Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - April 14th, '07

[JackSpratts]

Founded in 2002

































"This is an incredible achievement when you consider Kate Walsh is unsigned and still outsold several major international artists." – Oliver Schusser


"It is surreal, almost. Sometimes I forget we are 1,000 miles apart. I'm in his living room and he is in mine. I can't express in words how important that connection is." – Jeff Heyel


"Let's be honest, next-generation DVDs offered the promise of managed copy, which was the ability to rip your DVD and put it on your PC and stream it around your house and all this other stuff...None of that has come to fruition. So why don't these guys focus on enabling those functionalities instead of trying to thwart the minority that are trying to hack content?" – Josh Martin


"HD files are so enormous. It takes too long for them to download, store and manage." – Josh Martin


"In tests based upon real files downloaded from today's peer-to-peer networks, SET improved the transfer time of an MP3 music file by 71 percent." – Carnegie Mellon University


"This is a technique that I would like people to steal." – David G. Andersen


"Coined the word 'Weblog' (never made a dime)." – Jorn Barger


"Thank God the Internet is difficult to close down, but I think they will go after journalists who write things they don't like." – Vladimir Rakhmankov


"I’m scathed. Are you crazy? How am I unscathed by this? Don’t you think I’m humiliated?" – Don Imus


"You’re not as humiliated as young black women are." – Rev. Al Sharpton


"Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free." – George Christian


"`Trust us' doesn't cut it when it comes to the government's power to obtain Americans' sensitive business records without a court order and without any suspicion that they are tied to terrorism or espionage." – Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis


"Yes, I arrive at the [Imus] studio at 5 a.m. each day, but before I do, on my way out I shine my lawn jockeys, and then I stop at the cemetery and knock over Jewish tombstones. Oh please." – Bernard McGuirk























Impulse Power

Azureus has changed the name of its pay-per-download venture Zudeo. Now called Vuze (like views) the aim is to join a growing list of vendors selling quality content online. They do have an angle though: they want to sell it in Hi-Def. Big, beautiful high definition movies – right through your little copper telephone wire and into your living room. Fresh out of beta, it sounds great in the press release, I just don’t know how they expect to overcome the bandwidth limits.

There’s a piece in last weeks WiR about a guy named Cameron. Seems he ran into problems with his ISP for exuberant downloading. He used more than they liked. They cut him off. It’s a familiar story, but with his downloads approaching 600 gigs a month he beats my personal best by a factor of two – when I’m running flat out. I’m not jealous mind you (well, maybe a little), but it does underscore the fact that even at his impressive speeds it’ll still take him almost a full day to grab a 15 GB HD movie, and closer to three for a Blu-Ray. But wait. He doesn’t have those speeds anymore, because he’s been throttled. It may take him a month to grab a high definition movie now. And that’s it isn’t it? Most people just don’t have the throughput for HD and even if they do it doesn’t make much difference when they can’t use it. ISPs really don’t appreciate these users.

They may eventually grow on them though, especially if heavyweights like ATT light up their fiber and begin offering projected asymmetrical speeds of 25 Mbps, although after hearing the promises for years I’m not holding my breath (Verizon is now rolling out 50-100 Mbps but they’re a smaller company). The thing is, even if these speeds do materialize - even the ones pledged - downloading true HD content, whether for free or for fee, will be a consumer’s time consuming affair. Building a business around it is premature. I’m not sure snapping up stock in Azureus will be a smart move, not if they’re banking on high-definition to separate themselves from the wolf pack.

The long awaited telco revolution hasn’t happened yet and very few people enjoy these super speeds at present. There isn’t a guarantee the rest of us will see them any time soon, if ever, unfettered at least, not with the massive debt loads these ballooning companies have taken on with acquisitions and other non-network follies. Furthermore the ISPs may decide to raise rates and cap transfers, holding captive users hostage for what network improvements they are making, putting third party business models into that much more jeopardy.

For the foreseeable future the only kind of remotely practical way for most individuals to get true high-definition content is by either purchasing it physically or sharing it personally. You know, carrying a hard drive around and doing box-to-box hook-ups. Sneakerware basically. Works great and it’s lightning fast but it’s limited geographically. If you’ve been in the States breezily bouncing bits off a bounteous babe in Byzantium you’re going to need some big new things to bone up on. Like international postal rates for instance.

There’re a lot of great things happening in P2P but in spite of its undisputed prowess for moving content it will always be a captive of bandwidth. Electronic transfers have never been the best way to grab huge files quickly, if by quickly one means impulsively, and I do. If you must have blinding speed and the truly global reach of peer-to-peer you’re going to need compression, and that means giving up most of the breathtaking image detail made possible by HD. After grinding off the fragile edges of your favorite film you find the definition isn’t quite as high you thought it would be, you’re back to where you started, perusing those Byzantine postal regulations.

Certain efficiencies can be expected to climb. There’s the Carnegie Mellon University SET protocol that uses statistical "handprinting" to multiply hosts. It’s so new the worldwide code release was scheduled for New England only this week. It won’t increase your incoming bandwidth but it might take advantage of all the speed you do have. Could also be some as yet un-announced compression schemes about to leap from the lab (and we’ll need something new to handle these ever swelling file sizes). If not, one might as well stick to tried and true multi-pass DVD-ripping and swapping.

As for me I have the standard 1.5 Mbps asymmetrical transfer rate from my ISP. This might even be a U.S. average (many are faster, even more are slower). At these speeds it will take me at the very least 5 days running flat out to grab a 50 gig Blu-Ray – but I can’t run flat out – because that kills all my other transfers. I need to reserve at least ten percent for overhead (preferably twenty), so add another day to that total unless I can grab another line for surfing which I’ve managed in the past but with open Wi-Fi signals all but disappearing I can’t count on doing forever. This also assumes someone can upload to me with that much speed over the course of the entire nearly week-long transfer, and notwithstanding BT and SET this has never happened before. Not in seven years anyway. Azureus may have a solution to that one, we’ll have to see. It is another hurdle they’ll need to jump.

Most Blu-Rays aren’t the full fifty gigs of course, and without the add-ons and behind the scenes fluff I don’t want anyway the total file size might be 25 gigs or less, but that’s still a multi-day download from a business essentially selling whims (Whatcha wanna do tonight honey?). It’s not going to fly for Mr. and Mrs. America. They need warp speed for their impulse buy.

Might not be such a bad thing for Mr. and Mrs. Japan though. They enjoy light speed now, and have for a while. Same with Korea and a few other mostly Asian countries. When it comes to bandwidth we’re way behind the curve in the States. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The regulated monopoly telcos were allowed to keep profits far in excess of normal in return for substantial upgrades to their networks. These improvements were supposed to mean speeds comparable to those available in Japan today, and this was back in the nineties. Never happened.

With a new congress in town, might be worth dropping somebody a line and seeing if maybe they could look into that.

