Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – June 26th, '04

[JackSpratts]

SBC Ups The Broadband Ante

Fiber will soon reach farther
Joshua

SBC announced on Tuesday that it is planning some major renovations to its network--renovations that will push high-speed access closer to customers. Currently, the company's fiber-optic network reaches to within 12,000 feet of many of its customers, part of the push from the company's Project Pronto. The new project will push fiber even further, to within 5,000 feet of homes and businesses.

The updated network is designed to be compatible with IP-based connections, including super-high-speed Internet, IP-based digital TV, and Voice over IP (VoIP). The speeds associated with this new network will be extremely fast. Customers can expect to have between 15 and 25 megabits per second (Mbps) dedicated to them for downloading, and 1 to 3 Mbps dedicated for uploading. (Just for comparison, my DSL line download speed at home hovers around 1 Mbps.)

The network expansion will include building Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) for all new construction and Fiber To The Node (FTTN) for all current customers. FTTN will bring the fiber optic lines to nodes providing service to as few as 300 to 500 homes.

The investment for this network upgrade will run between US$4 and $6 million; the upgrade will take about 5 years to deploy. Trials are planned for this summer in neighborhoods within the SBC service area, and the upgrade will begin as soon as the proverbial ducks are in their row.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0624025704.htm


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Police Exaggerate ID Theft: Expert
Kelly Mills

REPORTS of increasing identity fraud attacks have been exaggerated by law enforcement agencies seeking to maintain budgets, according to a former Scotland Yard detective.

Identity fraud attacks, such as phishing, have increased in the past year as international syndicates target Australian financial institutions.

However, SAS Institute fraud and anti-money laundering solutions director Rowan Bosworth-Davies, a former Scotland Yard detective and lawyer, says identity theft is relatively rare.

"I would need more evidence from law enforcement agencies of identity theft before I got too excited about it," he says.

"It is a sexy subject and you can say what you like and no-one will say that you are wrong."

Bosworth-Davies says there is a lot of hype around identity theft and a great deal of misinformation, which he attributes partly to some police agencies that want to increase funding.

"If someone was living the life of Riley on your credit card, wouldn't you know within a month, when you got your credit card statement?"

Bosworth-Davies says genuine cases of identity fraud, using stolen credit card details and other identity documents, are relatively few.

Speaking at the SAS International Forum 2004 in Copenhagen, Bosworth-Davies was also critical of banks' ability to deal with money laundering.

Prior to September 11, 2001, there was debate about money laundering, and if banks had software it was largely developed internally, he says.

In the past three or four years, however, large banks had installed anti-money- laundering software to comply with new international regulations.

"Leading banks in the UK have adopted new solutions, but it would be less true in Australia, which has different regulatory drivers."
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html


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ILN News Letter

German Supreme Court Issues Hyperlink Decision

Baker & McKenzie's E-law Alert reports that the German Supreme Court has ruled that a hyperlink in an online article that leads to an illegal website does not establish liability based on the link. A major German newspaper had published an online article containing a hyperlink to Austrian net gambling site. While the Court held that the net gambling site is illegal since it did not have a German gambling permit, it ruled that the publisher is not liable for such illegality, as he did not have the intention to promote illegal gambling over the Internet.


4th Circuit Rules ISPs Not Liable For Passive Copying

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its decision in Costar v. Loopnet, ruling that ISPs do not copy material in direct violation of the Copyright Act when passively storing material at the direction of users in order to make that material available to other users upon their request. The court added that the automatic copying, storage, and transmission of copyrighted materials, when instigated by others, does not render an ISP strictly liable for copyright infringement, though an ISP can become liable indirectly upon a showing of additional involvement sufficient to establish a contributory or vicarious violation of the Act. In that case, the ISP could still look to the DMCA for a safe harbor if it fulfilled the conditions therein.

Case name is CoStar Group v. Loopnet. Decision at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/4th/031911p.pdf


French Rights Organizations Call For P2P License

Two French Performers Rights Organizations have called for the establishment of a peer-to-peer license. Adami and Spedidam have called for the creation of such a license, though the two disagree on whether it should cover both uploads and downloads or downloads only.

French language coverage at http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/inter...9157528,00.htm


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DRMin’

Electronics Firms Take Step Toward Compatible Gadgets

A consortium of the world's largest computer and electronics companies on Tuesday established ground rules for building compatible electronic devices that can share movies, music and other media.

But the group quickly acknowledged that even greater challenges, including agreeing on how to protect digital content from theft, had to be overcome before consumers can create, manage and share content on any electronic device.

Many of the 145 global companies, including Sony Corp.(6758.T)(SNE.N) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), are deeply wedded to proprietary ways of storing and processing digital media content. The group, however, found consensus in common and existing standards for audio, video and Internet communications.

Products that meet the specifications of the Digital Living Network Alliance will be awarded a logo that will let shoppers know that such a device will work with other certified products. The first compatible electronics could start appearing on store shelves by the end of this year.

Several challenges became apparent as participating executives gave a presentation to reporters in San Francisco. For one, the group acknowledged that they had yet to agree upon an anti-piracy technology for movies and music.

