download service to Europe. iTunes may launch in at least one European country later this year or early next year, the sources said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1017346.html


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

Gas Mask Queen Removed From Gallery
BBC

An art gallery has taken down three images of the Queen wearing a gas mask after a row with the Royal Mail.

Artrepublic, in Brighton, had been showing the pictures, representing first, second and third class stamps, since May.

The artworks were created by former pop star James Cauty, who was in the group KLF, and were a reflection of his stance on the war with Iraq.

The Royal Mail had complained about the prints because it said they were a breach of its copyright.



The gallery, in the North Lanes, took the pictures down on Friday.

A spokesman for the gallery said: "It is true the images have been removed.

"We are still in legal discussions with the Royal Mail.

"We won't be able to issue any more information until that has been resolved."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...es/2994418.stm


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

'Gen D' flexes its muscles
Youth are content to keep getting music from Net tell recording industry to adapt or disappear
Benny Evangelista

Fourteen-year-old Miriam Rosenau is a typical member of "Gen D,'' a generation of customers vital to the survival of the recording industry. That's "D" as in "digital" and "download," two words that also describe an inexorable shift in consumer behaviour that experts say will force the $32 billion (U.S.) worldwide recording industry to overhaul the way it does business.

Most of the time, Rosenau uses her computer rather than her stereo to play her favourite songs. And she hasn't bought a CD in a while because it's easier to use that computer to download music from the Internet.

"I think I have gotten used to having everything right when I want it," said Rosenau of Berkeley, Calif. "I have DSL, and it's extremely fast. I can get a song in under two minutes.''

And while the record industry has been trying to hone its message that downloading is a criminal act of copyright piracy, San Francisco's Ryan Kellett, 16, said he knows of only a few teens his age who don't download music. "The cat's out of the bag," Kellett said. The record industry, he added, needs to listen more to its teenage customers. "They need to keep up with the times," he said. "They need to use the Internet as a tool. They have to get into the mind of a teenager to figure that out. You can't be an executive on the top floor to get into what needs to be done to reach these people.'' The good news for the music industry is that Apple Computer's new 99-cent-per-song iTunes Music Store, which record companies believe is the best alternative to free downloading, does seem to be turning heads among members of Generation D. And because of the store's early success ? more than 3 million songs sold in the first month after it opened April 28 ? other technology giants like Microsoft, America Online, Yahoo and Amazon.com are considering similar ventures. Record executives believe they are finally on the right track. "It is a challenge that we have got to address," said Paul Vidich, an executive vice president with the Warner Music Group. "I don't see them as a lost generation. They've become lost music buyers, but not lost music consumers.'' Back in the day when rock and roll was king, teenagers considered it cool to hang out at the local record store listening to and buying new music. More importantly, teens used to be the record industry's single biggest group of customers, the group counted upon to grow up into lifelong record buyers.

Just 10 years ago, when U.S. music sales totalled $10 billion, 16.7 per cent of recorded music was purchased by teens ages 15 to 19, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The next largest group was 20- to 24-year-olds, with 15.1 per cent of the market, and third was 25- to 29-year-olds at 13.2 per cent.

By 2002, total record sales were $12.6 billion. But the percentage of sales declined to 13.3 per cent for teens ages 15 to 19 and to 11.5 per cent for the 20-to-24 age group. The 45-and-older Baby Boomers are now the biggest CD buyers, accounting for 25.5 per cent of sales last year. Interviews with San Francisco Bay Area teenagers and the results of several recent research reports indicate part of that shift stems from today's Generation D relying more on their computers for music.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=969048863851


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

Unmasking the Internet - Illusion of Internet Anonymity Crumbling Under Rulings, New Laws
Shelley Emling

A court orders Verizon to give the music industry the names of four Internet subscribers accused of illegally swapping songs.

A Pennsylvania judge goes to court to seek the identity of an America Online member she says made defamatory comments about her in a chat room.

The American Library Association opposes the government's expanded capability under the Patriot Act to track a library user's Internet use.

Dell Computer Corp. goes to court, hoping to get Microsoft Corp. to reveal the identity of a Hotmail account user that it says received sensitive documents sent from inside the company.

The case was resolved when Dell independently discovered the e-mail address belonged to one of its employees, who was sending work to his home computer so he could work there. But last year, Dell twice sought the identities of e-mail account holders it believed sent threatening and harassing e-mails to the company.

These are just a few of the skirmishes in a growing battle over online privacy. Increasingly, businesses are going to court to unmask Internet users for various reasons, ranging from fraud to threats.

Continued anonymity, a hallmark of the Internet, is far from certain. It's likely the issue will be decided in individual cases such as these instead of by congressional mandate.

"People have always thought that what they're doing on the Internet will remain private, but that's not always the case," said Mike McGuire, research director for media with GartnerG2, a unit of Gartner Inc.

"Internet service providers might need to do a better job of informing their users that they may have to release their identities in certain circumstances," he said.

The truth is that Internet anonymity has been eroding for years. Law enforcement has long relied on Internet protocol, or IP, addresses to track down those who seek child pornography.

Companies, too, have snooped on their employees for years. A 2001 study estimated that one in three workers was under constant e-mail surveillance.

"It's done here at Dell like it's done at virtually every company I can think of . . . to make sure company resources are used appropriately," spokesman Mike Maher said.

Even the filing of "John Doe" suits by companies seeking to unmask those who criticize the companies on online message boards has grown commonplace.

But now online privacy is even more at risk. The Patriot Act, passed in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, gives the FBI easier access to information, such as the ability to delve into library Web records without search warrants.

Another factor is the music industry, which views file sharing as a threat to its livelihood.
http://www.statesman.com/business/co...7e0890051.html


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

“We will have a platinum-selling soundtrack of original game music within two years."

Music: Electronic Games Boost Licensing Revenue
Steve Traiman

Facing an industry-wide decline in mechanical royalties, music publishers and songwriters are increasingly turning to a new revenue source -- video games.

Original and licensed music from emerging and established acts "can command from $800 to $1,200 a minute, with a typical game using from 20 to 90 minutes," says Bob Rice, chief executive of Four Bars Intertainment.

Rice participated in the "Writing Music for Games" seminar sponsored by the Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) during last month's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

"Once you're 'in' the medium, a composer can earn $250,000 or more a year from games," Rice says.

Richard Stumpf, VP for marketing and licensing at Cherry Lane Music Publishing, says most gaming companies traditionally look for a flat-fee buyout that can range from $1,500 for a song from a new artist to $20,000 for six songs from Elvis Presley (news).

"With some games selling up to 5 million or more copies, we've been pushing hard for royalties and advances, and we did work a royalty deal with Sony Computer Entertainment for its multi-artist PlayStation 2 (news - web sites) game Frequency," he says.

Cherry Lane's game placements are with such leading developers as Electronic Arts (EA), Activision, Konami, THQ, Midway, and Buena Vista Games (formerly Disney Interactive).

They involve contemporary artists and draw primarily on partnerships with DreamWorks Publishing and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Cherry Lane and DreamWorks have a license out for Logan 7 tracks for EA's NHL 2004, and quotes are out for Powerman 5000 tracks on EA's NASCAR (news - web sites) Thunder 2004 and NFL Gameday 2004. They are also seeking a Dr. Octagon track for Activision's Tony Hawk's Underground, among others.

But integrating music into games can be challenging, game music producer Eric Lundborg notes.

Lundborg worked on the Atari Enter the Matrix title that was released simultaneously with the Matrix Reloaded movie. "The game music had to merge seamlessly with the action movie footage," Lundborg says. "And we had to complete three hours of music in a very short time."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ideogames_dc_1


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

Abstract.

The Dead Poets Society: The Copyright Term And The Public Domain
Matthew Rimmer

In a victory for corporate control of cultural heritage, the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a constitutional challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (U.S.) by a majority of seven to two. This paper evaluates the litigation in terms of policy debate in a number of discourses — history, intellectual property law, constitutional law and freedom of speech, cultural heritage, economics and competition policy, and international trade. It argues that the extension of the copyright term will inhibit the dissemination of cultural works through the use of new technologies — such as Eric Eldred's Eldritch Press and Project Gutenberg. It concludes that there is a need to resist the attempts of copyright owners to establish the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (U.S.) as an international model for other jurisdictions — such as Australia.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8...mer/index.html


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

In practice DRM stifles legal activity.

Info With a Ball and Chain
Stopping piracy and increasing privacy makes sense. But what will we lose by locking up our songs, movies, books, files and e-mails?
Steven Levy

When Steve Jobs introduced the iTunes music store a few weeks ago, the acclaim was nearly universal. Nonetheless, a small but vocal minority viewed the online emporium as a menace—because the iTunes program somewhat limits a consumer’s ability to copy and share songs.

EVEN THOUGH APPLE had broken ground by getting the record labels to accept fairly liberal terms of use—Apple- oids could listen to purchased songs on three computers and burn CDs—this bunch objected to any restrictions at all. They saw the iTunes store as a sugar-coated inducement for consumers to accept a new reality: some stuff on your computer isn’t really under your control. And as far as that goes, the critics are right. Say goodbye to the “Information Wants to Be Free” era. We’re entering the age of digital ankle bracelets.

The key to this shift is the technology that protects information from unauthorized or illegal use. It’s called digital- rights-management software, or DRM. Like it or not, rights management is increasingly going to be a fact of your life. Not only will music, books and movies be steeped in it, but soon such mundane artifacts as documents, spreadsheet files and e- mail will be joining the domain of restricted information. In fact, the next version of Microsoft Office will enable creators of certain documents to issue restrictions that dictate who, if anyone, can read them, copy them or forward them. In addition, you can specify that the files and mail you send may “sunset” after a specified period of time, evaporating like the little tapes dead-dropped to Peter Graves in “Mission: Impossible.”

On the one hand, it seems that digital-rights management is a no-brainer. What’s wrong with media companies’ building in antitheft devices to protect their property? And shouldn’t the creator of a document or e-mail be able to determine who can read or copy it? Surely, piracy is to be condemned and privacy to be cherished: DRM can go a long way toward implementing both those sentiments.

But certain critics consider the very concept anathema. “I don’t think that DRM is in and of itself evil,” says David Weinberger, who recently published an essay in Wired titled “Copy Protection Is a Crime Against Humanity.” “But in the real world, it is evil. There’s no user demand for it. It’s being forced upon us by people with vested interests.”

Edward Felton, a Princeton computer scientist, believes that DRM perverts the basic deal of the Internet: the free flow of information benefits all. “The basic problem is that DRM is trying to turn information into something other than information so you can’t pass it on,” he says. “People want to control their technology, and the more the technology is eroded, the harder it is to use.”

Even Congress, which has so far ignored consumers and coddled rights holders on copy protection, is waking up. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, is about to introduce a bill “to ensure that our nation’s media producers and distributors do not clamp down on the ways in which [consumers] traditionally and legally use media products.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/926304.asp?cp1=1


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

Can Anyone Stop The Music Cops?