As for Vuze, I wish them luck. ISP-neutral high-definition video transfer services are a great idea, even if this one is way ahead of the bandwidth.














Enjoy,

Jack















April 14th, 2007






Computer Scientists Develop P2P System that Promises Faster Music, Movie Downloads

A Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist says transferring large data files, such as movies and music, over the Internet could be sped up significantly if peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services were configured to share not only identical files, but also similar files.

David G. Andersen, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh have designed such a system, called Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET). By identifying relevant chunks of files similar to a desired file, SET greatly increases the number of potential sources for downloads. And boosting the number of sources usually translates into faster P2P downloads, Andersen explains. How much SET could speed up downloads varies based on a number of factors, including the size and popularity of a given file. In some cases, SET might speed transfers by just 5 percent; in others, it might make downloads five times faster.

The researchers, along with graduate student Himabindu Pucha of Purdue University, will present a paper describing SET and release the system code at the 4th Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, April 11 in Cambridge, Mass.

"This is a technique that I would like people to steal," Andersen said. Though he and his colleagues hope to implement SET in a service for sharing software or academic papers, they have no intention of applying it themselves to movie- or music-sharing services. "But it would make P2P transfers faster and more efficient," he added, "and developers should just take the idea and use it in their own systems."

"In some sense, the promise of P2P has been greater than the reality," Andersen said. By creating many more sources for data files, P2P reduces bottlenecks for data transfers. But residential Internet service providers allot far more bandwidth for downloading than they do for uploading files, an imbalance that continues to slow P2P data transfers. And members of P2P services often limit their computer's upload capacity so it is not tied up with other peoples' uploads.

Like P2P services such as BitTorrent, Gnutella and ChunkCast, SET speeds up data transfers by simultaneously downloading different chunks of a desired data file from multiple sources, rather than downloading an entire file from one slow source. Even then, downloads can be slow because these networks can't find enough sources to use all of a receiver's download bandwidth. That's why SET takes the additional step of identifying files that are similar to the desired file.

No one knows the degree of similarity between data files stored in computers around the world, but analyses suggest the types of files most commonly shared are likely to contain a number of similar elements. Many music files, for instance, may differ only in the artist-and-title headers, but are otherwise 99 percent similar.

Different versions of software packages likewise remain highly similar.

Taking advantage of those similarities could speed downloads considerably. If a U.S. computer user wanted to download a German-language version of a popular movie, for instance, existing systems would probably download most of the movie from sources in Germany. But if the user could download from similar files, the user could retrieve most of the video from English versions readily available from U.S. sources, and download only the audio portion of the movie from the German sources.

SET's basic operation is similar to that of BitTorrent. Once the download of a data file is initiated, the source file is divided into smaller, unique chunks — SET divides a one-gigabyte file into 64,000 16-kilobyte chunks, for instance. Different chunks are downloaded simultaneously from numerous sources that have the identical file, and then the chunks are reassembled into a single file.

But while that process of downloading is under way, SET continues to search for similar files using a process called handprinting, inspired by techniques that have been used for clustering search results or detecting spam. A sampling technique is used to see if non-identical files contain chunks matching those of the desired file. Relevant chunks can then be downloaded from the similar files identified by this method.

In tests based upon real files downloaded from today's peer-to-peer networks, SET improved the transfer time of an MP3 music file by 71 percent. A larger 55-megabyte movie trailer went 30 percent faster using the researchers' techniques to draw from movie trailers that were 47 percent similar. The researchers hope that the efficiency gains from SET will enable the next generation of high-speed online multimedia delivery.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=121590





Broadband Services: Who Shapes and Who Doesn’t?
MyADSL

Broadband users are becoming increasingly agitated with broadband providers shaping traffic and with suggestions that certain services may even be blocked on certain networks. MyADSL takes a look at who shapes and who doesn’t.

iBurst causing frustration

The issue of traffic shaping has once again raised its ugly head with iBurst subscribers voicing their frustration in what many call an unfair discrimination against certain Internet services.

Comments like “Well, now that apparently p2p is blocked their total traffic is likely much less than what it used to be and so they are paying the same amount or slightly less money to Telkom yet they've given bigger caps” and “…[it] sucks because we can't use those caps for anything meaningful,” are only two voices amoung a chorus of complaints about iBurst’s traffic shaping policy.

iBurst confirmed that they shape some traffic, but consider it necessary in order to optimize users’ online experience.

“iBurst shapes network traffic so that all applications and data types have a fair share of the available bandwidth based on the relative demand providing preference to protocols and applications which are interactive in nature, in order to optimize users’ online experience,” said Antony McKechnie, Head of Product Development at iBurst.

“P2P protocols are unfortunately extremely data hungry and without traffic management these applications would utilize an unfair proportion of the available network resources, which will affect the Internet access experience for the majority of subscribers. iBurst does not block P2P protocols,” McKechnie pointed out.

Telkom openly prioritizes traffic

Telkom openly discloses their traffic shaping policies and have two separate account types to differentiate between shaped and unshaped bandwidth. Shaped accounts prioritize basic web and email traffic while all traffic is handled equally with unshaped accounts.

For ADSL subscribers’ looking to optimize their online experience for services like online gaming, share trading and other applications using ports other than HTTP, FTP and SMTP, Telkom advises an unshaped ISP account.

Unshaped ADSL accounts are significantly more expensive than the shaped option, and despite the ICASA ADSL Regulations stating that ‘Telkom, SNO and ISPs shall not be allowed to impose port prioritization on their subscribers’ this differentiation remains.

Internet Solutions shapes bandwidth

Internet Solutions (IS) also shapes their traffic, but aims to pass the benefits of unshaped bandwidth on to their subscribers during quiet periods.

“The main traffic that is managed is peer to peer, where, during office hours, this utilisation is managed and reduced for all users. This is a method of managing utilisation of bandwidth to protect other users to be able to use their bandwidth during office hours. After hours, this changes, and peer to peer becomes available again,” IS said.

According to IS their shaping policies are no secret and generally ‘a known fact by most users’.

Verizon Business ADSL

Verizon Business’s ADSL solution, which is starting to make inroads into the SMME and residential market, is completely unshaped.

Verizon Business said that their main aim with their ADSL offering is quality of service, and it is therefore not surprising that they steered clear of prioritizing certain services on their ADSL network.

Sentech moves away from shaping

On its MyWireless Classic products Sentech used to employ some traffic shaping measures, but this policy is a thing of the past with its new MyWireless Flexi products.

This is a welcome change for many MyWireless users who have been upgraded to 1 Mbps recently when the company announced drastic price cuts on all its Flexi products.

Mobile providers say ‘data is data’

Neither MTN nor Vodacom imposes port prioritization on their Internet traffic.

