Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – June 11th, ‘05

[JackSpratts]

It's not only merely dead; it's really most sincerely dead

U.K. Suspends Vote On EU Constitution
AP, Agence France-Presse

LONDON The British prime minister's office confirmed on Monday that Britain had put off a referendum on the EU constitution, following its rejection in France and the Netherlands.

At issue on Monday evening was whether other nations would follow suit, potentially casting the British government's decision as the "last nail" in the document's coffin.

An official spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said the results of the French and Dutch referendums had to be discussed at the European Council summit meeting later this month.

"Given that, it does not make sense to proceed at this point," said the spokesman.

He said that indefinitely delaying the referendum did not send a message that Britain thought the EU constitution was dead.

"What we are doing is reflecting the fact that we are in uncertain times, and in uncertain times you should not just give a knee-jerk response," the spokesman said.

Confirmation of the government's decision came hours ahead of a statement by the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to the House of Commons outlining the government's position.

Straw was given the task of choosing his words carefully before Parliament on Monday afternoon, to avoid making Britain appear as the country that killed the treaty while announcing a temporary freeze of the bill that would have allowed the referendum to proceed in Britain in early 2006.

Straw has insisted on the need for the British government to respect the results of the French and Dutch plebiscites

Two other nations seemed immediately vulnerable to the British decision.

In Poland, President Aleksander Kwasniewski met Monday with a group of advisers to discuss whether or not his country should hold a referendum.

Just before the announcement by Blair's office, the Polish deputy foreign minister, Jan Truszczynski, appealed to Britain not to back out of the ratification process.

"If the British hit the last nail to the treaty's coffin by announcing that they are backing out, then there is the question of what would happen to the ratification procedure in the other countries," Truszczynski said on a private radio station, TOK FM.

In Denmark, a survey conducted during the weekend indicated that a majority of Danes wanted to carry through with a planned referendum on the EU constitution, despite the recent rejections of the charter by Dutch and French voters.

The poll, conducted by Vilstrup and published in the newspaper Politiken, showed that 53 percent think Denmark should still hold the referendum, which is scheduled for Sept. 27, while 31 percent said it should be called off in light of the recent rejections. The rest were undecided. Vilstrup interviewed 1,037 people over the phone from June 2 to 3. The survey had a margin of error of 2 percent. However, several surveys published last Friday showed that Danish opinion of the charter had changed significantly.

Four separate surveys conducted after the French and Dutch votes indicated that a majority of Danes, who earlier appeared to favor the EU constitution, would now oppose it.

On Monday, a political expert in Copenhagen said that Denmark, in light of Britain's decision, could postpone its referendum.

"It might be evident that there is no reason to hold a referendum in Denmark, either," said Anne Mette Vestergaard of the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Danish government officials did not have an immediate comment.

Supporters of the constitution remained outwardly unmoved by the its newly clouded outlook.

President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany have reaffirmed their commitment to the document.

The two leaders have called on other member states to press ahead with ratification.

"We cannot drop the idea of Europe because there are difficulties," the chancellor's spokesman, Bela Anda, told reporters after a meeting at Schröder's office. "The chancellor and the president agreed that the constitutional process must continue.

"We must use this development to make very, very clear that Europe is more than short-term voting behavior - this is about creating lasting peace, bringing about prosperity and freedom."

Chirac's spokesman, Jerome Bonnafont, said that "one country cannot decide on its own the fate of a treaty negotiated and signed by 25 states.

Each member state must be able to express itself in its turn."

Ten countries, including Germany, have ratified the EU constitution, most of them in parliamentary votes.

But the charter must be approved by all 25 EU members to take effect.

In Brussels, the European Commission reiterated Monday that EU countries should avoid any "unilateral decision" on the EU constitution, but declined specific comment on the expected British announcement.

The European Union's executive repeated a call for a period of "reflection" ahead of an EU summit meeting next week that is expected to decide the constitution's fate.

A spokesman noted that commission's chief, José Manuel Barroso, had called on EU members "not to take any unilateral decision" that would have "a negative effect on this process of reflection."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/06/news/britain.php


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Anti-Piracy Group Broke Swedish Data Laws

Sweden's anti-piracy group, Antipiratbyrån (APB), broke the personal data act in its hunt for illegal file-sharers, the country's Data Inspection Board has ruled.

At the beginning of March, thousands of Swedes reported the film and games industry-backed organisation for its method of tracking the downloading of copyright-protected files. APB used a piece of software to record the IP-addresses of file sharers, as well as the alias, the file name and the server through which the connection was made.

Last week APB's lawyer, Henrik Pontén, told Computer Sweden that he does not believe an IP address could be classed as personal data.

But the Data Inspection Board disagreed, ruling that if an IP address can be linked to an individual it is classed as personal information and therefore falls under the personal data act.

Whether or not the APB's action can be classed as a criminal offence, however, is "tricky", said the Data Inspection Board's Hans-Olof Lindblom.

"It depends on how you assess the significance of what they did. If it classed as a minor infringement then it is not punishable," Lindblom told The Local.

Over the last year APB has reported hundreds of people to the police and has sent up to 2,000 emails a day to internet service providers notifying them of misuse. But according to the Data Inspection Board's findings, the group had no right as a private enterprise to collect the information in the first place.

APB has already stopped using its own data collection software and has already reported over 200 suspected miscreants directly to the police.

"We have other methods than storing IP addresses for tracing people who break copyright laws concerning films and games," said APB's lawyer, Henrik Pontén.

Members of the public have now stopped reporting APB - but file-sharers could find the group back on their case quicker than they thought.

According to the Data Inspection Board, an organisation may apply for exemption from the personal data act.

"I've just heard that APB intend to ask for permission to continue storing data. We expect their application on Monday and then the Board will decide," said Hans-Olof Lindblom.
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?I...2fa14f43d2b762


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Music Muffled in Star Wars Game
Katie Dean

The massively multiplayer online game Star Wars Galaxies gives gamers a chance to build their own weapons and armor, fly spacecraft, build cities and even train to become Jedis.