As Hollywood wins one court case after another, one Republican senator is suggesting that maybe it's time for some new laws -- that protect consumers instead of entertainment companies.
Farhad Manjoo

You wouldn't know it from looking on Kazaa or Limewire, where hit songs are flowing as freely as they always have, but trading music online recently became pretty dangerous business. On June 4, a federal appeals court ordered Verizon Communications to hand over to the recording industry the identities of four Verizon customers suspected of illegally sharing songs on peer-to-peer services. It was a significant victory for the record labels, perhaps the biggest yet in their long-running effort to stamp out the MP3 trade online. At least temporarily, the decision allows the industry to easily obtain personal information on virtually anyone who might be sharing copyrighted songs online -- yes, even you.

The Verizon decision was just the latest defeat for people wary of the expanding power of the entertainment industry in the digital world. Four and a half years have passed since Congress passed and the president signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- the main federal law governing the use of content online -- and in that time critics of media firms have been rebuffed in dozens of federal courtrooms around the nation.

Civil liberties groups intend to keep fighting copyright laws in the courts, and Verizon, too, says it's confident that it will ultimately prevail in its efforts to keep its customers' private data away from the music industry (a full trial on the merits of Verizon's claims is scheduled to begin in September). But it's telling that the company believes that, at least in the short term, the judicial process can offer Internet users no comfort.

Verizon is instead recommending that people across the nation seek help from the only body that can fix things now. "We think it's time Congress became involved," says Sarah Deutsch, Verizon's associate general counsel.

Verizon has thrown in its support for an eight-page document that, in civil-liberties circles, is referred to simply as the "Brownback bill." That phrase is, technically, incorrect. The Brownback bill is not yet an actual bill in Congress; instead, it's an idea devised by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican, to explicitly prohibit some of the entertainment industry's worst actions -- such as its effort, in the Verizon case, to get at private information of Internet users, or its attempt last year to mandate that all digital equipment come equipped with copy-protection technology.
Story requires paid registration or commercial viewing http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20.../index_np.html


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

Orrin Hatch Thinks Voters Want Computers Destroyed
Ted Bridis

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."

Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.

"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.

The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.

Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.

"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."

Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.

But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jun17.html


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

Group Supports Home-Viewer Editing of DVD Movies
Vince Horiuchi

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF), a technology and cyberspace civil liberties group, filed a federal court brief Wednesday in support of companies that make software to edit violent or sexual scenes from DVD films.

The friend of the court brief, filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado as part of a lawsuit pitting companies that censor videos against Hollywood studios and directors, argues that computer video players produced by such companies as Trilogy Studios in Sandy and ClearPlay in Salt Lake City do not infringe on the rights of the movie makers.

Hollywood and the editing companies are at odds over whether movie lovers can rent, buy or watch videos that have been edited for objectionable content. Last year, CleanFlicks of Colorado, once a franchise of CleanFlicks in Pleasant Grove, filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to rule that their business of renting and selling edited movies is legal.

Hollywood studios and some big-name movie directors filed a counterclaim, arguing the companies violate copyright as well as trademark laws. Moviemakers claim CleanFlicks and other similar companies sell and rent films that have been changed without filmmakers' consent. "Saving Private Ryan," for example, could be sold as a Steven Spielberg movie although he did not approve the edits.

But EFF argues that companies that create software to edit out "filth" in DVDs are different from CleanFlicks because the product doesn't actually alter the DVD. As the DVD plays in a home computer, the program skips violent or sexual scenes.

"Consumers are being empowered to use technology to customize the way they view something in the privacy of their own home, and this makes Hollywood nervous," said Jason Schultz, the EFF attorney who filed the brief.

Schultz argues that companies like ClearPlay and Trilogy do not infringe on movie copyright because those laws or restrictions only apply to public performances or involve "derivative works," in which the movies are drastically changed.

"All we're asking the court to do is just look at what Congress has actually given the movie studios -- what rights they actually have -- and not the rights they wish they have," Schultz said.

The Director's Guild of America, which represents the Hollywood filmmakers, has not seen the brief and declined to comment Wednesday.

Both parties are currently gathering more evidence in the case.
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jun/06192...ness/67422.asp


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

Unwary Australian Subscribers Risk Broadband Burn
Garry Barker

Elsie (not her real name) is 90, an astonishing woman for her age. Not only has she embraced the internet as an efficient means of communicating with the far-flung generations of her big family but she has done the 21st century thing and opted for Telstra's BigPond broadband cable.

The connection is fast and Elsie uses it daily to keep in touch throughout Australia and the world.

But Elsie is now distraught. Though she signed up for a basic $54.95 plan, with 500MB of usage a month, the bill for April was more than $600 and for May more than $1200.

Yet Elsie did no more than send and receive her usual daily crop of emails, perhaps 500KB of data, up and down, in a month, well within the "free" limit allowed by her plan.

The culprits proved to be her grandchildren, their music pirate friends and KaZaA, the peer-to-peer file-swapping software. They had downloaded and installed KaZaA and used it to get pop songs they stored on the hard drive of Elsie's PC.

They had great fun finding the music and loved the way Elsie's PC with its cable connection sucked the songs down many times faster than their own dial-up
connections.

But because Elsie's computer is connected to a broadband service and is almost never switched off it is a gateway through which any of the world's 230 million KaZaA subscribers searching for pirated songs they want to upload.

What Elsie did not realise, and what has run up her bill of nearly $2000 in two months, is that the network charges for uploads from her computer as well as downloads to it.

On the basic plan she bought, Elsie pays nearly 16 cents per megabyte for traffic, either way, beyond her basic 500MB. At that price, and if all of the bill was made up of pirate uploads, Elsie's PC, acting as a hub, uploaded 3.8 gigabytes of data in April and double the figure in May. Such figures are, in fact, modest, given the millions of KaZaA pirates constantly cruising the cyberwaves of the internet looking for music and video treasure. An inviting, undefended treasure island such as Elsie's computer is a target.

For users in the US, where broadband services are more common and more competitive, and among "power users" in Australia on bigger plans, uploads of several gigabytes a month are common and not seen as expensive. US rates are considerably lower than Australia's.

Elsie's family reports that Telstra was accommodating about the first month's monster bill, but applied the "buyer beware" rule to the second.

A Telstra spokesman said it gave customers signing up for broadband service information packs about the pitfalls of leaving applications running on computers connected to always-on services.

Nor is music piracy the only source of woe for unsuspecting broadband users. Without adequate firewall protection computers are vulnerable to hackers who can "borrow" the IP address of the connection and steal gigabytes of network capacity, as well as anything that happens to be on the unprotected hard drive.

Finally, say those with the scars to prove it, everyone should check their telephone and internet bills.

Late last week the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman issued a warning to consumers of broadband internet services about the dangers of file-sharing software. Consumer complaints about unexpectedly high bills had increased by 45 per cent during the past 12 months, Ombudsman John Pinnock said.

"I am concerned that some consumers are unaware of all the conditions of use for these services and, as a result, end up with high bills," he said. People commonly failed to heed warnings from their providers about usage limits and failed to read information supplied to them.

Consumers should know their plan limits, how usage was calculated, what tools were available for monitoring usage and what charges would be levied if a plan limit was exceeded, he said. Users should also make sure they had secure passwords and up-to-date firewall and antivirus software.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...615717838.html


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

Bang Bang, She’ll Shoot You Down

Mary Bono wants to run recording industry lobbying group.
Ted Bridis

Rep. Mary Bono, who is forming a new congressional caucus on piracy and copyright issues, also wants to run the music industry's lobbying organization in Washington, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Replacing the departing chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America would be her "ideal job," spokeswoman Cindy Hartley said. She added that Bono, R-Calif., isn't actively pursuing the job and plans to run for re-election.

Political watchdog groups in Washington questioned the idea of someone being a possible job candidate for the music industry's lobby and also a founding member of a caucus focused on some of the industry's most important policy concerns.

"It certainly raises eyebrows," said Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Angering the RIAA is certainly not going to advance her job prospects, so one must wonder whether her views on this issue are motivated more by personal beliefs or her future career."

The RIAA represents major U.S. music labels and has aggressively battled the threat facing its artists from Internet pirates offering songs free for downloading using file-sharing software. Its current chief executive, Hilary Rosen, is leaving at month's end after serving as chief executive since 1998.

Bono, one of four founding members of a new caucus on intellectual property rights being announced Tuesday on Capitol Hill, "thinks it would be great, but she's extremely happy with her role in Congress," Hartley said. "She's not seeking out this role. It's nothing she honestly has even been approached about."

The RIAA declined to say whether Bono was a candidate for its top job, although Rosen has said, "I think she's great."

"We are not commenting on the search process except to say it's ongoing," spokeswoman Amy Weiss said.

Bono's financial disclosure forms, released Monday, show that she and her dependent children own copyrights on Sonny Bono's music collections worth between $580,000 and $1.3 million from the RIAA, Warner Music Group and the Bono Collection Trust. They earned royalties in 2002 worth between $210,000 and $1.225 million. Sonny Bono, the congresswoman's husband, died in a skiing accident in January 1998.

Her interest in the RIAA job was first reported during the weekend on Billboard.com, the Web site for Billboard magazine.

The director of Consumers Union, which has battled the RIAA over the rights of consumers to make digital copies of music they purchase, complained that Bono's remarks about wanting the industry job raised questions.

"We certainly hope the congresswoman is not putting her own personal interests ahead of the policy concerns of her constituents or the nation," Gene Kimmelman said. "It certainly creates an appearance question about what her true motivation is."

Bono, who easily won re-election in 2002 in a relatively safe congressional district for Republicans, is a member of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Campaign records indicate that Hollywood and the music industry were among her top contributors in the 2002 election, giving $22,100.
http://salon.com/tech/wire/2003/06/1...iaa/index.html


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

The Answer to Securing Data? Self-Destructing Files
Bernhard Warner and Lucas van Grinsven

If technology firms like Sony 6758.T and Microsoft MSFT.O have their way, songs and movies will expire after a single play -- unless you pay the copyright holder their due.

The technology that makes this possible -- known as digital rights management, or DRM -- will forever change the way we consume media and software, experts believe.

Software and media companies continue to push new content security initiatives, each plugging their own version of DRM that aims to protect content from unwelcomed eyes. In the near future, emails, spread sheet programs and Webpage content alike will be secured with digital locks.

Sun Microsystems SUNW.O said this week it plans to roll out new software to protect copyrighted content stored on mobile phones and smart cards. Meanwhile, Warner Music released the new Steely Dan album "Everything Must Go" on CD and DVD Audio, the latter being an encrypted, "rip-proof" format. The biggest market for content security is expected to be corporations, government agencies and hospitals who need to keep sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands. But so far, it's the media companies that have made most noise about DRM.