While many recent media reports have suggested that MTN may be blocking or charging more for certain traffic on their network, the mobile squashed these rumours and confirmed that they do not shape traffic or block services on their network.

Vodacom has for a long time said that they see data as data, and does not discriminate between different forms of traffic.

CellC also does not shape or block traffic. “Currently Cell C does not shape traffic, prioritize any traffic or block any type of traffic or services,” CellC’s Vinnie Santu confirmed.

The following table summarizes the traffic shaping from the various providers:

Provider Traffic Shaping Blocking Services

ADSL - Telkom Shaped Yes No
ADSL - Telkom Unshaped No No
ADSL - Verizon Business No No
ADSL - Internet Solutions Yes No
iBurst Yes No
Sentech MyWireless No No
MTN HSDPA No No
Vodacom HSDPA No No
CellC EDGE No No
Virgin Mobile EDGE No No

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=6122





We Don't Need No Stinking Best Effort

Net neutrality may have been just a fantasy all along.
Robert X. Cringely

Let me tell you about the problems I am having with my fax line. Fax? Why would anyone still have a fax line? Well I have a few thousand business cards orbiting out there with my fax number attached, but the line also serves quite well as a secure (if slow) access point for remote control software when I am on the road. Or it would serve that role if my fax line actually worked, which it doesn't.

My fax line isn't a regular phone line, it is a Vonage Voice over IP phone line. I have two such lines with the other being my main business number. The business number works reliably, though the audio quality isn't what I would like and there are plenty of dropped bits. But the fax line doesn't work at all. It connects but won't sync no matter what I try. It is already set on the slowest possible speed and I have spent literally hours on the phone with Vonage, which can't find anything wrong.

For all its legal troubles, Vonage has always been a reliable supplier to me and they have made a valiant effort to get this fax line functioning. So what can the problem be?

It's not a lack of bandwidth. I am a Comcast business customer and pay three times the residential rate in exchange for eight megabits down and one megabit up with five static IP addresses, the right to run servers, and what they call a Service Level Agreement.

That's the good news. The bad news is I just tested my 8/1 connection and the actual speeds with tests that Comcast accepts as valid (Comcast service likes the Speakeasy speed test) are 6764 down and 1410 up. That's substantially faster than I am promised upstream but substantially slower than I am promised downstream, yet both are still plenty for a 9600 bps fax, right? Wrong.

When I ask Comcast business about the Service Level Agreement, they snort. I can do the paperwork and demand some money back, they say, but my numbers to them look pretty good and there isn't much they can do to improve them. So Comcast's Service Level Agreement in this case is probably more of a marketing tool than anything else. In terms of actually guaranteeing service levels, it is meaningless.

So why can't I get a fax, then?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect the answer may well lie in an extension of last week's column about net neutrality. In that column I explained that the big broadband ISPs were apparently preparing to offer tiered levels of service and at this point it is a matter of flipping a switch, with the result that Comcast's VoIP might suddenly work a LOT better than Vonage's VoIP, which is to say my fax line.

Well it turns out that I may have, in this case, actually understated the problem. Readers claim that some -- who knows, maybe ALL -- big broadband ISPs are ALREADY running tiered services.

"I used to work at Time-Warner Cable's Road Runner High Speed HQ," wrote one reader, "and as of 2005, TWC marked all VoIP packets with the TOS bit turned to 1. TWC has 5 levels of priority, VoIP having the highest, router tables second, commercial services 3rd, Road Runner consumer 4th and everything else is classified as 'best effort'."

Wow!

In the strictest sense, this is perfectly in keeping with my point from last week that having a native VoIP service changes the rules of the game when it comes to net neutrality because VoIP in this case is a PHONE service, not an INTERNET service and is therefore not restricted from QoS prioritization. But what about those other service levels? They generally have to do with Internet services and so ought to come under the net neutrality rules.

THERE ARE NO NET NEUTRALITY RULES.

I went to one of my smartest, best-informed, and most cynical friends who has a long career making these networks work and he wrote, "Well, there are no Net Neutrality rules/laws in place (yet). Correct? So, they can do anything they want, right? Besides, your point about why your fax doesn't work on Vonage may be explained..."

Suddenly it is all beginning to make sense to me.

Last year SBC (now AT&T), Comcast, and other big broadband ISPs began to make noise about how Google wasn't paying them for priority access and should. Feeling threatened, the Internet community tried to push through net neutrality rules that said every packet should be treated equally. The net neutrality rules haven't yet gone through but the ISPs also aren't charging anyone yet for priority access.

Too bad those of us on the side of net neutrality were so naïve. I looked in the RFCs and saw that the Internet was defined as a "best effort" network, which seemed to embody the principles of net neutrality. So, like most other people, I assumed that the de facto state of things was that all packets were being treated equally and what the ISPs were looking for was a change in the status quo.

Silly me.

What turns out to be the case is that some ISPs have all along given priorities to different packet types. What AT&T, Comcast and the others were trying to do was to find a way to be PAID for priority access -- priority access that had long existed but hadn't yet been converted into a revenue stream.

This reminds me of the problems Silicon Graphics (SGI) and NeXT Computer had making their machines work with the Network File System (NFS) protocol back in the late 1980s. NFS was invented by Sun Microsystems and published as an open standard for accessing data on other systems using a remote procedure call. Dozens of vendors supported NFS, but SGI and NeXT couldn't get their machines to interoperate. What turned out to be wrong was that SGI and NeXT both wrote their NFS code from scratch using Sun's published specification, while all the other vendors generally lifted Sun code and concentrated on making their implementations interoperate with Sun's, the de facto standard. BUT SUN'S NFS CODE WASN'T COMPLIANT WITH ITS OWN SPEC.

So lots of we "pundits" have been sitting around believing that the Internet is a "best effort" network, which in practical terms it isn't and probably hasn't been for a long time. We've believed that by being out of compliance with RFCs this combination of QoS and non-QoS services wouldn't work, but they do. And the result is that I can sit here with 100+ times enough bandwidth for fax service and still can't send a damned fax.

We should have seen this coming. When ISPs claimed that private peering arrangements gave them priority routing (a best-effort no-no) we should have believed them. OF COURSE they would give priority for services such as DNS and, frankly, I wouldn't want that any other way.

So instead of a true "best effort" network upon which some ISPs want to impose tiered services, what most of us probably have are already tiered services, which means that net neutrality, if imposed, would make some Internet services slower than they presently are.

Net neutrality threatens ISPs while a regulated lack of net neutrality rewards them, so they push for it.

The reality of this argument, then, is that in the strictest sense net neutrality is already dead and we don't really want it if that means slowing down every page access. At the same time, we have already paid for that bandwidth, so allowing our ISPs to effectively sell it twice seems unfair to users.