But in this world of make-believe, composing music is forbidden.

Players can play Wookiees or bounty hunters and even musicians -- like those in the cantina band from the original Star Wars.
As musicians, the characters play pretend, virtual instruments like the slitherhorn, ommni box or the nalargon, but are limited to a handful of canned tunes. Lawyers at Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts envision a legal nightmare if musicians were to re-create music copyrighted in the physical world.

"If we allowed someone to play anything they want, they could play a song by Madonna and then we'd have licensing issues," said Julio Torres, a producer for Star Wars Galaxies at LucasArts. "We don't want to give them the option to try, because the bottom line is, if we open that gate, they will go through it," he said.

Torres said the company also wants to keep the game consistent with the Star Wars environment. "To have a player in our game create a song that is Jon Bon Jovi or Metallica would throw people out of the fantasy," Torres said.

But players say making music would add to the fantasy and make the game more fun. They just want more freedom to innovate.

"We'd like to be as creative as we can," said Jonathan Mendez, who has been a "musician" in SWG for more than a year. "I personally have some music background and I would like to be able to use that to make some music."

The role of musicians in the game is to help other players recover from battle fatigue and lift their spirits. Combatants visit a cantina to listen to music and receive a "buff," which gives them added mental strength.

The ability to make their own music has been an issue from the early days of the game, said one former player.

"The entertainer and musician community had been wondering for a while why it is that they couldn't make their own music," said Brian Srivastava, a computer science student from Peterborough, Ontario. He said it was a top issue when the game was first developed in 2003.

And the topic crops up repeatedly in the forums, usually with players new to the game, Mendez said.

"Now, we just give the standard response: 'Yeah, we would like that but it's probably not going to happen because it would open it up to copyright issues,'" Mendez said.

Copyright experts agree there are several tricky issues, which are sure to grow as more people become involved in gaming. For instance, if Star Wars Galaxies musicians were allowed to create their own music, they might demand creator's rights for their compositions, said Eric Goldman, assistant professor at Marquette University Law School. But Goldman said that's something that could easily be handled with a clear user agreement.

The riskier situation is giving people the ability to create music that infringes someone's copyright, which could make Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts liable.

"(Sony and LucasArts) would have to be pretty vigilant about pulling the plug on users who they thought were engaging in infringement and that just means more cost, more grumbling users and more risk of making a poor decision," Goldman said.

And while performance licenses exist for bars and restaurants to play copyright music in the real world, there are none for their counterparts in the virtual world, said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"It's sort of a loss all the way around when LucasArts has no ability to get that license and players are left with this rather artificial restriction," he said. "We've got a system that works reasonably well in the real cantina and it's up to copyright owners to come up with a similar system to handle the virtual cantina."

"Copyright law restricts a lot of perfectly legitimate, worthwhile creative activities," von Lohmann said. "It's not just about stopping pirates."

LucasArts' Torres said another 10 songs will be added to the game in a few months, and players will have more freedom to compose then. Musicians will be able to manipulate blocks of music and harmonize components to show their musicianship. The blocks will fit together "kind of like a Lego system," he said.

"You're composing chunks of music as opposed to note by note," he said. "If we break it down note by note, we open the gate for licensing issues."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67720,00.html


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Get Sued And Earn Your 'Biting The Pigopolist' Merit Badge
Ashlee Vance

When El Reg learned that Hong Kong scouts could earn a copyright proficiency badge for pledging their allegiance to Hollywood, we decided the time was right to award some badges of our own. Sadly, our design department has been too busy designing T-Shirts to spend much time on the demanding hacks' copyright quest. So, we turned to you - our beloved readers.

You came to the rescue with a nice array of "Biting the Pigopolist" merit badges. These awards will soon be found on children everywhere - the thousands who have received lawsuits from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Nothing helps assuage the pain of paying out a huge settlement like a "Biting the Pigopolist" stamp on your shirt.

The winner - one A.P.G.Robinson from somewhere in the UK -- will receive a Register goodie of his/her choice and will be vaulted to great fame by having the design below turned into one of our teaser story graphics posted at the top of the homepage.

Thanks to all of you who entered. Tsk, tsk to the lazy sods who didn't.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06...est/print.html


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The uncertainty of suing

One Sure Thing: Music Industry's Legal Actions Will Impact Copyright Policy
Michael Geist

The recent Federal Court of Appeal music file sharing case, in which the court rejected the Canadian Recording Industry Association's attempt to uncover the identities of 29 alleged file sharers, raises important privacy and copyright issues. Last week, I reviewed the court's test to protect personal privacy. This week's column assesses the copyright implications of that decision.

Although the court declined to articulate definitive conclusions on important copyright issues associated with file sharing, its decision will undeniably have a major impact on copyright policy. This impact is best addressed by analyzing three questions -- can CRIA sue file sharers? Can it win such suits? And what legal reverberations might ensue if it does win?

The answer to the first question is relatively straightforward. CRIA can sue file sharers in Canada and it has indeed asserted that the decision provides a blueprint for future suits.

In the aftermath of last year's trial decision, the recording industry expressed grave concern about the state of Canadian copyright law and lobbied aggressively for immediate changes. In light of the appellate decision, it is now safe to declare the copyright emergency over. In fact, the fears of a devastating effect never materialized. According to CRIA's own figures, in the 13 months of reported sales since the March 2004 decision, both sales and shipments have increased.

The answer to the second question -- whether CRIA can win file sharing suits -- is open to debate, particularly with respect to suits filed against individuals who download music solely from peer-to-peer networks. The complicating factor is the effect of Canada's private copying system, which establishes a levy on blank media such as recordable CDs. Anna Bucci, the Executive Director of the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the body that administers the $120 million in royalties that have been generated by the levy, last week described private copying as creating "a new right for the Canadian public -- the right to make private copies of music for their own personal use."