Easier Said Than Done

Even if an agreement is eventually reached on so-called digital rights management, business arrangements with movie studios and record labels would likely have to be renegotiated to allow such content to be shared on multiple devices and converted into different digital formats.

``The whole copy protection issue is an order of magnitude more complex than anything we've done so far,'' said Pat Griffis, the director of worldwide media standards for Microsoft's Windows client division, and vice chairman of the technology alliance.

Also, despite the large collection of companies, at least two important names in consumer electronics were absent from the alliance: Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL.O) and RealNetworks Inc.(RNWK.O) Apple did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Real said it would consider joining at a later date.

Apple's portable music player, the iPod, has become a highly profitable success in legal music downloading. RealNetworks, for its part, this month reached an agreement with Starz Encore Group to set up a flat-rate movie download service for people with broadband Internet connections.

Group members also acknowledged that marketing and pricing missteps with early versions of home content sharing devices -- such as ``digital media adapters'' that send audio and video from a computer to a stereo or TV -- had put off many consumers.

``When consumers go to the store, they're not exactly sure what they're looking at,'' said Scott Smyers, a vice president at Sony Electronics and chairman of the group. That problem, he added, is not going away.

``The products are not getting less complicated. They're actually getting more complicated,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/techn...gitalhome.html


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Wanted: New Friend, Must Have Bluetooth

SINGAPORE - Student Gracinia Lim has made new friends thanks to mobile phone software that alerts her to compatible people nearby.

She is an early customer of a service in Singapore called BEDD that uses Bluetooth wireless communications to scan strangers' phones for their personal profiles.

The application joins a swelling number of Internet and mobile phone based services that offer to widen people's social networks.

Users download the BEDD software into a compatible phone, complete a short profile of themselves and include a description of who they want to befriend, or an item they want to buy or sell.

The software automatically searches for and exchanges profiles with other phones that come within a 20-meterradius. Matched users are given each other's contact details.

``I've become close with people that I've never known before, built up a close clique of friends whom I chill out with, sleep over at their homes and go for late suppers with,'' said Lim, 19.

The software, created by futures trader Stephen Carlton and Swedish engineer Olle Bliding about three years ago, was launched last month in Singapore and will be rolled out in most of Asia by year-end. It costs S$0.98 ($0.571) for 30 days of unlimited use.

BEDD differs from rival services in that it relies on phone-to-phone transmission, running on the short-range Bluetooth technology. Other mobile-based dating services in Asia -- such as Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.'s MyCupid and Bharti Airtel of India's TrackUrMate -- exchange information through a central database. Carlton said BEDD has over 1,000 users in the city state and hosts get-togethers in coffee bars where people let their phones make their introductions. As the number of customers grows, the chances of meeting a compatible person at random in the street or on a bus will grow.

``People spend tons of money at dating and matchmaking agencies or on personal ads -- for a small amount of money, this software could help change their lives,'' Carlton said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/techn...e-friends.html


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Movie Ticket Prices Hit All - Time High

LONDON - The cost of going to the movies hit an all-time high last year as the construction boom in plush multiplex cinemas continued to push up ticket prices, according to research on Wednesday.

In its ninth annual worldwide survey on movie ticket prices, London-based media research group Screen Digest said average ticket prices rose in 40 of the 45 countries it tracks.

The global average ticket price in 2003 was $5.20, up 4.8 percent in local currency terms.

At 1,252 yen -- $10.80 in 2003 average currency terms -- Japanese ticket prices were the most dear. Rounding out the top five were Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Britain ranked tenth.

Screen Digest said a major culprit was construction of multiplexes, the state-of-the art cinema complexes that come equipped with air-conditioning, enhanced sound systems and sometimes shops and videogame arcades under a single roof.

Multiplex ticket prices tend to be higher than those charged at older, ``arthouse'' cinemas, the researchers note. For the past 15 years, multiplexes have been a common feature in more established cinema markets such as the U.S., UK and Germany. The construction boom has caught on over the past few years in other parts of Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in South America and Asia.

In the United States, the largest movie-going market, average ticket prices rose for a 10th straight year to $6.04, climbing 45 percent over the decade, Screen Digest said.

The economics of movie ticket prices is not easy to pinpoint. Screen Digest points out that in Germany a variety of factors from a poor economy to lackluster box office attendance forced movie ticket prices down 2.6 percent year-on-year.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/...e-tickets.html


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United Kingdom: The Sting-An Insider’s Guide To Film Piracy
Mark Endemano, Ed Shedd and Jolyon Barker

Piracy comes in two guises – hard copy (physical goods) and soft copy (electronic files). Press and check discs are one of the largest sources of pirated films.

Hard copy piracy, e.g. DVDs copied in Asia or Russia and made available on the black market, has been prevalent for years. It is largely controlled by organised crime, with black market distributors able to press and ship DVDs from Asia for less than $1.

There are a number of ways this pirated copy is obtained:

· Cinemas:Films in a cinema are recorded with a digital camera that can then be easily copied to DVD, VHS or VCD format (or posted on the internet for download). This is normally the worst quality pirated product.