Ravaged by piracy, movie studios and recording labels have been fitting new CD and DVD releases with layers of computer code with the aim of preventing or limiting users' ability to copy, or "rip," them onto a blank disc and trade online.

Consumer electronics companies such as Sony and Nokia NOK1V.HE have stepped into the mix too, installing DRM systems into new hi-fi systems and hand-held devices to ensure copyrighted materials aren't reproduced and transferred from gadget to gadget without consumers paying for it.

The media barons insist that if consumers are going to listen to music and view movie clips and news headlines on any gadget with a screen, then the rights holders must be paid.

Media firms acknowledge they are treading a sensitive line between preserving copyrights and satisfying the consumer. A system that introduces too many limitations will most certainly end in bad PR and a consumer backlash.

"We have to find ways to mitigate piracy caused by open (technology) formats. But at the same time we have to meet consumer demand for these formats," said Barney Wragg, vice president of Universal Music's EAUG.PA V.N eLabs, a technology R&D unit for the world's largest record label.

Last year, record label Sony Music came under fire when new European CD releases by artists Celine Dion and Shakira wouldn't play on a PC or Apple's AAPL.O Macintosh computer.

A lot of the early bugs have been dealt with, and record companies say they will continue to roll out new copy-protected discs and offer online downloads that expire after a few listens based on the latest DRM systems.

But a large complication still looms -- the lack of unified standards.

DRM technologies come in a variety of flavors, pushed by device makers such as Philips PHG.AS or software firms like Microsoft, which will equip its Office 2003 software suite with user controls designating who can print, copy or forward data.

Last year, Sony and Philips acquired Intertrust, the pioneering American digital rights firm and holder of the most DRM patents, for $450 million. The duo's clout, it is hoped, will bring gadget makers and software firms onto the same page.

"It's very important to have collaboration and not confuse the consumer," said Mike Tsurumi, the European chief of Sony's electronics arm.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=2935142

[JackSpratts]

Harry Potter and the Copyright Lawyer

Use of Popular Characters Puts 'Fan Fiction' Writers in Gray Area
Ariana Eunjung Cha

While J.K. Rowling was finishing up her latest Harry Potter sequel these past three years, so was Christina Teresa.

From her third-story apartment here, Teresa typed out a 250-page novella that she posted on the World Wide Web. In the world she created, the dreaded Professor Severus Snape -- the greasy-haired, big-nosed misfit who is Harry's nemesis -- turns out to actually be a good guy trying to infiltrate the evil forces that threaten the wizarding world. The story, posted on Sugarquill.net, was an instant hit, attracting thousands of readers from around the world.

As fans await the June 21 release of Rowling's fifth novel about the magical boy with the trademark lightning scar on his forehead, they can find tens of thousands of stories online about what the boy wizard is up to next.

In the past few years, a curious literary genre known as "fan fiction" has been flourishing. The term refers to all manner of vignettes, short stories and novels based on the universes described in popular books, TV shows and movies. Similarly derived works are appearing in music, where fans are using their computers to mix songs from popular artists into new works that they call "mashups." Movie fans are taking digital copies of films such as the "Star Wars" epics and creating alternate endings or deleting characters such as the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks.

The explosion of these part-original, part-borrowed works has set authors of fan fiction against some media companies in a battle to redefine the line between consumers' right to "fair use" and copyright holders' rights to control their intellectual property.

"We don't grow up hearing stories around the campfire anymore about cultural figures. Instead we get them from books, TV or movies, so the characters that today provide us a common language are corporate creatures," said Rebecca Tushnet, an assistant professor of law at New York University who has written extensively on intellectual property.

Fan-fiction creators say their work represents the emergence of an art form that takes advantage of all that the Internet was built for. They invoke the First Amendment and say that under fair-use laws they have a right to create what they want as long as they are not trying to profit at the expense of the original material. But some book, music and movie houses argue that fan fiction is more plagiarism than high art and have demanded that operators of Web sites remove the offending material.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jun17.html


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

CA Readies All-Purpose Security Tool

Countering spam, filtering web site access, and blocking peer-to-peer file sharing. CA's new Secure Content Management claims it can do it all.
Ellen Messmer

Computer Associates International plans to ship security and policy-enforcement software this year to fight viruses and spam, filter web content, and block peer-to-peer file sharing.

CA's eTrust Secure Content Management marks the first time CA has sought to integrate security for the web, email and file transfers into one software package. The software will run on Windows platforms and will include CA's desktop antivirus product.

Ian Hameroff, CA's business manager for security solutions, said eTrust Secure Content Management would cost US$55 per seat, but only half that for users of CA's antivirus products that want to upgrade.

"That does sound appealing, and we're going to take a look at it and see if it works in our environment," says Dave Lydick, Windows NT administrator at a Pennsylvania-based retail chain which uses the CA eTrust antivirus products. His company has over 7,500 employees and 270 stores.

"We're going to be a beta customer because we do want to do content filtering, especially the peer-to-peer (P2P) applications like Kazaa," says Lydick. "P2P poses the danger of copyright violations. We'd like to be able to set a policy in place at the gateway and try to stop P2P use."

The management console for eTrust Secure Content Management will "give a bird's-eye view" of the antispam, antivirus and content-filtering activity through the gateway, said Hameroff. "There will also be a user self-service [feature] so the user can decide which e-mails are spam and which are not when the mail is blocked and held at the gateway."

This will alleviate the need for the administrator to look at all the quarantined mail, said Hameroff, adding the Secure Content Management reports can be set up to be delivered to the administrator on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Hameroff declined to say how many messages eTrust Secure Content Management might be able to process per hour to filter out spam or malicious code, noting that the product was still under development and wouldn’t ship until nearer the end of 2003. But he said that CA itself, with 16,000 employees, was now beta-testing the product.
http://www.techworld.com/news/index....ews&NewsID=179


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

Nintendo Wins Piracy Case
Reuters

Game publisher Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday it has won a series of judgments against a Hong Kong company that sold devices capable of copying its games and putting them on the Internet for limitless downloading.

Kyoto-based Nintendo described the rulings against Lik Sang International as one of its ``most significant anti-piracy judgments ever.''

A Lik Sang representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the most recent ruling, a Hong Kong judge ordered Lik Sang to pay an interim amount of HK$5 million (US$641,000) in damages late last month, Nintendo said.

The game maker had sought US$20 million in damages in its original complaint for lost revenues in 2001 and 2002.

The device at the heart of the complaint costs about US$45 and is capable of bypassing security features in Nintendo Game Boy games to extract their software, said Jodi Daugherty, director of anti-piracy for Nintendo of America Inc.

Once the software is extracted, it can be put onto cards for use in other Game Boy consoles or uploaded onto the Internet for limitless downloads throughout the world, she said.

Copied games typically sell for anywhere from US$5-15 each, compared with US$25-45 for legal products.

Following the rulings, Nintendo believes the devices, which were manufactured in China, are no longer on the market, Daugherty said.

"This was an important case for Nintendo in battling Internet piracy at its source,'' she told Reuters in a phone interview from the United States. "We're continuing to take aggressive actions in China.''

Nintendo estimates that it and its partners lost about US$650 million in sales last year due to piracy, while the entire industry lost more than US$3 billion.

Daugherty said China is one of the world's biggest bases for the manufacture, assembly and distribution of pirated video game products, both hardware and software, while Hong Kong is a major centre for copying.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS...nintendo.reut/


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

New Bill Injects FBI Into P2P Battle
David Becker

A bill introduced in Congress on Thursday would put federal agents in the business of investigating and prosecuting copyright violations, including online swapping of copyrighted works.

HR-2517, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, instructs the FBI to develop a program to deter online traffic of copyrighted material. The bureau would also develop a warning, with the FBI seal, that copyright holders could issue to suspected violators. And the bureau would encourage sharing of information on suspected copyright violations among law enforcement, copyright owners and ISPs (Internet service providers).

The bill bears the names of two legislators who have been prominent on intellectual property and copyright issues--Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Howard Berman, D-Calif. Berman gained attention last year with a bill that would have allowed copyright holders to hack into peer-to-peer networks believed to be distributing protected materials.

The new bill also calls for the Department of Justice to hire agents trained to deal with computer hacking and intellectual-property issues, and it requires the Attorney General, in conjunction with the departments of Education and Commerce, to develop programs to educate the public on copyright issues.

A lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the bill includes a number of troubling aspects, particularly the blurring of distinctions between official prosecution of criminal acts and civil enforcement of copyright provisions.

"It's doing a bunch of things to get the FBI more involved with private enforcement of intellectual-property rights," said Wendy Seltzer, staff attorney for the EFF. "It gives them a chance to scare a lot of users into thinking the government is after them."

Seltzer said the provision for ISPs to cooperate with police and copyright holders is particularly troubling from a privacy standpoint. "That would probably authorize them to tell ISPs, 'You also need to give information on users to the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) whenever they ask,'" she said.

The RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America applauded the bill. "The Smith-Berman legislation will strengthen the hand of the FBI and other federal law enforcement officials to address the rampant copyright infringement occurring on peer-to-peer networks," Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said in a statement. "This common sense, bipartisan bill will help ensure that federal prosecutors across the country have the resources and expertise to fully enforce the copyright laws on the books--especially against those who illegally distribute massive quantities of copyrighted music online."

The bill comes just days after Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised alarm by suggesting that copyright holders should be allowed to remotely destroy the PCs of music pirates.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1019811.html



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

Beyond Kazaa, a Grand Plan

Executive Seeks Partnership With Showbiz
Jonathan Krim

Nikki Hemming, who runs the world's most popular service for sharing online music and other files, has a message for the people who hate her most: Kazaa, infamous for enabling users to swap music and videos without paying for them, wants to be the official online distributor for the entertainment industry.

"Realize that this technology is inexorable, and come to the table" is what Hemming said she would say to chief music-industry lobbyist Hilary B. Rosen and Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

It's a statement of characteristic cool for Hemming, who spoke by telephone from her home in Australia hours before Kazaa took another flogging on Capitol Hill this week.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) testified that peer-to-peer networks facilitate "a new era of easily obtainable pornographic material." Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said research shows that some users of file-sharing services unwittingly expose private information on their computers, including tax returns, social security numbers and medical records.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a musician himself, said that if nothing else could stop people from stealing copyrighted works, he would support using programs to damage the computers of those who do.

As chief executive of Australia-based Sharman Networks Ltd., which owns Kazaa, Hemming has heard it all before.

Kazaa and other file-sharing services have weathered blistering legal and public relations campaigns by the entertainment industry, aimed at shutting down their businesses or at least undermining consumer confidence in them.

Yet file sharing is flourishing. The Kazaa Media Desktop software, which is free, has been downloaded more than 240 million times. Software from Morpheus, a similar service, has been downloaded more than 111 million times. Other services, including Grokster and LimeWire, also have grown remarkably.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jun18.html


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

Imprisoned for posting democracy article.

