Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – October 4th, '03

[JackSpratts]

Quote of the week: “If users truly have the right to speak anonymously on the Internet, as the court held, then their ISPs must protect that right.” - Julie Hilden





Feeding The Hand That Bites Him

Interesting goings on this week in Washington. There’s a noisy P2P row in the Senate and of course the usual RIAA sponsored copyright extremists showed up to flog the party line. They even brought in a famous rapper who riffed on musicians getting a nickel from the new 99 cent downloads and how that would be better than getting nothing. He then asked Congress plaintively if Americans don’t deserve to earn even a small living. I wasn’t there but it sure sounded like good theater. It may have been heartfelt but if it’s come to this musicians are really in trouble with their record companies. Only a nickel? Talk about setting your sights down low. Sentiments like these truly miss the picture. Whatever file sharing appears to be right now the ultimate evolution of peer-to-peer will be the liberation of both the consumer and the artist from the media companies - it’s the fundamental result of file sharing. This artist may have meant well but he had it wrong. He shouldn’t be in congress giving away his legacy and selling himself short to prop up his label, they’re ripping him off. He should be urging lawmakers to get on with the future and do whatever it takes to eliminate parasitical media middlemen standing in the way of a real explosion of creativity and compensation, the likes of which has never been seen before and may very well usher in a golden age for both artists and listeners alike. The musician asking Congress to help the recording industry is like the turkey asking the pilgrim for Thanksgiving.

There’s a better way. Take a page from the independent record companies who’ve leveraged peer-to-peer into a powerful promo machine. These new labels are giving artists 50% of the take and doing well. Or better yet start a cooperative and hire your own people. With recording technology bringing the cost out of the stratosphere and down to earth and peer-to-peer doing the same for distribution it’s time artists took control of their destiny. Hire the help, pay them fairly but be your own boss. For once command your fate.

Then go hang with Congress if you feel like it. But you’ll be doing it because you want to, not because you need to.








Enjoy,

Jack.








Napster Marks Comeback with Oct. 9 Test Debut
Sue Zeidler

Napster, the pioneering song-swap service that was shut down for copyright infringement, is coming back next week to face the music as a paid site in a vastly changed online music arena.

Digital media company Roxio Inc., which bought Napster for $5 million last year, plans an Oct. 9 test launch for a new, legal version of the service called Napster 2.0, according to Napster spokesman Seth Oster.

Oster said the company also will unveil full details and the official launch date for Napster 2.0 at the service's "beta," or test, launch event in New York City, next Thursday, where over 200 members of the press and industry are invited.

A major recording artist will be featured at the event.

In the past Roxio had said Napster 2.0 would launch by Christmas, but sources familiar with the matter said the new Web site will be online and running no later than November.

Roxio bought the Napster assets in November 2002 touting the strength of the once popular brand name.

The strategy seems to be paying off as Roxio's stock has risen nearly four-fold from a low of $2.29 in late October last year to more than $9 currently. Roxio shares ended trading up 6.57 percent, or 57 cents, at $9.25 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday in a generally positive day for media stocks.

But while Napster commanded over 60 million users in its heyday before being idled for promoting unauthorized copying and free swapping of music, it now has to compete with a growing number of legitimate entrants to the online market as well as several renegade but popular swap sites like Kazaa that have sprung up in its wake.

Oster said Napster was confident it will be the strongest music service available by matching brand awareness with a superior product offering.

This past summer, Napster said it would be the only music Web site to offer consumers a choice between an a la carte download model or a premium subscription service.

Napster also will debut with a catalog of more than 500,000 songs, more than any other service to date.

By contrast, Apple Computer Inc's widely-touted iTunes music store offers Macintosh users the right to unlimited downloading only and plans to make the services functional on Windows- based competitors by the end of the year.

RealNetworks' Rhapsody is a subscription service which offers 79 cent downloads to subscribers, while BuyMusic.com launched its own music store in July and MusicMatch launched a download service earlier this week.

A few weeks ago, Napster and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd jointly announced they would offer a new digital audio player that will work seamlessly with Napster 2.0.

And on Tuesday, Napster and Microsoft Corp. announced a specially designed Napster 2.0 interface, which will be included on Microsoft's new media center product.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=3542838


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Kazaa's Endgame: a Deal
Keith Girard

Alan Morris wants to deal. He says as much every chance he gets, including during his recent appearance before a Senate subcommittee examining the record industry's campaign against illegal music downloading.

Morris is executive director of Sharman Networks, the company that operates Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file-sharing service that tens of millions of people use to swap copyrighted music over the Internet.

Kazaa is the most popular P2P network by far, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America.

"Operate," however, may be the wrong word here. The service has been carefully set up so that no one, technically, controls it. As such, Sharman can't be held liable for the activities of its users.

It's a very convenient arrangement, especially since the service owes its explosive growth and continued existence to illegal file sharing.

Last year, Kazaa boasted of having more than 100 million registered users, and this past May, its file-sharing software had become the world's most-downloaded program. More than 278 million copies have been loaded on computers.

At any given moment, more than 5 million users are online offering well over 1 billion files for copying through various P2P networks, according to Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA's new chairman/ chief executive.

Out of that mix, more than 2.6 billion copyrighted files (mostly recordings) are downloaded every month, he notes.

No wonder the record industry is hurting, and that's just what Morris seems to be counting on. Judging from his testimony, Sharman's endgame is pretty clear: Let free downloading ravage the industry until it cries "Uncle." Then step in and cut a deal -- on its terms, of course. Morris said as much at the hearing.

"There is a clear path out of this dilemma for the entertainment industry," he told lawmakers. "Embracing peer-to-peer technology and creating a fair market for the licensing of its content."

Morris revealed that -- surprise! -- Kazaa actually can be configured to monetize the service and diminish piracy -- if the price is right, of course. His price is about 25 cents per song.

"But sadly," he continued, "the major music labels have rejected every approach we have made to them to license their content and to deliver it to users of the Kazaa Media Desktop."

That would be tantamount to "turning the business over to them," one top record executive says. And, that will never happen on his watch, he adds.

So the game continues -- in court, in Congress and in the marketplace. The question now is how much longer Sharman can keep up the pressure. As Billboard senior business writer Brian Garrity notes in a story this week, Napster, iTunes and other legitimate download services will hit the Windows PC market this month, offering cheap and easy-to-download music to the masses.

Then, we'll see how the game plays out. As always, the marketplace will have the final say, as it should.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=3556864


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U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling
Eric Lichtblau

The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.

Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now available to them to pursue criminals — terrorists or otherwise. But critics of the administration's antiterrorism tactics assert that such use of the law is evidence the administration is using terrorism as a guise to pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.

Justice Department officials point out that they have employed their newfound powers in many instances against suspected terrorists. With the new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and it has used its expanded surveillance powers to move against several suspected terrorist cells.

But a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to terrorism in which federal authorities have used their expanded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance, or seize millions in tainted assets.

For instance, the ability to secure nationwide warrants to obtain e-mail and electronic evidence "has proved invaluable in several sensitive nonterrorism investigations," including the tracking of an unidentified fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who stole a company's trade secrets, the report said.

Justice Department officials said the cases cited in the report represent only a small sampling of the many hundreds of nonterrorism cases pursued under the law.

The authorities have also used toughened penalties under the law to press charges against a lovesick 20-year-old woman from Orange County, Calif., who planted threatening notes aboard a Hawaii-bound cruise ship she was traveling on with her family in May. The woman, who said she made the threats to try to return home to her boyfriend, was sentenced this week to two years in federal prison because of a provision in the Patriot Act on the threat of terrorism against mass transportation systems.

And officials said they had used their expanded authority to track private Internet communications in order to investigate a major drug distributor, a four-time killer, an identity thief and a fugitive who fled on the eve of trial by using a fake passport.

In one case, an e-mail provider disclosed information that allowed federal authorities to apprehend two suspects who had threatened to kill executives at a foreign corporation unless they were paid a hefty ransom, officials said. Previously, they said, gray areas in the law made it difficult to get such global Internet and computer data.

The law passed by Congress just five weeks after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has proved a particularly powerful tool in pursuing financial crimes.

Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other criminal uses.

"We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil," Mr. Ashcroft said last month in a speech in Washington, one of more than two dozen he has given in defense of the law, which has come under growing attack. "We have used these tools to save innocent American lives."

Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much broader mandate.

A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar last year on financial crimes, for instance, said: "We all know that the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it affects the war on crime as well?"

Elliot Mincberg, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal group that has been critical of Mr. Ashcroft, said the Justice Department's public assertions had struck him as misleading and perhaps dishonest.

"What the Justice Department has really done," he said, "is to get things put into the law that have been on prosecutors' wish lists for years. They've used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism."

A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as "international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many dealt with more common crimes like document forgery.

The terrorism law has already drawn sharp opposition from those who believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people's privacy in pursuit of terrorists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/po...28LEGA.html?hp


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House Vote Stymies TIA Spy Plan
Declan McCullagh

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a spending bill that eliminates money for the Terrorism Information Awareness project, effectively putting an end to the controversial Pentagon antiterrorism plan, which sought to assemble computerized dossiers on Americans.

The 407 to 15 vote on Wednesday approved a conference bill drafted by a joint House-Senate committee. The approval vote is the result of a year of fierce lobbying by privacy advocates to eliminate TIA (formerly named "Total Information Awareness") and of Pentagon efforts to defend it against mounting public and congressional criticism. Adm. John Poindexter, who ran the U.S. Department of Defense's Information Awareness Office, which managed the TIA project, resigned last month.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who led opposition to the TIA project on Capitol Hill, said in a telephone interview that the "program that would have been the biggest and most intrusive surveillance program in the history of the United States will be no more. The lights are going out at the office."

Originally, only the Senate version of the annual Defense Department appropriations bill included the funding restriction, while the House bill did not. Members of the closed-door joint committee decided to keep the language that restricted the budget for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), saying they were "concerned about the activities of the Information Awareness Office, and direct that the office be terminated immediately."

Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for DARPA, said on Thursday: "I don't want to make a comment. The congressional language speaks for itself."

The legislation, which still must be approved by the Senate, does permit TIA or a similar system to be used for data mining-- as long as the targets are not U.S. citizens or residents. It says "the conference agreement does not restrict the National Foreign Intelligence Program from using processing, analysis and collaboration tools for counterterrorism foreign intelligence purposes."

Wyden stressed that provision would effectively curb the reach of TIA. "What they did say was that some of the technology programs can be used by some of the foreign intelligence programs," he said. "This is significant, because it ensures that American citizens on American soil will not become targets of TIA surveillance programs that could have seriously violated their privacy."

The National Foreign Intelligence Program is a broad term that covers the budgets of any federal agency with an intelligence-related mission, including the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department. Those agencies are defined in Executive Order 12333. In January, Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz acknowledged that the FBI was considering "possible experimentation with TIA technology in the future."

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Poindexter's resignation this summer indicated that TIA would not survive the conference committee.

"I think there was consensus from both Democrats and Republicans that TIA was poorly conceived and poorly executed," Rotenberg said. "The point is important, because people were reacting to the underlying premise that you would gather up this data, and the fact that people like John Poindexter were gathering up this stuff."

TIA became a lightning rod of criticism, in part because President George W. Bush chose Poindexter, who was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal, to run DARPA's Information Awareness Office. As a protest gesture, activists and critics of TIA posted Poindexter's personal information online, which may lie behind the removal of information from the TIA Web site on at least three occasions.

If it had been fully implemented, TIA would have linked databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical insurers and motor vehicle departments for law enforcement purposes in hopes of snaring terrorists. Although TIA was the subject of the most attention, the conference report appears to slice funding for other related projects at DARPA. These include Human ID at a Distance and database-related projects like Genisys, Genoa, and Genoa II.

The funding restriction is likely to pose problems for dozens of contractors--including the University of Southern California, Colorado State University, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and defense contractor Science Applications International--that had expected to receive millions of dollars for research that was aimed at implementing TIA.
http://news.com.com/2100-1029-5082253.html


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...&postid=195237
Tom the Dancing Bug (thanks tg!)


ACLU Accuses RIAA Of Illegalities
Declan McCullagh

The Recording Industry Association of America is facing a legal challenge to its anti-piracy tactics, even as it announces that it has reached settlements in dozens of lawsuits against individuals.

In a move that could complicate the RIAA's pursuit of peer-to-peer pirates, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday it had filed court documents accusing the trade association of illegally using thousands of subpoenas to unmask alleged copyright infringers.

The recording industry's subpoenas, filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), violated due process and constitutional rights shielding Internet users' anonymity, the ACLU claims.

The subpoenas led to hundreds of lawsuits, filed earlier this month by the RIAA. In turn, those lawsuits prompted out-of-court settlements -- with unspecified payments to the RIAA -- that ended 52 of the 261 suits under way. An additional 12 settlements were struck in cases where no lawsuit had been filed.

"Americans increasingly understand our need to protect this global business and secure the jobs of those who work in it," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA. "The message that downloading or distributing copyrighted music files is illegal and can have real consequences is beginning to take hold in the consciousness of families across the country. This is an essential prerequisite for fostering an environment where legitimate online music businesses can flourish."

The RIAA said it has received 838 affidavits from file swappers who admitted they had violated copyright laws, but pledged not to do it again. Anyone signing the affidavit must admit that he or she engaged in "unauthorised noncommercial downloading, copying, or 'sharing'" on peer-to-peer networks.

Civil liberties groups, including the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, have criticised the amnesty program, saying that the RIAA could still sue in some circumstances -- and that the person signing an affidavit could be prosecuted for criminal copyright infringement.

In its motion, filed Friday, the ACLU joined other nonprofit groups in opposing the RIAA. Last week, the American Library Association and other library organisations criticised the RIAA's attempts to shut down peer-to- peer networks through a lawsuit currently before a federal appeals court in California.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge in Boston to reject an attempt by the record labels to invoke the DMCA in a bid to unmask an alleged peer-to-peer user at Boston College.

"The consequences from this lack of procedural protections are far from trivial," the ACLU said in court papers. "In addition to being deprived of one's constitutional rights, there is nothing to stop a vindictive business or individual from claiming copyright to acquire the identity of critics."