· Screeners:This is the most common form of piracy. Screeners (with a time code burnt in) are commonly sent out to territories for audio dubbing and subtitling. These are sometimes obtained by pirates and copied onto all formats, including DVD.

· Digi-mastersigi-masters are similar to screeners but are of higher quality. Normally passed on from company insiders or third party affiliates.

· Press and check discs:These are the sample discs sent to the press and DVD industry insiders. They are similar to the finished product but lack the label and sleeve art and packaging. These often end up being pirated.

· Parallel imports:When territories release on different dates, territories within the same geographic region (and with the same DVD encrypted region code, e.g. Latin America, region 4) run the risk of having the finished product (pirated or legal) from a neighbouring country being imported in advance of the official release.

· Copies of legally obtained DVDs: These are purchased on the open market and reproduced to distribute on the internet or as copied discs. This form of piracy particularly causes damage to the home video market.

Soft copy pirating is a newer threat. It consists of copying and distributing pirated content via the internet in the following formats:

· Peer-to-peer technology (P2P): A type of network that allows users to access parts of each others’ hard drives, enabling files to be copied from one computer to another. Unlike the client/server model, content is stored in the user’s PC, which makes it difficult to discover and disable pirate sites.

· Streaming media:Sound (audio) and pictures (video) that are transmitted on the internet in a streaming or continuous fashion, using data packets. The most effective reception of streaming media requires some form of broadband technology.

· Internet relay chat:A system for internet chatting where users exchange information and digital content in realtime to one another.

· File transfer protocol (FTP):Allows users to download files from other computers on the internet. This can be a simple way to distribute content to a defined number of users.

http://www.mondaq.com/i_article.asp_Q_articleid_E_26869


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Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Risks Can Be Better Disclosed
ByteEnable

The Federal Trade Commission today told a Senate Subcommittee that, although peer-to-peer

(P2P) file-sharing technology has benefits, it can create risks to consumers and some consumers may not be aware of these risks. Speaking to the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition, Infrastructure, and Foreign Commerce, Howard Beales, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the agency will work with the P2P file-sharing software industry to improve risk disclosures to consumers.

Beales called P2P file-sharing a neutral technology and said that P2P file-sharing programs can increase the speed and reduce the cost of file downloads.

The FTC testimony warns that when consumers download P2P file-sharing software, they may also be downloading other unwanted software, including spyware. The testimony notes that the agency is conducting non-public investigations concerning potential unfair or deceptive practices in connection with the dissemination of spyware.

According to the testimony, there may be other risks as well. “Consumers may inadvertently place files with sensitive personal information in their directory of files to be shared,” it says, thereby giving others access to their personal information. “Consumers may receive files with viruses and other programs that could impair the operation of their personal computers. Consumers may receive or redistribute files that may subject them to civil or criminal liability under laws governing copyright infringement and pornography. Because of the way the files are labeled, individuals, including children, may be exposed to unwanted and disturbing images. The Commission is concerned with the exposure of individuals, especially children, to unwanted pornographic materials through deceptive practices,” the testimony says.

Beales said that the FTC has reviewed disclosure statements on the Web sites of the ten most popular P2P file-sharing software programs to determine whether the program distributors misrepresent the risks associated with P2P file-sharing. “None of these representations appear on their face to be false or misleading,” the testimony says.

“Nevertheless, distributors of P2P file-sharing programs do not appear to be providing as much risk information about their products as they could or providing risk information as clearly and conspicuously and they might,” the testimony says.

According to the testimony, the Commission staff will work with industry to improve disclosure statements. “A P2P file-sharing software industry trade association recently wrote to the Commission to report that its member companies have a ‘desire . . . to act responsibly, to improve their products and to offer consumers a high-quality experience.’ We will encourage industry members to make good on this offer by improving their disclosures of risk information to consumers.”

The Commission vote to approve the testimony was 4-0, with Chairman Timothy J. Muris not participating.

An FTC publication, “File-Sharing: A Fair Share? Maybe Not” provides tips for consumers about the risks of file sharing. It is available online.

Copies of the testimony are available from the FTC’s Web site at www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish (bilingual counselors are available to take complaints), or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/articl...40623153836280


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RIAA Files Suit Against Another 482 Alleged File-Traders
Jay Lyman

RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy told TechNewsWorld that while some have many more and others have fewer, the average number of songs made available by those being sued is approximately 800. "We continue to target the substantial offenders -- those who are sharing or distributing hundreds and hundreds of songs on a P2P network," Lamy said.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) this week continued its legal campaign against online file-traders who use peer-to-peer (P2P) song-swapping networks. In the latest move to stem the flow of pirated music, the RIAA has taken legal action against another 482 individuals across the country.

The RIAA, which now has taken legal action against more than 3,400 people since suits began last September, has settled with approximately 600 of those individuals, who are not being named in the latest round of so-called "John Doe" cases, where the identity of the alleged infringer is not disclosed until there is a hearing.