There are at least three objections raised to the application of this private copying right to P2P file sharing. First, the right applies solely to copying, not to those who "upload" music on peer-to-peer networks. This objection is certainly valid as neither the Canadian courts nor the Canadian Copyright Board have ever indicated that private copying could be used as a defense against the act of uploading.

Second, CRIA recently argued that the private copying right does not apply to copies made to personal computers. A review of the legislative history of private copying provides little support for this interpretation, however, as the statute was intentionally drafted in a technology-neutral fashion such that it could be applied to new copying media, including computer hard drives.

The primary impetus behind the creation of the private copying system was the Charter of Rights for Creators, a 1985 parliamentary committee report. That report explicitly declined to tie the levy to a particular technology, presciently noting that "future recording devices might not use blank tape, thereby making a tape royalty obsolete. The work could be stored in a computer memory with no independent material support at all."

Eleven years later, the Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Music Industry, co- chaired by the heads of CRIA and the Canadian Independent Record Production Association, continued to press for the creation of a private copying levy to be applied to both media and devices. The technology-neutral levy was enacted into law soon after with the industry celebrating success after 15 years of lobbying but lamenting that the delay had "literally killed dozens of careers."

While the levy was certainly intended to cover computer hard drives, the third objection is whether the provision, as currently drafted, actually achieves that goal. This issue was thrown into some doubt by a Federal Court of Appeal decision last December that upheld the validity of the levy but tossed out its application to MP3 players such as the Apple iPod.

That decision is currently under appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. If Canada's highest court overturns the decision, the intent of the legislation will be restored and much of the doubt about its applicability to P2P downloaders will be removed.

If the Supreme Court declines to hear the appeal or upholds the decision, the impact will extend well beyond music file sharing. Some P2P downloading would no longer fall under the private copying right, though downloads to many external or removable hard drives would presumably still qualify. More importantly, copying of store-bought CDs onto Apple iPods, a common practice extolled by CRIA itself, would effectively be rendered unlawful in Canada (unless there is an implied right to copy such CDs, which would then call into question the need for a private copying system).

The third question -- what might follow if CRIA is successful in its suits -- raises the prospect for copyright reform. When the federal government established the private copying right in the late 1990s, it also created a statutory damages system. This enables a copyright holder to obtain specified damages of between $500 and $20,000 per infringement without the need to prove actual damages. There is, however, a saving provision that allows a court to order damages well below the statutory minimums if the total award is "grossly out of proportion to the infringement."

The statutory damages provision raises several scenarios in the context of file sharing suits. One possibility, common in the United States, is that cases do not actually proceed to trial since even innocent defendants will settle lawsuits to avoid the risk of a massive statutory damages award. Should a case proceed to trial, another scenario is that a court might indeed award damages of hundreds of thousands of dollars based on uploading 1,000 songs onto a P2P network.

Given that fee-based services such as Napster already offer over 700,000 songs for only $14.99 per month, a raft of settlements or a massive award might lead to vociferous calls to Industry Minister David Emerson and Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla for immediate reform to the statutory damages provisions so that a more appropriate remedy can be implemented.

Alternatively, a court might be faced with a sympathetic defendant who could prove that he or she had legitimately copied store-bought CDs onto a computer and logged onto a P2P network in order to download a public domain document or open source software program. In such a case, the judge might be inclined to use the saving provision and set a precedent of a minimal damages award for P2P activity.

The net result of current Canadian law is that file sharing suits are a risky strategy from both a privacy and copyright perspective. The Federal Court of Appeal may have provided a roadmap for such suits, but it is apparent that traveling down that road raises many more questions than it answers.
http://www.canada.com/technology/sto...4-47c7e93afe3b


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RIAA Will Keep On Suing
Steve Knopper

The music industry has targeted 11,456 illegal downloaders -- has it done any good?

Nine months after the music industry accused her of illegal downloading, Vickey Sims insists she's innocent and refuses to pay the $75,000 minimum fine. The Alexander City, Alabama, hairdresser had no idea her teenage daughter Nicole Phillips had 1,200 MP3s by George Strait, Kirk Franklin and others on the family computer, and Phillips had no idea getting free songs online was wrong. "We're just like, 'Why are they picking on us? There are so many people doing this,'" Sims says. "People come in my shop, and they talk about their kids and their buddies doing it."

Sims is one of 11,051 "bad-luck lottery winners," as one lawsuit recipient calls them, sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music. The RIAA says it generally goes after people who have downloaded more than 100 songs but will not reveal any other specific criteria. The suits demand up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages -- and even the few defendants who can afford to pay are more inclined to settle for $3,200 to $4,000 than fight a costly court battle against music- industry lawyers.

No case has gone to trial, but so far the RIAA has shown little sympathy for people like Sims and Phillips, who did her file-sharing on Kazaa between 2002 and 2003, when she was sixteen and seventeen, months before record labels announced their plan to sue downloaders. The first thing Sims did after receiving the lawsuit in the mail last August was to hire a local lawyer, Angela Hill, who believes she can get a dismissal because "they're suing Vickey, and Vickey does not even know how to download a song." But many of the RIAA's lawsuits have been filed against the parents of downloaders, and the hundreds of parents who say they had no idea what their children were doing online remain stuck with the bill. "Parents could win the lawsuit, but that doesn't mean a damn thing," says Megan Gray, a Washington, D.C., intellectual-property attorney, "because all the RIAA will do is dismiss the lawsuit and file against the children. Ignorance of the technology is no excuse."

Still, many accuse the record labels of unfairly criminalizing music fans when they could have put the money and effort into educating them about illegal downloading instead. "The RIAA has made a lot of this illusory campaign of education," says Charles Lee Mudd Jr., a Chicago attorney who represents several sued downloaders. "I haven't seen it, and my clients haven't seen it. It's got to be more than a few advertisements on VH1 or MTV."

One thing is clear: The lawsuits have failed to stop, or even slow, illegal file-sharing. An estimated 8.6 million Americans were trading copyrighted songs at any given time in April 2005 -- up 100 percent from 4.3 million in September 2003, when the suits began, according to a study by BigChampagne, which tracks file-sharing trends.