David Plotkin, a Boston attorney who filed the motion alongside the ACLU, said in email that "the statute only allows for a subpoena when the copyrighted material at issue is stored on the ISP's system, but not, as in the case of Boston College and almost all other ISPs, when the material is stored on the Internet user's personal computer."

Plotkin also argues that the subpoena suffers from "procedural deficiencies" and violates the due process and free expression guaranteed in the US Constitution.

In another case, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., considered similar arguments and rejected them, ruling the DMCA was constitutional. That case, which pits Verizon Communications against the RIAA is on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/leg...9116777,00.htm


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Innocent File-Sharers Could Appear Guilty
Will Knight

A research paper highlighting security weaknesses in a popular internet file-sharing network has raised concerns that innocent users could in theory be wrongly accused of sharing copyrighted music.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the largest US music companies, has already begun legal action against 261 file-sharers who are accused of sharing "substantial" amounts of copyrighted material through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

The RIAA carried out surveillance of P2P networks to determine the usernames of alleged copyright infringers. A subset of these users was then tracked down via their internet service providers.

So far, 52 have agreed to settle with the RIAA for a few thousand dollars each. A further 838 have admitted infringements and promised to destroy illegally obtained files in return for a legal amnesty. An estimated 62 million Americans are thought to have used P2P networks, though it is not known how many have illegally shared music.

The anonymous paper, Entrapment: Incriminating Peer to Peer Network Users, was posted to a free Australian web hosting service and suggests some users could claim that the evidence on which they are brought to trial is flawed. Experts contacted by New Scientist say the paper is a credible piece of work.

The document focuses on the Gnutella file-sharing network that forms the backbone of a number of widely-
used file-sharing clients including Morpheus and Bearshare.

It describes various techniques that could be used to make it appear to a third party on the Gnutella network as if an innocent user is hosting or searching for copyrighted files. It also describes methods for tricking users into inadvertently downloading copyrighted files so that they actually host these files.

Some of the methods described are made possible because peer-to-peer networks like Gnutella rely on users passing on requests for files and information about the files stored on users' machines. Manipulating these network messages can make it look as if a user is illegally offering files for download.

"These Gnutella-specific attacks seem reasonable at first glance," says Adam Langley, a UK-based peer-to- peer programmer. But the techniques described are not surprising, he says: "Gnutella was certainly never designed to resist an attack like this."

Others experts say the paper raises interesting issues about the ongoing legal furore. "The core point the
author is making - the unreliability of the 'evidence' used to sue file sharers - is valid," says Ian Clarke, who invented Freenet, a file-sharing network designed to provide anonymity for users.

Theodore Hong, a peer-to-peer networking researcher at Imperial College London, UK, comments: "It's interesting that these technical weaknesses may actually be a legal strength [for P2P users] by introducing doubt as to who is really doing what."

Langley says it is unclear whether other P2P networks might be similarly vulnerable to misuse. But he notes that there are other ways to incriminate an innocent party: "Most Windows users will run any old attachment you send them, so if you want to implicate someone you can just send them a Trojan."
http://www.newscientist.com/news/pri...?id=ns99994222

The Paper (pdf)


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Kazaa: Serve Consumers, Not Subpoenas
Roy Mark

Executives from the music and motion picture industries told a Senate panel Tuesday that until peer-to-peer (P2P) software companies begin to act responsibly and proactively to discourage copyright infringement on their services, there is little chance Hollywood will negotiate licensing agreements with the popular file-sharing networks.

Among the P2P reforms called for by Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which spent the summer filing information subpoenas and lawsuits against alleged infringers using P2P networks, were: "meaningful" disclosures to users that copyright infringement is a federal offense; filters to protect copyright content; and default settings so that users are not automatically uploading music from their hard drives.

"The law is clear. Yet understanding of the law is hazy. Why? In large part it's because the file sharing networks like Kazaa deliberately induce people to break the law," Bainwol told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations. "There is a brighter future around the corner if the operators of these networks just voluntarily execute these three common sense and easily implemented reforms.

Alan Morris, executive vice president of Sharman Networks, which owns and distributes Kazaa, the world's largest file sharing network, countered that P2P is the most efficient way to distribute digital media but the music and movie studios refuse to discuss licensing agreements in order to control online distribution for their own profit.

"We believe the legal attack on individuals and technology providers on the grounds of protecting copyrights is really just a smokescreen to hide the real challenge confronting the entertainment industry -- moving beyond an outdated economic model that is being rejected by the marketplace to a model for which we have a well conceived upgrade path," Morris said.

Kazaa supports a technology developed by Altnet of Woodland Hills, Calif., that, according to Morris, "wraps a file," making it secure the first time a consumer downloads it and every other time a different consumer downloads it from a fellow peer. Morris said the wrap allows the content owner to define the terms of sale to the user.

In the Altnet search technology scheme, wrapped content is delivered in priority order, "ensuring that the user will always see rights managed content before any other content."

Derek Broes, executive vice president of Altnet, told the committee as more and more content is wrapped, or licensed, illegal files are driven deeper and deeper into the system to make them much more difficult to find.

"The model can be hugely profitable for the entertainment industry. But the entertainment industry and the peer-to-peer industry must work together if this dynamic new content distribution model is going to realize its potential," Morris said. "Wouldn't it be better to sell to them (consumers) rather than sue them?"

Originally conceived as an opportunity to examine the legality of the subpoena provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the hearing was expanded to include an overview of online piracy and the impact of technology on the entertainment industry.

In the days leading up to the hearing, the witness list grew to three separate panels and eventually included celebrities LL Cool J and Chuck D.

"I don't want to attack the fans who love the music," LL Cool J said. "I understand that some of the CDs were a little expensive, but are we just going to give it way? A lot of things are possible, but does that make it right? Don't we people in the entertainment industry have the same right as other Americans to earn a fair living?"

Chuck D, on the other hand, said he thought P2P meant "power-to-the-people."

"Technology giveth and tecnhlogy taketh way. I'm sure the railroads resented the business the airlines took away from them," he said.

Besides, the rapper added, "I never felt my copyrights were protected anyway. I've been ducking lawyers, agents and music publishers all my life. I trust consumers."
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/3085711


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Point

Lawsuits Damp Down P2P Audience Reuters
Reuters

Lawsuits launched against individuals for illegal file-sharing appear to have tempered activity on the more popular peer-to-peer networks, new U.S. research released this week shows.

Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks Internet usage, said on Tuesday it found a 41 percent drop over the last three months in the audience for Kazaa, the leading music file-sharing service.

On September 8, the Recording Industry Association of America, a group representing big labels like AOL Time Warner's Warner Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, sued 261 people for illegal file-sharing.

"The RIAA is clearly sending a strong message to American Web users and the message appears to be working," said Greg Bloom, an analyst with Nielsen//NetRatings.

"With hundreds of individuals facing real lawsuits, the threat to music file-sharers is very serious," he said.

Since the week ending June 29, traffic to Kazaa has fallen 41 percent to about 3.9 million unique visitors from 6.5 million in the week ending September 21.

Traffic to Morpheus fell to 261,000 unique visitors in the week ending September 21 from 272,000 in the week ending June 29.

Meanwhile, the RIAA this week reached settlements with 64 people, including 12 with people not yet sued.

On Monday, several peer-to-peer networks unveiled a code of conduct to encourage responsible behavior among the millions of users and asked Congress to figure out a way record labels and other copyright holders can be reimbursed for the material traded online.

Meanwhile, other data released on Tuesday showed that as of August a vast majority of teens believed downloading music for free was morally acceptable.

The August 2003 Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing Youth Survey, a premium service offered by the Gallup organization, found 83 percent of 517 teens, aged 13 to 17, found downloading free music was morally acceptable.

Gallup officials noted the RIAA's lawsuits in September may have raised awareness of the issue.

"We have to be a little cautious in interpreting this, but it does show that off the top of their heads in August, the vast majority of teenagers said, 'Sure, why not? It's perfectly moral to download,"' said Frank Newport, editor-in- chief of the Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing.

"We do poll teenagers regularly and I think we'll use exactly the same question again soon and see if things have changed," he said.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60654,00.html


Counter Point

Post Your Count

A public examination of usage trends with the Fasttrack system.
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=16779


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Anonymity Versus Law Enforcement:

The Fight Over Subpoenaing Alleged Downloaders' Names From Internet Service Providers
Julie Hilden

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument in a landmark case that raises, among other issues, the issue of the scope
of anonymity rights on the Internet.

The case pits the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Verizon. It is part of the ongoing litigation, on so many fronts, over peer-to-peer file distributing and downloading.

The case began because the RIAA sent a subpoena to Verizon demanding the identity of a particular user. The user, according to the RIAA, had illegally downloaded - and thus infringed copyrights on - over 600 songs in a single day. Verizon refused to comply, and the RIAA sued.

The suit raises a number of important issues. In this column, I will concentrate on two. The first is how to interpret the subpoena power that is set forth in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The second is whether a user identity subpoena such as the one issued to Verizon - even if it were authorized by the DMCA - violates the First Amendment, and, in particular, the right to speak anonymously. For arguably, unless users can access the Internet anonymously, they cannot truly speak anonymously there.

In its second opinion in the case, the district court held that the First Amendment did not prevent enforcement of the subpoena.

In the end, by pretending to recognize anonymity rights, but then making these rights effectively meaningless, the district court did a disservice both to Verizon and its users. It also declined to reach a true compromise in the inevitable clash between anonymity rights and law enforcement goals.

Yet some compromise is necessary. The presence or absence of the option of anonymity on the Internet won't only affect illegal downloaders. It will affect every Internet user who believes that he or she might someday have something so important to say - or information so important to exchange - but fears there is insufficient protection online to speak anonymously. For along with its costs, anonymous speech has potentially immense benefits - a matchless candor on the part of the speaker, and the potentially highly beneficial revelation of secrets the public should know.

Until we balance these costs and benefits rationally, and work out a compromise between them, both our civil liberties and our security will be imperiled.
http://writ.findlaw.com/hilden/20031001.html


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P2P For People In Repressive Regimes

Alan Brown, inventor of the Red Rover anti-censor p2p information system, has joined p2pnet.net as Security Systems and Cyber Rights coordinator.

The original Red Rover was first announced in Moscow at Russia's first cyber-rights conference in the early part of 2001. It was subsequently introduced to the world later that year with the publication of Andy Oram's Peer-to-Peer - Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies.

A p2p strategy designed to overcome government-based information blocking, Red Rover's most important element is safety of use for people receiving information, backed by information integrity.

It's specifically low-tech and avoids those forms of cryptography and evasion which are easily detectible mechanically. Information is sent through a p2p process but collected without a p2p client - only email and the web are needed.

Brown and p2pnet.net founder Jon Newton now plan to develop it as a functioning system.

"Red Rover is meant primarily for people under any regime that permits web use," says Newton. "It'll allow them to receive reliable information via a p2p system which is far safer than the ones currently out there. To be involved with Alan in its development is tremendously exciting."

Brown, who's currently working on a revised description of Red Rover, says, "I'm thrilled Red Rover is now moving to its next stage. Jon sees what's important about p2p and it'll be great to work with someone who 'gets it'."

Brown will also contribute articles for p2pnet.net on high-level information dissemination through peer-to- peer applications, and organize regular guest columns from expert writers.

An up-front cyber rights activist at both national and international levels, Brown formerly taught mathematical logic while directing anti-censorship efforts for the first ACLU affiliate with a website. He's since worked with, and for, a number of rights organizations in the US and Russia and addressed both Hackers on Planet Earth (H2K2) and UNESCO.
http://www.p2pnet.net/article/8235


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Pushing Peer-to-Peer

The networking approach that threatens to make the recording industry obsolete could also bring about a more reliable Internet.
Simson Garfinkel

If I say peer-to-peer, you probably start thinking about those file-sharing services that let you get free music, movies, and pornography over the Internet. But peer-to-peer is about much more than violating the copyright of big record labels.

Indeed, although the term was coined just a few years ago, peer-to-peer is really how the Internet was originally designed to work. The theory was that all of the computers on the network would be first-class citizens, each capable of sharing resources or exchanging information with one another. Back then, a student at MIT might start typing on a computer in Cambridge and use it to log into a computer at Stanford. Meanwhile, another student at Stanford might use that same computer to log into the first system at MIT. Both computers would be simultaneously using and offering services to the network. The connections between them would be links between equals—that is, peer-to-peer.

As it turns out, most of the Internet didn’t become a peer-to-peer system. Instead, the Net evolved along a different model. Low-cost computers, called clients, were distributed onto people’s desks. These machines were used to access services offered by more expensive centralized computers—called, for lack of a better word, servers. Some of the earliest client-server systems let people share files by placing them on centralized file servers. The servers were also an ideal place to put electronic mail.

These days, the Internet’s clients are the desktop and laptop computers that we are all so familiar with. The servers are the Web servers, mail servers, instant messaging servers, and other servers that our clients rely upon. There are even more servers operating behind the scenes—things like DNS servers that operate the Internet’s Domain Name System, routing servers used for sending voice traffic through the Net (so-called voice-over-IP systems), and even servers for companies that want to back up their computers over the network. The client-server model has been so successful because it’s fairly easy to understand, set up, and maintain.

But there is a big problem with client-server architecture: it’s vulnerable. When a single server goes down, all the clients that rely on it essentially go down with it. You can minimize this problem by having multiple servers, but then you have to make sure that they all stay synchronized. In fact, the server doesn’t even have to go down—all you need is a break in the network.

Peer-to-peer is a fundamentally different way of thinking about the network—based not on the notions of clients and servers but on cooperation and collaboration. A peer-to-peer backup system might use all of the extra space on the hard drives throughout an organization to store extra copies of critical documents and personal e-mail; a peer-to-peer Web publishing system might use those same hard drives to store copies of Web sites. The theory here is that a thousand underpowered clients are still faster than the world’s fastest server.

Unfortunately, peer-to-peer systems can be difficult to put together. The simplistic way to build one is to have each node report its presence to a central server. People who want to join the network then log in to the central machine use it to find their peers. While this works, it’s not true peer-to-peer: shut down the central server, and the system collapses.