Prior to the RIAA suits this year, the recording industry group was securing subpoenas on alleged file-traders and serving them to ISPs who would then match infringing Internet addresses to individuals.

There is agreement among experts that the campaign has been effective in discouraging free P2P use, but analysts also say there has been a negative effect on enthusiastic music listeners who simply want to explore and search out new and different music.

Cases Continue

When the lawsuits began last fall, RIAA officials said the most egregious offenders were the first to be sued for copyright infringement.

RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy told TechNewsWorld that while some have many more and others have fewer, the average number of songs made available by those being sued is approximately 800.

"We continue to target the substantial offenders -- those who are sharing or distributing hundreds and hundreds of songs on a P2P network," Lamy said.

The RIAA said its latest round of legal action involved 213 individuals in St. Louis, 55 in Denver, 206 in Washington D.C. and eight in New Jersey.

Getting Less Scary

Although the lawsuits have continued consistently with new alleged copyright infringers every month or two, the initial fear of RIAA legal retribution has subsided somewhat, according to Pew Internet and American Life Project research specialist Mary Madden.

"What we've seen is there was an initial reaction and people are realizing there are other ways they can skirt around this tracking," Madden told TechNewsWorld.

Analysts also have been drawing attention to non-P2P sources of song swapping that increasingly includes e-mail and instant messaging , as well as newsgroups and other community sites.

Chilling Effect

Madden said the RIAA lawsuits have no doubt had an effect on P2P use, but the extent to which people are returning or using other means to trade music online is unknown.

Madden also said there are other factors, primarily fear of viruses, that have turned people away from the free file-sharing services.

However, along with discouraging people from accessing P2P, the RIAA campaign might also be discouraging use of legitimate services -- such as Napster 2.0 or iTunes -- by those new to online music, according to Madden.

"The chilling effect of the lawsuits is being felt not only by current downloaders, but also by people who are not yet downloaders," Madden said. "There's the potential of people being scared from using the legitimate services."
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/34701.html


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File-Trading Bill Stokes Fury
Joanna Glasner

A new Senate bill aimed at punishing companies that encourage people to steal copyright materials met with a deluge of criticism from file-trading companies and tech industry groups that believe it could hamper development of new technologies.

Sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Inducing of Copyright Infringement Act of 2004 would, in the senator's words, "simply confirm that existing law would allow artists to bring civil actions against parties who intend to induce others to infringe copyrights."

In a prepared statement, Hatch compared peer-to-peer networks, which allow people to exchange any digital content over their computers, to villains of literature and film, including a character in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who lured youngsters into danger with false promises of free lollipops. He said the networks should be held liable for creating technologies that enable often unwitting consumers to house pirated materials on their computers.

The Induce Act is the latest in a series of bills favorable to the music and motion picture industries introduced by Hatch, who co-authored the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and introduced legislation in March that would allow the Justice Department to pursue civil cases against file sharers. In the past five years, Hatch has also received $158,000 in campaign contributions from the television, movie and music industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Hatch's bill enters the political fray as a panel of federal appeals judges in California continues to deliberate on a case filed by the recording industry challenging the legality of two of the most popular file-trading networks. The judges' decision, expected any day, will follow a lower court ruling that the two networks, Grokster and Morpheus, should not be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. That ruling, made last year, spurred the recording industry to file lawsuits against individual file traders rather the P2P networks they used.

Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a group representing the file-trading industry, believes the Induce Act is an attempt by the recording industry to mute the unpleasant ramifications of a likely appeals court loss.

"It's a stealth maneuver intended to circumvent a line of cases emerging that peer-to-peer software is indeed legal to design, to make available and to use, on a case-by-case basis, depending on what you use it for," Eisgrau said. He characterized the Induce Act as an example of "big entertainment pulling big strings."

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he's concerned that the bill could harm companies that seem to have nothing to do with illegal file trading. Looking at the legislation, he said, one could arguably make a case that any device that could be used to store or play illegally obtained files could be targeted in a lawsuit.

"If this bill were law, I could easily imagine suing Apple the very next day for inducing infringement for selling iPods," von Lohmann said.

Supporters of the Induce Act will likely have a hard time convincing a majority of the Senate to go along, said Gigi Sohn, president of the technology policy group Public Knowledge, who predicts a battle royal over its passage between the recording and computer technology industries.

For her part, Sohn believes the bill would essentially "take the guts out of" a legal standard that has been used over the last two decades to determine whether a technology developer can be held liable in infringement cases. That standard, upheld in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in a suit challenging the legality of the Sony Betamax, states that technologies that can be used for copyright infringement but also have substantial non-infringing uses do not violate the law.

"This (new) bill applies to all technologies, whether it's hardware or software. It doesn't make a difference whether your technology has substantial non-infringing uses," Sohn said. Theoretically, makers of devices with a broad variety of uses, including computers and copying machines, could be held liable for inducing infringement.

Another problem with the bill, said Will Rodger, director of public policy at the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which is pressing to block its passage, is that its authors do not provide a clear definition of what constitutes inducement.