Vietnamese 'Cyber-Dissident' Jailed
Correspondents in Hanoi

VIETNAMESE cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son was jailed for 13 years on spying charges relating to an article about democracy he posted on the internet. The 34-year-old doctor was convicted on espionage charges after a half-day trial at the Hanoi People's Court. He was also ordered to be kept under house arrest for three years after his release from jail. Son was arrested in Hanoi on March 27, 2002, a few weeks after translating into Vietnamese and publishing online a feature entitled "What is democracy" extracted from the US State Department's website.

The case has cast unwanted international attention on Vietnam's human rights record and on Wednesday foreign diplomats were barred from entering the court.

News of the sentencing came as no surprise to the diplomatic community in Vietnam, where most trials, and particularly those involving political and religious dissidents, are off-limits to diplomats and foreign journalists.

"We knew the minimum sentence was 12 (years) and the maximum was the death penalty," one western diplomat said. "The sentence is hardly surprising which does not mean it is right."

Diplomats from the United States, Canada, Australia and several European Union countries had tried in vain to gain access to the proceedings after tabling a formal request with the Vietnamese authorities. But security officers prevented the diplomats from entering the building and plainclothes officers could be seen filming the stand-off.

"We had sent a request to the authorities and did not get any answer," explained another diplomat. "These things have happened before."

The London-based rights group Amnesty International blasted the court yesterday, saying the Vietnamese government had taken advantage of vague legislation to convict Son.

"Once again the Vietnamese authorities are showing blatant disregard for freedom of expression and fundamental human rights. To accuse Dr Pham Hong Son of espionage is a travesty of justice", the organization said in a statement.

A document presented as the indictment in the trial and obtained by AFP accuses Son of contact with "political opportunists" and "reactionary forces overseas". It also says Son obtained information from "articles describing distorted policies of the Communist Party as well as slander against the government". The authorities confiscated a computer and seized numerous emails from "reactionary forces overseas", a term used to describe Vietnam's enemies abroad. He was also accused of collecting money from abroad for dissidents.

"This is yet another outrageous example of Viet Nam using loosely-worded national security legislation to criminalize activities which are regarded as perfectly legal under international law and in most countries of the world," Amnesty said. Aside from Amnesty International, Son's trial has attracted strong criticism from human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

His arrest was part of the government's ongoing crackdown against intellectuals and dissidents who use the Internet to circulate news or opinion banned from the tightly controlled state press. About a million Vietnamese are estimated to have regular access to the web, mainly through internet cafes, but many sites such as those of exiled opposition groups are firewalled. In November last year cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang, a computer instructor, was jailed for four years for posting essays critical of the communist regime on the internet.

He was one of a long list of activists who have been silenced by the authorities in recent months.

Human rights groups have long accused Vietnam of smothering all dissent and routinely jailing democracy activists, critics of the regime and church leaders who do not recognise the state's authority over them.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...nbv%5E,00.html


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

Senator OK With Zapping Pirates' PCs
Declan McCullagh

Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday backpedaled slightly from his suggestion a day earlier that copyright holders should be allowed to remotely destroy the computers of music pirates.

In a brief press release, Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that he suggested the idea at Tuesday's hearing

"I think that industry is not doing enough to help us find effective ways to stop people from using computers to steal copyrighted, personal or sensitive materials," he said.

But Hatch noted that his proposed law permitting wide-scale destruction of computers used to download illicit files from peer-to-peer networks was still on the table. "I do not favor extreme remedies--unless no moderate remedies can be found," Hatch said in the statement.

Because Hatch oversees the Senate committee responsible for writing criminal laws, and because he has taken a personal interest in copyright legislation, his suggestion raised eyebrows and some alarm in Washington. It represents the most radical proposal to date in Congress, going even further than a bill introduced last year by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., that would have permitted copyright holders to disable or block a P2P node that they suspected of distributing their intellectual property without permission.

During a hearing that Hatch convened Tuesday on the "national security risks" of P2P networks, he asked a witness, "Can you destroy their set in their home?" referring to a home PC.

Randy Saaf of MediaDefender, a secretive Los Angeles company that works with the recording industry to disrupt P2P networks, replied by saying "nobody" is interested in that approach.

"I am," Hatch said. "I'm interested in doing that. That may be the only way you can teach someone about copyright...That would be the ultimate way of making sure" no more copyright is infringed.

Hatch suggested that Congress would have to amend laws restricting computer intrusions. "If it's the only way you can do it," Hatch said, "then I'm all for destroying their machines...but you'd have to pass legislation permitting that, it seems to me, before someone could really do that with any degree of assurance that they're doing something that might be proper."

Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department prosecutor who is an associate professor at George Washington University law school, says Hatch's idea "would not only be a bad idea, but an extremely bad idea. The cure would be worse than the disease."

If Hatch's proposal were to be written into law, Kerr said, it would have to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal computer crime statute. "It would give an exception to copyright owners who are taking reasonable steps to disable acts of copyright infringement," Kerr said. "The trick is that all of these (disruption or disabling) offenses are crimes under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."

In the past, Hatch has chosen sides carefully in copyright tussles. He commended the Justice Department for arresting Dmitri Sklyarov, a Russian programmer charged with criminal violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and he claimed in 1999 that the controversial law "laid the cornerstone for a rich and more vibrant Internet." But a year later, Hatch split with the Clinton administration when it sided with the record labels against Napster, and a former top Hatch aide, Manus Cooney, left to become Napster's chief lobbyist.

On Wednesday, Hatch came under attack for allegedly being a copyright pirate himself. His hatch.senate.gov Web site's menus use JavaScript code created by the U.K. company Milonic Solutions. Milonic Solutions charges between $35 and $900 for the right to obtain a license number for its JavaScript menu, but Hatch's site does not include a license number. Instead, this comment appears in the site's HTML code: "i am the license for the menu (duh)."

Hatch's proposal for legislation left public interest groups puzzled and alarmed. Mike Godwin, an attorney at Public Knowledge, said, "Much as I respect Sen. Hatch, he is virtually alone in believing that the destruction of computers could even be a last-ditch remedy for copyright infringement."

"I wish he hadn't said that," Godwin said. "And over time I suspect he'll wish he hadn't said that either."

Hatch is a conservative Mormon and former church bishop who was a presidential candidate in 2000 and is an amateur songwriter.

A Hatch representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1018845.html


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

Bringing Down The House

In CMJ’s continuing quest to solve the music industry’s financial woes, we have assembled an all-star cast to address the downloading issue.

Why don’t people see downloading music as stealing?
RAMIREZ: I think it’s hard to argue that, by now, there are people out there who don’t see downloading music as stealing.Whether or not people agree with the argument that downloading is stealing, I think most people know that, if they do it, that they’re doing something wrong.
KATZ: I’m not sure the premise of the question is correct. I think most folks are honest and don’t necessarily realize all the ramifications to the artist community.
KENNA: I think that everyone knows it’s stealing, but who’s going to stop them at this point? Not me. It’s Lord Of The Flies... we’re all basically evil.

How much would consumers be willing to pay for downloads?
LEE: I suppose it depends on variables ranging from how efficient it is to download to the quality of the song.
KENNA: Why pay? It’s free! I think Apple has it right. Make it seem cheap even if 12 downloads equals the cost of the CD anyway.
FRATT: It looks like 99 cents. It’s ironic — you can buy [albums] online for less, considering albums list at $19 with 10 to 15 tracks on average. You can bet label heads and their accountants were salivating just a few years ago thinking they could sell downloads for $1.50 to $2.50 per song. They also thought they would do it themselves and make all the money, but they’re learning the hard way now.

Is it possible to stop file-sharing?
KATZ: Piracy in one form or another has always been around. Hopefully, a higher percentage of people who obtain music online will migrate to services where the artists and others who work with them get paid.
LEE: I don’t think so.We may see it transformed as technology moves, but the idea itself is an ancient one.
RAMIREZ: No. As long as the industry focuses on putting all their work into the single, then the need for file-sharing will never stop. But if you work on making a full album, of which the music, format and artwork all work together to form the greater piece of art, it then becomes something that you can’t download.
FRATT: Is it possible to stop people from masturbating? They do it by themselves, just like file-sharing. You’ll never be able to stop one-to-one P2P. Nor should you. Turn a friend on to some music. That seems like a good thing.

Are enhanced features (such as DVDs, music videos, digital passcodes to secret Web sites, etc.) the key to bringing people back into record stores?
WALTERS: No. What keeps people coming to record stores is the support for their favorite artists and the joy of owning the “full” record. These are things that cannot be recreated digitally unless there are enhanced functions on that end. This still matters to some people.
RAMIREZ: More often than not, enhanced features are more of a burden then a selling point. I absolutely hate double CDs. I hate putting a CD in my computer and having to wade through some half-assed program to get to the music.
KENNA: Content is king. I don’t know if it brings people back to the stores, but it keeps the people with the artists. With songs so easily downloaded, it is imperative that artists pay attention to fans by making more and giving more.
FRATT: They certainly help. A DVD is valuable to consumers. But this won’t work for an unknown artist — only for established artists. However, right now, price is still the most important feature, because consumers are getting these “added-values” for $10 due to predatory pricing from the mass merchants. So, you can’t really say the added values eclipse or negate the high list price when the damn thing is still priced at $10.

How much does record pricing factor into people’s decision to download an album online?
LEE: I think a great deal. One major difference between downloading an album and buying an album is the experience of the CD as an entire artistic project. Artists who object to downloading albums say that it eviscerates it in that sense. People then, are downloading albums either because they don’t care to see the entire artistic project, or because they can’t afford it. So if record prices were lowered, the incentive to buy it in its entirety may be increased.
RAMIREZ: I don’t think that high record prices were the cause of the dramatic increase of downloading in 1999. Instead, I think that people were amazed by the fact that they could download that one song that they had been hearing on the radio or on MTV and not have to buy a whole album to get it.
KENNA: Everyone knows that the President’s focus on crap geo- political agendas is for the sake of personal financial gain. It’s no wonder our economy is in such a shambles, and people are without discretionary funds to spend on music. Of course they will download it. Prices affect everything.
FRATT: It plays a big role with younger consumers, especially since most think the non-radio tracks suck, when in some cases they just don’t have the attention span to absorb a whole album. It plays less of a role with older consumers who cannot get away with downloading for hours at work or don’t have the time at home. But Norah Jones and John Mayer owe much of their success to below $10 list prices. So pricing is important, especially with developing artists.
http://www.cmj.com/articles/display_...e.php?id=39347


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

Ween Developing Peer-To-Peer Software
Jonathan Cohen

Ween is developing a "handy-dandy" computer software application dubbed "WeenAmp" that will allow fans one-click access to the band's online radio station, official Web site, message board and chat rooms, and its own peer- to-peer service for trading live concerts. The group hopes to make the software available on copies of its upcoming Sanctuary album, "Quebec" or its Web site. "Quebec" will now arrive Aug. 5, two weeks later than its original July 22 date.