That's why most of the academic research on peer-to-peer systems has concentrated on building systems that work without any centralized control. This is harder stuff! Computers need to be able to discover new peers showing up, and be tolerant of peers that crash. Sometimes the network breaks into two or more pieces. Data needs to be stored in multiple locations. For an added challenge, try to handle potentially hostile peers that pretend to be good ones.

All of this experience could really pay off in ten or fifteen years. Consider these examples:

· One of the weakest points of the Internet right now is the domain name system, which is run by a loose confederation of name servers. Running DNS on top of a peer-to-peer system instead could dramatically improve its reliability.

· Today, if your business runs a small Web server and the site suddenly gets very popular, the server can crash from all of the extra traffic. But if all of the computers on the Internet were part of a global peer-to-peer Web cache, then small companies and individuals could publish their material to the multitudes. A good system would even prevent malicious modification of the Web page contents when they were served off other machines.

· In the event of a terrorist attack on the Internet’s infrastructure, a peer-to-peer system would be far more likely to recover than a system that depended on top-down control.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...nkel100303.asp


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Bee Gee Wars
William F. Buckley Jr.

A big battle is shaping up. The major players are musicians and the industry that retails their wares, and the people (mostly young) who love the music but don't want to pay for it. The musicians and their representatives argue that music is, really, a form of property. Nobody would object to the police coming in to prevent someone from stealing your Sony. So why should anyone object to the police approaching Jane Doe to take her to court for having recorded a thousand songs coming in over the Internet?

On this quarrel I have a singular credential. I am an entirely disinterested party. Perhaps not to the extent of my friend, a distinguished amateur musician and doctor. We met recently and exchanged sheepish confessions of ignorance. Was I, he wanted to know, familiar with any of the names published every day in the newspapers and magazines telling stories of things like the Bee Gees and the Hellzapoppins and the Fires on Earth? The answer was no. Although, I said with wistful thought of rehabilitation, I once wrote an entire book about Elvis Presley.

"Oh?" the doctor asked. "What was it called?"

To my dismay, I could not remember the title until a half-hour later, which was too late. On the other hand, my interlocutor confessed that he had not heard, before reading that morning's obituaries, the name of Johnny Cash.

Well, never mind us aliens. There is a throbbing demand for the music of the pop world. Enter the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites). The locus of the fight is Boston College and a student called by the authorities Jane Doe. Ms. Doe, we are given to understand, has a whole library full of music that she has taken off the Internet and, conceivably, passed on to friends and, perhaps inconceivably, sold to non-friends.

The prosecutors are asking about her pursuant to responsibilities vested in them by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), a law that gives copyright holders broad powers to pursue suspected infringers via Internet service providers. But the ACLU is objecting, on the grounds that there hasn't been any due process observed. To isolate the identity of a heady consumer of Internet music is not the equivalent of subpoenaing someone suspected of stealing private property, they argue.

It does sound as if it were, but professor Jessica Litman of Wayne State University deals nicely with the question. "She suggests," The New York Times reporter tells us, "that the comparison between privacy rights and property rights is the sort of thing that sounds good if you say it fast, but that breaks down under close scrutiny."

Ms. Litman scoffs at the idea that privacy rights protect any and all information privately amassed, denying, e.g., to Newsweek access to your subscription record to Time. "'Property law,' she said," the Times goes on, "'is largely intended to make it possible to sell property, not to keep it secure. The property framework does fit intellectual property because those rights help artists and their representatives trade their art for money.'"

The stuff being picked up on the Internet is certainly copyrighted. And the Millennium Act seeks to stress the point by authorizing law enforcers to move against what, thieves?

Only in America: a raft of organizations is at hand. They march under the banner of P2P United. That stands for "peer-to-peer." The general idea is that the browser who shoots out the latest Bee Gee to you is, really, just a "peer," talking friendly to a peer. An organization called Downhill Battle (downhillbattle.org) fights strenuously for the Jane Does of this world and helps to mobilize legal defense and a legal and moral armory of arguments.

Questions before the house -- and before the courts: (1) Is your right to the information you have generated, or amassed, the equivalent of your right to ownership of the music, or literature, you have written? And (2) do protections that are explicit or inhere in the Constitution shield you from the official (officious?) curiosity of the Justice Department (news - web sites)?

Jane Doe of Boston College, if ever we find out who she is, will edge us toward an answer to those questions. And who will provide her with music in jail? Who will be her peer, the faculty adviser or the warden?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...cwb/beegeewars


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ACLU Argument

Motion to Quash in RIAA v. Boston College et al. (pdf)

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Questions For Linus Torvalds

The Sharer
David Diamond

: You gave Linux, the operating system, to the world free, in effect jump-starting the open-source movement. Now this previously obscure company, SCO Group, claims ownership of some of the code and threatens to close the door on open source and Linux. I suppose it's to be expected that when you send your offspring out into the world, you have to be prepared for your kid to run with a crowd you don't approve of.

Oh, Linux has grown up, and it's running with a crowd that I certainly never expected, like I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard. That's not the issue. SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux.

So does this issue matter to you personally?

I've tried to stay away from distractions. But especially since they have started threatening to send invoices to Linux users, it may eventually escalate to the point where I have to start taking legal steps.

Is file-sharing, which has the recording industry so up in arms, the ''dark side'' of open-source attitudes?

Sharing is certainly not bad in itself. In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved. What the recording industry is so worried about is obviously something totally different -- the ''sharing'' of stuff that isn't yours to share in the first place.

O.K. So what are your views on sharing music files?

I don't actually think about it much; I listen to the radio if I listen to music. What I do find interesting is how the file-sharing thing ends up changing how people think about computers and copyright law. Some of it is a bit scary: just the fact that your question equated sharing with something bad is a pretty scary statement in itself. What also bothers me is the apparent dishonesty of especially the R.I.A.A., claiming that file-sharing is destroying their business and that they are losing billions of dollars on it. There's been a number of studies done, and it looks like the major reason for the dip in CD sales ends up being lack of interest in the music produced. And let's face it -- how many boy bands can you try to sell before your revenues start dipping?

We've been getting hit with a lot of viruses and worms lately. What's your idea for ending the attacks?

When you have people who hook up these machines that weren't designed for the Internet, and they don't even want to know about all the intricacies of network security, what can you expect? We get what we have now: a system that can be brought down by a teenager with too much time on his hands. Should we blame the teenager? Sure, we can point the finger at him and say, ''Bad boy!'' and slap him for it. Will that actually fix anything? No. The next geeky kid frustrated about not getting a date on Saturday night will come along and do the same thing without really understanding the consequences. So either we should make it a law that all geeks have dates -- I'd have supported such a law when I was a teenager -- or the blame is really on the companies who sell and install the systems that are quite that fragile.

Since you moved to Silicon Valley from Finland in 1997, how has the region's aggressive approach to money-making affected you?

Oh, how I hate that question. I've actually found the image of Silicon Valley as a hotbed of money-grubbing tech people to be pretty false, but maybe that's because the people I hang out with are all really engineers. They came here because this is where the action is. You go out for dinner, and all the tables are filled with engineers talking about things that won't be available to ''normal people'' for a few years. If ever.

People position you as the nemesis to Bill Gates. He started Microsoft and you started Linux, the big competition to Microsoft's dominance of operating systems. Is that an unfair or inaccurate characterization?

The thing is, at least to me personally, Microsoft just isn't relevant to what I do. That might sound strange, since they are clearly the dominant player in the market that Linux is in, but the thing is: I'm not in the ''market.'' I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the ''evil Microsoft empire.'' Quite the reverse, in fact: from a technology angle, Microsoft really has been one of the least interesting companies. So I've never seen it as a ''Linus versus Bill'' thing. I just can't see myself in the position of the nemesis, since I just don't care enough. To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/ma...WLN104109.html


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File Sharing Or File Stealing?

Satellite fight offers guidance
Stephen Keating

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently filed lawsuits against 261 people, including 20 in Colorado, for allegedly using their personal computers as pirate jukeboxes, downloading copyrighted music files and sharing them with others.

If proven, such piracy could cost offenders dearly: $750 to $150,000 for each downloaded song. Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old New York City honors student, became one of the first targets named when her mother paid a $2,000 fine to settle the case.

"I got really scared," Brianna told the New York Post. "My stomach is all turning. Out of all people, why did they pick me?"

There are many troubling aspects to this situation, including the legal tactics used to track down offenders, the acknowledged piracy of copyrighted material, the future of intellectual property in a digital age, the openness of the Internet and the desire of computer users to engage in so-called peer- to-peer - or P2P - file sharing.

Yet, what's missing in this debate is the knowledge that we've been here before. And the lessons from that conflict may show how the P2P piracy issue may be defused.

The relevant history is that of the satellite TV industry, which now claims 20 million paying subscribers in the United States. In the mid-1970s, however, owners of home satellite TV dishes were the epitome of piracy. That black market arose when Home Box Office, the Christian Broadcasting Network, ESPN, C-SPAN and Ted Turner's networks, to name a few, began beaming their programming up to satellites for national distribution to cable operators.

At the same time, hobbyists like Stanford University professor Taylor Howard were pointing backyard satellite dishes toward the southern sky and pulling down that very same programming.

Simultaneously conscience-stricken and amused at having pirated HBO's signal in 1976, Howard wrote the network a letter and mailed it off. "I understand it's a pay service," he wrote. "I would like a monthly subscription." He never heard back.

Many people will pay for content, if given the opportunity. The online Apple iTunes service sold its 10 millionth song in September and is averaging 500,000 paid downloads per week, at 99 cents a pop. A version for Windows computers is promised soon.

Lawsuits are a means, not an end. The RIAA could file lawsuits now until the end of time and still not crush online piracy. The music industry's failure to embrace new download technology has spurred the pirates.

Congress should revisit the laws governing intellectual property and copyright in a digital age. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which the RIAA used as a basis for filing its lawsuits, may itself need an upgrade.

Disruptive communications technologies like satellite TV, P2P and whatever comes next should be embraced for the innovations they provide, not disdained for the headaches they cause along the way.

That last point has a history all its own. Every time new media has arrived on the scene, the old guard has cried foul, only to discover later that the human appetite for communication is ever-expanding and new markets are created. Radio feared the dawn of talking pictures. The movies feared broadcast television. Broadcast TV feared cable, which feared satellite TV. The movie studios feared VCRs, then found that a whole new billion-dollar market in home entertainment had been created.

Several years from now, when a new, legitimate industry of music, movie and media downloads has transformed the Internet, the music industry's current fusillade of lawsuits will sound like the echo of a fear unfounded.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...56552,00.html#


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LL Cool J And Chuck D Visit DC - But they were on opposite sides of the issue
Lee Bailey

*Tuesday, LL Cool J and Chuck D took their voices to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, alongside music industry executives and technology experts, to speak on downloading music and copyright issues.

The panel, titled The Privacy & Piracy: The Paradox of Illegal File Sharing on Peer-to-Peer Networks and the Impact of Technology on the Entertainment Industry, focused on the impact file sharing has had on the recording industry.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Senator Barbara Boxer, Mitch Bainwol, the Chairman & CEO of the RIAA, representatives from Kazaa, Altnet, college professors and a woman who is being sued by the RIAA testified. Some professors recommended more public service announcements explaining why downloading and file sharing is an issue and that lawsuits targeting consumers cannot stop the trend.

Some suggested lowering the price of CDs, increasing the quality of music and talent that's released, adding extra songs on releases and other incentives for consumers to start purchasing CDs again.

LL Cool J testified alongside RIAA chairman Mitch Bainwol and Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti in support of the entertainment industry's lawsuits.

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D took the opposite side of the issue, pushing for business models that would include the use of legal file-sharing.

Alan Morris, VP of KaZaA parent Sharman Networks Ltd., and Lorraine Sullivan, a recipient of an RIAA subpoena, were also among the 11 witnesses scheduled at the hearing.

RIAA Pats Self On The Back Says out of court settlements are the bomb diggity, but not in so many words.

*The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it has negotiated out-of-court settlements with 64 individuals accused of file-sharing, three weeks after the trade group revealed that it had filed copyright-infringement lawsuits against 261 users of peer-to-peer networks.

Of the settlements, 52 represent individuals sued earlier this month, while the remaining 12 were "pre-litigation:" individuals who had not been sued but were identified as significant infringers and whose personal information was subpoenaed from their Internet service providers.

"We are heartened by the response we have seen so far," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement.
http://www.eurweb.com/articles/headl...1610012003.cfm


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File-Sharing: Don't Blame Technology For People's Sins
Doug Bandow

THE recording industry seems to believe that there is no greater enemy of all that is good and wonderful than peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technologies - thus, the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) campaign to sue parents, grandparents or roommates of those who violate copyrights by swopping songs.

The RIAA is within its rights to challenge lawbreakers, no matter how minor. Not legitimate is its lobbying campaign in Washington to shut down the P2P business. Ultimately, individuals, not technologies, such as the KaZaA Media Desktop, are to blame for copyright violations.

Copyright violators have been around since copyrights were created. New technologies - photocopiers, tape recorders, VCRs, DVDs and P2P software - have simply made it easier to copy protected works illicitly.

The industry has occasionally demanded heavy-handed restrictions on and even prohibitions of technological innovation. But, more often than not, it has worked to increase awareness of and compliance with the law. Firms have also cut prices and developed new markets, such as Apple's iTunes Music Store, which charges for music online.

However, the RIAA blames a one-third decline in music sales over the last three years on file-sharing. In contrast, Forrester Research places the drop at about 15 per cent, only a third of which can be attributed to file-sharing.

Still, old-fashioned enforcement has its place. Of course, the RIAA's efforts might antagonise potential customers. And the campaign might be doomed over the long term. After all, we live in a 'downloading culture', observes Ms Katie Hafner of The New York Times.

Moreover, some systems already try to shield their users from outside prying eyes, plus programmers are working to 'improve' their file-sharing software through the use of encryption, among other techniques. Nevertheless, the RIAA is entitled to try.

But large recording firms have not stopped at attempting to enforce the law. They want to destroy a technology simply because it is used by some cheaters.

The RIAA might have a case if the technology served no function other than criminal. Yet, explains American University law professor Peter Jaszi, 'it's far too early in the day to conclude everything everyone does with peer-to-peer, even when it comes to copyrighted MP3 files, is conclusively infringement'.