"As we read it, reporters who wrote about peer-to-peer file-trading networks could well be charged with inducing infringement," he said. "Their definition of inducement seems to cover almost anything."
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63969,00.html


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Going Hollywood: DOJ Joins File- Sharing Fight
Vanessa Blum Legal Times

After years of agitating over Internet piracy and spending millions of dollars to press their case in Washington, the entertainment and software industries have gained a powerful ally: the U.S. Department of Justice.

With just months until the presidential election that could end his term in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has launched an ambitious effort to crack down on digital piracy and protect the interests of copyright holders. The initiative is led by Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff, David Israelite, who chairs a newly formed task force on intellectual property issues.

The high-level task force, which includes a dozen influential DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials, will draft plans to revamp federal law enforcement's approach to IP matters, including widespread file sharing over peer-to-peer networks.

Task force members will consider whether the Justice Department should take the lead role in going after online file-swappers -- individuals who share copyrighted material across the Internet. Tactics being considered include ramping up criminal prosecutions and filing civil lawsuits similar to those now being brought by the recording industry.

Not surprisingly, the DOJ task force has been applauded by industry groups, many of which have spent millions to deter online file swapping. But critics complain that the Justice Department may be overstepping its appropriate role by championing the interests of a powerful industry that some think can take care of itself.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1087855513203


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Euro iTunes Downloads Top 800K in First Week
Blane Warrene

These recent movements in the European digital music market is transforming the music industry as a whole, said GartnerG2 senior analyst Mike McGuire, who added that initial concerns, such as the price of iPods and the single format support of the iTunes Music Store has been unfounded.

Apple, moving quickly to repeat its U.S.-based leadership in legal online music distribution, announced Wednesday that it has sold 800,000 songs through the European wing of its iTunes Music Store during its first week of business.

"In the UK alone, iTunes sold more than 450,000 songs in the last week, 16 times as many as [On Demand Distribution] OD2, its closest competitor." Apple CEO Steve Jobs crowed in a press release.

Meanwhile, dissed iTunes rival OD2 had a big announcement of its own: on Tuesday, digital media solutions provider Loudeye purchased OD2 for US$20.7 million. This acquisition will double the revenues and reach of private-label digital music services across Europe and in Australia for Loudeye and OD2 clients.

Apple's Marketing Might

These recent movements in the European digital music market is transforming the music industry as a whole, said GartnerG2 senior analyst Mike McGuire, who added that initial concerns, such as the price of iPods and the single format support of the iTunes Music Store has been unfounded.

"The people who are using online music -- early adopters -- are just not as price sensitive and will want increased storage for their music," McGuire told MacNewsWorld. "Apple is offering this."

McGuire explained that marketing has played a bigger role in Apple's ascension than the technology. While competitors like Samsung offer similar features and functionality, they are not garnering the same attention.

"This is about a rich-media strategy, one where music, videos and games are sold online, and companies are seeing this industry in that light," McGuire continued. "There is a reason why Nike has the monstrous advertising budget they have. Apple is doing the same by also investing in marketing their own brand."

On learning that Napster failed to respond to MacNewsWorld's request for comments about Apple's announcement, McGuire expressed disgust.

"You would think they would have called yesterday," he said. "They all should want to tell their story and differentiate themselves, especially with Apple selling in a week what might take them months to sell."

Don't Forget the Tech

For his part, Loudeye CEO Jeff Cavins told MacNewsWorld that technology holds comparable significance in the online music marketplace as does marketing.

"Unfortunately, the most successful in digital media remains [illegal] peer to peer file sharing. Kazaa alone has a 30-billion file catalog, in contrast to a worldwide market for recorded music at around $32 billion," Cavins said.

Moreover, Cavins contended that a company's marketing perspective varies, depending on its motivations. "Sony is in it purely to drive business to their consumer electronics and could care less if they make money, [while] Apple equally wants to drive up iPod sales," said Cavins. "Napster, on the other hand, is in this business purely to make money from its music."

The Pepsi Challenge

According to Cavins, the online music spaces stretches beyond the music itself, citing branding as a major factor. The recent Pepsi-Apple promotion, for example, demonstrated that Pepsi had served to strengthen Apple's brand because consumer traffic was directed toward the U.S iTunes Music Store.

Coca Cola faced a similar challenge in Europe, because of social and cultural dividers in consumer adoption of Coke, Cavins said. To help win those buyers back, the company launched mycokemusic.com.

"Now on a Coke can in the UK, 70 percent of the can's real estate is covered with promotions for mycokemusic.com," Cavins explained. "And when someone buys a case of Coke they assume they might win a few songs and are driven to a Coca Cola-branded property."
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/technology/34713.html


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Connected Comment: Apple Bites Back At Pirates
Dominic White

'No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones," sang The Clash on their debut single in 1977. The legendary punks were rebelling against the rock aristocracy of the time, but their memorable lyric might just as well be applied today to Apple's online music store, iTunes.

The only member of rock's holy trinity that you will find on the US computer giant's UK service, launched last week with trademark American hype, is the King. Even then, you'll only get one album from 1969. It was hardly his heyday.