"It is great timing for such an application," the band says on its site. "With our current post-Elektra free agent status, we now have ownership and control of our music again. Just as an example -- say we were to record a [Christmas] song, we could have it in your hands immediately if you're running this application. The taping community [has] always done a great job in circulating shows and this should really pull everyone into one central location to trade good sounding shows and other MP3s."

The band says "WeenAmp" will allow users to view cybercasts of concerts from Ween's upcoming tour, including one "all-request" show where fans can vote for songs in advance. The trek begins July 24 in Pittsburgh and will likely encompass four separate legs of three-to-four weeks in North America, followed by international shows. Dates are expected to be announced shortly.

"Quebec" is Ween's first studio album since 2000's "White Pepper," which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1915809


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

Senate Committee To Address ISP Subpoenas
Debate rages over copyright violaters
Grant Gross

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has promised to hold hearings on a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that allows copyright holders to subpoena the names of alleged copyright violators from Internet service providers without even having to talk to a judge.

Senator John McCain, committee chairman and an Arizona Republican, promised hearings on the issue Thursday after Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, withdrew an amendment related to the DMCA's subpoena provision, tacked onto a bill reauthorizing the powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Brownback's amendment would have required such subpoenas to be issued only when the copyright holder is engaged in a pending civil lawsuit or other court action. Right now, the DMCA allows copyright owners to subpoena personal information of suspected copyright violators through an order issued by a court clerk.

Earlier this month, Verizon Internet Services was forced by a court to turn over the names of four suspected music downloaders to the Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA). In April, after Verizon challenged the DMCA's subpoena in court, a U.S. District Court judge upheld the legality of the administrative subpoenas, which are issued by the clerk of a court at the request of a copyright holder.

The RIAA has argued that these administrative subpoenas are a good tool in helping it combat the continuing problem of unauthorized music downloads through peer-to-peer services. Critics, including Verizon, said the DMCA makes it too easy for anyone claiming to be a copyright holder to claim a suspected violator and get the name, address and phone number of an ISP subscriber. The DMCA provision could be misused by stalkers or kidnappers to track down the names and addresses of victims, Verizon has argued.

Brownback, in the Senate Commerce Committee session, said no judicial checks and balances exist in the current law. "This is not about piracy, this is about privacy," Brownback said. "I support the protection of copyright, but this is a big privacy issue."

Brownback withdrew his amendment, saying senators may need to study the issue more. But he urged McCain to hold hearings on the DMCA subpoena process.

"Nothing in this quasi-subpoena process prevents someone other than digital media owners -- you could be a stalker, you could be a telemarketer or a spammer -- from using this quasi-subpoena process to (gain information) on an Internet subscriber, including our children," Brownback said. "I have no interest in us shielding those who have committed piracy. My concern ... is the clear threat of unintended consequences."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...Nispsub_1.html


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

Fans Have The Muscle To Shape The Movie
Scott Bowles

When Ang Lee, director of The Hulk, hinted last year that the title character might not wear his trademark purple pants — or any pants at all, for that matter — comic book devotees broke into a Bruce Banner-like rage on the Internet.

Movie fans are flexing their muscle on the Web to influence how movies like The Hulk will look.

They filled up fan Web sites and warned Lee and Marvel studios chief Avi Arad not to stray from TheHulk's illustrated origins. They threatened to bad-mouth and boycott the film, which opens nationwide today.

In the final version, the monster does indeed sport purple trousers. He's in the buff briefly, thanks to some menacing dogs. And although executives stop short of crediting Web surfers with altering the final product — the movie breaks from the comic book to alter the Hulk's power source — they concede that film fans are exerting pressure moviemakers have never seen before. (Related link: Chat with comics2film.com founder Rob Worley, read transcript.)

"I used to hate the Internet," Arad says. "I thought it was just a place where people stole our products. But I see how influential these fans can be when they build a consensus, which is what we seek. I now consider them filmmaking partners."

Internet sites have been a tool for movie marketing for the past half-decade. But special-interest sites such as SuperHeroHype.com and DarkHorizons.com are giving a powerful voice to tech-savvy fans of fantasy, horror and comic-based films. Online fanatics have helped propel tiny films to greatness, such as The Blair Witch Project, and stopped franchises in their tracks, including Batman.

A handful of Web editors wield cachet in Hollywood with Internet sites that boast followings as rabid as those for the movies they honor — or attack. Studios that once battled to shut down fan Web sites now woo those who created them, flying them to red-carpet premieres and offering exclusive promotional material once reserved for the mainstream press.

When New Line Cinema learned that Erica Challis was snapping pictures from the set of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in New Zealand for tiny J.R.R. Tolkien tribute site TheOneRing.net, it cracked down. "They sent a bailiff to my home and served me with a trespassing notice," she says.

But as the site grew to as many as 20 million visits a month, the studio reversed course and offered her set visits in the hopes of some positive buzz.

Now she knows stars Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen. "I initially thought (the site) would just be a cool thing to do," says Challis, 38. "We had no idea how big this would become."

Analysts say a handful of self-professed film geeks not only influence how well a movie does; some also affect the way the films are made. Liv Tyler's character was cut from a scene in the second Lord of the Rings after thousands of online fans protested the original script, which had her character appearing in a battle that she was not part of in the books.

And when Arad decided to give last year's Spider-Man organic web shooters instead of the man-made devices his alter-ego, Peter Parker, used in the comic book, he had to plead his case to the Internet community to stop a revolt.

"We went to the Web sites and explained," he says. "But it worked. Comic fans are open-minded if you listen to them and treat the characters they love with respect."

Arad laughs. "Who would have thought studio executives would ever have to do that?"

The relationship with the Internet elite still has its kinks. Last week, a bootleg version of The Hulk hit a few obscure Web sites to savage reviews before the sites were shut down. Universal Pictures, which distributes The Hulk, was quick to condemn the piracy but careful not to alienate audiences. The studio spent more time emphasizing that thebootleg was a rough, unedited version than it did threatening to prosecute.

The most influential movie sites receive more than 5 million visitors a month and feature chat rooms, message boards and often early peeks at movies still in production. Arad says he is using fan sites to gauge the interest in two upcoming comic films: Hellboy, starring Ron Perlman and due May 28, 2004, and The Punisher, scheduled for release next year.

"The sites are great for casting help," Arad says. "These are people who grew up with their heroes in mind. You won't ever get everyone to agree on one actor, but they can tell you if you're going in the right direction."

The superfans have "changed the way we do business," says Evan Astrowsky, producer of Cabin Fever, a teen horror film that caught the attention of Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews.com. He gave it a rave review. By the time Fever hit the Toronto Film Festival last year, it was considered a hot ticket and was purchased for $16.5 million by Lions Gate Films. It's due on more than 2,000 screens Sept. 12.

"It's hard to underestimate the influence these guys on the Net are having," Astrowsky says. The sites "may be relatively new, but they're creating real players in the movie business."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/...s-cover_x.htm#



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

Free's Better Than 99 A Song At UT

Students using fast campus connections resist efforts to deter file-sharing of music
Erik Rodriguez

For the latest in jazz, hip-hop and independent music, Joe Buglewicz doesn't have to go any farther than his keyboard.

Armed with a lightning fast Internet connection in his University of Texas dorm and a file- sharing program called Soulseek, Buglewicz can type in the names of the songs he wants, mostly from obscure or lesser-known bands. His PC will connect to another computer in cyberspace and download the songs in seconds.

"With the bands I'm looking for, the best thing for them is getting the music out," Buglewicz, 18, said last week.

Across the country, millions of people, mostly college students, use programs such as Soulseek, Morpheus and Kazaa to download digital copies of copyrighted songs, movies and television shows. That software replaced Napster, the revolutionary file- sharing program that drew more than 50 million users before lawsuits led to its demise in 2001.

Now, opponents of file-sharing are pointing to new pay services such as Apple Computer Corp.'s iTunes Music Store, which allows music lovers to legally download songs for 99 cents each, to help discourage illegal file-sharing on university campuses.

Federal lawmakers also are applying pressure to university administrators to crack down on digital music pirates.

Students don't seem to be fazed by threats of litigation, and few think their peers will embrace the new Apple service, at least for now.

"As opposed to what they're doing now?" asked Cody Yocom, 21, a government student. "I don't think they'll use it."

UT administrators say they can't prove that students are abusing their college-provided Internet access. Despite efforts to discourage illegal file-sharing, the number of copyright complaints regarding music, movies, television shows and pirated software has climbed from 76 complaints from copyright holders in 2002 to 110 from January through May of this year.
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/...7b1b300fa.html


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

Cher Farewell Grosses Confound Biz
Deborah Wilker

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - During one of the more playful moments in Cher's long-running farewell concert tour, the redoubtable Oscar winner cracks a ringmaster's whip and issues a stern warning to would-be successors "J. Lo, Britney and Christina," challenging them to "top this, you bitches."

Turns out she needn't have given those ladies a second thought.

While formerly hot sellers like Mariah Carey have scaled down this summer because of poor sales, and others such as Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake aren't doing quite the hoped-for business, promoters continue to wring far more out of Cher's farewell than they -- or she -- ever could have imagined.

After more than 140 shows, Cher's Living Proof Farewell Tour has grossed $130 million and enters its second summer as one of the season's strongest draws; her new greatest-hits CD, "The Very Best of Cher," just hit 1 million in sales and spent two improbable months in Billboard's Top 10; on July 6, NBC will rebroadcast the concert special that was a ratings-grabber in April; ABC's "Prime Time Live" just refreshed a 2002 interview for the third time with new footage; there's a concert DVD due in August; and Warner Strategic Marketing is also readying a long-awaited music video package on DVD for Oct. 28.

"Hundred-million-dollar tours don't come along every day," says Ray Waddell, a senior writer at Billboard who tracks the touring industry. "Last year, she was the second-highest-grossing tour in the world, behind Paul McCartney." As for the hot album, Waddell says, "Sometimes the public just rediscovers (the music). She's riding that wave right now."

The strong box office is clearly due in part to some fans attending more than once, the result of modestly priced tickets ranging from $32-$75 in the majority of markets. (Only in a few big cities do tickets exceed $75.) While some icons routinely charge prices of $200 and up, Cher and others like Bruce Springsteen -- also capped at about $75 -- are relative bargains.

While the star and her handlers may be happily startled by this latest peak, there's at least one industry observer who isn't.

"You can never be entirely certain about how the public's going to react," says veteran chart-watcher Geoff Mayfield of Billboard. "It also speaks to who's buying records. It's an older audience that has not been as diluted by peer-to-peer file-sharing and CD burning. You're talking about a consumer who doesn't mind going out and buying a CD. That Cher would be successful with a hits package that gets different corners of a career represented in one house, that's not a shocker."
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=2955756


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

1.5Mbit ADSL drops below $120
Dan Warne

Competition is becoming savage in the broadband market, with price leading ISP Netspace releasing a 1.5Mbit ADSL plan with 8GB of data for the jaw-dropping price of $119.