Even now, P2P is used to share government publications and private works in the public domain or where the copyright holder has granted permission. The potential for using file-sharing to further improve computer communication and networking is vast.

Says Mr Lance Cottrell, president of a software firm: 'Music was just the first 'killer' application, but I think it will be the first of many.'
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/com...212436,00.html


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RIAA Moves Quickly To Slow Anti-DMCA Legislation - Will Notify P2P Users Before Suing
Bill Holland

Speaking during a Senate panel yesterday (Sept. 30), Recording Industry Association of America chairman/CEO Mitch Bainwol announced a major change to the group's peer-to-peer enforcement policies. From now on, he said the RIAA will give notice to alleged egregious P2P infringers prior to filing lawsuits against them.

In addition to encouraging settlement talks, the change is a response to one of the most common complaints about the RIAA's subpoena and lawsuit actions. The notification will alleviate some of the surprise or confusion reported by users, including those who claim to have had no knowledge that their computers were allegedly being used for illegal downloading.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are not required to notify users that their personal information has been turned over to a copyright holder. "We're going to let them know that we will be suing them," Bainwol told members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in his first appearance on the Hill as RIAA chief. "We are trying to be reasonable and fair and allow these cases the opportunity to be resolved without litigation."

Bainwol also said "lawsuits could be avoided" if operators of P2P networks took certain steps, such as instituting disclosure notices that "free" uploading and downloading is illegal; using available technology to filter and block such activity; and changing default settings so users cannot unknowingly upload material.

"Understanding of the law is hazy. In large part, it's because file-sharing networks like KaZaA deliberately induce people to break the law," he said.

After the hearing, subcommittee chairman Norm Coleman told Bulletin he feels that the prior-notice change is "a good first step, and I commend the RIAA for its action." Coleman said he still believes the DMCA should be changed "to include some sort of judicial review" before subpoenas and lawsuits are allowed. Currently, subpoenas can be granted by a court clerk. Coleman said, however, that "for the time being," he is not introducing legislation to change the DMCA.

Also at the hearing, rapper LL Cool J testified in favor of the industry's lawsuits. "We're the dreamers," he said of recording artists. "We need your help." Allowing people to download illegally, he said, "is anti-American." Public Enemy front man Chuck D, meanwhile, opposes the litigation policy. "P2P to me means 'power to the people,'" he said.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1990004


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Sharman Defends Makers Of File-Swapping Software
Staff

Australian-headquartered file-sharing software company Sharman Networks has filed papers with the US Court of Appeals urging it to uphold an order it made in April.

The order, by Judge Stephen Wilson found that Grokster and StreamCast, makers of peer-to-peer software, could not be held liable for the file-swapping shenanigans of their users. That ruling is under attack from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which claims the judge erred. Sharman, the makers of Kazaa, on Wednesday hit back on behalf of the software companies, claiming the RIAA's move threatens consumers and US citizen's right to freedoms afforded to them under the US constitution's First Amendment.

"The US entertainment industry's appeal to change copyright law... would inexorably extend their copyright monopolies, chill new technology development, and threaten First Amendment protections," a company statement read.

Wilson had found that file-swapping technology was similar to photocopiers or home video recorders -- technologies that have both legal and illegal uses. "[The] defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote. "Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."

A statement issued by Sharman says the RIAA's appeal also has potential to stifle innovation and development surrounding Internet-based technologies. In the statement, the company quoted the Computer and Communications Industry Association as saying the RIAA wants to introduce "new standards that would as a practical matter give the entertainment industry a veto power over the development of innovative products and services."

These sentiments are echoed by Sharman's chief executive, Nikki Hemming, who says the issue is bigger than the entertainment world. "This case is not just about the rights of the entertainment industry, but the rights of individuals to freedom of speech and expression, the right for P2P to exist, and ultimately, the right of any emerging technology to develop without the threat of myopic extinction," he said in a statement. "There is no justification for one stakeholder group to demand that its rights outweigh all others, nor should the desires of one industry attempt to shape the progress of technology."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/leg...9116804,00.htm


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Peer-to-Peer Defense Fund

Support the Families - Stop the Lawsuits

The Peer-to-Peer Defense Fund lets you donate money directly to one of the individuals or families being sued by the record companies. We use PayPal for our contribution system because it's the most trusted and widely-used online payment service. PayPal means you can make safe, secure contributions with your credit card, and the money goes directly from you to someone who's being sued (we don't take a cut). If you don't already have a PayPal account, it only takes a few minutes to set one up--this small effort will make a big difference to the person who receives your donation.

Tens of thousands of people will visit this page in the next few days. If everyone who thinks the record industry's lawsuits are wrong makes a small contribution, we can make a huge difference for these families and put up a real fight against these lawsuits.

Why Donate

Desperate to end filesharing, the major record labels have singled out 261 people and are trying to make examples out of them. Without warning, families and individuals are being slammed with enormous lawsuits that they can't possibly afford to defend themselves against.

We've created this Fund so that everyone who thinks the RIAA lawsuits are callous and unwarranted can donate to support the people who are being sued. Rather than collecting donations centrally like a traditional defense fund, our system lets you give money directly to someone who is being sued. More about the contribution system.

Some families want to fight the record companies in court--we can give them the means to defend themselves and to attack the legal basis of these lawsuits. Others just need a way out--we can relieve the financial burden of settling the suit and help them get on with their lives. Above all, if we rally around everyone who's been sued, the record companies' bullying will fail and we can stop these lawsuits.
http://www.downhillbattle.org/defense/


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Proprietary Software--Banned In Boston?
David Becker

Massachusetts has adopted a new policy that favors open-source software and adherence to open standards in government computing systems, a state official said.

Eric Kriss, state secretary of administration and finance, said the policy was articulated in an internal memo that circulated last week and was formalized in a state capital spending plan released Monday.

The policy says in evaluating new technology purchases, the state will give preference to open-source software and products that adhere to
open standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

"We're going to be evaluating all projects to ensure conformance to open standards as we move forward and to retroactively move legacy systems to open standards," Kriss said. "We want to make sure what we build is interoperable and interchangeable, so that different applications can use the same data, so we won't have to be constantly reinventing and rethinking basic functionality."

The state will also give preference to open-source software, although it will continue to purchase proprietary products if they are found to be superior technologically or otherwise, Kriss said. He identified state Web servers, which currently run on Microsoft's Internet Information Services software, as a potential early candidate for retrofitting. "We're taking a serious look at Apache as a Web server," he said.

Changes will happen gradually, as they can be fit into the state's information technology budget, which allocates about $80 million for capital spending next year, Kriss said.

"We're mindful you don't change something as complex as the IT infrastructure of the state overnight," he said. "This is the beginning of a long journey."

Massachusetts joins a growing roster of governments that are embracing non-Microsoft software. The German city of Munich announced plans earlier this year to shift 14,000 PCs to Linux, and Asian governments have formed a coalition to explore open-source options.

Microsoft said in a statement that the state policy could discriminate against many software makers.

"We are deeply concerned if this policy eliminates fair and open competition in Massachusetts," said the statement. "Microsoft, along with others in the industry, including the Business Software Alliance and other associations, continues to support neutral procurement rules that allow everyone to compete. We hope the state recognizes that this is potentially bad for the Massachusetts economy, hampering open trade and IT progress in the state."

Massachusetts has sought the stiffest sanctions against Microsoft among the states that are participating in the antitrust case against the software giant. Kriss said the new IT policy is "totally unrelated" to the antitrust action.
http://news.com.com/2100-7344-5084442.html


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Nearly 75% Of Music Buyers In A VH1 Poll Tell Music Industry: 'It's The Price, Stupid!'

Lower the price and we will come.
Press Release

That's what nearly three-quarters of the music buyers said in a recent VH1 poll about Universal Music Group's (UMG) coming price reduction and the overall value of music today in an industry vulnerable to downloaders. Of the music buyers, 72% said they liked the idea of the price break and that they would buy more CDs.

But the poll revealed that the word isn't exactly out about UMG's new pricing strategy. Only a quarter (26%) of those polled said they knew of UMG's price breaks coming October 1.

89% Say New CDs Are Not Priced Fairly

The VH1 poll found that 89% of music buyers think that CDs are not priced fairly. Only 8% said that a CD priced in the $14-$17 range was a fair price. Nearly half, or 46%, said that $10-$13 was fair, while 43% said that $6-$9 was in the fair range. The survey reveals that other music labels should pay close attention to UMG's price breaks. Close to half, or 48%, said they think the other music labels will soon follow suit with similar price decreases.

Cut the Price - And the Lawsuits

Of those surveyed overall, 20% have ever downloaded music, while 11% have downloaded music in the past six months. Of those who have downloaded, virtually all are aware of the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) lawsuits against downloaders. But their responses indicate that price breaks are much more likely than the threat of lawsuits to get them back to the music stores.

Of those who have downloaded music from the Internet, the majority at 58% said that price breaks such as UMG's would make them more likely to buy new CDs, 27% were neutral to the idea, while 13% said price cuts were unlikely to get them back into the stores.

But when the downloaders were asked if the threat of lawsuits would prompt them to buy new CDs, only 35% said it was likely, 21% were neutral -- and a hearty 45% said it was unlikely that the threats would get them to shop for CDs at retail.

This VH1 poll was conducted by telephone September 17-22, 2003 among a random national sample of 1,038 adults 18 and older. The results have a +/- 3.1% margin of error. Field work was done via the weekly Express omnibus survey, operated by TNS Intersearch of Horsham, Pa.
http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=57492


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How Panic Spreads

Rockers Widespread Panic thrive by consistently offering 'nothing' to their absurdly loyal fans.
Joshua Hyatt

What's happening onstage at a Widespread Panic gig is only a small morsel from a big, flaky feast. Therein, dudes, lies the key to its ongoing profitability: In an era in which the piracy of recorded music has leeched away revenues, the band's ability to turn live shows into its primary distribution channel may turn out to be the wisest of business decisions.

"The band really puts a lot into what it does," proclaims 33-year-old Laura Kelly (75 shows), a bookkeeper. "The audience feels it and tries to give it back." Fans position themselves nose to nose, shouting the lyrics into each other's wide-open mouths; they throw rubber duckies and dance with alien balloons; they claw and punch the empty air. As for the pointing? Well, there's a lot of it—at the band members, at one another, between any two people who make eye contact—and it's so obviously random that only an especially self-conscious soul could misinterpret it as I did. Such aggressive gestures are just outlets for all the energy and the unity and the ... hey, what's that sweet smell?

Should the audience stop sensing those vibes, these guys are goners. Nobody's going to be begging them to reunite for a Hall of Fame induction either. In their 11-CD career, they've sold maybe two million discs. And you aren't going to catch their tunes blasting out of a passing radio. "I wish I could say they got airplay," says Buck Williams, 57, the band's co- manager and agent. "But radio is awfully narrow-minded and jaded."

That being the case, Widespread Panic doesn't sustain itself by selling a shrinkwrapped product. Like business consultants and tax attorneys, these folks make money only when they work—that is, up on stage providing "the soundtrack to this big party that's going on," as drummer Todd Nance puts it. Widespread Panic sells the experience of seeing its live performance, which is even airier than it sounds. "You're calling nothing something, and you're selling that," explains John Bell, the band's 41-year-old co-founder. "It's like Seinfeld."

Making money from nothing is harder than it looks. The band's company, Brown Cat, does have an official merchandising department (annual revenues: $500,000, with 20% margins) working out of its headquarters in Athens, Ga., selling everything from T-shirts to faux Georgia license plates. Even so, "people call us all the time looking for certain T-shirts that turn out to be bootlegs," says Paul "Crumpy" Edwards, one of three employees in merchandising. "You just can't snuff the stuff out." Unless you co-opt it. Don Hess (180 shows) was once a pirate but then became a licensee, making promotional merchandise like ultimate Frisbees for the band. "They busted us, but we've gone legit," says Hess, proud co-founder of Mountain High Productions (for more on other businesses that have sprung up around the band, see Something From 'Nothing,' right). The upshot for the group: better control over quality and higher profits.

One group Widespread Panic won't ever try to unplug is the amateur tapers. With the music industry suing individual fans for downloading songs over the Net, it's jarring to see a special section at the band's concerts reserved for these guys—right behind the soundboard, where they're out of the way of most Spreadheads. (To get closer, tapers have been known to mount tiny microphones on their eyeglasses.) These fans, the logic goes, create new acolytes by sharing their CDs with them. "The people who make tapes are responsible for us having great crowds the first time we went west of the Mississippi," recalls Schools, 39. He joined the fledgling group—which took its name from its late co- founder Michael Houser's bout with panic attacks—in 1984. "They figured out early what their fans wanted," says Williams, whose clients include REM. "And they catered to that." That's why Travis Tarr, for one, has taped about 30 shows since 1997. Today he has $6,000 of equipment stashed inside a green waterproof bag. "None of us make a dollar on this," says Tarr, 31, reassuringly slipping his arm around me. "The band just wants us to spread it out."
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/small...9773-1,00.html


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Iomega's New Mini USB 2.0 Drives Speeds Up File- Sharing

Iomega announced that it's new generation flash memory drives with transfer rates of up to 9MB per second is now shipping in the Asia Pacific.

The new drives use Hi-Speed USB

(USB 2.0) interface technology for fast file sharing, which is now standard on most new laptops and PCs.

With higher performance of up to 9MB/sec in reading files and 7MB/sec in writing files - or nine times faster than drives based on the USB 1.1 standard - the new drive is ideal for saving and sharing presentations, graphics, photos, music, and videos more portable and easily accessible.

Iomega's current Mini 128MB and 256MB USB drives have also been updated to the new USB 2.0 standard, with performance of approximately 8MB/sec (read) and 5MB/sec (write).

"We think the new Iomega Mini USB 2.0 drives stand out from competing products based on features and component quality," said Lim Chong Gee, director, product management, Asia Pacific, at Iomega Corporation.