What's to be done, then? Well we won't be going back to true net neutrality. Revealing that it had never existed was probably a weapon the ISPs were saving for their final defense of the status quo. In the long run, the ISPs will probably get their way, too, on being paid for access to higher service tiers. But since we've already paid for that bandwidth, I propose the ISPs be made to share their bounty with us.

If an ISP can account for packets on different service levels accurately enough to bill a Google or a Yahoo, then they can take half of the revenue generated by allowing faster access to me and credit that to my account, lowering my bill. I can either take the money and run or apply it toward raising the priority level of some of my own services.

In my case, of course, that would be fax.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2...12_001931.html





DVD Security Group Says It Fixed Flaws
Gary Gentile

The group behind security measures for next-generation DVDs said Monday it has fixed a leak that allowed hackers to discover the keys for unlocking movies on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Makers of software for playing the discs on computers will offer patches containing new keys and closing the hole that allowed observant hackers to discover ways to strip high-def DVDs of their protection.

Digital rights management protection, or DRM, is intended to prevent copying of the movies. Hackers working late last year and early this year were able to observe computer code found on the PC-based DVD players and discover keys that unlock protections on all high-def discs, so copies could be made.

On Monday, the group that developed the Advanced Access Content System said it had worked with device makers to deactivate those keys and refresh them with a new set.

Companies such as Corel Corp., which owns InterVideo, makers of a popular PC-based playback software, will also distribute more secure versions, said Michael Ayers, chairman of the AACS License Administrator.

"The device keys associated with the InterVideo player are being deactivated and InterVideo has updated its player," Ayers said. "They are taking steps that block off access to the inner workings of the application."

New high-def DVDs will include updated keys and instructions for older versions of the PC-playback software not to play discs until the software patch has been installed.

Corel has told users of its software that failure to download the free patch will disable the ability to play high-def DVDs.

Stand-alone DVD players, such as the Toshiba HD DVD player and the Sony Blu-ray player, are not affected by Monday's announcement. So far, no problems have been found with their security.

Ayers said future assaults by hackers can be similarly fixed by replacing compromised keys with new ones.

"AACS is a high-profile technology and is protecting high-profile content, so we fully expect there will be future attempts," Ayers said.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/2007...d-security.htm





DRM Patch Only a Bandage: Analyst
Greg Sandoval

A contest of wills has begun between hackers and the maker of software for playing back next-generation DVDs. Skeptics say that the outcome is all too predictable.

Corel Software said in a statement last week that customers must download a new update of its InterVideo WinDVD software if they wish to continue watching HD DVD or Blu-ray discs on PCs.

The move has been anticipated since December, when a hacker accessed the device key used to communicate with the security keys on each movie disc. By compromising the key, the hacker could have made and circulated unauthorized copies of movies. The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, the group backing the AACS copy-protection format used by both Blu-ray and HD DVD, also announced that it was doing away with the compromised keys.

The creators of AACS, which includes IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Panasonic, anticipated that their security keys might be hacked. To stay a step ahead of the hackers, they designed a system that allowed them to swap out compromised keys.

A security system that anticipates hacks and enables copyright holders to issue new safeguards is considered an improvement in the entertainment business. But others say the only thing it will achieve is a prolonged tug-of-war between stakeholders and pirates, said Yankee Group Research analyst Josh Martin.

"We saw a hack come out less than three months after the hardware for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, and it's a sign of things to come," Martin said. "People with ample time and ample desire will always find a way to crack DRM (digital rights management)."

Corel is developing an automated system to perform security updates, but testing is incomplete, the company said in an e-mail. This means customers will have to download the new software--a requirement that may frustrate some, Martin said.

"We have tremendous confidence in the AACS system and our products' upgraded security," Catherine Hughes, a Corel spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "Our hope is that we won't have to deal with issues like this in the future. Regardless, by automating all future updates our goal is to ensure that consumers continue to enjoy all of the latest benefits offered through (high-definition) playback without unnecessary disruptions."

Martin said that such attempts to thwart hackers are futile and end up alienating the majority of users, who aren't trying to cheat the system. Martin argues that content, hardware and software makers abandon DRM. He knows that they have to protect their content, he said, but notes that there is a security measure inherent in high-definition video files that would discourage most consumers from pirating them: their size.

"HD files are so enormous," Martin said. "It takes too long for them to download, store and manage."

"Let's be honest," Martin said, "next-generation DVDs offered the promise of managed copy, which was the ability to rip your DVD and put it on your PC and stream it around your house and all this other stuff...None of that has come to fruition. So why don't these guys focus on enabling those functionalities instead of trying to thwart the minority that are trying to hack content?"

Among WinDVD users, there's been some confusion over whether the update will affect only discs that are manufactured after the new keys have been distributed. Not so, said Hughes.

"Our recommendation is for anyone using HD DVD or Blu-ray disc playback to download the update in order to ensure that both their existing titles and newly purchased titles will continue to play," Hughes said. "If someone inserts an HD or Blu-ray disc with the new licensing keys, it will result in HD/BD playback of previous titles being disabled until (users) install the free update."
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6174893.html





Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive Exposes Volume ID

The hackers and crackers sure are persistent when it comes to the war on AACS encryption. This time the target was the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. Geremia on Doom9 forums has started a thread on how he has obtained the Volume ID without AACS authentication. With the aid of others like Arnezami they have managed to patch the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. The drive in question is the Toshiba SD-S802A or better known as the Xbox360 HD DVD Drive. Remember that recently AACS released a patch for WinDVD, HD DVD and BD players that caused a revocation to the keys used to decrypt HD DVD and BD disc. The update requires that you update your software/hardware or you will never be able to watch newly manufactured HD DVDs or Blu-Ray disc. While this patch isn’t vital yet for those that want to backup their HD DVD collection, it could soon provide the hackers as well as private individuals with the key needed to decrypt the newly manufactured HD DVDs or Blu-Ray disc.

Most people will want to know why this important. I have posted some common questions and answers to make more sense as to why this would benefit you.

Q. What does patching the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive do exactly for me?

A. Patching the HD DVD drive allows us to get the Volume ID of that disc when the disc is inserted in the the HD DVD drive without the need of a special key (called a Host Private Key).

Q. How would flashing my 360 HD DVD drive benefit me?

A. If in several weeks when the new discs are released that contain new Volume IDs, this may be one of the few ways to get the Volume ID which is needed to decrypt/backup your discs.

Q. Do i need to patch my HD DVD drive now?

A. No, but when the new HD DVD disc are released you could patch your drive to obtain the new Volume ID to make backups like before.

Update.

It appears that XT5 has released a application that allows the Volume ID to be read without the need to rewrite the firmware. This would mean that anyone could simply plug in the HD DVD drive and obtain the Volume ID from any HD DVD without the hassle of flashing it. Good work XT5
http://dltv.wordpress.com/2007/04/09...ses-volume-id/





Steve Jobs’ DRM Double Standard
Medialoper

Now that a major record label has finally consented to sell music without DRM restrictions it would be easy to portray Steve Jobs as a hero of the anti-DRM movement. After all, it was just two months ago that Jobs published his scathing letter criticizing the music industry for its reliance on DRM.