But perhaps this is just nitpicking. iTunes has a vast catalogue of music, with 700,000 songs on offer, and its relative simplicity makes the process of downloading tunes far less painful than using "illegal" file-sharing services.

Launching iTunes into Europe last week, Apple's founder Steve Jobs admitted to having tried out the services of his outlaw rivals "in the name of research". He's such a card, but he had some serious points to make about the problems you can encounter when you download illicitly.

The services are often unreliable. Downloads can be painfully slow or "crap out", as Mr Jobs so charmingly put it, before the song ends. You might also find that the file was encrypted by a 10-year-old who managed to cut off the last four seconds of the song.

The core of Apple's mission has been to come up with a service that is better than those on pirate sites, which Mr Jobs identified as his biggest competition. The record companies should take note, having chosen instead to pursue the teenage pirates through the courts, while failing to launch decent services themselves in fear of cannibalising precious CD sales.

iTunes, previously only available to people with a credit card and a US billing address, offers several things the pirate sites cannot: one-click downloads, one-click CD burning, free print-outs of album cover art work and notes and exclusive tracks from certain artists.

It has also copied some of the pirates' best ideas such as the ability for users to pick and mix their music track by track.

That is not to say iTunes is niggle-free, particularly if you are a UK user. When Mr Jobs last week revealed that it would cost Germans 99 cents to download a track, a Teutonic cheer went up in the vast conference hall. Small wonder, when you discover that UK users will have to pay far more.

Our 79p charge is equivalent to 1.20 or $1.44, making it almost 50pc more expensive to download a track than it is across the pond, where the charge is 99 US cents. Why did Mr Jobs feel it necessary to penalise his UK customers so?

Perhaps because, even at UK prices, he is likely to make a loss, particularly on so-called crown jewel acts such as Robbie Williams. In reality the real profits are likely to come from the vast number of iPods that Apple is betting it can sell on the back of the iTunes service.

The iPod, which allows you to squeeze a lifetime's music into a white gizmo the size of a cigarette packet, is the only digital music player that you can download your iTunes to (unless you are a complete techno whizz).

Mr Jobs says the company can't make the gadgets fast enough. And while you can only transfer the tracks you have downloaded from iTunes to four other computers, you can download them again onto an unlimited number of iPods.

It sounds like a nascent plan for world domination along the lines of Microsoft's promotion of its Windows operating system. If successful, it too will become a business school classic.

The matter might even attract the attention of the anti-trust regulators, given that Mr Jobs already claims to have cornered 70pc of the US market for legal music downloads.

He may have a harder task getting to that level of domination in the UK, where Peter Gabriel's 0D2, and the now-legal Napster have a head start on him.

But his toughest job will be persuading an entire generation that has grown up with the idea that music comes for free to start paying for the privilege. Without the support of independent record labels that look after cutting edge artists such as the White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand, iTunes will struggle to attract such an audience.

If, as some observers are suggesting, Mr Jobs is playing bully-boy tactics with the independent labels, he risks alienating the very audience he is so desperate to seduce.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected.../ecntconc2.xml


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ATTENTION ALL UNITS! BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR NEWSPAPER PROPAGANA.

Peer-To-Peer Files

Movies can be found through peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, such as Kazaa and Limewire, but none are legal, despite the claims to the contrary. Many Web sites that make such claims charge membership fees, but none of the money goes to the studios that own the film.

Peer-to-peer file sharing also comes with a host of technical problems; files often are corrupted, incomplete or infected with viruses. Some mask pornography behind mainstream titles.

Jenna Martin, 16, of Alexandria, said she has experimented with peer-to-peer movie downloads and has been disappointed with the results. "Kazaa has done a number on my computer and tends to crash it regularly," she said.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...ede20peer.html


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Failing to Draw Big Players, Computer Show Is Canceled
John Markoff

This year's Comdex, the fall computer event that was once the nation's largest trade show, was canceled Wednesday as its owners cited the failure of the industry's largest companies to participate.

Executives at MediaLive International, the company that owns Comdex and other trade shows, said they decided to redefine the event and were hoping that it would re-emerge after a year's hiatus.

Created in 1979 by Sheldon Adelson, a Boston financial consultant, Comdex rapidly gained prominence in the early 1980's with the emergence of the personal computer industry.

The annual show became the place to showcase new computers and software, and a mandatory stopping place for industry luminaries.

Executives would flock to Las Vegas to hear a speech on the future of computing by Bill Gates or to visit a booth where Mitchell D. Kapor introduced the Lotus Development Corporation's Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program.

"I remember walking down an aisle at Comdex with Gates and watching the crowd part like the Red Sea making way for Moses," said Stewart Alsop, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who edited Infoworld, a personal computer industry newspaper, during the 1980's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/te...gy/24show.html


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Tech Heavies Support Challenge To Copyright Law
Declan McCullagh

The copyright cold war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is about to heat up.

Skirmishes between content-producing companies seeking expansive copyright protections and hardware and telecommunications corporations on the other side have resulted in a legislative deadlock on Capitol Hill.