A 'flat rate' version of the plan is available for the same price, allowing customers to continue using their connection at 56Kbit speeds, even if they have reached their 8GB limit.

The aggressive move by Netspace is likely to trigger a price war at the high end of the ADSL market. Other ISPs are already coming close to Netspace's leading price, with plans ranging from 3GB to 10GB of data from $125/mth upwards.

Netspace Managing Director Stuart Marburg told Whirlpool the plan was profitable, but did not include a 'lot of fat', due to Telstra's high pricing for the physical 1.5Mbit connection.

"What we are really trying to do with this plan is provide options for people who want a fast link, but don't necessarily need huge amounts of data -- although 8GB is quite enough for a lot of people," he said.

Netspace has become popular with the file sharing community due to its free peer- to-peer data.

However it only provides one email address with its broadband services. Mr Marburg said this was under active review at Netspace, but that their team had been focusing on getting the new plan out the door first.

The new Netspace plan may be of interest to customers wanting to migrate off cable, especially Optus users who finally lost NetStats in the last 3 months. The new plan offers the closest speeds possible to cable and 5GB more than Optus or Telstra offer.

Internode also recently boosted value at the low end of the market, bumping up its sub $50 plan to match Netspace's 1GB of included data. It also released a 2GB plan for $59.95, providing a welcome intermediary step between its low end plan and its 4.5GB plan. Netspace offers a similarly priced 2GB plan, but with a bonus 2GB of data to be used in off peak times.
http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1144


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

Orrin Hatch Supports Terrorism
Dana Blankenhorn

What do you call someone who advocates the destruction of the property your livelihood depends on to fight a crime you may not consider a crime, and may not in fact be guilty of?

I call him a terrorist, too.

What do you call someone who says your life, liberty, and happiness should be determined, not through a system of laws, but arbitrarily, through raw power?

I call him an anarchist, too.

Now, what if this someone is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/20030601.shtml#40320


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

Macrovision Splits Into Two Units
Lisa M. Bowman

Digital rights management company Macrovision is splitting into two business units that will focus on either entertainment or software- protection products.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company on Tuesday said the Entertainment Technologies Group will include video and music technology and the part of its consumer software division that handles its SafeDisc protection technology. The company's Software Technologies Group will comprise its enterprise software division and SafeCast protection technology.

Macrovision, which makes copy-protection software, said it decided to reorganize because entertainment and software companies have different protection needs.

"With this reorganization, our heightened focus and seasoned management team can accelerate our ability to deliver seamless, robust copy protection," company CEO Bill Krepick said in a statement.

Macrovision Chief Technology Officer Steven Weinstein will serve as general manager of the Entertainment Technologies Group. Dan Stickel, who led the enterprise software division, will serve as general manager of the Software Technologies Group.

Macrovision says its anticopying protection has been applied to more than 100 million CDs. In April, the company struck a licensing deal with Microsoft.

Macrovision's software also has come under fire. In May, Intuit announced that it would discontinue using Macrovision's product-activation technology, which locks software to a specific PC, because of customer complaints.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1018215.html


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

Contract Trumps Copyright—Again
Donna Wentworth

Disappointing, but important to note: the Supreme Court recently denied the petition for cert in Bowers v. Baystate. Via the invaluable digital-copyright list, the Tech Law Journal:

6/16. The Supreme Court denied certiorari, without opinion, in Baystate v. Bowers, a patent, copyright and contract case involving CAD software....This denial lets stand the January 29, 2003, revised opinion of the US Court of Appeals (FedCir) which addressed federal preemption, shrink wrap contracts, and reverse engineering. Basically, a shrinkwrap contract barred reverse engineering of a software program. A divided Appeals Court held that the Copyright Act does not preempt state contract law that allows parties to impose a ban on reverse engineering.
http://www.copyfight.org/20030601.shtml#40574


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

Music Industry Down So Long It's Singin' the Blues
Merissa Marr


This year's top-selling album from bullet-ridden rapper 50 Cent could easily be the motto for the struggling music industry -- "Get Rich or Die Tryin."'

Despite scoring big time with the rap hit, the world's biggest music company Universal Music signaled this week that the industry is limping more visibly than many expected, putting added pressure on labels to cut costs and do deals to survive.

The industry gloom is bad timing for the music giant which is being considered for sale as part of an auction of parent Vivendi Universal's U.S. entertainment assets.

It also does not bode well for smaller companies such as Warner Music and BMG. Sources close Rto the companies said the two were pushing on with talks to merge their recorded music arms and Warner Music is also seeking to wrap up a deal to sell its CD/DVD manufacturing unit in the next month or two.

The industry has seen three years of decline, ravaged by a lack of hits, fans downloading music for free and an obsolete business model that relies on rolling the dice for mega hits.

Universal Music, also home to U2 and rapper Eminem, estimates industry sales sank 12 percent in the first quarter, dashing hopes for a less steep decline in sales this year.

Admittedly, the release of new albums was thin in the quarter -- normally a weak period after a busy Christmas, making it an unreliable indicator of the rest of the year.

All the same, it has not been a good start and Universal's figures suggest the industry could top the five percent decline in sales predicted by industry body the IFPI in April.

"I would think a fall of about eight percent this year was more likely. This is a market in historical decline and the decline could accelerate this year," said Phil Hardy from Music & Copyright which publishes market share data.

First-quarter figures from individual countries indicate the world's biggest market, the United States, declined just over eight percent, British sales slid 13 percent, Japan fell 12 percent and Germany is expected to have topped them all.

The big five -- Universal, Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music and BMG -- have been hit particularly hard and almost all of them have been slashing costs and exploring deals to survive.

Spooked into action, the smallest -- EMI, Warner and BMG -- have been in on-off talks, the most serious so far being a Warner/BMG combine, sources close to the companies say.

"The talks are on. Whether the two sides will be able to see eye to eye on valuation is another thing," said one source.

But sources say EMI has also held talks with Warner and BMG. While industry insiders say they expect some sort of deal this year, they say it's hard to predict who will pull it off.

"There clearly needs to be more mergers between these companies, primarily because it provides the opportunity to streamline their operations and focus on their spending on what matters most, which is music and the promotion of music," said Michael J. Wolf, managing partner of McKinsey's media practice.

In the meantime, jobs, acts and labels are being cut to limit losses. British-based EMI, home to the Rolling Stones and Norah Jones, managed a profit last year despite losing market share -- only after slashing thousands of jobs and acts.

"This year doesn't look like a cracking year and we are sure to see more attempts to cut costs," said one industry executive.

(additional reporting by Reshma Kapadia in New York)
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2956496


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

Western Europe


Sweden's Get Tough Copyright EUCD Proposal

Now once the EUCD legislation is starting to getimplemented in various different European Union countries, people are beginning to wake up and oppose the changes. Unfortunately this is too late now. The EUCD, European Union Copyright Directive was approved by the EU parliament already in 2001 without virtually anyone noticing it.

EUCD simply states that all European Union member countries (and those joining to EU next year) need to implement the directive into their national laws. The original deadline for doing so was in December, 2002 but as always, all countries missed the deadline. Now, the EUCD legislation is active in handful of EU member countries -- and once again, most of those living in these countries don't even know about it. Some of the countries that have -- as far as we know -- implemented the legislation already are Germany and Denmark.

So, what EUCD requires? It very clearly states that all tools and software that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms (whether built by programming or by mechanical means) will be banned within the European Union. The directive doesn't specifically make it illegal to use such tools, but makes it illegal to distribute, sell and advertise such tools. Prime example of such tools are DVD rippers. So, if a site is located within the European Union, it can't distribute DVD rippers (if its national country has already implemented the EUCD).

As a direct result of Germany's EUCD legislation, the most popular DVD ripping pack for Linux, dvd::rip had to be modified so that it doesn't include any parts that allow circumventing the CSS copy protection.

Now Sweden has announced its proposal for implementing the EUCD into its own legislation. Sweden has obviously decided to take things a bit further than EUCD would require. In addition to banning distribution of copy protection circumvention tools, Sweden's proposal makes it also illegal to download copyrighted material from P2P networks (traditionally within the EU, downloading illegal material is perfectly legal, but distributing it -- such as sharing the material via P2P networks -- is illegal) and also adds a levy to blank digital media to compensate copyright owners for lost revenue (such levy has existed years in various countries, such as Finland and Canada).

The most dramatic thing is probably the proposed rate for the media levy -- the levy (or stealth tax or whatever you want to call it) would add a decent SEK31 (appx. €3.4 or $4.0) to each blank DVD-RW or DVD+RW disc despite its existing retail price. The proposed levy for recordable discs (whether a CD-R or DVD-R or other digital medium) is SEK0.0025 per megabyte and SEK0.007 for re-recordable discs (such as DVD-RW, CD-RW or DVD+RW).

If the proposed law passes in Sweden's parliament, it will be implemented as a law by end of the year.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4190.cfm



Speedy Cable Modem In Upc Broadband Application Trials
Joe Figueiredo

Dutch cable company UPC is testing the latest high-speed cable-modem standard, Euro-DOCSIS 2.0, which, according to UPC, can reach a theoretical speed of 10 Mbps, permitting a maximum of six telephone lines and an internet connection with four-times the present cable-speed.

Established as an international standard last year, Euro-DOCSIS 2.0 not only makes cable telephony easier but its increased capacity makes it ideal for web surfing and other innovative broadband applications.

Equally important, the modem trial also demonstrates that the ‘old’ cable infrastructure—a combination of glass- fibre and coaxial—is ready for the future.

The pilot is being conducted in a ‘model’ home (where other domestic technological innovations, like wireless LAN and digital television, are being tested) in the new urban development of Amsterdam Ijburg, and will run until November.

Subscribers to UPC’s Chello internet service, however, will not have access to these high-speed modems as yet. UPC is waiting for modem suppliers to ramp up production before it announces a delivery date.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16784



Irish Schools To Get Broadband Connections
Brian Lavery

The Irish government communications minister, Dermot Ahern, said yesterday that he would provide broadband Internet connections for every school, library and community center in Ireland. Speaking after meeting Estonian officials in Tallinn, Estonia, Mr. Ahern said the connections should not cost more than 30 million euros ($35.4 million), and could be financed by a new tax on telecommunications companies. Despite state efforts to promote the Internet, only 38 percent of the Irish population use the Internet. Brian Lavery (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...y/19TBRF1.html



Yahoo and BT team up to offer bundled broadband

Companies attempt to boost UK take-up
Scarlet Pruitt

British Telecommunications PLC (BT) is teaming with Yahoo Inc. to offer a joint Internet and broadband service to customers in the U.K. in an effort to drum up increased DSL (digital subscriber line) adoption.