The problem is, Steve Jobs isn’t really an anti-DRM crusader. In fact, he has a pretty obvious double standard when it comes to DRM. Jobs has made it clear that when we talk about the death of DRM we’re really only talking about the death of DRM for music. As Jobs said during Monday’s press conference:

“Video’s pretty different than music because the video industry does not distribute 90% of its content DRM-free — never have. So I think they’re in a pretty different situation.”

Spoken like the single largest shareholder of the Disney Corporation.

While it’s true that copy protection schemes have been around since the advent of home video, it’s also true that DRM for video downloads is subject to all of the same issues that Jobs identified in his rant against DRM for music.


• Video copy protection schemes don’t actually protect content. While it’s true that almost all commercial DVD’s contains copy protection, it’s well known that that copy protection doesn’t actually protect the content on the DVDs. High quality copies of protected DVD content are easily available through file sharing networks. This is one of the main problems with DRM. It punishes honest consumers by limiting their options, while pirates can easily gain access to digital content that is free of any limitations.

• DRM for video downloads is proprietary and device dependent. You simply can’t compare the copy protection systems used for analog video tape or even DVDs to the DRM systems being used for digital video downloads. The current generation of digital DRM schemes are device dependent and incompatible. While consumers may have grown used to copy protection on video products, they haven’t had much experience with the proprietary DRM that Apple, Microsoft, and others will be offering through various incompatible download services.

• Consumer lock-in is just as much a problem for digital video as it is for digital music. DRM locks consumers in to a single brand player and content provider. As a result of the proprietary nature of Apple, Microsoft, and other DRM systems used to protect video content, consumers are essentially locked-in to their current platform. That was never the the case with DVD or analog video copy protection. When your DVD player dies you aren’t limited to a single brand player when you go shopping for a replacement.


The battle against DRM is far from over. Consumers who download digital video will, apparently, be stuck with DRM for some time to come.

Just don’t expect Steve Jobs to start railing against DRM for video any time soon.

Article





DRM, Lock-Ins, and Piracy: all Red Herrings for a Music Industry in Trouble
Eric Bangeman

A British media research company has peered into the music industry's crystal ball, and the outlook for the next couple of years isn't so hot. Global music sales will drop to $23 billion in 2009, just over half of 1997's $45 billion and down 16 percent from 2006. The biggest reason for the steep decline is a drop in CD sales, which Enders Analysis believes will not be fully offset by digital sales in the next five years.

Is piracy to blame? Is DRM the solution? Enders Analysis says no, instead laying the blame for the industry's sliding sales at the feet of the record labels. "As we analyze the industry's core challenges... we consistently find that the industry has lost the ability to influence and control its future," reads the report's executive summary. "Worse, the industry has often appeared caught short, and its reactions accordingly wrong-footed."

Where did the industry go wrong? At the height of the rush to DRM, the record labels decided to put their money behind expensive and ultimately unattractive subscription services at a time when Napster 1.0's popularity was it its peak. The industry favored an approach where consumers would be locked into monthly subscription deals that control how you used content.

Yet the writing was already on the wall, courtesy of P2P. Users prefer to pick and choose their favorite songs from among the sea of (sometimes free) content. It wasn't until 2003 that the iTunes Music Store opened, marking the music industry's first serious attempt at an online distribution model consumers would like. Yet by this time the industry had spent the previous years trying to fight the direction that the market was heading, which is a bit like trying to change the flow of a river. It can be done, but it's rarely easy and rarely worth it.

Speaking of Apple, Enders Analysis has some harsh words for the iPod-iTunes ecosystem. The report's authors believe that Apple's dominance of the digital music industry is hurting the market's evolution. Apple's insistence on a single, fixed price for all content hurts potential long-tail sales of older, back-catalog music. In addition, they're not impressed with the iPod-iTunes cycle, saying that Apple's reliance on iPod sales and resulting music pricing model may be squeezing both other players and music-only stores out of the market.

Of course, the recent move by EMI to liberate its catalog from the shackles of DRM will change the iTunes-iPod equation, as any player capable of playing AAC files will be able to play non-DRMed tracks purchased at the iTunes Store.

The biggest problem facing the music industry, according to Enders, is one that we've pointed out here at Ars: the decline of the album. The easy availability of digital music makes it possible for music fans to cherry-pick their favorite songs. In high school, I bought Abacab (yes, I'm old) in LP form by Genesis primarily because of the title track and "Dodo/Lurker." 26 years later, I would have just snagged those two tracks from the iTunes Store.

As you can see from the chart above, legal downloads are expected to continue their growth, but not at a rate that will be able to make up for the decline in CD sales. Although sales of a single track online arguably cost less for the record company due to the lack of physical distribution costs, the fact that music fans are picking their favorite songs from albums instead of buying the whole disc eats away at the advantages of digital distribution from a revenue standpoint.

The changing landscape has forced the Big Four labels to get creative with their revenue streams. One example is Universal's decision to sign a licensing deal with YouTube not long after suing it for copyright infringement. Under the terms of the deal, Universal will receive a chunk of the advertising revenues generated by YouTube, while YouTube gets the masters from Universal's music video library to work from.

Licensing deals will increasingly become a more important part of the revenue landscape for the record companies, but it's not likely to close the revenue gap. Unfortunately for the record labels, it looks like the glory days of the mid-90s have vanished forever, and no amount of lawsuits, DRM, or licensing deals will be able to turn back the clock.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...n-trouble.html





Winners, Losers in the Apple, EMI Digital Deal
Brian Garrity

EMI Group Plc and Apple Inc. sent shockwaves through the music industry with their announcement Monday that they would begin offering commercial downloads without digital rights management (DRM). As the dust begins to settle, Billboard breaks down the winners and losers in the latest round in the fight over the anti-piracy technology.

Winners

Consumers. People who actually pay for digital music finally are free to playback purchased tracks wherever they want, however they want. And they're getting better audio quality to boot. But improved usage rights and sound performance don't come for free: EMI is charging a higher wholesale rate for DRM-free tracks, a cost that is being passed on to the customer. iTunes will charge $1.29 for DRM-free downloads.

Apple. The market leader in digital music grabs the moral high ground in the debate over interoperability and DRM. "The right thing for the customer going forward is to tear down the walls that preclude interoperability by going DRM-free," Apple CEO Steve Jobs says. It also avoids having to license its FairPlay DRM to rival technology companies, something it was loathe to do. As a bonus, a move to higher-quality audio files will drive the need for iPods with greater storage capacities (at likely higher price tags). And the company benefits from timing its announcement to overshadow word of an European antitrust probe into iTunes pricing.