Some of the most influential technology companies are planning to announce on Tuesday an alliance that they hope will end the impasse. Called the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition, its purpose is to coordinate lobbying efforts in opposition--at least initially--to the most controversial section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Currently, that controversial section of the DMCA broadly says no one may bypass a copy-protection scheme or distribute any product that is "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing" copy protection. The movie industry, record labels and many software publishers are fiercely protective of that section of the law, saying that digital rights management, or DRM, systems backed up by the law are necessary to reduce piracy.

But members of the nascent coalition, including Intel, Sun Microsystems, Verizon Communications, SBC, Qwest, Gateway and BellSouth, are lending their support to a proposal by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., to rewrite that part of the DMCA. Boucher's bill says that descrambling utilities can be distributed, and copy protection can be circumvented as long as no copyright infringement is taking place.

One participant in the coalition, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said its members already have met with representatives of more than 20 congressional offices. Their sales pitch: Beyond harming "fair use" rights, the DMCA also endangers computer research vital to national security.

Other members of the coalition include: Philips Consumer Electronics North America, the Consumer Electronics Association, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, the American Foundation for the Blind, the United States Telecom Association, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association.

Boucher's bill, called the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, would also grant the Federal Trade Commission new authority to regulate copy-protected compact discs. It gives FTC bureaucrats the power to police music sales by ensuring that copy-protected discs are labeled as such and are not simply called "CDs," which could be misleading to consumers. Such labels would have to say that the copy-protected discs might not play properly in standard CD players, and that they might not be recordable on PCs or other devices that can record standard CDs.
U.S. record labels have been slower than their European and Asian counterparts to add copy locks to releases in the American market, fearful of consumer backlash and complaints about incompatibility. But the top seller in last week's stores, the debut album by hard rock act Velvet Revolver, was wrapped in antipiracy technology.

Industry insiders said the album's success despite prominently displayed stickers warning that it was "protected against unauthorized duplication" was likely to lead to more copy-protected releases in the United States. Still, earlier this month, Universal Music decided to stop adding the technology to discs sold in Germany, according to Billboard magazine, a potential sign that regulations regarding labeling could discourage some record companies from using DRM for fear of losing buyers.

Regardless, Boucher's drive to grant the Federal Trade Commission new authority to regulate copy-protected discs with labels has drawn criticism from at least one group that otherwise applauds Boucher's goal of amending the DMCA. The free-market Cato Institute, which convened a conference that Boucher spoke at last week, called the proposed FTC powers another big government power grab.

"Bringing in the government to impose certain types of mandatory labeling schemes or new technological mandates is a little bit troubling to us," said Adam Thierer, Cato's director of telecommunications studies. "A lot of this seems to be an anti-DRM backlash that's developed as part of the Boucher bill. We've had groups say that DRM is the devil, that by locking up content, private interests have gained too much control over copyright."

To Thierer, it's far better to treat the race to scramble and descramble content as a kind of market competition that should be unfettered by the DMCA--or new FTC rules: "The better approach is to let content owners lock up their work, but (to) take away the advantage that the DMCA gives them."
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5242774.html


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U.S. Copyright Bill To Curb Online Piracy Is Attacked As Too Broad
Matt Richtel and Tom Zeller Jr. NYT

A copyright bill introduced in the Senate this week is raising a chorus of criticism from representatives of the telecommunications and electronics industries, who contend it could make computer companies, Internet providers and other technology businesses liable for software piracy.

But supporters of the bill, including its bipartisan sponsors, say it would provide a powerful tool to curb illegal copying of music files and other media and would protect children from the lure of a technology that is designed to help them break the law.

The legislation, introduced on Tuesday, is the so-called Induce bill, which would make liable anyone who "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" a copyright violation. It is aimed primarily at the makers of file-sharing software, which is used to trade copies of digital files over the Internet.

But critics say that the bill's language is too broad and that it amounts to a fundamental undoing of a 1984 Supreme Court decision that has protected companies developing legal technologies that can be abused by users.

"It's a very powerful, blunt instrument that can be used to threaten and intimidate industries that copyright owners disagree with," said Sarah Deutsch, associate general counsel for Verizon Communications.

Echoing the concerns of other critics, Deutsch added that the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared intent on passing along the bill to the full Senate without holding hearings first. "What's disturbing is that this is a dramatic sea change to copyright law, but there have been no discussions or hearings," Deutsch said. Sponsors of the bill, however, insisted that such concerns were overblown. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who co-sponsored the bill along with the committee's ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the law would simply cut off a revenue stream for companies that were knowingly providing tools to commit crimes.

"These corporations know better than to break the law themselves, so they profit from infringement by inducing users of their software to do the 'dirty work' of actually breaking the law," Hatch said.

Hatch also said the bill was meant to defend children, who he said made up about half of the users of file-sharing software. "This for-profit piracy scheme mostly endangers children, who are ill equipped to appreciate the illegality or risks of their acts," he said. The legislation is the latest development in the continuing battle between copyright holders and the makers of computers and digital recording devices that can be used to violate intellectual property laws. The file-sharing network Napster, which effectively was shut down in 2002, was one of the first to be aggressively challenged in the courts.