Iomega Mini USB 2.0 drives hold up to 1GB of data, require no cables, power adaptors or batteries. They are as small as a car key, have no moving parts, and are plug-and-play compatible - no drivers required with Windows Me, 2000, and XP, Linux 2.4.1, and Mac OS 9.0 and above (Win 98/98SE and Mac OS 8.6 require a separate driver).
http://www.cmpnetasia.com/ViewArt.cf...id=7&subcat=49


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It Turns Out the Music Industry Is Actually Doing Pretty Well Given the Economic Climate
Jenny Levine

Lawsuits Damp Down P2P Audience

"Since the week ending June 29, traffic to Kazaa has fallen 41 percent to about 3.9 million unique visitors from 6.5 million in the week ending September 21." [Wired News]

Global Music Sales Tumble... Again

"The battle-weary music industry surveyed the wreckage of another dismal six months on Wednesday as global data showed music sales tumbled 10.9 percent, piling more pressure on music companies to do deals to survive." [MSNBC]

Maybe both drops are at least somewhat attributable to the lack of interesting new artists and music being released by the record labels. On the other hand, the schizophrenia continues and they can't make up their mind if there is a problem or not:

"Sales in Austria, Finland and Russia rose while UK album sales posted gains and Hong Kong and Australia made a recovery.

DVD music took off, accounting for more than five percent of sales, and legitimate online music broadened its reach."

I doubt these sale figures cover the period of time since the RIAA began suing individual file swappers, and these are numbers from outside the U.S. anyway. So if file sharing is such a rampant problem that is bringing the industry to its knees, why are there "bright spots" elsewhere in the world during a time of such dire hand-wringing and theatrics by the RIAA?
http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/2.../01.html#a4709

[JackSpratts]

Guarding Privacy vs. Enforcing Copyrights
John Schwartz

Sometimes, it seems, the sanctity of data is in the eye, and ideology, of the beholder. The libertarian stripe found in many meets some seeming contradictions when the discussion turns from swapping songs to sharing personal information.

Many of the people who argue that they should not have to pay for one kind of file (say, the latest song from J. Lo) can become outraged at the thought of sharing another kind of file -- say, the one that contains their personal financial data or a map of their Web wanderings.

The issues came into sharp focus recently in two data firestorms. In one, Internet denizens expressed outrage over the lawsuits the recording industry filed against 261 people accused of being large-scale swappers of pirated music. At the same time, equally fierce outrage met news that JetBlue Airways had handed over customer records to a military contractor for a test program to blend the data with personal financial information from another company to spot likely terrorists.

Some Internet activists have said that privacy should be treated like a property right -- and a wave of companies arose in the 1990's to create a marketplace in which people could retain control of their personal information and even be paid when someone wants access to it. (They call themselves ''infomediaries,'' and the concept has proved as ungainly as the word.)

Taken as a whole, these events have set up a potential ideological conflict between protecting privacy rights and protesting the enforcement of copyrights. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, which has sponsored a ''Take Back Your Data'' campaign to promote online privacy, is also filing a lawsuit to protect the rights of file traders against the entertainment industry. ''This is relatively new and treacherous ground,'' said Alan Davidson, associate director for the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. The group, which has focused on issues of privacy and civil liberties online, found itself without a place in the copyright wars about a year ago and decided that it needed to go on active duty, Mr. Davidson said. ''We realized that so many of the things that C.D.T. has stood for -- the open, decentralized vision of the Internet -- are threatened by some of the ideas on how to protect copyright online.''

But establishing a position has been difficult for the group, which takes a pragmatic view of policy issues. The copyright issue ''cuts through all these different coalitions we had built up over time'' among high-tech groups, he said. ''There is no real negotiating going on.''

The center had a coming out of sorts at recent Congressional hearings over the recording industry lawsuits against file traders. Mr. Davidson delivered careful testimony that called for changes in the law governing subpoenas that copyright holders can obtain -- currently with scant judicial oversight -- as they try to find file traders and other copyright infringers.

Those subpoenas, which are allowed under the Millennium Digital Copyright Act of 1998, have become a point of contention for the high-tech civil liberties groups, which see them as heavy-handed tactics -- a crusade against data piracy that can quickly become an invasion of data privacy.

Mr. Davidson said his group saw the testimony as a cautious first step. ''We're not going to be bomb throwers,'' he said. Instead, the group is hoping ''to find the places where there might be middle-ground solutions.''

But another digital advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sees little contradiction between the privacy and piracy campaigns. The group has taken a highly vocal stance in favor of protecting music file traders, but has also been at the forefront of the online privacy fight. Cindy Cohn, the foundation's legal director, said that privacy rights and copyrights were not really comparable. ''I think artists should be paid,'' Ms. Cohn said, explaining that her group is fighting industry tactics, not artists' rights. ''We want people to keep creating.'' But problems arise, she said, if the industry's subpoena power violates file traders' privacy without the court protections that are available to people in criminal investigations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/te...ne r=USERLAND


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Statement of Jonathan D. Moreno PhD
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

"Privacy & Piracy: The Paradox of Illegal File Sharing on Peer-to-Peer Networks and the Impact of Technology on the Entertainment Industry"


Mr. Chairman, honorable members of this subcommittee:

On previous occasions I have testified before congress as a bioethicist; today I appear before you in my more general role as a social ethicist. Social ethics calls on diverse fields for guidance: the law, philosophy, religious traditions, history, and the social sciences.

In one sense the question before us is straightforward. To intentionally take that which does not belong to you is to violate the social contract. Intellectual property is a form of property, and intellectual theft is a form of theft. Under such circumstances the justifiable legal response is clear: Those who commit theft are liable to punishment.

Yet if our goal is not merely to be punitive, but to craft an effective public policy, the law is a notoriously blunt instrument. There are many social behaviors in which the rigid application of the law is not only ineffective in solving the essential problem, but may actually aggravate the problem by encouraging offenders to find ingenious new ways to evade authorities. Prosecution may also be disproportionate to the value lost, seemingly arbitrary in its selection of targets, and erroneous.

Further, if powerful and distant entities that control a highly valued item institute legal measures that are widely perceived as draconian, they may encourage disrespect for law, especially among the young. Still more complex are situations like this one, in which the culture itself is evolving in tandem with technological change.

The underlying problem is this: Many people with otherwise healthy moral intuitions fail to see internet file-sharing as theft, or if they do, they do not perceive it as wrong, or at least not very wrong. Of course the pricing structure of compact discs is widely resented because the blank CD is so inexpensive and downloading can be accomplished with ease. But these facts do not explain the largely guilt-free social psychology of so many file sharers. A more nuanced explanation is required.

First, those who are victimized are “moral strangers,” are distant and unknown to us as individuals. Harms to moral strangers do not easily excite our guilt.

Second, consumers have become accustomed to the portability and transferability of music, partly because of successful marketing by the industry.

Third, unlike familiar forms of copying a recording, as in the case of “bootleg” audio tapes, the copy never needs to be a physical object but can remain in electronic form. Physical associations with theft may be absent.

Fourth, the very term file-sharing connotes altruism and community. In particular, many adolescents find a sense of community more easily in the World Wide Web than in the rest of their lives. In this case what seems to be an impersonal, wealthy and imperious industry places itself in opposition to this otherwise positive value.

These factors do not justify theft, but file-sharing is not simply an attack on the concept of private property. It is a demand for access to a highly valued social commodity, a demand triggered and facilitated by technology. A new interpretation of the social contract is emerging, and industry and the law must take note.

If file-sharing is the wave of the future, as many believe it is, then adversarial approaches should not be the first, and certainly not the only response. Though aggressive prosecution may result in a short-term deterrent, in the long run it cannot stem the cultural tide.

In the short run, the industry should expand its effort to acquaint us with its moral strangers, the hard working men and women behind the scenes. Taking a longer view, the music industry must adapt its business model to the new culture. It must explore measures to renew consumers’ sense that they are being dealt with fairly. Devising alternative pricing structures through the Web, developing technologies that allow for appropriate personal use, and building more value into the product are among the constructive approaches that should be at least as aggressively pursued as legal remedies.

In their wisdom, the framers of the constitution specified that inventors should have rights over their products “for limited times.” They were concerned to balance the right to property with the need for civil society to flourish through the vibrant exchange of ideas. Artistic media are especially important for social flourishing because they create the common coin of human experience. In this field, civil society itself is changing, and the music industry must change with it. Measures to protect the legitimate interests of artists and the industry should be as creatively and sensitively crafted as the artistry itself.

Thank you.
http://govt-aff.senate.gov/index.cfm...itnes sID=422


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Can Porn Kill File-Sharing?

Record labels trying a new tack to shut down P2P networks

The music industry is hoping that the availability of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa will help put file sharing out of business. Record executives have been frustrated that Congress hasn't acted to curb piracy on these services, but some are now optimistic that lawmakers will intervene. "This is like Al Capone and taxes, which is how the government got him," says Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Records. "This shows peer-to-peers for what they really are."

At a September 9th Senate hearing on the connection between porn and peer-to- peer, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned about the "great risk of inadvertent exposure to these materials by young P2P users." Two congressmen have introduced a bill to mandate parental consent before children can access such networks. A government report last March found that more than half the searches for files named "Britney Spears," "Pokemon" and "Olsen twins" retrieved pornography, including eight percent that contained images of children.

In July, authorities in Suffolk County, New York made one of the first-ever child-porn busts of peer-to-peer offenders, arresting twelve people between ages sixteen and thirty-eight. Investigators found the suspects by searching hard drives for secret file terms that child pornographers use, much in the same manner that the music industry is hunting for illegally shared music files. "There's no easier way to get child pornography than peer-to-peer right now," says Randy Saaf, president of MediaDefender, a technology firm that assisted the police investigation.

File-sharing defenders decried the suggestion that Kazaa is to blame, saying that the software is no different from e- mail or Web browsers, both of which can also be used to access child porn. Alan Morris, an executive at Sharman Networks, which distributes the Kazaa software, told the Senate panel that "certain Hollywood interests . . . have embarked on a deliberate campaign to try to smear P2P technology itself." Kazaa, in particular, says it already offers a filter to exclude keywords associated with pornography from appearing in search results. But that's not enough to stop the music industry's campaign. "They are hiding behind the fact that they don't control their users," says Iovine. "But what is really going on is pornography is delivered to unsuspecting kids."
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/pri...=18764&cf=6720


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In depth: Kazaa Legal Team, AU Music Industry Talk Copyright

Following Sharman Networks' announcement that it filed papers with the United States Supreme Court in support of file sharing companies Grokster and StreamCast, ZDNet Australia spoke to the peer-to-peer software company's California based legal team and Australia's own piracy investigations chief about copyright infringement, technology and the law.

In the red corner is Rod Dorman of California based Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman, co-counsel for Sharman Networks, the makers of the Kazaa peer to peer tools. In the blue corner is Australia's Music Industry Piracy Investigations' manager Michael Speck.

Not surprisingly the two men don't exactly agree with each other on, well, more or less anything. Speck set the tone of the interview fairly quickly by comparing peer to peer companies' legal defences in the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) case against them to those of infamous Colombian cocaine lord Pablo Escobar.

"It's the last hurrah of copyright infringers before the court," he said. "And it can be likened to the Pablo Escobar defence -- 'I make available every aspect of the activity, I make a handsome profit from it but my fingerprints aren't on it' -- I don't think it's an approach that will be ultimately successful in the courts."

Continuing with the guns and hard crime analogy, Speck moved on to comparing Kazaa's role on the Internet to that of a gun dealer in an armed robbery -- as far as he's concerned peer to peer software is about as legitimate as a sawn-off. "A gun has a legitimate use until it's used for a bank robbery," he said.

Kazaa's argument is that because it never actually swapped copyrighted files it hasn't done anything wrong. "There is no allegation that Sharman is a direct [copyright] infringer," Dorman told ZDNet Australia from California by phone. "The argument has been that Sharman is guilty of contributory and vicarious infringement."

"Contributory infringement is if you knowingly assist someone in committing an act of deliberate infringement... vicarious infringement is knowingly allowing someone to it when you have the ability to stop it," he continued.

Speck argues that defence shouldn't apply because Kazaa is simply a tool that is first and foremost used to illegally copy works. "Legitimate use is entirely incidental to the actual use, and blind Freddy would know that," he said.

However Dorman says that from the very beginning Kazaa was set up as a means of distributing licensed content. "From the time that Sharman was created the intention was to [create] the largest means of distributing digitally rights licensed material on the Internet."

Anyway, he says, a decision made in April this year by a U.S. Judge Stephen Wilson basically gives technology companies cart-blanche to do whatever the hell they want, as long as they don't actually trade in copyrighted materials. "There is no statute that talks about secondary liability," he said. "You cannot be guilty of contributory infringement."

It's impossible to stop people trading copyrighted works by filtering content shared over peer to peer networks, Dorman says. He points out that big-time copyright holder Time Warner has a whole raft of its technologies that can be used to "steal" copyrighted material -- like AOL instant messaging and even e-mail. Dorman says the whole thing is about protecting market share and the means of distribution.

"They are trying to criminalise p2p because they want to control the means of distribution they had in the bricks and mortar world. What ended up happening was you had the large five companies in the music industry controlling 85 percent of that market," Dorman said. "So when they decide to put out CDs and distribute CDs they control effectively the distribution of the product. That's why it costs US$20 a CD in the U.S."

Speck holds a different view -- he says AOL's technologies were set up for "legitimate" purposes and Kazaa is clearly a tool which was designed for the purpose of stealing copyrighted works.

"It's an entirely inappropriate comparison. AOL and the like are legitimate systems in the first place are legitimate systems that are misused," he said. "[and] we would seriously dispute the notion that they (p2p companies) can't control traffic."

When asked if he was questioning the legitimacy of Sharman's core business, Speck only had this to say: "They're gaining great profit from trading in somebody else's property and in the real world there's a word for that."

However Dorman says the music industry's got it all wrong -- Kazaa has very little to do with copyright infringement, he explains. His logic runs along the same sorts of lines as that of gun zealots -- you know, guns don't kill people, people kill people. "You had the head of the RIAA saying falsely that Sharman promotes infringing conduct. That's a false fact. You're not permitted to do that if you follow the rules of the end user license agreement," he said.

It's all pretty black and white if you ask Speck -- peer to peer software companies can't get revenues up without resorting to thievery. "Their main concern is that the owners of copyright aren't embracing their model... the model is only successful as a commercial enterprise if you take the music from the owners without their permission and without paying them for it," he explained.