Digital retailers. Rivals to the iTunes Music Store like Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster and Yahoo suddenly have the ability to sell downloads compatible with the iPod--provided they can strike DRM-free deals with EMI and indie labels. "It's in EMI's best interest to get any retailer with credibility in the market out there selling music," eMusic president/CEO David Pakman says. Retailers with subscription offerings also win, with iPod-compatible downloads that can draw consumers in for an upsell to all-you-can-eat plans.

Device manufacturers. Makers of MP3 players and music phones not built by Apple now have the ability to support tracks purchased through market leader iTunes. "It will eventually remove the issue of iTunes lock-in," Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg says. "But if sales don't take off, it will be clear that it wasn't lock-in that prevented their success."

Variable pricing proponents. In pricing DRM-free downloads at $1.29, Apple has effectively endorsed variable prices for iTunes, something the company has previously resisted. The shift to two pricing tiers opens the door for labels to push harder for a more dynamic pricing environment.

AAC (the Advanced Audio Coding format used by Apple). Retail sources estimate that less than 10% of music devices support the AAC format. But with Apple choosing to support unprotected AAC over MP3, device manufacturers are expected to ramp support for the format. Microsoft's Zune, San Disk's Sansa and Sony's PlayStation 3 are among the select devices that already do play AAC files.

Independent labels. Never sticklers for DRM, indie labels will see a spike in iPod-friendly retailers of their content.

Losers

Rival majors. Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group now face increased pressure to follow EMI in adopting DRM-free downloads despite reservations about the uncertain impact on digital profitability and piracy. Rival label executives are privately complaining that EMI has recklessly embraced its new strategy without adequate testing. Some label sources are also expressing dismay that EMI's effort undercuts the industry's ability to correct the security problems that have plagued the CD format by creating a completely secure commercial environment for digital music.

DRM patent holders. While still a must for subscription services and try-before-you-buy ad-supported offerings, DRM is fading in the biggest part of the market.

Microsoft. A move to DRM-free music is another nail in the coffin for third-party device and retail support for its WMA (Windows Media Audio) standard. The company also loses on capitulating to DRM demands of content owners when designing the Microsoft Zune and Windows Vista -- moves that have been unpopular with consumers.

Publishers. Songwriters and publishers are dragged into a DRM-free environment with little to no say in the matter.

On The Fence

EMI. EMI chairman Eric Nicoli wins points in the short run for progressive thinking on DRM by making the first move to break the interoperability log jam. But the company is taking big risks on its long-term digital profitability and stock price. If the move does not increase digital consumption, the results could be disastrous. EMI execs are adamant they are making the right move.

"This is about creating more opportunity in commercialized music by providing the right product to people who are prepared to pay for it," says Barney Wragg, a Universal Music veteran who took over as London-based head of EMI's worldwide digital operations last year. "We think it's going to significantly increase the size of the market."
http://www.reuters.com/article/revie...19458620070409





MGM and United Artists Join iTunes Store
arn

MGM and United Artists movies have started appearing on Apple's iTunes Store this evening. The new movies are listed amongst the New Releases (iTunes link) on iTunes.

Popular MGM Titles include (iTunes links) Mad Max, Bulletproof Monk, Rocky, Pieces of April, The Thomas Crown Affair, Dances with Wolves, and Robocop. Meanwhile, only one United Artists movie (Ronin) has been added so far.

United Artists and MGM have now joined Lionsgate, Paramount and Disney in selling movies on Apple's iTunes Store. With the release of the Apple TV, additional movie content for the iTunes Store has likely become a priority for Apple. When the iTunes Movie sales originally launched, Disney was the only studio that had participated. There had been rumors that Wal-mart and other retailers were threatened by Apple's entry into the movie-market. Even now, these new studio's movies appear to represent older "catalog" movies, rather than "new" releases.

An official press release from Apple should be expected later today
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/04/11/...s-join-itunes/





Apple Delays Launch of Operating System
AP

Apple Inc. said it won't be shipping its next-generation operating system in June as planned, saying it had to divert resources from the project so that it could launch its highly anticipated iPhone on time.

The new shipment date for Mac OS X "Leopard" will be in October, the company said Thursday. The iPhone will make its debut in June as planned.

Apple shares dropped $1.75, or nearly 2 percent, to $90.44 in extended-session trading after the announcement. Earlier, they had closed at $92.19, down 40 cents, on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The "iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price - we had to borrow some key software engineering and (quality assurance) resources from our Mac OS X team," Apple said in a statement.

Apple announced the iPhone - a smart phone that also serves as an iPod media player - in January to much fanfare. The Cupertino-based company said Thursday the iPhone is still on track to be shipped in late June and has passed several of the required certification tests.

Apple, which had previously said Leopard would be available in the spring, had hoped to release the Mac operating system upgrade at its Worldwide Developers Conference, a five-day event in San Francisco that starts June 11.

Instead, a "near-final version" of Leopard will be ready for the developers at the conference to take home, Apple said. Though Leopard's features will be complete by then, Apple said the company won't be ready to ship what it considers a "quality release."

"We think it'll be worth the wait," Apple said. "Life often presents trade-offs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones."

Analysts agreed.

"If it came down to one product or the other slipping, they made the right choice for iPhone to be on time - where consumer demand and anticipation is already running high," said Michael Gartenberg, an industry analyst at JupiterResearch.

Apple plans to ship two versions of the iPhone - a 4-gigabyte model for $499 and an 8-gigabyte one for $599. It will be available in the U.S. exclusively through AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless network. It will be sold in Europe later this year and in Asia next year.

Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million units in 2008, representing about 1 percent of the market.

The iPhone is a new foray for the iPod and Macintosh maker, and analysts predict it could be yet another hit product that could boost the company's growing fortunes.

Leopard is Apple's sixth major upgrade to Mac OS X since the desktop operating system debuted in 2001.

In fact, Apple has ribbed its larger rival Microsoft Corp. for its repeated delays of Vista. The overhauled Windows platform was released in January after five years of development and is often seen as playing catch-up on features found in Apple's existing operating system.

Product delays - which are a fact of life in the high-tech world - are uncharacteristic for Apple partly because the company usually avoids announcing expected shipment dates.

The Leopard delay, however, is the second Apple product to have its release pushed back this year. Apple TV, a set-top box for streaming video and other content from computers, was originally slated for a February launch but did not ship until March 21.

The four-month delay of Leopard "is a little embarrassing," Gartenberg said, but he doesn't think it will harm Apple.

In addition, unlike the situation for Microsoft, which dominates the personal computing market, other PC makers are not relying on Apple to deliver an operating system for their machines.

"The only company this affects is Apple," Gartenberg said.

The delay will push down the typical bump Apple would see in software sales by just a quarter, said John Lynch, analyst at Needham & Co. LLC. "But I don't see this as putting a big damper on Mac demand."