More recently, the record industry began suing individuals, including children, who use file- sharing networks to trade copyrighted files, and a suit brought by MGM against three peer-to- peer software products - Grokster, Morpheus and Kazaa - is pending in federal court.

Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, an industry lobbying group, said the legislation was meant to be narrowly tailored to address companies that build technology focused on illegal file sharing.

He said he did not envision the legislation enabling lawsuits against "neutral" technologies, like computer makers.

"This is not about going after the device makers," Bainwol said, though he stopped short of guaranteeing that the recording industry would never use the measure to sue them.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=526360.html


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RIAA Legal Settlement Short On Treasures
Candace Heckman

Listening to oldies such as "Mr. Bojangles" and "What's Going On?" might be a fun music history lesson for school kids in King and Pierce counties.

But 413 free copies of "Greatest Hits 1971" might prove to be too much of a good thing.

And 387 CDs containing explicit lyrics by the late Puerto Rican rapper Big Punisher, along with 356 copies of "Staying Power" by the late Barry White, weren't high on the public schools' wish list.

Raunchy music wasn't what anyone in education or the Attorney General's Office had in mind when they announced that a windfall of music was coming to public schools and libraries from last year's $143 million anti-trust settlement with the recording industry. The industry was accused of setting artificially high prices.

Washington got 115,241 music CDs -- which would retail at $1.5 million -- out of the deal. Boxes of free music began hitting schools and libraries last week.

But some teachers are not sure what they will do with, for example, 114 copies of Meredith Brooks' "Blurring the Edges," which includes the Grammy-nominated song, "Bitch."

"There were truly some gems in there," said Karen Farley, a library media specialist for the Puget Sound Educational Service District. "It's just that some of them, you'd look at and scratch your head."

Farley's regional district, which covers 35 school districts, received 1,355 copies of Whitney Houston singing "The Star-Spangled Banner." The hit single, which Houston sang before the 1991 Super Bowl at the height of the Gulf War, was 5 percent of the district's cache.

Washington was the first state to receive its share of CDs, and the national settlement administrators discovered mistakes when they calculated the distribution, said Gary Larson, spokesman for state Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

The Secretary of State's Office this week set up a CD-swapping listserve for librarians and administrators, said Karen Goettling, with the state library system.

"I'm sure that there are other, smaller libraries that wouldn't mind one or two copies of some of those CDs," she said.

Larson said larger recipients, such as the Puget Sound ESD, which received 25,600 CDs, and the Tacoma Public Library, which received 1,325 CDs, are having the most problems with the variety. Libraries and schools that received about 100 or fewer titles seem to be more pleased with the selections, he said.

He said his office was unaware that schools had received titles featuring explicit lyrics, with albums clearly marked with the black-and-white parental advisory sticker.

In her announcement of the distribution two weeks ago, Gregoire said schools would not receive music with adult content.

Most of the free CDs distributed in Washington went to the public schools.

Although she was surprised by some inappropriate music, "I'm glad that the schools were even considered," said Cynthia Schultz, director of learning resources for the Northwest Educational Service District, which covers counties from Snohomish to San Juan.

"Whether or not we considered it 'good' was irrelevant," Schultz said. "There was a whole collection of Gene Autry albums. My husband would've given his eyeteeth for those."

Too busy organizing their new digs, officials at Seattle Public Library didn't open theirs until yesterday, said library spokeswoman Andra Addison.

Included in the shipment: 84 copies of an album by rhythm-and-blues artist Samantha Mumba, 69 by Lenny Kravitz and 48 copies of "Scary Sounds for Halloween" from Martha Stewart.

With 23 branches, the Seattle Public Library received many more copies of albums it can use, but officials don't know what they will do with the extras.

The King County Regional Library System already has decided to try to hock its gifts, all 7,700 of them.

"We didn't feel they were up to snuff to be added to our collection," said library spokeswoman Julie Wallace. King County donated the CDs to its fund-raising foundation to sell.

Wallace said she is not sure what kind of music the library system got, but heard "there were a lot of Gregorian Chants."

Part of the settlement the recording industry made with states' attorneys general was that the giveaway CDs couldn't be junk, Larson said. Titles had to be on a Billboard chart for at least 26 weeks and had to peak in the top half of the chart.

To their credit, Schultz said, the music labels included what she considered good recordings, such as classical music, newer Carlos Santana collections and the soundtrack to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Tacoma librarian Lara Weigand said she remains skeptical about the sincerity of the recording industry in sending the CDs to Washington, that the type and volume of some music seemed like the record labels were cleaning house.

"There were several that were clearly marked, 'For Promotional Use Only,' " she said. Tacoma Public Library received dozens of CDs that were notched, indicating that they were not resalable.

Included in Weigand's haul: "an abundance of Christmas music," 27 copies of Madame Butterfly and 35 copies of the Bee Gees "This is Where I Came In."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...dupdate24.html
















Until next week,

- js.














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