The companies said that they plan to roll out a bundled BT Yahoo Broadband service beginning in September, featuring a customized browser, personalized homepage and a variety of other new broadband applications that have yet to be announced.

The partners did say, however, that they are developing new services that will make use of Yahoo's Messenger instant messaging (IM) application, and would provide features such as bolstered e-mail services and streaming news and entertainment.

The offering comes as BT looks to further the rollout of broadband in the U.K. Separately Monday it said it hopes to amass 5 million broadband customers by 2006, translating into £1 billion (US$1.7 billion) of revenue annually, and reaffirmed its financial targets for the coming quarters. BT currently boasts about 1 million wholesale broadband users.

"As broadband moves to the mass market, it needs to offer greater services, content and applications," said BT spokesman Tony Henderson. "This offering with Yahoo lifts the whole broadband experience."

The new service will be priced the same as BT's Openworld broadband offering at £29.99 a month, Henderson said, and Openworld customers will be given the ability to migrate to the joint service in coming months.

The companies will also offer a narrowband version of the bundled service.

Henderson declined to provide further details about the new services and applications that will be offered, saying only that the companies will be announcing them shortly. BT and Yahoo have scheduled a press conference for later Monday to discuss the joint initiative.
http://www.techworld.com/news/index....ews&newsid=170



Gargantuan Campus Hotspot The 'Biggest In Europe'
David Minto

A university in the Netherlands has launched a gargantuan hotspot which is claimed to be the biggest Europe

Built in conjunction with IBM and Cisco Systems, the University of Twente hotspot extends over the entire 346 acres of the campus, supporting 6,000 students and 2,500 staff members, and employing 650 Cisco Aironet 12000 series access points.

Most of the network uses 802.11b, but parts already run on the faster, newer 802.11a standard. Built up over a period of two years, the Wireless Campus project has also employed WAP and GPRS, and in the future plans to roll out UMTS.

University representative Wiebe van der Veen told ZDNet UK that so far the project had been largely trouble free: "Students and staff are quick adopters of these nice facilities," van der Veen said. "The flexible way of teaching that this allows also helps with new students who have experienced new ways of (learning) at school. They're not used to classical ways of knowledge transfer anymore."

According to ZDNet UK, the University of Twente is one of the heaviest users of the internet in the Netherlands. It also hosts a hacking-conference-cum-festival called Hackers at Large.
http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16776



Industry Group Urges Government To Think Twice On Open Source
Matthew Broersma

A UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government to show restraint in its use of open-source software, particularly software covered by the General Public License.

Intellect, which was formed from the merger of the Computer Services and Software Association and the Federation of the Electronics Industry last year, and represents about 1,000 UK IT companies, said that the requirement of open-source licences for software funded by the government could have a negative impact on competition for contracts, the quality of the resulting software and even the confidentiality of government departments.

In particular, Intellect recommended that the government drop the GNU General Public License (GPL), the licence upon which the GNU/Linux operating system is based, from its list of acceptable default licences for government-funded software, and steer clear of the GPL generally.

The comments appeared in a response paper published last month, but more widely publicised last week. Intellect was taking part in a consultation by the Office of the E-Envoy and the Department of Trade and Industry on the use of open-source software, which has proposed requiring open-source licences for publicly-funded software development.

The OEE and the DTI are considering establishing open-source licence terms as the default for government-funded software, which would apply when no other terms were specified, in order to ensure that publicly-funded software projects can be utilised and built upon as freely as possible.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136285,00.html


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

Mary Bono Forms Caucus On Music Piracy And Copyrights
AP

Rep. Mary Bono, who is forming a new congressional caucus on music piracy and copyrights, sought Monday to
defuse speculation over whether she wants to run the music industry's lobbying organization in Washington, saying she isn't actively seeking the job.

Bono, R-Calif., said she hasn't considered whether she would accept a prospective offer to replace the departing chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America but stopped short of denying she was interested.

Her spokeswoman, Cindy Hartley, earlier had described the position as Bono's ``ideal job'' but said her boss wasn't actively pursuing the position and plans to run for re-election.

``I am not actively seeking that job,'' Bono said. ``I have not talked to them, they have not talked to me. I haven't put myself through the mental gymnastics about whether I would or wouldn't take that job. I have my ideal job. I'm very happy where I am.''

Political watchdog groups in Washington questioned the idea of a member of Congress being a possible job candidate for the music industry's lobby and a founding member of a caucus to focus on some of the industry's most important policy concerns.

``It certainly raises eyebrows,'' said Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. ``Angering the RIAA is certainly not going to advance her job prospects, so one must wonder whether her views on this issue are motivated more by personal beliefs or her future career.''

The RIAA represents major U.S. music labels and has aggressively battled the threat facing its artists from Internet pirates offering songs free for downloading using file-sharing software. Its current chief executive, Hilary Rosen, is leaving at month's end after serving as chief executive since 1998.

Bono is among four founding members of a new caucus on intellectual property rights being announced Tuesday on Capitol Hill. She said Monday night she hasn't seriously considered whether she wants the RIAA job.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/6106124.htm


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

'Potter' Author Sues Paper Over Leak

NEW YORK (AP) -- The author of the Harry Potter book series has slapped the Daily News with a $100 million lawsuit after the newspaper published tidbits about the fifth novel four days before its official release.

The News said it bought a copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" from a health food store that had mistakenly put the book out for sale Wednesday despite being embargoed until Saturday.

The suit, prepared by lawyers for author J.K. Rowling and U.S. publisher Scholastic Inc., claims the newspaper damaged Rowling's intellectual property rights and harmed Scholastic's $3 million worldwide marketing campaign.

The book -- the fifth installment of the adventures of the boy wizard -- has been under extraordinary security ahead of the release. In a statement, Scholastic said it hoped "this unfortunate situation will not spoil the surprise for millions of children around the country who have been eagerly awaiting the book."

Scholastic provided a copy of the suit to The Associated Press and said it had been filed late Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. There was no way to verify the claim Wednesday evening.

"We will vigorously defend any action and are confident we did nothing wrong journalistically or legally," Daily News spokesman Ken Frydman said.

The News story contained what it called a "brief glimpse into the 870 action-packed pages" of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." An accompanying graphic displayed, with legible text, two of the novel's pages.

The News said the health store owner received a shipment of four books from a wholesaler and decided to put them in the window. The owner told the paper he didn't know he was supposed to wait until Saturday. The paper withheld the name of the store and its owner.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamBooks/jun18_potter-ap.html


Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne


LOTR Book Settlement

After multiple revisions, a chronology of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved three-volume fantasy The Lord of the Rings by a one-man publishing house here has finally passed muster with the English author's estate.

The lawsuit against Michael W. Perry and his Inkling Press, filed in 2002 by Christopher Tolkien for the Tolkien Trust, was dismissed in January by U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein.

No motion to reopen the case was filed within the 120-day deadline she set for settlement negotiations.

"Everything is cleared up," Perry said Wednesday. "The final settlement is signed."

Lance Koonce, the New York attorney representing the estate, declined comment, citing a nondisclosure clause in the settlement.

In a joint statement, the two sides said that "as Mr. Perry has substantially changed the book, the estate has withdrawn its objection to publication of the book, but does not approve or in any way endorse the book as published."

Perry's first effort was titled The Lord of the Rings Diary: A Chronology of J.R.R. Tolkien's Best-selling Epic.

The latest version is titled Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings.

Lawyer Mel Simburg said he helped Perry restructure the book "so that it more closely fit what he was trying to do, which was to create a chronology of fictional events."

Perry has all along characterized his book as a guide to ease readers through the Tolkien trilogy's layers of time and space and myriad characters.

The wondrously complicated Ring trilogy is not written in chronological order, Simburg noted.

"One goal of Perry's was to enable serious readers and fans of Lord of the Rings to be able to tell what was happening at different places in the same time period," Simburg said.

"If the Ring were chronological to begin with," he noted, Perry would have had no legal grounds to fight for his undertaking.

The case appears to affirm that such a chronological reference -- when it includes substantial analysis and commentary -- is fair use, Simburg said. "It leaves open the question if that kind of chronological reference would be fair use without the analysis and commentary."

Perry's publishing operation earns about $500 in a good month. He said he's been approached by two larger publishers about the Tolkien book.

Last year, estate representative Wendy Strothman in Oxford, England, characterized his initial effort as a retelling of the tale and said people interested in the book "should read the original." In the initial exchanges, the estate lawyers' cited "at least $750,000" in potential damages.

Perry's previous works include Stories for Girls, which transforms dense 19th century translations of Hans Christian Andersen's tales into modern English. They've been sold through several publishing channels, including Amazon.com.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamLordOfTheRing...lement-ap.html


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

What an ego.

Spat Over Spike TV Costing Viacom Millions

Viacom Inc. said it will lose $16.8 million in the first week after filmmaker Spike Lee's so-far successful bid to keep its TNN cable network from being renamed Spike TV.

Lee, who claimed the name change was a deliberate attempt to hijack his image and prestige, won a preliminary injunction in state Supreme Court last week barring TNN from calling itself Spike TV starting Monday. Lawyers for Viacom, the media giant that owns the CBS network, appealed.

In papers filed at the Appellate Division, Viacom says it stopped displaying the Spike TV logo on TV screens at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when the name change was to occur, because of the lower-court ruling by Justice Walter Tolub.

This created "confusion, expense and disruption" for cable operators and is likely to cause TNN "untold loss of advertising revenue likely to be in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars."

"We have already obtained commitments from advertisers for 2003 and 2004 in excess of $100 million -- specifically predicated on use of the Spike TV name," court papers say. "Should we be unable to use the name, the commitments would be in severe jeopardy."

Clara Kim, TNN's vice-president for business and legal affairs, said in court papers the $500,000 bond the court ordered Lee to post to pay Viacom's expenses in case the company wins "was grossly inadequate." Kim said Tuesday the network's "estimated losses for the first week of the injunction alone are in excess of $16.8 million."

Viacom, which bought TNN in 2000, also owns the Showtime movie channel, MTV, VH1, UPN and book publisher Simon & Schuster. It announced in April that it would change TNN's name to Spike TV to try to attract more men to an audience that's already about two-thirds male.

The channel, which changed its name two years ago from The Nashville Network to The National Network, shows reruns of The A- Team, Baywatch and Miami Vice and sports entertainment such as professional wrestling, American Gladiators, Car and Driver Television and Trucks.

TNN also carries an animated series featuring Pamela Anderson as the voice of Stan Lee's Stripperella, an undercover agent who's also a stripper.

Spike Lee complained that TNN's name change would associate him with the "demeaning, vapid and quasi-pornographic content of Spike TV."

Viacom's lawyers say Spike is a common name that doesn't necessarily prompt thoughts of the 46-year-old film director. They said he's known as Spike Lee, not simply Spike. They also noted that "spike" is a common and frequently used word with many meanings.