Apple issues its next quarterly report for the March quarter on April 25. Company officials did not disclose any financial guidance Thursday.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap3609334.html





Michigan iPod Proposal Possibly Influenced by Apple
Jacqui Cheng

Two Michigan lawmakers who support a plan to spend millions of state tax dollars order to buy an iPod for every child in the state may have flown to California thanks to Apple. The accusations raise questions as to whether the two lawmakers support the plan so heavily because they genuinely support it or whether it was due to the financial influence of Apple.

As first reported by the Detroit Free Press, state representative Matt Gillard and House speaker Andy Dillon made a trip earlier this year to visit Apple's headquarters in Cupertino and to discuss the educational uses for the iPod. Gillard reportedly told the newspaper that he thought Apple may have covered a portion of the travel costs, while Dillon's office did not release any details of the trip.

The plan that has caused so much debate is the Democrats' proposal to spend $36 million to give an iPod to every student in the entire state of Michigan. Unsurprisingly, the proposal was somewhat vague and sparse on details, but the suggestion to spend that much money on digital music players for kids did not go over well. The "one iPod per child" plan has been heavily criticized by other legislators and residents of the state, who argue that Michigan is in the middle of a $600 million budget crisis and cannot afford the iPods.

Gillard maintained his motivation for making the trip and backing the bill was not about Apple or iPods, but primarily about technology in the classroom. "I don't know that it has to be iPod-specific technology," he told the Detroit Free Press. He also pointed out that the devices could be used to download lectures and other classroom-related materials—an activity that is increasingly popular among college campuses in the US.

Whether or not Apple financed all or part of the lawmakers' trip, we may never know, as Michigan's disclosure laws for lobbyists do not require them to report on travel expenses or the reimbursement thereof. However, if the proposal was on shaky ground before, it's on even less stable ground now that Gillard's and Dillon's motivations have been called into question.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-by-apple.html





Cablevision to Continue Fighting the Good Fight Over Networked DVR
Eric Bangeman

Cablevision isn't ready to throw in the towel on the "networked DVR": the company has decided to appeal a District Court ruling barring it from deploying the device. Known as the RS-DVR, the service would perform all of the same functions as a DVR, but the DVR's physical storage would be located in a Cablevision server room rather than in a set-top box.

Television networks were appalled at the idea, accusing Cablevision of rebroadcasting their content without their permission and infringing on their copyrights. US District Court Judge Denny Chin agreed, saying that the deployment and use of the RS-DVR would constitute a "public performance of plaintiffs' copyrighted works."

In a statement released today, Cablevision said that it would seek an expedited review of its appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The cable company faulted Judge Chin's "misapplication of modern copyright law" and said that his ruling could have "broader negative implications for technological innovation."

"We continue to believe strongly that [the] remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright law and offers significant benefits to consumers, including lower costs and faster deployment of this popular technology to our digital cable customers," said Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge in a statement.

Rutledge also pointed out that the RS-DVR functions exactly as a "conventional" DVR, noting that it allows subscribers to time-shift programming as they would with any other DVR. "The technological innovation behind our remote-storage DVR makes a popular product even better," said Rutledge. "It... simply stores programming recorded by consumers in a central location."

One concern of broadcasters is that cable companies using networked DVRs could turn them into on-demand services, and they wouldn't be able to share in the revenue streams. However, Cablevision's RS-DVR would have function identically to a conventional DVR: users would have a set amount of storage space, would only have access to programming they decided to record, and would control the device from their TV just like a conventional DVR.

The key here is the storage location, and view that the location of a hard drive determines whether or not a product infringes depends on whose interests are being serviced. The position that the RS-DVR's opponents have staked out is one that could be costing the television networks additional viewers and advertising revenues. DVRs increase interest in television, an effect that is vital to broadcasters when there are so many other forms of media competing for the attention of would-be TV viewers.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...orked-dvr.html





Patti Santangelo v RIAA: Battle Won?
P2PNET News

Odds are that Patti Santangelo, the New York mother who was the first RIAA victim to make a determined stand against the Big 4, helped to no small extent by p2pnet readers who put their money where their mouths were, contributing thousands of dollars towards her legal costs, has won her battle to clear her name and show up the Big 4 for the bullies they are.

She and her lawyer, Jordan Glass, have signed and submitted a stipulation to dismiss with prejudice the case lodged against her by the RIAA, clearly taking their cue from the language of US federal district court judge Colleen McMahon's response to Glass's letter of March 31. In it, he wrote Patti would stipulate to a dismissal of any sort only if she retained the right to move for legal fees.

McMahon's language seemed to indicate it was time to end the farce, and the court had the power to entertain a motion for legal fees.

But even if judge McMahon grants the dismissal, and there's every reason to believe she will, that still leaves two of Patti's children, Michelle, 20, and Bobby, 16, in the direct line of fire.

"With prejudice" means the Big 4 wouldn't be able to re-start the case at some time in the future, and if judge McMahon decides to grants fees and costs, they could be heavy.

Both Patti and Glass wanted to take this to trial. She told p2pnet, "This is the most appropriate thing to do based upon what judge McMahon wrote. It shows what we were able to accomplish by fighting back," going on:

We didn't get everything we wanted – I know how much Jordan wanted to take this to trial, and so did I – but other people like me have been fighting back since we won the first discovery objections last year.

Now I have to focus on case against my children. I think this shows what we can accomplish, but it wouldn't have been possible without all the people who funded the campaign.

I don't know how other parents are managing it without money. That's why the RIAA is picking on people without money, because people with money can beat them. But now that the other defendants have my case to refer to, maybe that will help them save money and have more power to win. I know it made a big difference regarding discovery for other defendants, so I hope this will be a good precedent for them, too.

With Patti's case out of the way, will the Elektra Entertainment Group, Virgin Records America, UMG Recordings, BMG Music and Sony BMG Music Entertainment drop their case against her children?

If they do, they'll be setting a precedent other families in the same, or a similar, boat will be quick to use. So the RIAA will probably intensify, rather than abandon, its efforts against Bobby and Michelle.

The only thing likely to give the RIAA serious pause is if RIAA victims and their lawyers launch a concerted campaign through a class action suit, or other type of action where defendants are able to join together.

Individually, the victims have little weight. But if they were able to stand as a group against the Big 4, with their legions of lawyers and bottomless pockets, it could be another matter.

There might also be similar possibilities for a class action against the units used by the RIAA to extort money from its targets.

In 2005, judge McMahon told the cartel's lawyers she'd, "love to see a mom fighting one of these," referring to the settlement centres routinely employed by the RIAA to get money out of its victims.