Cary Sherman, the RIAA's president, questions BigChampagne's data and points to other studies that show a decrease in file-sharing. But the BigChampagne data is the most widely accepted -- in fact, BigChampagne compiles it for the record companies for marketing purposes.

"Enforcement is a tough-love form of education," Sherman says, "but it really works. It has made a profound difference in public awareness -- just a sea change from where public perception was before the lawsuits began."

But Charli Johnson, a twenty-one-year-old student in Winfield, Kansas, who settled for about $3,000 last summer, echoes many of the lawsuit recipients when she says, "Personally, I don't think it's going to stop anyone from downloading. All my friends know I got sued and how much I got sued for -- and they're still downloading music. It's not a reality for them."

The RIAA campaign kicked off in September 2003, when it circulated 261 lawsuits against downloaders active on Kazaa, Grokster and others. The plan for the lawsuits had begun much earlier, however. By late 2002, record-label chiefs and RIAA officials were meeting regularly -- often in heated debate -- to discuss the issue. At the time, the music industry was in the midst of a downturn, slashing rosters and laying off thousands of employees. CD sales dropped by nearly 200 million from 2000 to 2003. Economic recession was a factor, but executives blamed the problem on Internet piracy. They insisted that something had to be done to stop the millions of music lovers who were using services like Kazaa, Grokster and LimeWire to get their tunes for free. In phone and e-mail conferences, the executives discussed suing the downloaders. Several power players -- including Roger Ames, then chairman of the Warner Music Group, and Hilary Rosen, then the RIAA's president -- insisted the industry take two steps before it began suing downloaders.

First, the labels unveiled a series of ads featuring stars like Britney Spears to remind fans that downloading free music is illegal. Then they began hashing out how to create a legal online alternative to Napster and Kazaa. Around that time, Apple Computer's Steve Jobs showed up at label boardrooms with new software called iTunes, which was quickly accepted as a legal downloading alternative. After that, recalls Rosen, "I think everybody was on board with the lawsuits."

The final piece fell into place in April 2003, when a Los Angeles district judge ruled that the peer-to-peer service Grokster could not be sued for the actions of its users. (That case is currently being heard on appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court.) Only those who used the service to illegally download free music, the court suggested, could be held responsible. Unable to go after the file-sharing services, the labels agreed unanimously to take downloaders to court. "Everyone felt like it was too bad that it had to happen," says a major-label source. "We didn't want to be suing, but there weren't a lot of alternatives. It's one thing when you're looking from the outside and saying how stupid this is -- but it's another thing when half your company gets laid off."

To figure out who to sue, the RIAA hired a team of twenty technicians to surf file-trading sites like Kazaa, identifying users who did the most downloading. The RIAA knew that the lawsuits would generate terrible press -- and by the second day, the campaign had already backfired. Brianna LaHara, a twelve-year-old who lives in a New York housing project, landed on the front page of the New York Post, portrayed as a victim of the music industry's war on its customers.

The RIAA was undeterred. "I thought the publicity was bad," recalls Rosen, who is now a Democratic Party strategist. "But it was New York Post bad -- it wasn't really bad bad."

Eighteen months later, the industry continues to announce another wave of lawsuits nearly every month, including the latest round of 725 in late April. Earlier that month, the RIAA expanded its campaign, suing 405 college students who downloaded free music via Internet2, a faster, more exclusive online network running on many campuses.

The RIAA has settled 2,484 cases out of court, with the average settlement between $3,000 and $4,000. (The association channels all the settlement money back into anti-piracy enforcement programs.) In what the RIAA's Sherman calls a "remarkable coincidence," CD sales started to inch up the month the lawsuits began, and Apple's iTunes Store has sold 400 million legal ninety-nine-cent downloads since it opened in April 2003. Still, overall sales remain down 8.6 percent since 2000, and it's difficult to draw links between illegal downloading and record sales; one could just as easily argue that a lack of steady blockbuster records has caused the declines.

In the process, the lawsuit campaign has created significant financial hardships for thousands of music lovers. Janet Bebell was a freelance accountant in Denver when the RIAA sued her in September 2003: Her twenty-three-year-old son, it turned out, had downloaded music from Kazaa on the family computer. Faced with a settlement of almost $4,000, Bebell raised $250 in donations through Downhill Battle, a group of activists dedicated to fighting the major record labels, and she's considering putting the rest of the settlement on a credit card. "I don't have a fallback option," she says. "That's what they can do -- really destroy my credit."

Cindy Lundstrom, a legal secretary in Scottsdale, Arizona, is also charging the settlement to her credit card. She was sued in March 2004 after her sixteen-year-old daughter, Chelsea, downloaded 700 hip-hop songs. Chelsea, a straight-A student and homecoming queen at North Canyon High School, offered to pay the $3,000 out of her savings from an after-school job at a hair salon, but her mom told her to keep the money. "That is her savings for college," Lundstrom says.

A few have fought back -- so far, without success. Michele Scimeca, an insurance clerk in New Jersey, made headlines last year when she countersued the trade group under federal anti-racketeering laws, accusing the major record labels of bullying their customers for money. But a judge dismissed her suit earlier this year, and Scimeca plans to declare bankruptcy. She says the music industry is demanding a total of $50,000 in penalties and legal fees to settle her case -- more than three times her family's annual salary -- although the RIAA denies her claim. "You watch MTV's Cribs, and all those superstars are making millions of dollars," Scimeca says. "And I'm sitting here with my secondhand furniture with twenty-year-old carpets on the floor, trying to keep my kids in decent clothes." But she's unlikely to get any sympathy from music-industry executives who, whether or not they can prove that suing music fans is a successful deterrent to downloading, are committed to the strategy. "I don't see the lawsuits stopping," says Zach Horowitz, president and chief operating officer of the Universal Music Group. "It's important for people to know there are repercussions for these kinds of actions."