Contrary to Sharman's very public belief that if the appeal goes the RIAA's way technological innovation will be stunted, Speck says stamping out "illegitimate" online music trading will give birth to a new market. "A decision against these people will provide tremendous impetus for developers and establishers of legitimate models," he said.

That's not the way Dorman sees it. If the RIAA's appeal against Judge Wilson's ruling gets up the repercussions could be dire, he thinks. The legal history goes as far back as a ruling in 1984 relating to Sony Betamax video recorders, where the court found Sony could not be held liable for the misuse of its product. "I think the Sony Betamax decision provides a clear bright-line rule that tells tech developers and users not to stop -- you should keep innovating even if some people misuse it... we as a society are not going to penalise you for it."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebu...0279224,00.htm


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RIAA Still Suing, Will Warn File Traders
Jay Lyman

In addition to indicating its intention to file more lawsuits against individual file traders accused of substantial copyright infringement, the RIAA called on peer-to-peer (P2P) network operators to implement reforms voluntarily.

Despite criticism of its technical and legal tactics, the Recording Industry Association of America is continuing its campaign of lawsuits against individual Internet file traders accused of copyright infringement.

Opponents of the strategy, which so far has consisted of nearly 1,500 subpoenas and 261 lawsuits, claimed a victory when the RIAA agreed it would inform potential targets that they might be sued. But the recording industry's tracking of alleged music thieves on file-sharing networks -- such as Kazaa and Gnutella -- was criticized for its likelihood of producing false positives.

RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy told TechNewsWorld that the organization has "a thorough and comprehensive process" for ensuring the information it gathers on accused file swappers is accurate. He also indicated the RIAA is continuing to acquire evidence and is planning more litigation.

"There will be more lawsuits, and they'll happen in October sometime," Lamy said. "As we are working on current cases, we are gathering more evidence for the purpose of filing more lawsuits."

Committee hearings in the U.S. Senate have resulted in the RIAA's agreement to send a letter encouraging settlement discussions to computer users who may be the subject of lawsuits. Lamy, who reported that 52 of the RIAA's 261 lawsuits have been settled, said that "it seemed appropriate to give advance notification to someone being sued."

A spokesperson for Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) -- who called for this week's hearings -- said the senator was pleased by discussion between the two sides on the Internet music-trading issue. However, Coleman is still seeking a solution other than litigation.

"He doesn't feel that that's the answer," Coleman spokesperson Andy Brehm told TechNewsWorld. "He wants to find a way to avoid these massive, wide-sweeping lawsuits."

In addition to indicating its intention to file more lawsuits against individual file traders accused of substantial copyright infringement, the RIAA called on peer- to-peer (P2P) network operators to implement reforms voluntarily.

Among the top requests was for P2P networks to change default settings so that the uploading of music from users' hard drives is not automatic. Other suggestions involved implementing filters to block uploading of copyrighted material and notifying users that trading copyrighted material without permission is illegal.

GartnerG2 research director Mike McGuire told TechNewsWorld that although changing the default settings may be a bargaining chip and a way to buy time for the P2P purveyors, leaving them as they are now could prove to be more useful when the files involved are not illegal.

"As a legal matter, it will be up to a judge to determine whether there is substantial, noninfringing use," McGuire said, referring to appellate cases between the RIAA and P2P operators.
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31730.html


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Former McAfee CEO Takes on P2P
Michael Stroud

Can a music company build a profitable business around peer-to-peer song swapping?

In November, a startup called Mercora plans to launch a service that will attempt to answer that question. Challenging popular wisdom, Mercora Chief Executive Srivats Sampath, former CEO of McAfee.com, is betting that users will jump at the opportunity to trade news, song clips and information about each other's buying and listening habits -- while paying for copyright material.

"We want to build eBay for music," said Sampath in an interview at the Digital Hollywood entertainment technology show in Los Angeles. "We want to build a trusted infrastructure where labels, artists and users come together."

Mercora, a derivation of a Latin word meaning "to trade," is designing a site that will allow users to voluntarily open up their hard drives to millions of users. If members give permission, other users can find out what they just bought and what they're listening to at a given moment. Members can send each other clips from songs the labels want to promote, or even entire albums from up-and- coming bands that want their names known.

Sampath said he plans to price songs from big labels at 99 cents initially, on par with Apple Computer's new iTunes store and BuyMusic.com's recently launched service. But labels can opt to price the songs any way they want or even give them away for free.

Mercora will make money by taking an undisclosed piece of the revenue from music sold on its service. It also plans to sell market research to studios about users' listening habits.

Ted Cohen, EMI's senior vice president for digital development and distribution, said in a Digital Hollywood panel with Sampath that he has no problem with Mercora's business model. But he questioned whether it's a true peer- to-peer service, since customers buy music from Mercora's central server, not music they're swapping with each other.

Sampath said he's in final-stage talks with EMI about contributing music to the service.

Given Sampath's background -- he also was an executive at both Intel and Netscape -- you'd think he might think twice about jumping into the music business. But Sampath said he doesn't see Mercora as really that different from McAfee.com, which rose to become the No. 1 consumer antivirus company by also selling downloadable software over the Internet.

After all, music is a much bigger market. "We got 4.4 million people who paid $50 a year" for the McAfee.com service, he said. "If you can do that for antivirus software, you can do it for music."

The initial version of Mercora, Sampath said, will incorporate Microsoft's Windows Media Audio, or WMA, software, which file traders will use to encode any songs downloaded or exchanged over the Internet. With Mercora, no one gets a song without paying for it, unless a label or the artist gives it away as a promotion.

Other secure formats, such as RealNetworks' Helix software and formats being developed by Philips and Sony, probably will be available on the service down the road, Sampath said.

Sampath sees the irony in inviting Microsoft to the party. About a year ago, Sampath sold McAfee.com to Network Associates, just as Microsoft was gearing up to enter the antivirus software market itself. Now, Sampath -- who readily admits he used to be paranoid about Microsoft -- could help cement the dominance of Microsoft in secure music transactions.

"The reality of the market is that Windows XP is on 40 million boxes," he said. "If you know a PC has WMA built into it, why wouldn't you piggyback on that?"
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60660,00.html


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Power To The People

Chuck D and LL Cool J locked horns on Capitol Hill on Tuesday (September 30) over the issue of Internet music file-sharing. The two veteran rappers were speaking before a Senate hearing on the issue blamed for the ongoing decline of record industry profits. Whilst LL Cool J followed the industry line, Chuck D played devil's advocate pointing out the positive role that peer-to-peer services, which he refers to as 'new accessible radio', play in getting music heard.

"P2P to me means power to the people. I trust the consumer more than I trust the people at the helm of these companies," Chuck D said. "As far as rock'n'roll, blues licks were taken from the Mississippi Delta without authorisation, so people can spend $180 to check out the Rolling Stones do it all over again. So the record industry is hypocritical."
http://www.dotmusic.com/news/October2003/news31028.asp


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RIAA: P2P Vendors Must Filter Content
Grant Gross

The U.S. recording industry Tuesday during a Senate hearing on file trading called on peer-to-peer software vendors to filter out copyright content and a U.S. senator pressed the distributor of the popular Kazaa peer-to-peer software to cut off users who violate its end user license agreement.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) asked Alan Morris, executive vice president of Kazaa owner Sharman Networks Ltd., in Sydney, why his company couldn't shut down users who violate the Kazaa license agreement not to share copyright files.

Morris, testifying at a hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said it was technically impossible to cut off users of the software who trade copyright files or to filter content to ban copyright works from being traded by Kazaa users, as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) called for.

The hearing on file trading featured two popular rap music artists, LL Cool J and Chuck D, debating on the opposite side of the issue, and a college student who told how she had to raise money on the Internet to pay a settlement after the RIAA brought a file-trading lawsuit against her. Levin and the RIAA called for the peer-to-peer vendors to make reforms while two Republican senators questioned the RIAA's tactics of suing hundreds of peer-to-peer users.
http://www.nwfusion.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi


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Korean Online Music Providers Agree To Stop Pending Approval
Michael Geist, ILN

Several Korean online music providers have agreed to stop their services effective October 1st pending approval from the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers. Bug Music, the largest music provider, has thus far refused to stop its services.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/site/da...0309220015.asp

Thai Copyright Reforms Would End Settlements

Thailand is considering new copyright reforms that would stop the use of out-of-court settlements in copyright infringment cases. The move is designed to deter counterfeiting, as police say that the copyright infringement rarely results in a stiff penalty and most cases are settled by way of fine.
http://search.bangkokpost.co.th/bkkp...usiness/24sep2


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The Digital Piracy Debate

Jonathan Whitehead
Vice President and Senior Counsel, Recording Industry Assn. of America
Wednesday, October 1, 2003; 12:00 PM

The chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) yesterday told a Senate panel that the music industry would alter its campaign to sue people who illegally trade copyrighted music files on the Internet. Unlike before, the RIAA plans to contact would-be defendants before they are sued and give them a chance to settle or dispute the accusations.

Jonathan Whitehead, a senior RIAA attorney and head of the association's Online Copyright Protection Department, discussed the ongoing debate on Internet music trading. An edited transcript is below.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

________________________________________________

washingtonpost.com: Hi Jonathan, thanks for joining us. The RIAA's legal campaign against song swappers has been your organization's most effective -- and most controversial -- weapon against online copyright infringement. Would you describe your efforts? How is that campaign going? Is the crime-fighting reward of the subpoenas worth the public relations cost?

Jonathan Whitehead: Thanks for inviting me to be on today's chat. It's important to keep in mind the extraordinary level of online piracy - on FastTrack alone there are over 3 million users offering over 600 million files - most of them infringing. It's been estimated that there are over 2.5 billion copyrighted files (mostly music) illegally downloaded each month.

And it's effecting sales - the record industry has experienced a 31% drop in sales in the past three years. While we've undertaken massive education efforts to stem the tide of illegal music, litigation against egregious users gets an important message out - uploading and downloading music without permission is illegal and there are consequences. And that message is being heard loud and clear.

The ultimate objective is to create an environment for the legal distribution of music. There are legitimate services available right now - there's no reason to get music illegally from a P2P network. A list of legitimate sites can be found at -- http://www.musicunited.org/6_legalsites.html . These sites benefit from our education and enforcement efforts. In fact, there are already signs that these services are experiencing increased traffic. That's the reason we're undertaking these enforcement actions - we're starting to see results.

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Columbia, Mo.: What kind of effect is your deterrent campaign having on downloads? Have you seen a drop in peer to peer exchanges with all the stories being run about the illegality of downloading free music?

Jonathan Whitehead: We're most interested in how the legitimate sites fare in the face of P2P systems that are offering millions of illegal files. There's been a migration to these services, we believe that this trend will continue. There's also been a dramatic increase in people's awareness that stealing music is illegal. Parents are talking to their kids, university students are hearing about this from administrators - and that shows the deterrence message is getting out.

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Washington, D.C.: Right or wrong, it's hard to be sympathetic when wealthy, market-saturating bands complain that downloaders hurt their sales. But I'm curious how something like Kazaa affects less famous artists, who don't sell millions of albums, or fill big venues. Do you have a sense of how they're affected? Are the economic issues the same?

Jonathan Whitehead: Remember that not all artists are commercially successful. In fact, only 10% of CDs released each year will be commercially successful. That 10% supports the other 90% of albums that don't return the investment. The record companies rely on the albums that are the hits to invest and take a chance on the unknown bands. Of course, the popular albums are the ones that are the ones most downloaded on P2P. So in effect, it's the band that you've never heard of that may be hurt because the labels don't have as much money to invest in the artists of tomorrow.

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Herndon, Va.: Has the RIAA seriously considered the fact the consumers feel ripped off? The price of CD players has plummeted since their introduction; CD's prices have not. People are expected to pay $18 for a disc that has maybe 3 good songs with the other 15 being filler. Also what's going on with the rebates to consumers due to the recording industry being sued for price fixing? Or has the industry been so busy playing the injured party that they've forgotten they crossed the consumers first?

Jonathan Whitehead: In comparison to free, it's understandable that any price feels too much. Many people are under the misconception that CDs are just the cost of the plastic. In reality, creating an album involves recording costs, session musicians, studio time, and marketing and promoting the album the album. When you go to Kazaa, you know which artist you.re looking for b/c a label has invested a lot of money to get that music out to the public. The top 200 search requests on Kazaa mirror the Billboard top 200. Even touring is part of promoting the album - many tours lose money. In addition, just b/c someone thinks something is too expensive isn't a justification for stealing it.

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Westford, Mass.: What should the average consumer understand about copyright law when it comes to file-swapping, and how does "fair use" come into play? For example, lots of people copy music from CDs they already own onto multiple digital media readers -- are there any legal limitations to this practice? What advice would you give users who aren't well versed in the specifics of copyright law about what they can and can't do when it comes to copying and sharing files?

Jonathan Whitehead: Very simply, uploading and downloading songs without the permission of the copyright owner is against the law. Offering unlicensed songs for others to download is not a fair use. In fact, many of the P2P users we're seeing are offering hundreds, if not thousands of unlicensed songs on FastTrack for millions of other people to download.

You can get more information about copyright law and its application to the Internet and P2P at http://www.musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html

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New York: I certainly understand your concerns and issues you are working towards for the people you represent. It makes complete sense that a consumer should pay for music for which they choose to enjoy. But isn't there a different route the RIAA can take that doesn't make your organization look so brutish and out of touch?

Jonathan Whitehead: Keep in mind, these enforcement efforts are a last resort. We've undertaken our recent enforcement efforts after years of public education. For example, we helped launch the musicunited campaign, with the participation of artists and other music industry leaders. We aired PSAs on tv, radio and print. The message was clear - downloading music without the permission of the copyright owners is not only illegal, but it hurts everyone in the music industry from artists to studio engineers, to record store clerks. In addition we've sent millions of instant messages to Kazaa and Grokster users informing them of the illegality of distributing copyrighted music. Part of this educational campaign is to let people know that legitimate music is available now. In fact, a recent consumer survey shows that 52% of the public is supportive of efforts, as opposed to 21% unsupportive.

No one likes playing the heavy - but if we don't something in light of the rampant online piracy - the long-term health of the music industry is threatened. In addition, the legitimate online marketplace will not have an opportunity to thrive.

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Vienna, Va.: How and with what authority is the RIAA gaining access to peoples computers to know that they have these files?