Lee, whose given name is Shelton Jackson Lee, has been nominated twice for Academy Awards, for 4 Little Girls and Do the Right Thing. His other films include Malcolm X, Summer of Sam and Jungle Fever.
http://www.canoe.ca/Television/jun18_spike-ap.html


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

Among Film's Ghosts, Its Future
Eric a. Taub

HOLLYWOOD -- MISGUIDED tourists regularly troll the seedy sections of Hollywood Boulevard for bits of film industry lore, unaware that the stars and studios left decades ago. But hidden among the homeless and the sex shops is a structure that is as much a part of Hollywood's future as its past.

Behind cast-iron gates lies the Hollywood Pacific Theater, an Italianate palace originally built (but finished too late) for the 1927 premiere of "The Jazz Singer," the first sound film with some spoken dialogue. It has been closed for years, but recently reopened as a test bed for the motion picture industry's next great technical revolution: digital projection.

Where thousands once congregated in ornate halls, today a handful of film executives and technicians use cellphones to communicate across the dark, ghostly space, awaiting the next screening of test images in the otherwise empty theater. On any given day, Shrek and his friends might be gamboling across the screen or Obi-Wan Kenobi might be dueling with his light saber as experts work to devise standards for the movie theater of the future.

The tests are being conducted by the Digital Cinema Laboratory, an organization set up by the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center. A consortium of seven Hollywood studios have contracted with the laboratory to choose the specifications for the equipment and software with which the industry will one day distribute and project feature films without any film at all.

Some of the testing is scientific, designed to measure, for example, the brightness and sharpness of a digitally projected image on a screen. Experts with the Entertainment Technology Center use a 25-foot-tall crane fitted with sensors to measure both transmitted and reflected light as it hits various points on the screen as small as one pixel. "We're still in the calibration stage," said Charles S. Swartz, executive director and chief executive of the Entertainment Technology Center. "We're defining the parameters that are important to measure." But because the movie-viewing experience can be a distinctly subjective one, the Digital Cinema Laboratory is also using "expert viewers," motion picture industry professionals, to evaluate picture quality and is considering forming a viewing panel of college students, too. "Picture quality is not a simple question of numbers," Mr. Swartz said. "We need to understand better how our brains fill in parts of a picture to improve its perceived quality, even if that data is not literally on the screen."

Digital projection potentially offers many advantages over today's film-based system. For the moviegoer, digital prints look as good after the 100th showing as after the first. They appear rock-steady when projected, and don't get scratched or covered with dust and hair.

There are also big economic advantages for the studios. They stand to save $1 billion each year if they no longer have to produce and ship film prints to each of the world's 150,000 screens but instead can transmit them as electronic files through a high-speed data link, or physically deliver them on a hard disk or other storage medium.

At the multiplex, films will be stored on a drive, and an operator will simply issue a set of keyboard commands to a server computer to send a film to digital projectors in as many theaters as warranted. Splicing and threading huge rolls of film will be a thing of the past.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19cine.html


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

Freedom to Play Music, but Not to Share It
J. D. Biersdorfer

Q I use the iTunes 4 music program for the Macintosh. Do I need authorization from Apple to play A.A.C. music files that I have created myself, or just for the files that I download from the iTunes Music Store?

A. The latest version of Apple's music-management program, iTunes 4, includes the ability to play and encode music tracks in Advanced Audio Coding format, known as A.A.C., as well as in MP3 and other digital audio file types. A.A.C.'s compression technology produces audio files that sound good but take up less space on the computer than MP3 files do.

Apple's new online iTunes Music Store (www.apple.com/music/store), which sells its songs in the A.A.C. format, adds copy-protection features to prevent purchased songs from being traded freely on the Internet.

Before you can play a purchased song on your Macintosh, you need to authorize the computer to play it by sending a bit of information to Apple over the Internet. You can authorize up to three computers to play purchased songs from the iTunes Music Store, and also record the tracks to a compact disc.

Because there is no copy protection built into files that you create yourself by converting music tracks from compact discs into A.A.C. files, they do not require such authorization.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19askk.html


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

Gestar To Quit Electronic Book Business
Brian Lavery

Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., the television programming guide company that once aspired to be the top electronic book supplier, said yesterday that it would quit that business in July. It also said that it had stopped selling devices to read e-books. Gemstar, which had said for months that it would consider options like an outright sale of its e-book business, said it would refund unused parts of prepaid subscriptions. Customers of the service paid to download and read e-books with a portable tabletlike device called a reader. Customers can continue to download books that they have already bought for another three years, Gemstar said. For more than a year, Gemstar has been under a cloud, battered by write-downs for the value of its TV Guide business, losses in major patent disputes and questions over its accounting practices. (Reuters)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...y/19TBRF1.html


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

Heavy Rotation At Home, But Not Quite Ready For MTV
Charles Herold

I you have karaoked to your heart's content and are ready to make some music on your own, Music Maker 2004 Deluxe from Magix can help you take that next step. The program is a music workstation that includes all the tools needed to make audio recordings and music videos on your computer.

Well, maybe not all the tools. At a suggested price of $59.99 (available at retailers or at www.magix.com) Music Maker is a lot less expensive and offers fewer features than programs like Sonic Foundry's Vegas 4.0, which costs $500. But Music Maker 2004 Deluxe includes various synthesizers for such instruments as drums, bass, piano and guitar. And you can tailor your sound by adjusting reverb, pitch and compression on a pop-up master effects console that is designed to look like recording studio hardware.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/te...ts/19musi.html


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

Probe finds 'significant misuse' Internet at IRS
AP

Internal Revenue Service employees using thousands of computers accessed prohibited Web sites that included personal e- mail, sexually explicit sites and games. To Treasury investigators, it was a sign that "significant misuse" of the Internet continues after a crackdown a year ago.

"Employee abuse of the Internet is still widespread," the investigators reported.

The results of the Treasury Department investigation disappointed lawmakers who pushed the IRS to revise its Internet policies and block access to prohibited sites after a study in 2001 showed IRS employees spent more than half their workday on the Internet for personal reasons.

"This is a classic case of people getting an inch and taking a mile," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley said Thursday.

"Nobody should collect a government salary to sit on their behinds and play around in chat rooms," said Grassley, R-Iowa, who oversees the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service.

More than 28 percent of the inappropriate Web browsing was traced to 122 computers, leading investigators to conclude that a small number of employees were chronic abusers.

But the investigators found enough evidence that IRS employees accessed prohibited sites to determine that a large number of employees continue to use the Internet inappropriately. The study could not determine the exact number of employees involved.

Personal e-mail topped the list among computers showing evidence of banned Web usage. It was followed by games, chat rooms and sexually explicit sites. Also accessed were music, streaming news and video, and instant messaging.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne....ap/index.html


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

Rosen To Catch Air As Pundit For CNBC
Tim Arango

Hilary Rosen, the outgoing head of the Recording Industry Association of America, has landed an on-air gig at CNBC, The Post has learned.

Rosen, who will officially step down from her powerful RIAA post at the end of the month, has inked a deal to be a commentator for CNBC, she recently told music industry executives in an e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

Her gig will begin Aug. 1. According to the e-mail, she will discuss politics on the network's evening show, "Capitol Report," and give commentary on the media industry on the shows "Power Lunch" and "Squawk Box."

"They are looking for me to do the larger picture on some of the content convergence and media consolidation issues and know that I have a point of view on many issues as a longtime advocate," she wrote in the e-mail.

She added that she will assist the network in its coverage of Congress and the upcoming presidential election.

Rosen, who has been the chairwoman and CEO of the RIAA since 1998, announced in January her intention of stepping down.
http://www.nypost.com/business/1319.htm


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

Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate?
Leander Kahney

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.

But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.

The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.

"It's an unlicensed copy," said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. "It's very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made."

Hatch on Tuesday surprised a Senate hearing on copyright issues with the suggestion that technology should be developed to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Net.

Hatch said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights," the Associated Press reported. He then suggested the technology would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

Any such technology would be in violation of federal antihacking laws. The senator, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested Congress would have to make copyright holders exempt from current laws for them to legally destroy people's computers.

On Wednesday, Hatch clarified his comments, but stuck by the original idea. "I do not favor extreme remedies -- unless no moderate remedies can be found," he said in a statement. "I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies."

Just as well. Because if Hatch's terminator system embraced software as well as music, his servers would be targeted for destruction.

Milonic Solutions' JavaScript code used on Hatch's website costs $900 for a site-wide license. It is free for personal or nonprofit use, which the senator likely qualifies for.

However, the software's license stipulates that the user must register the software to receive a licensing code, and provide a link in the source code to Milonic's website.

On Wednesday, the senator's site met none of Milonic's licensing terms. The site's source code (which can be seen by selecting Source under the View menu in Internet Explorer) had neither a link to Milonic's site nor a registration code.

However, by Thursday afternoon Hatch's site had been updated to contain some of the requisite copyright information. An old version of the page can be seen by viewing Google's cache of the site.



"They're using our code," Woolley said Wednesday. "We've had no contact with them. They are in breach of our licensing terms."

When contacted Thursday, Woolley said the company that maintains the senator's site had e-mailed Milonic to begin the registration process. Woolley said the code added to Hatch's site after the issue came to light met some -- but not all -- of Milonic's licensing requirements.

Before the site was updated, the source code on Hatch's site contained the line: "* i am the license for the menu (duh) *"

Woolley said he had no idea where the line came from -- it has nothing to do with him, and he hadn't seen it on other websites that use his menu system.

"It looks like it's trying to cover something up, as though they got a license," he said.

A spokesman in Hatch's office on Wednesday responded, "That's ironic" before declining to put Wired News in contact with the site's webmaster. He deferred comment on the senator's statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which did not return calls.

The apparent violation was discovered by Laurence Simon, an unemployed system administrator from Houston, who was poking around Hatch's site after becoming outraged by his comments.

Milonic's Woolley said the senator's unlicensed use of his software was just "the tip of the iceberg." He said he knows of at least two other senators using unlicensed copies of his software, and many big companies.

Continental Airlines, for example, one of the largest airlines in the United States, uses Woolley's system throughout its Continental.com website. Woolley said the airline has not paid for the software. Worse, the copyright notices in the source code have been removed.

"That really pisses me off," he said.

A spokesman for Continental said the airline would look into the matter.

Woolley makes his living from his software. Like a lot of independent programmers, he struggles to get people to conform to his licensing terms, let alone pay for his software.

"We don't want blood," he said. "We just want payment for the hard work we do. We work very, very hard. If they're not prepared to pay, they're software pirates."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59305,00.html











Until next week,

- js.










~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Current Week In Review.

Recent WIRs -


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16638 June 14th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16580 June 7th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16489 May 31st
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16411 May 24th


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

[multi]

MEGA!

[Ðiego]

Boy, you done been sin·d·cated

Goto Naphoria, shift-refresh and select news..


Ð

[JackSpratts]

i like the format. thanks d!

if only randolf hearst were alive to see this special day.

- js.