By the Numbers:

A year and a half after the RIAA began suing downloaders, it is estimated that twice as many people are now using peer-to- peer software like Kazaa. Here are some figures (according to the RIAA, BigChampagne) from the music industry's courtroom efforts to stop downloading:

Number of peer-to-peer users in August 2003, the month before the lawsuits began: 3.85 million

Number of peer-to-peer users in April 2005: 8.63 million

Number of people sued by the RIAA to date: 11,456

Number of people who have settled with the RIAA to date: 2,484

Maximum amount you can be sued per song: $150,000

Average settlement: $3,600
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto...player=unknown


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MPAA Files New Round Of Swap Suits
John Borland

Hollywood studios filed a new round of lawsuits Thursday against individuals accused of trading copyrighted movies online.

This is the Motion Picture Association of America's fifth round of suits against individual file-swappers, but the group has not provided details about the number or location of people targeted.
http://news.com.com/MPAA+files+new+r...3-5730072.html


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Not Bad: File Sharing Has A Batch Of Benefits
Tristan Morris

Are people who download music or movies stealing from the artists or companies who own the copyrights?

Yes, they are.

But newly developed technologies are sweeping away concerns of what is right and replacing them with the reality of what is possible.

It is not possible to stop file sharing. The technological universe has changed, tilting the scales in favor of the hordes of teenage "pirates" over the corporate "suits." The genie is out of the bottle, and all the litigation, legislation and technological fixes can't put it back into the bottle again.

But that may not be such a bad thing.

File sharing is a technological advance that allows for the free worldwide distribution of digital media, and it is going to greatly enrich the lives of billions of people. Acting as the most comprehensive public library of all time, it brings music, literature, movies and software to people worldwide, regardless of their social status or wealth. Look at how much it has already enriched the lives of today's teenagers, who have access to millions of dollars worth of music and art that they could not have afforded or perhaps even found before.

Opponents of file sharing believe that it will cause the death of our music and entertainment industries because there will be no financial incentive to create. File sharing may very well doom our current business models in these industries. The age of millionaire rock stars may be over, replaced by musicians who make their living on the touring circuit.

But capitalism guarantees that other business models will spring up, even if they are less profitable to major artists. File sharing will not stop people from creating music or movies or other intellectual property, and the industry may benefit from an influx of new talent that previously couldn't get noticed by major producers.

File sharing is unstoppable because it is often out of the reach of U.S. laws, and technological encryption solutions can't stand up to armies of skilled hackers. For example Kazaa, one of the most popular file-sharing softwares, is a network of individual PCs with no center, owned by a company on a South Pacific island, well out of reach of U.S. law.

And repeated attempts by major companies such as Microsoft and Apple to protect copyrights by digitally scrambling songs, movies and video games with encryption software have proved no match for the thousands of highly skilled hackers who will work day and night until they crack the encryption. Plus, if even one unencrypted copy gets onto Kazaa, encryption becomes irrelevant, because digital quality does not deteriorate when copies are made, and eventually one copy can become an unlimited number of copies.

When you ask teenagers today if they use file sharing, they usually say, "duh." Today's technology-empowered youth have decided that the benefits of file sharing exceed the costs, and I think that in the long run they will be proved right.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Sa...=1037645509005


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Warner Gets a Jump on Film Pirates in China
Jon Healey

In a groundbreaking response to movie piracy, Warner Bros. Entertainment released its latest film on DVD in China the same day it debuted in U.S. theaters.

The goal for Warner is to battle rampant piracy in China by giving movie fans a legitimate alternative to bootlegs. But the boldness of Warner's action, which it took last week with no fanfare, was tempered by its choice of movie: "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," a relatively low-budget film that the studio had not planned on releasing in Chinese theaters.

Nevertheless, several industry executives said they believed it was the first time a major U.S. studio had taken a movie scheduled for a wide-scale theatrical run and released it simultaneously on DVD in another country.

"It's a necessary move," said movie industry analyst Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. "It's obviously not as good as having control of the Chinese market, but it's about the next best thing that you can do."

Craig M. Hoffman, a spokesman for Warner Bros.' anti-piracy efforts, said the studio was not necessarily looking to apply the same strategy to combat bootlegging in the U.S. or other countries.

"That region presents, if you will, the 'perfect storm' of piracy," Hoffman said, noting that Chinese pirates do not have to contend with the government quotas and review boards that restrict Hollywood's access to the market. "This region needed something like this to see if [a] legitimate product could compete under these conditions."

The Motion Picture Assn. of America contends that the major studios lose more than $3.5 billion — about 18% of last year's revenue from feature films — annually to disc and videotape bootleggers, plus an undetermined amount to online movie swappers. The MPAA has responded by conducting more raids and seizures against bootleggers, but studio executives have also stressed the need to compete with pirates in the marketplace — particularly overseas.

According to an April report by the U.S. trade representative, at least 90% of virtually every type of copyrighted work sold in China is counterfeit. China has only about 2,500 screens and 1.3 billion people, and the Chinese government allows only a few U.S. movies to be exhibited there. Most of the studios' movies reach Chinese viewers only on disc or videotape, which usually arrive months after the movie had its premiere in U.S. theaters.

Bootleggers in China face no such shortages or delays — they can download illicitly recorded copies of almost any movie within days of its U.S. premiere, then burn those copies onto discs. As a result, Chinese movie fans typically buy pirated versions long before legitimate versions of the films become available.

Warner's accelerated release of the "Pants" DVD in China appears to have beaten the pirates to the market, but it could backfire globally. Bootleggers could use the Chinese DVDs to create high-quality copies that spread quickly around the world, either over the Internet or as counterfeit discs.

Hoping to make unauthorized copies of "Pants" less appealing outside China, Warner included no extra features on the DVD. It also added Mandarin subtitles that cannot be hidden, said Yotam Ben-Ami, an anti-piracy executive at the studio.