Jonathan Whitehead: The RIAA searches for P2P users offering copyright music files to millions of other users. When you offer files for upload on a P2P system, you are opening up your computer to millions of people. The RIAA only searches for people offering infringing music files - we search the P2P systems just like any other user can. Instructions on how to disable the upload function on P2P applications can be found at http://www.musicunited.org/5_takeoff.html

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Great Falls, Va.: Can you give some examples of good and legal Web sites for downloading music? I'd like to use iTunes but I don't have a Mac. When will iTunes start selling to PC users?

Jonathan Whitehead: There are plenty of options in getting legal music online for PC users. You can find a list of legitimate services at http://www.musicunited.org/ 6_legalsites.html

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Sterling, Va.: Surely the 31% drop in CD sales can't all be attributed to the proliferation of file-sharing. Isn't part of the problem that most of the music heard on the radio or played on MTV or VH1 is simply not interesting or memorable? I think the more critical issue is one of creativity rather than legal issues. What can the RIAA do to get the radio stations and MTV/VH1 to feature more adventurous, creative and interesting music?

Jonathan Whitehead: There's a lot of great music out there. Music is still very popular - evidenced by the massive number of music downloaded every day. Unfortunately, many are people aren't paying for it. Legitimate online services have features that suggest new and otherwise unknown artists. I think you'll find there's plenty of interesting and creative music. We agree that there's sometimes is a lack of diversity in radio airplay - we share your sentiment that there should be more on-air opportunities for newer artists to be heard.

Thanks again for the opportunity to take part in this chat. I hope it was a useful and informative exchange. Let's try this again soon.

Jonathan

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washingtonpost.com: Unfortunately we're past our time. I'd like to thank Jonathan Whitehead for joining us and our guests for submitting so many thoughtful questions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Sep30.html


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A Stroll Through Patent History
Teresa Riordan

CAN a theoretical stroll through the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 in London — at which thousands of inventions from countries around the world were on display — tell us something about the nature of innovation today?

Petra Moser, now an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, took exactly such a stroll — in the form of a Ph.D. thesis — and has come up with some surprising conclusions that are attracting the attention of fellow scholars. This month the Economic History Association awarded her a dissertation prize at its annual meeting.

On Friday she will be giving a seminar on her research at the University of Maryland in College Park.

One of Professor Moser's conclusions is that developing countries like India, which is scheduled to come into full compliance with an international patent treaty in 2005, may be better off without strong patent laws.

The conventional wisdom among economists has been that a robust patent system helped transform the United States into an economic powerhouse. And this may be true. But, Professor Moser concludes, what was good for America and Britain in the 19th century is not necessarily good for emerging, largely rural economies in countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

"In economics, we are taught that patent laws are what create incentives for innovation," she said. "But many of the best innovators in what was the high technology of the day came from some of the smallest countries in Europe, and these nations did not have patent laws."

Professor Moser found, for example, that Swiss inventors tended to concentrate their efforts in watch making and specialized steel making for scientific and optical instruments. Their innovations were exceedingly difficult to reverse-engineer and thus were successfully guarded as trade secrets.

"There were competitions in England to reproduce some Swiss innovations in steel," Professor Moser said. "But the English just couldn't figure out how to do it. The Swiss would have been silly to patent these innovations."

That is because the purpose of patents is twofold: to protect the inventor and to speed technological progress. Thus, patent laws require that an inventor, in a quid pro quo exchange for the limited monopoly that a patent provides, disclose his methods to others. "Countries without patent laws have much larger shares of their innovations where patenting would have been a bad idea," Professor Moser said.

Meanwhile, inventors from countries not governed by patent laws were free to appropriate ideas patented by innovators in other countries.

The French inventor Hippolyte Mège-Mouriez, who invented margarine in 1870, blithely showed his invention to two Dutch entrepreneurs. Mr. Mège-Mouriez, having received a patent, felt confident that his idea was protected. The Dutch entrepreneurs took the Frenchman's ideas, improved on them (keeping their improvements secret) and established a thriving margarine business that in the 20th century merged into the multinational conglomerate Unilever. Mr. Mège-Mouriez died a pauper.

Professor Moser's work builds on work of Jacob Schmookler and Kenneth Sokoloff, both of whom have used 19th-century patent records to correlate rates of invention with market demand.

But her source material was not patents, since many of the inventions she studied were not patented. Rather, she combed through exhibition catalogs from the Crystal Palace exhibition and the 1876 Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia.

"The idea of using the exhibition data to empirically examine this idea was exceptionally creative, and the analysis was well executed," said Professor Sokoloff, a professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles. "Petra deserves enormous credit."

For about two hours every day during the four years she pursued her doctorate in economics at the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Moser entered data from 33,000 19th-century exhibition inventions into a spreadsheet.

The Crystal Palace exhibition was the first in a series of world fairs at which countries showed off their newest technologies. More than 6 million people visited the Crystal Palace, and almost 10 million people attended the Centennial Exhibition.

"Exhibition data are particularly useful for studying the effects of patent laws on innovation because they measure economically useful innovation in a way that is independent of changes in patent laws," Professor Moser said. "Countries without patent laws were really doing quite well."

So what is the lesson for Brazil, China, India and other countries that are being pressed by industrialized nations to create strong patent systems?

"We try to force patent laws on developing countries and say, This is best for you," she said. "Then we are surprised when they say they don't want patent laws. But they have a point. Such laws could actually hinder innovation in those countries."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/te...gy/29PATE.html


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A.C.L.U. Challenges Music Industry in Court
John Schwartz

Stepping up its involvement in the legal conflict over file sharing, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion to stop attempts by the music industry to get the name of a Boston College student who is accused of being a large-scale file trader.

In court papers that were filed on Friday and will be announced today, the group said that Boston College should not be forced to reveal the identity of the student.

The civil liberties group argues that the constitutional rights of its client, referred to as Jane Doe, would be violated if her college, which is also her Internet service provider, were forced to reveal her name. The industry subpoena "seeks to strip Jane Doe of her fundamental right to anonymity," according to the group's court filings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/bu...ia/29aclu.html


Top 10 D/Ls - Singles

BigChampagne


New Group To Fight RIAA, Microsoft
Christina Temes

In an effort to gain campus-wide exposure and to inform students of threats to computing freedom, the new student-run group Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons held a rally and information session on Tuesday night in the science center.

The group, founded by Nelson Pavlovsky ’06 and Luke Smith ’06, is dedicated to a multitude of issues pertaining to the prevention of the limiting of open culture. This translates into resisting the efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America to sue those who share music files, opposing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and similar expansion of intellectual property law, spreading the use of Linux and other freeware programs and fighting the plan of Microsoft and the “Trusted Computing Platform Alliance” to put monitoring chips in personal computers.

Linux, a free alternative to the Microsoft Windows operating system, lies at the heart of SCDC’s philosophy. The group’s short-term goals include getting more students to switch to Linux and get some Linux-based computers in public areas, to “show everyone how functional Linux is — that it’s not some impractical pipedream,” Pavlovsky said.

A major factor in SCDC’s championing of Linux is the advent of the Microsoft’s new “Trusted Computing” technology, also known as the Palladium chip. This technology, already present in some new IBM ThinkPads and set to be released in the upcoming version of Windows, would require Microsoft to verify if a user has permission to open a file on his or her computer.

Theoretically, this gives Microsoft the power to deny one access to a file or program that is saved on one’s own computer. Pavlovsky said that a massive switch to Linux could possibly cause Microsoft to step down its efforts to expand this technology. This is why SCDC wishes to recruit more colleges to boycott ‘Trusted Computing’ technology.”

One of the other major issues to which the SCDC is committed is resisting current copyright and intellectual property laws, such as the DMCA. “The current trend in intellectual property [law] is toward the absurd,” Smith said. He added that this “is not encouraging innovation, but inhibiting it.”

Under current law, one cannot reproduce a DVD or tell someone how to reproduce a DVD, even if one owns the data and is using it for personal use. The RIAA continues to crack down more harshly on those who share music files over the Internet.

SCDC organizers wish to demonstrate the benefits of free, open sharing of such files without advocating piracy and while promoting alternatives to current copyrights, such as those available through creativecommons.org, in which artists choose how their work can be used, shared, or altered in the future.

SCDC members attempted to address all of these issues at Tuesday night’s meeting. The night began with an explanation of the group by Smith and Pavlovsky, which was followed by questions by the audience.

A viewing of “Free Culture,” a recorded presentation given by Lawrence Lessig, a proponent of open culture and author of “The Future of Ideas,” followed. In it, Lessig described the beginning of free culture in 1774 and the progression of laws to limit it, saying that “never in our history have fewer people controlled the evolution of our culture.” The event ended with the distribution of free software and the opportunity for students to get Linux installed on their computers.

Upwards of 20 students attended the event, many of whom were informed of the event by SCDC’s chalking of the campus that took place on Sunday. The audience seemed to respond positively to the meeting.

“It’s good to think about [these issues], because people don’t often think about things like intellectual property law until they start to directly impact them,” Tara Levin ’07 said.

After the night’s success, the SCDC organizers began to look to the future with optimism. This semester they hope to continue proposing alternatives in software, to get a speaker to come to campus and to organize a faculty panel for the spring semester.

After that, the SCDC plans to continue to work hard for their goals. “If there’s one place to bridge the gap between technology and creativity, it’s Swarthmore,” Smith said.
http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2003-10-02/news/13240


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Accused Copyright Violator Hatch Warns Against Folly Of Stealing Music Off Internet
Christopher Smith

Illegally downloading a digital music file from the Internet is just as bad -- if not worse -- than shoplifting a music CD from Costco, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch said Friday.
Announcing that he is working on new legislation to warn parents of the potential criminal and civil liabilities if their children download songs on their home computers, Hatch told the National Press Club that unless the practice is stopped, it will result in "endless mass-tort litigation" against not only owners of the computers, but the companies that make them.
"Why should Microsoft, Intel, Verizon or Cisco be responsible when using their products for their intended purpose costs people money, psychological harm, and perhaps even criminal convictions?" asked Hatch. "Well, I'm not saying they should be. As a veteran of the tobacco and asbestos litigation wars, however, I'm just saying that nothing surprises me anymore."
Hatch said technology industries that benefit from the so-called peer-to-peer file sharing programs that are used to swap digital music files must start warning consumers of the potential for legal action, identity theft, password disclosure and pornography peddling from downloading songs.
In June, Hatch created an uproar in cyberspace when he announced at a Senate hearing that he supported remotely destroying a person's home computer with copyright security software. Hatch said Friday the comment was made "tongue in cheek" and only to denounce the stealing of copyrighted materials and to "spark a policy discussion."
He acknowledged, however, that the amount of public backlash to his comments ranked among the highest in his political career.
But Hatch said he fears the recent wave of recording industry lawsuits against children and adults who downloaded songs using the KaZaa! peer-to-peer software is only the beginning of a tidal wave of litigation that could swamp the U.S. economy.
"First, consumers deserve to know about these risks," said Hatch, a songwriter and author who reported earning more than $40,000 last year in royalties on sales of his intellectual properties. "And second, unless the technology industries that benefit, directly or indirectly, from peer-to-peer file sharing start warning consumers about its dangers, creative lawyers may mire the technology industries in the sort of endless mass-tort litigation that has devastated other industries while conferring few benefits on consumers."
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Oct/10042...s/business.asp


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Internet Evolves In Wake Of Music-Swapping Suits
Matthew Fordahl

Just as Prohibition drove drinkers underground in the roaring '20s, the music industry's crackdown is pushing many song swappers away from the open Internet and into what amount to cyberspace speakeasies.

These high-tech Cotton Clubs usually require users to be trusted or at least know someone inside. The files being traded, instead of out in the open, are encrypted - the 21st century equivalent of hiding bathtub gin under a fake floorboard.

Internet file-sharers are operating much like any society that falls under attack. And the very technologies they are using as shields have long been employed by legitimate businesses to protect their data from prying eyes and hackers.

"The software that users are moving toward, it has characteristics that businesses need - which is a high degree of privacy, a high degree of security and the ability to handle large files," said Clay Shirky, a professor of interactive telecommunications at New York University.

Three years after the Recording Industry Association of America's lawyers succeeded in shutting down the Napster file-trading service, the music industry's jihad against unauthorized digital music distribution is reaping an unintended consequence: better, easier-to-use software for exchanging data securely - and even anonymously - on the Internet.

"Thanks to the RIAA, ease of use surrounding encryption technologies, which was never a big deal before, is a big deal now," Shirky said.

The decentralized peer-to-peer technology that enables a computer user to share his or her music collection with strangers remains an unbottled genie - and is now likely to evolve so ever more traffic becomes invisible not just to the entertainment industry's copyright cops but also to repressive governments, inquisitive employers and snooping relatives.

On the file-swapping front, current favorites Kazaa, Morpheus and iMesh are more decentralized and harder to sue than Napster. They are breeding more sophisticated stepchildren just as the RIAA goes after the swappers themselves with lawsuits filed against 260 alleged file sharers.

An upcoming release of the file-sharing program Blubster, for instance, not only makes users more difficult to identify. It also seamlessly encrypts files before they are transferred and decrypts them for the end user.

Another program, called Waste, can be used to set up an encrypted instant-messaging and content-sharing network of up to 50 users. Unlike traditional instant- messaging programs, Waste messages don't pass through a central server.

Waste was pulled by America Online shortly after its release by the company's Nullsoft division, but is still circulating online. Neither AOL nor Nullsoft programmer Justin Frankel returned calls seeking comment. (Nullsoft also released Gnutella - on which many of Napster's successors are based. AOL quickly yanked that program, too, but the damage was done.)

Copyright crackdowns like those staged by the RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Business Software Alliance have succeeded on at least one front: Because higher security and anonymity tend to make software more difficult to use, fewer people are likely to be engaged in casual copying.

"To some degree, the effort has always been one of pushing down the piracy problem, forcing it down to the hardcore pirate," said Bob Kruger, the BSA's vice president for enforcement.

Matt Oppenheim, the RIAA's senior vice president for business and legal affairs, said it's still possible to undermine pirates - even those operating anonymously. In fact, four university students sued last April were using allegedly more-secure swapping software.