Executives at other studios argued that Warner was not taking much of a gamble. The potential market in China and among pirates is small for a "chick flick" like "Pants," which follows four young women who take turns wearing a single pair of jeans that magically fits their different sizes. The movie grossed $9.8 million in its opening weekend at U.S. theaters.

As of Wednesday, no copies of the "Pants" DVD were reported on two websites that track the arrival of bootlegged movies online. Nor were there any versions of the movie that had been recorded illicitly in U.S. theaters.

Even a low-risk movie can provide some insights into the market, though, and particularly into the way customers respond to the early availability of legitimate products. Those lessons could prove valuable in other countries with high piracy rates, such as Russia and much of Southeast Asia.

"We will closely monitor the impact of this release on our other businesses to determine whether to follow this same release strategy with more high-profile titles," said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video.

The major studios' strategy of delaying home video releases until months after a movie's premiere has guaranteed pirates an exclusive window of sorts. Until the official DVD and VHS release, the only version of a movie available for viewing at home is a pirated one.

Some independent production companies, including Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment and Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary's Revelations Entertainment, plan to release movies online or on DVD at the same time as they reach theaters. But even though the major Hollywood studios have been releasing DVDs closer to the theatrical premiere, Adams said, he doubted that they would ever put them out at the same time.

"That would be silly," Adams said. "People are still going and buying several billion tickets a year, and it's that exposure and word of mouth … that drives the DVD payday."

And the DVD payday is the one that really counts. Adams said home video sales and rentals accounted for 60% of the U.S. revenue for feature films last year, while ticket sales accounted for only 23%.

Warner Bros. has been unusually aggressive in its efforts to crack the huge Chinese market. Last fall it began manufacturing DVDs there in a joint venture with a Chinese partner, and it opened a state-of-the-art multiplex in 2002.

Suggested retail prices for the locally produced discs start at 22 yuan, or about $2.65. Still, these discs are more expensive than bootleggers' wares, which sell for about 60 cents, and they often are released no sooner than U.S. DVDs, which come out about five months after the movie makes its debut in theaters.

Other studios have tried different strategies in China.

In December, Sony Pictures released "Kung Fu Hustle," a Chinese-made film, to Chinese theaters. In February, a mere 45 days later, it released the film on DVD in China. Sony did not release the film to U.S. theaters until April.

The studio sold nearly 2 million of the deeply discounted Chinese discs, which was "a record result," said Ben Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Sales were boosted by "a massive anti-piracy effort" that was actively supported by the Chinese government, he said.

"A historical way to deal with the pirate market is to put in legitimate [products] at slightly over the piracy price and hope that people will convert," Feingold said, adding, "On Asian pictures, it really pays to be in the local market first, and to get the DVD up fast, and then release it in the United States and other markets."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...home-headlines


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That was fast

Study: iTunes More Popular Than Many P2P Sites
CNET News.com Staff

Apple Computer's iTunes online music store is as popular as most music-swapping networks, according to a study released Tuesday.

The survey by market research firm NPD Group found that approximately 1.7 million U.S. households downloaded a song from iTunes in March. That was good enough to earn the store a second-place ranking with peer-to-peer downloading service LimeWire.

The most popular digital music service during the month, however, was P2P site WinMX, which was used by 2.1 million households to download music during the month.

"One of the music industry's questions has been, when will paid download stores compete head-to-head with free P2P download services?" Russ Crupnick, president of the NPD Group's music and movies division, said in a statement. "That question has now been answered. iTunes is more popular than nearly any P2P service."

On NPD's list of the top 10 digital music services, iTunes was ranked ahead of file-sharing companies such Kazaa and iMesh. Other paid online music services such as Napster and RealNetworks' RealPlayer store also edged onto the list.

"These (paid) digital download stores appear to have created a compelling and economically viable alternative to illegal file sharing," Crupnick said.

According to NPD, about 4 percent of Internet-enabled households in the nation used a paid music download store in March.

Most of those who prefer legal music download sites are over 30 years of age. But many younger consumers still resort to sharing files over peer-to-peer services, NPD said.

Congress passed legislation to curtail piracy on file-swapping networks in April this year. And the Supreme Court is critically analyzing file swapping and is expected to rule on its legality soon.
http://news.com.com/Study+iTunes+mor...3-5735493.html


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Paying For Downloads? Why Not?
John Stith

NPD just released some new figures suggesting that paid musical downloads are catching up to free albeit illegal, peer to peer downloads. This must be sweet music to the ear of the recording industry as services like WinMX and Itunes proliferate.

Go back a few years. You're sitting in your dorm, surfin' the net. Everyone told you about Napster and how you could get free music instead of paying $15 or $20 for the new album from Metallica you've been jonesin' for. You've got Napster now, you've found tons of Metallica material and you start downloading. You do this for weeks and then months.

Then people start telling you it's illegal. Napster runs into a whole heap of legal problems because people are swapping their favorite tunes and it's affecting record sales. What? The RIAA goes after Napster. This was the beginning of the P2P wars.

More service popped on the net that allowed file sharing. You could not only swap maybe an Excel file you were working on, but that Led Zepplin 4 album you're cousin had now is up for grabs. Why go look through the stacks at Disc Jockey's or Sam Goody's when you can get this stuff for free.

The problem you run into is that someone owns this rights to this stuff, namely the record companies, the song writers, and the performers of the said music. This is causing them major losses in revenue. They begin to fight. Artists end up on both sides of the argument, Metallica for prosecution, Keith Richards telling the record companies where to go, the sides began lining up. These MP3s were causing lots of problems as the business world struggles to figure out how to deal with this new format.

Then blank CD sales were higher than recorded disks. The RIAA began to take action. Colleges began to block these types of sites. The Naval Academy at Annapolis even destroyed computers of people engaging in this activity. Lawsuits started and even kids who broke the law were facing real problems.