So the race is on to improve and simplify advanced security technologies. Beyond programs like Blubster and Waste, there are projects like Freenet, which has been around since 1999. Downloaded nearly 2 million times, it cannot only trade files but also exchange information and spread censored news to places like China.

Like other programs, it's difficult for the programmers to know exactly how it's being used, but there are clues.

"Our Web site is censored by Chinese government," said Freenet leader Ian Clarke. "I suspect we must have had some effect to justify that."

Though Clarke is well known for his information-needs-to-be-free philosophy, he's also trying to cash in on Freenet's architecture.

Last year, he founded Cematics LLC and the company has since released a prototype of Locutus, which allows users to search corporate networks for information distributed across a wide range of computers.

"Just as Napster or Kazaa allow 12-year-old kids to shares media files over the Internet, Locutus allows corporations to share documents within their organization," Clarke said. "It's kind of like Google for people's hard disks, but with added security. You can define who has permission to find what kind of files."

The shift toward integrating encryption and anonymity tools answer the prayers of privacy advocates who have been warning Internet users for years about the potential problems of using the open network without such protection.

"The recording industry lawsuits may in fact change the ecological pressures on the software developers to encourage more anonymity. I think that's a good outcome of this," said Cory Doctorow, outreach coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "What it won't do is legalize what 60 million people are up to and it won't ... pay any artists."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...ss/6933265.htm


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It’s flawed but hey, at least they gave it a shot.

THE DIGITAL MEDIA MANIFESTO

Executive summary

Today Digital Media has been enabled by remarkably sophisticated technologies with potential opportunities today for creativity, business, culture and enjoyment, as well as benefits for players all along the value chain.

However, the achievement of a full Digital Media Experience is stuck in a stalemate. There is too much at stake to simply bow to this stalemate as an inevitable presence to live with in the next few years to come, hoping wistfully that the mess will be sorted out some day soon.

The Digital Media Manifesto identifies the need for coordinated policy and technical actions needed to achieve this fuller realisation of Digital Media. The policy actions include reviewing the Digital Media standardisation process. The technical actions require, as explicit critical success factors, the development of specifications for interoperable Digital Rights Management (DRM) platforms technically open to value-chain players and for interoperable end-user devices, and the development of recommended practices for end-to-end conformance assessment.

Executing these actions is the mission of the Digital Media Project, a not-for-profit organisation whose establishment is proposed to create the policy and technical conditions for a sustainable Digital Media economy.
http://www.chiariglione.org/manifesto/dmm.htm


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[bb]The Incredible Shrinking Studio[/b]
Mark McClusky

Brian Transeau, better-known in the dance-music world as BT, is one of the top DJs and remixers in the world. And he gets some of his best work done on a plane.

Using a laptop computer and an audio-editing program, BT can work on songs anywhere, and often does. Transeau has worked with Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and Peter Gabriel, among others, and released several of his own dance records. His production work on the song "Pop" from Nsync's last record is one of the projects he did while flying.

"I did a lot of the vocal edits on a plane," said BT. "I cut and pieced the vocal together. There's something like 2,000 or 3,000 edits in that three-minute song, and I did that sitting on a plane."

Working on the go has become standard operating procedure in the music industry. Times have changed: Twenty years ago, a studio was the only place where professional recordings could be made; even five years ago, desktop computers were just starting to get enough horsepower to make great records. Today, a laptop offers plenty of power to make a great-sounding track -- and that portability is changing the way music is made.

For instance, guitar hero Steve Vai recorded his Alive in an Ultra World live album on location using an Apple PowerBook and Logic, a multitrack recording program. "Technology changes, and you really have to stay on top of it," Vai said.

In another sign of the increased prominence of laptops in the recording process, as of this fall, new students at the Berklee College of Music have to buy a PowerBook, a MIDI keyboard controller and a copy of Reason, a popular software synthesis and sampling program.

For years, music students were expected to learn to play the piano as the main instrument for their education. But according to Professor Michael Bierylo of Berklee, those days are over. "People are turning to the computer as the way of learning music," said Bierylo. "That represents a very radical shift in music education."

Bierylo, who also composes scores for movies and television, knows that familiarizing Berklee students with laptops is a crucial part of their education as the technological landscape of the industry changes.

"You can take your laptop and work almost anywhere and use it to make incredible music on stage," he said. "That's pretty revolutionary. The whole idea of the studio as a single place where all the production is done has more or less flown out the window. High-end studios still have their place, of course, but more and more and more musicians are tracking in different locations."

Along with freeing musicians from the studio, the new power of laptops, and some of the software that has been written to use that power, has had a huge impact on the market for synthesizers.

Instead of spending $3,000 for a high-end hardware synthesizer, musicians can now buy software-based synths and load dozens of them on a laptop.

"There are plenty of artists who are using laptops live, instead of carrying racks of synths with them to shows," said Steve Oppenheimer, the editor in chief of Electronic Musician magazine. "It used to be that hardware synths sold like crazy, but those guys would kill to make decent sales on hardware synths today. The sales of hardware aren't what they used to be, and they're not going to come back. It adds up to big trouble for hardware manufacturers."

Manufacturers aren't the only ones feeling the pinch. Recording studio owners have seen their business drop as well. Sorcerer Sound in New York, where Norah Jones recorded her Grammy-winning album, recently closed and auctioned off its recording equipment.

Mike Caffrey owns Monster Island studio in New York City. He sees some tough times ahead. "For the short term, the number of studios will drop," he said. "Their main function will be to provide a proper acoustical environment."

But there's something else that a trip to the studio offers musicians -- the experience of the person running it. "My studio is not intended to be a commercial studio, which is essentially a specialized real estate business," Caffrey said. "People are paying for my skills and expertise, and get the studio as part of the package."

The full economic impact of the shrinking studio remains to be seen. But the physical freedom and power of these systems has changed the world for musicians. Ken Jordan, one part of the popular techno duo The Crystal Method, is a firm believer in the power of a laptop for his music.

"That's what took us so long to make our second album," he said. "We were on the road so much promoting our first album, and we didn't really know how to write or make music outside of our studio. Now with PowerBooks, soft synths and programs like Live and Reason, we can write anywhere. And we do."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60639,00.html


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New Monitor Displays 4,000 Lines Of Resolution

This monitor can provide an immersive experience
Sander Olson

BLURB
The controversial futurist Ray Kurzweil has argued in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines that immersive virtual reality machines will soon be commonplace. Kurzweil argues that:

By 2009, computers will disappear. Visual information will be written directly onto our retinas by devices in our eyeglasses and contact lenses. In addition to high resolution virtual monitors appearing to hover in space, these intimate displays will provide full-immersion visual virtual reality. We will have ubiquitous very high bandwidth wireless connection to the Internet at all times. "Going to a Website" will mean entering a virtual reality environment--at least for the visual and auditory senses-- where we will meet other real people. There will be simulated people as well, but these virtual personalities will not be up to human standards, at least not by 2009. The miniscule electronics powering these developments will be invisibly embedded in our glasses and clothing. Thus we won't be searching for our misplaced mobile phones, Palms, notebooks, and other gadgets. And we won't have to deal with the mess of wires that now entangle our lives. We will be plugged in all the time, and able to have any type of interaction with anyone regardless of physical proximity.

Although many are quick to discount Kurzweil's predictions for immersive VR, a technological advance has brought this vision one step closer to fruition. Researchers at the Japan Broadcasting Company have created an ultra-high definition video system with 16 times the resolution of High Definition Television (HDTV). The prototype system consists of 4,000 horizontal lines of resolution, which far exceeds the 1920x1080 resolution of HDTV. At that level of resolution, the "you are there" sensation can apparently be overwhelming. We shouldn't expect to see television or computer screens sporting any ultra-high definition video anytime soon--the first HDTV sets were built back in 1981, and HDTV is only now becoming common. Moreover, any video card capable of displaying that many pixels and lines of resolution would need to be far more powerful than current GPUs. Even a terabyte hard drive would be insufficient for storing more than a couple of minutes of video/ animation. Finally, the infrastructure for sending, receiving, and processing such images doesn't currently exist. Nevertheless, such displays could become commercially available within a decade or so.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0930021981.htm


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No Easy Way to Resolve P2P, Industry Conflict
Bill Holland

The Recording Industry Assn. of America appears to have weathered what first promised to be a congressional hurricane but has turned out to be an autumn sprinkle.

Observers described the Sept. 30 hearing to probe the subpoena process the RIAA uses to go after alleged copyright infringers as muted.

Despite initial rumblings, it appears that Congress may not revisit the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), observers say.

Some Capitol Hill veterans say that Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who called the hearing, is now part of a growing group of lawmakers that sees no easy way to solve the conflict between the record industry and peer-to-peer services.

"After studying the issue, I think Coleman now recognizes that the Kazaas are inherently conflicted," says lobbyist Manus Cooney, formerly chief of staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"So there's no real incentive for the recording industry to license them. At the same time, the Kazaas have no real incentive to develop the technology solution to identify illegal downloaders because they'd be liable."

Cooney and other Hill vets say that Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA's new chairman/CEO, came across as informed and positive at the hearing when he announced that going forward, the RIAA will give prior notice to alleged egregious P2P infringers.

By law, neither Internet service providers nor copyright holders are required to give notice to a user whose personal information has been turned over to a copyright holder.

The RIAA notification will alleviate some of the surprise or confusion the lawsuits have generated, allowing infringers to contact the RIAA to settle out of court and enabling those who feel they are innocent of wrongdoing to make their case.

"We are trying to be reasonable and fair and allow these cases the opportunity to be resolved without litigation," Bainwol told the panel.

He also said that lawsuits could be avoided if P2P network operators instituted meaningful disclosure notices stating that unauthorized uploading and downloading is illegal, used available technology to filter and block such activity and changed default settings for users so that they do not unknowingly upload material.

Hill veterans say that lawmakers have too much on their plate to reconstruct the DMCA.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=3556769


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Senator Seeks Lower Downloading Penalties
Frederic J. Frommer

Sen. Norm Coleman said Thursday he will push legislation this year to reduce legal penalties for people who download copyrighted music off the
Internet.

Coleman, R-Minn., said current penalties, which range from $750 to $150,000 per downloaded song, are excessive and enough to scare innocent people into settling lawsuits filed by the recording industry.

"I can tell you that $150,000 per song is not reasonable, and that's technically what you can put in front of somebody," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters. "That forces people to settle when they may want to fight, but they're thinking, 'goodness, gracious, what am I going to face?' "

Coleman said he will also press for changes in federal law to reign in the recording industry's subpoena power.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows the industry to obtain subpoenas, without a judge's signature, to track and sue people who download songs. Coleman said he would like to allow for some judicial review.

Coleman's announcement came two days after he held a high-profile congressional hearing that featured the recording industry, the file sharing industry, and rappers LL Cool J and Chuck D.

The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, has filed civil lawsuits against 261 people it accuses of illegally distributing music online, and promises thousands more suits.

The RIAA, which blames piracy for flagging music sales, opposes changing the law.

"Given the scope of today's piracy epidemic, we must not weaken the hand of copyright holders to enforce their rights and deter illegal behavior," said spokesman Jonathan Lamy.

Not surprisingly, the file sharing industry welcomed Coleman's comments.

"Senator Coleman's willingness to act quickly to protect the public in these two critical areas is commendable," said Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a trade group which represents the file-sharing industry.

Coleman said he didn't have any specific numbers in mind yet for revised penalties.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...ws/6918045.htm


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I say it’s a breath mint! I say it’s a candy mint!

Major Accusations Flying Around Earth Station Five
Jack Spratts

According to a poster at the P2P site Zeropaid, which has never been a fan of the Middle Eastern file sharing application Earth Station Five, malicious code was allegedly placed in the P2P program deliberately to facilitate the deletion of files from users computers at will. Forums were lit up over the allegation with sides being drawn depending mostly on how people felt about the two camps.

Despite repeated attempts officials at ES5 did not return calls seeking comment.


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Madonna Sued For Copying Images For Video
AP

The son of a fashion photographer has sued Madonna, saying his late father's images were copied by the singer in a set of videos for a song called "Hollywood."

Samuel Bourdin brought the lawsuit Friday, saying he holds the rights to the images created by his father, Guy Bourdin, who died in 1991.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan accused Madonna of copyright infringement for her imitation of poses and images in at least 11 works of Bourdin, whose images were published in French Vogue from the mid-1950s through the late 1980s.

According to the lawsuit, Bourdin is recognized as one of the most influential fashion photographers for his highly constructed compositions in unusual settings.

The lawsuit sought unspecified damages from Madonna and companies and individuals involved in production of the videos.

The lawsuit included comparisons of photographs by Bourdin with video images of Madonna. In one Bourdin picture, a scantily clad woman peers into a round mirror. Madonna does the same.

In another Bourdin picture, a woman squats on a floor with what appears to be a large television-size screen between her legs. Madonna does the same.

"This is more than inspiration," Bourdin's attorney John Koegel told The Daily News.

A message left with a publicist for Madonna was not immediately returned.
http://www.sunspot.net/entertainment...ment-headlines









Until next week,

- js.








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Recent WIRs -


http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17605 September 29th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17552 September 20th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17495 September 13th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=17325 September 6th





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

[TankGirl]

A great opening essay, Jack.

Whatever file sharing appears to be right now the ultimate evolution of peer-to-peer will be the liberation of both the consumer and the artist from the media companies - it’s the fundamental result of file sharing.

Ditto on that. P2P (and personal computing in general) has been about ‘consumer’ empowerment all along. However granted we take it today, the suddenly emerged possibility for any non-technical person with Internet connection to act as a worldwide distributor for high-quality digital content is an amazing technical achievement with no historical comparison. It is something to celebrate and embrace, not to suppress or stifle.

Surely the focus has so far been very much on consumer, content and distribution – artists have mostly followed the rapid developments from the sidelines. But these are early days; we have only three years of P2P behind us. By embracing the movement and co-operating with the (nowadays numerous) P2P developers the artists should have no problem taking their rightful place in the new digital luxury ecology during the next three years.

- tg

[multi]

Public Enemy front man Chuck D, meanwhile, opposes the litigation policy. "P2P to me means 'power to the people,'" he said.

im glad im not the only one that thought about that alternate definition of P2P