Enter Apple. This silly, yet expensive little device they call and iPod began to pick up steam. It would hold tons of songs and they could give you whatever you wanted for 99 cents a song. Then they got U2 to do their commercials. They became incredibly hip. And the RIAA took notice. Others like WinMX and Limewire began to move up too. What's happening here? People are paying for music? Why when they could have it for free. The lawsuits don't matter. What's BMG gonna do to me? Take my computer? I don't have the kind of money they're after, I don't care.

But wait, this iPod thing is awfully cool. And they have this cool format for me too. This looks hip. Wait… Playboy has some images for it? EVEN BETTER. This is too cool. That free was sweet but genuine iTune from Apple of my favorite songs and naked chicks while I scroll through the songs? Too sweet.

The report say teens and tweens are doing the illegal stuff still but 30 somethings are looking at the pay services out of security more than anything. They don't want to take a chance of getting arrested. But the real point of this is that pop culture has overcome something many felt like was absolutely free. This is a real coup. Congratulations iPodders, you've saved the recording industry.
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusi...adsWhyNot.html


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Not so fast

'iTunes is beating LimeWire'
p2pnet.net

The NPD Group is a market research firm which suddenly appeared out of nowhere in late 2003 and which the mainstream media immediately began quoting as an authority on music and file sharing.

When we first came across it, adidas International, International Flavors & Fragrance and Wrigley typified its client base, but it was nonetheless churning out ‘studies’ and ‘reports’ bolstering entertainment cartel party lines.

We emailed NPD wondering how many years' experience it had in the music research field and asked about the team of interviewers/statisticians we thought it must boast given the nature and number of its outpourings.

We never did hear back, and when we visited the NPD site, we weren't able to find a single music, or other entertainment industry, client, although since then, the company has added movies, music, video, TV, etc, to the list it professes to be expert in.

We mention this because now NPD is touting iTunes as a “formidable competitor against free peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services," an assertion which is, of course, complete and utter nonsense.

The corporate online music business exists only in the minds of the media and those trying to promote it and iTunes’ sales of some 300 million since it started in September, 2003, don’t even merit a statistical blip against what's happening in the real world of online music.There, the p2p applications and networks rule and iTunes is a joke.

P2p research firm BigChampagne says in the US in May, on average 6,290,327 people were logged onto the p2p networks at any given moment. The global statistic was 8,665,319.

And yet, “According to information from NPD’s MusicWatch Digital service, Apple iTunes’s industry-leading a-la-carte download store tied with LimeWire as the second-most-popular digital music service in March, 2005,” says MacDailyNews. “Both iTunes and LimeWire were used by 1.7 million households.”

Is this possible, p2pnet asked LimeWire coo Greg Bildson?

“I wonder at the source for their numbers,” he said. “Our numbers seem rather small here.

"I mean we get 6,000,000 or more downloads a month so we’ve got to assume that we’re in more than 1.7 million households. I don’t think iTunes is getting six million downloads a month on the software itself.”

Nonetheless, “One of the music industry’s questions has been when will paid download stores compete head- to-head with free P2P download services,” MacDailyNews has NPD spokesman Russ Crupnick saying, going on, “That question has now been answered."

And so it has:

Not in Crupnick’s life-time.
http://p2pnet.net/story/5128


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Q n A

Making a Network Members-Only
J.D. Biersdorfer

Published: June 9, 2005

Making a Network Members-Only

Q. Is there a way to set up my wireless network so that only my family's computers – and nobody else's - can join it?

A. Keeping your wireless network protected from squatters and intruders typically requires taking a few steps beyond the basic setup process when you first install your network's wireless router. The security benefits, however, are worth a few extra minutes of fiddling.

One way to allow only approved computers to join your home network is to have the router block any computers not on a specified list. This security scheme is called MAC address filtering.

MAC stands for media access control, and it is a unique identification number that belongs to your computer's network adapter card. After you type the MAC address of each computer in the house into the MAC address filtering settings for your router, the router will block any MAC addresses not on the list from using the network.

Check your router's manual or online help files for detailed information on how to configure MAC address filters for your particular model and brand. You will also need to collect the MAC address of each computer in the family to put on the list of approved machines in the router's settings file.

You can find the MAC address on a computer running Windows XP by going to the Start menu, selecting Run and typing "cmd" (without the quotation marks) in the box. On the command-prompt screen that appears, type "ipconfig/all" (again, without the quotation marks) and press the Enter key.

A screen full of information pops up, including details about your computer's network adapter. The MAC address, a series of letters and numbers, is listed on the line for "Physical Address." If you have both an Ethernet adapter and a wireless card in the computer, you will have two addresses, so be sure to write down the number for the wireless card.

Mac OS X users can find their MAC addresses by opening the computer's System Preferences area and clicking on the Network icon. In the Show menu, select AirPort and write down the number that appears next to AirPort ID. A page at www-dcn.fnal.gov/DCG-Docs/mac/ has basic illustrated instructions for finding your computer's MAC address on most Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems.

Filtering by MAC address is not foolproof, as talented intruders can spoof the information and fool the router, but every security measure you take helps block unwanted users.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/te...ts/09askk.html


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Profit Drop Surprises At Lenovo
Chris Buckley

BEIJING Lenovo Group, the Chinese computer manufacturer that recently purchased International Business Machines' personal computer division, reported on Wednesday a drop in fourth-quarter profit that took many analysts by surprise.

The company announced net income of 166 million Hong Kong dollars, or $21 million, for the three months ended March 31, down 12 percent from a year earlier. Sales fell 6.4 percent to 22.6 billion dollars.

Lenovo dominates China's personal computer market with a market share of about 25 percent, but rivals, especially Dell, have challenged its grip on the market and squeezed its profit, said Liu Tong, of the British firm Analysys.

"The sector's just too competitive," he said, "and these results also reflect slowed growth of purchases from government departments, schools and other government institutions."

Lenovo is the largest computer company in China, and more than 90 percent of its earnings have come from the Chinese mainland. Last year, it moved to extend its strength abroad by buying IBM's personal computer division and becoming the world's third-largest computer maker. But many analysts have suggested that the $1.75 billion deal for the IBM division, which is not profitable, may weigh down Lenovo's profitability in the short term, and they have reduced profit forecasts for the company. Lenovo's shares have fallen 9 percent since the deal was announced in December.

Nonetheless, the profit downturn took many investors by surprise. A group of 21 analysts surveyed by Reuters had predicted net income of 194 million dollars. Lenovo's shares ended down 7.5 cents, or 3.06 percent, at 2.375 dollars on Wednesday.

In July, Lenovo shed its poorly performing information technology service business, except for telecommunications-related services, by forming a partnership with AsiaInfo Holdings.

Then in December, the company announced its plan to buy the IBM personal computer business. Under that deal, Lenovo will continue to sell personal computers under the IBM name, while IBM takes an 18.9 percent share in Lenovo.

"These deals have absorbed resources," said Liu, the analyst, "But now they're out of the way. Lenovo now wants to focus on laptop computers as a source of growth, and that's where it hopes IBM's strengths will help it."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/...ess/lenovo.php


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Dell Apologizes For Sales Rep's E-Mail Disparaging Lenovo
AP

Dell Inc. said Thursday it would take disciplinary action as appropriate against a U.S.-based salesperson who sent an e-mail discouraging former IBM clients from buying Lenovo products.

Last year, International Business Machines Corp. sold its personal computer business to Lenovo Group Ltd., which is partially owned by the Chinese government. That made Lenovo the world's third-largest PC business behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard Co.,

``We have a code of conduct that we uphold here for Dell in the U.S. and worldwide, specific guidelines for not commenting on competitors from an employee's standpoint. We're pretty serious about it,'' Dell spokesman Lionel Menchaca told The Associated Press.

According to China's official Xinhua News Agency, the salesperson's e-mail was published last week in a Chinese business newspaper.

``As you know Lenovo is a Chinese government owned company that recently purchased IBM's desktop business,'' Xinhua quoted the e-mail as saying. ``While the U.S. government has given its stamp of approval to continue to purchase these units, people must understand that every dollar clients spent on these IBM systems is directly supporting/funding the Chinese government.''

Menchaca called the e-mail regrettable and said it reflected the views of one person, not Dell. ``The key point is these views were expressed by one individual,'' he said. He would not identify the trangressor.

U.S.-based spokesman Bob Page of Lenovo said company officials were disappointed by the e-mail but ``don't really feel that that kind of activity should be dignified with a response.''

Menchaca said Dell hasn't apologized to Lenovo directly. ``At this point, I don't think they're asking for one,'' he said.

Dell has six manufacturing centers worldwide, including a 367,000 square-foot facility in Xiamen, China.

``We are strongly committed to growth in China as demonstrated by our investments in manufacturing, design, procurement, operations and business located there,'' Menchaca said.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11799661.htm


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Digital DJs Are Turning the Tables

New software can analyze your music and create pleasing mixes you might never have considered.
Steven Levy

I can't imagine what my life in the early '70s would have been like without Michael Tearson. As the alpha disc jockey on WMMR,
Philadelphia's hippest FM radio station, Tearson spun song sets that seemed to cosmically interact, providing transcendent moments throughout his midnight shift. My pals and I often wondered if he was sending secret messages by his song selection. Only recently, when I finally met Tearson, was the mystery resolved: he was sending us messages—ones of mood, not code—via Beatles, Bowie and Moby Grape.

Personalities like Tearson have all but vanished from the airwaves. But in the era of the iPod and other digital players that store a huge amount of music, there's a rekindling of interest in the art of song sets. Apple's own solution is a double-barreled strategy of handpicked playlists for certain moods and random play for serendipitous discovery. But others are exploring more-sophisticated schemes to algorithmically clone the Michael Tearsons of yesteryear.

This week the Roxio company introduces the Boom Box, a $50 suite of iPod applications that includes a DJ program called MusicMagic Mixer. Originally offered on the Internet, the Mixer is designed specifically to create mood-appropriate yet illuminating combinations of music from your own collection. Its method, according to software architect Wendell Hicken, is to analyze the digital files that store the acoustic information that tells your music player what sound to produce. For instance, by recognizing the bits that encode a drumbeat, the program can divine the volume, tempo and energy of a tune. What's more, by digitally decoding all songs in the same way, it's possible to find hidden affinities between unexpected tunes.

After enduring a long period where MusicMagic painstakingly "fingerprinted" my songs for analysis, I was instantly able to construct some great playlists based on a single "seed" tune that was the keystone of my musical desires that day. Though a seed of alt-country crooner Kathleen Edwards yielded a mix with similar artists like Lucinda Williams and Tift Merritt, it also included an unanticipated but snugly appropriate tune by rocker J Mascis.

A company called MoodLogic takes a different path. Over the past few years it has enlisted thousands of listeners to offer their feelings about specific songs, ultimately collecting millions of comments. Now it uses that "metadata" (MoodLogic VP Christian Pirkner calls it "DJ knowledge") to make playlists that fit a whim. (It plans to license its system to electronics makers.) Like MusicMagic, it will reach into forgotten corners of your collection for the right mix.

Ultimately, we can expect digital DJs to use file analysis combined with metadata, perhaps with more information like song lyrics and personal listening patterns. But even at this primitive stage of robo-DJ'ing, the results can be amazing. Yes, I know that my enjoyment comes largely because the universe of songs I'm working from are all self-selected favorites, and I also know that very special transitions seem more significant because I notice them more than the more common, unremarkable segues. Yet surprisingly often, I get the same satori-esque chills that I did in the days when FM DJs were the oracles of the air.

Back then, of course, the exchange was human to human. "I consciously tried to make each song resonate with the next, which would make each of them more than they would be individually," Tearson told me. "That's really how you bond people with music." How weird it is that now, in our own cones of aural isolation, we may be equally enthralled by an automated selection? No one's sending us messages. But we hear them anyway.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100270/site/newsweek/


















Until next week,

- js.














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