However, class actions are expensive costing in the region of a quarter of a million dollars to start, so the RIAA, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) may be in effect wagering this alone will be sufficient to stop a class action from being attempted.
http://p2pnet.net/story/11910





Electronic Frontier Foundation Files Amicus Curiae Brief in Opposition to RIAA's Motion to Dismiss Counterclaims in Lava v. Amurao
Ray Beckerman

In Lava v. Amurao, where Mr. Amurao has counterclaimed against the record companies for copyright misuse and for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, and the RIAA has moved to dismiss the counterclaims, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the opposition papers filed by Mr. Amurao's lawyer.

The EFF argued as follows:
...this lawsuit is but one skirmish in the broader war the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) is waging against unauthorized Internet copying. Using questionable methods and suspect evidence, the RIAA has targeted thousands of ordinary people around the country, including grandmothers, grandfathers, single mothers and teenagers.....

The RIAA itself has likened its campaign to drift net fishing, admitting that “[w]hen you go fishing with a net, you sometimes are going to catch a few dolphin.” Dennis Roddy, The Song Remains the Same, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 14, 2003, available at http://www.post-gazette.com/columnis...oddy0914p1.asp.

In addition, the RIAA is attempting to expand the scope of its copyright protections beyond what the statutes provide. This copyright “grab” stems from the plaintiffs’ erroneous theories of secondary liability in copyright law. These theories, which the RIAA knows are wrong, attempt to put parents, employers, teachers, and other internet account holders on the hook for third-party computer activities—even when the defendant has no knowledge or ability to supervise the actual alleged infringers.

For example, Deborah Foster faced frivolous claims of secondary copyright liability despite the absence of any allegation, much less any fact, showing that she knew third parties were using her Internet account to engage in illegal file-sharing, or substantially participating in such file-sharing. See Capitol Records, Inc. v. Foster, No. 04-1569, 2007 WL 1028532, at *3 (W.D. Okla. Feb. 6, 2007).

The difficulties facing “the dolphins” are compounded by the challenges that individuals face when attempting to litigate in federal court. When the RIAA threatens suit against an individual, it makes sure to offer her a carefully chosen sum that is substantially smaller than the legal fees required to fight the accusations, even for defendants that are completely innocent non-infringers. Faced with the threat of costly litigation to defend their names and the possibility that many thousands of dollars in damages might be wrongly assessed against them, see, e.g. BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2005) (affirming $22,500 statutory damages award against a mother of five found liable for illegally downloading thirty songs), many innocent people settle because they cannot afford the legal costs to fight back.

Thus, at the heart of Defendant’s counterclaims and Plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss is the question of consequences – namely, what consequences should attach to plaintiffs who carelessly net “dolphins” in their mass litigation campaign and then walk away from these cases when a dolphin acts affirmatively to protect itself?....

Defendant has alleged that Plaintiff’s case here has no merit, has been brought to harass him, and that he has not infringed any of its legal rights. He has also alleged that by bringing this case, Plaintiff has illegally misused its government-granted copyright, thus jeopardizing its enforceability under the equitable standards of the law. ...Amicus EFF takes no position as to the actual facts of this case, but if these allegations are true, then this presents a very serious situation for the Court to consider.

If Plaintiffs have, in fact, brought such a frivolous case and are misusing their statutorily-granted copyrights, they should be held responsible for their actions. Moreover, Defendant deserves a final answer and peace of mind, rather than a voluntary dismissal that allows the specter of future litigation to linger.

Counterclaims such as those brought by Defendant—for a declaration of non-infringement and a finding of copyright misuse—will promote accountability and bring him out from under that Damoclean sword. Further, permitting the counterclaims to go forward may ultimately promote judicial economy. Careless copyright plaintiffs will think twice before filing suit if they know that voluntary dismissal will not shield them from the consequences of carelessly dragging individuals into federal court. To disallow such claims, by contrast, would allow Plaintiffs to play a nefarious “wait-and-see” game: those that expend the money on attorneys’ fees and costs to fight back against the bogus suits would find their cases voluntarily dismissed without recompense, while those who did not fight back would end up having to submit to either an unfair settlement or default judgment.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blo...ion-files.html





P2P Program to Match Files to Product Origin
Keiron Waites

"A program to match p2p downloads with the original products they came from has been released. ShareMonkey is free software for Microsoft Windows, with an additional plugin for the Shareaza p2p application. ShareMonkey lets you right click on a file and choose "Where is this file from?", which will direct you to a listing of products that carry the file. ShareMonkey is a service for those p2p users that download copyrighted files in a "try before you buy" capacity and is an attempt to bridge the gap between copyright infringement and subsequent purchasing of a product."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/09/1210213





Piracy Investigators Infiltrate Private Torrent Sites
enigmax

In March, TorrentFreak published an article which aimed to answer the question ‘Are Private BitTorrent Trackers Safe?’ Now, an internet piracy investigator has admitted that his organisation has successfully infiltrated private BitTorrent trackers and is actively collecting information.

Speaking with Guardian Unlimited primarily regarding piracy counter-measures, Peter Anaman, a senior internet investigator for legal firm Covington and Burling has admitted that his organisation has infiltrated unnamed private BitTorrent tracker sites and shares their method of gaining access;

“Many groups didn’t start off as private. They became private because they felt threatened, so we were able to get in when they were open” he said.

Anaman indicated that his company maintains a network of contacts who help it gain access to additional private sites, although he isn’t forthcoming about what happens while they’re there, other than information gathering.

With a nod towards the increasing difficulty of getting a membership on certain private BitTorrent trackers Anaman added, “Once you’re in, you never take action. You just listen”

In 2005, a successful infiltration operation masterminded by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led to the shutdown of the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker after they breached the Family Entertainment Act with their involvement in the internet pre-release of Star Wars: Episode III.
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-inves...torrent-sites/





Welcome to Retroshare Instant Messenger 0.30
WebBlurb

RetroShare Instant Messenger is the next generation sharing network, which provides:

A private Peer to Peer (P2P) Network which allows you to share information with only the friends you want to: So actually this Instant Messenger is a Friends-to-Friends Network.

Retroshare Instant Messenger offers reliable Identification and Authentication of your trusted friends (RSA-Keys).

• An Introduction Scheme to bootstrap your friends over a Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which connects you your friends and facilitates network growth by easy connecting. Friends of Friends never connect.
• Because you connect direct and enryepted only to your trusted friends, it is a fast and safe transfer of files. No other open and serverless Instant Messenger has such enhanced Filesharing capabilities like you find here.
• Encrypted Communication, ensuring all shared information is known only to you and your trusted friends (neighbour peers).
• A Communication Platform which can potentially support services such as Secure Email to all of your friends, File Sharing, Video or Voice over IP and of course Instant Messaging.
• Roundabout, it is a decentralised (serverless), open source, social Sharing Network designed *for Friends* with no dependancies on any corporate system or central servers.

While the first generation filesharing evolved to download from a server (like napster), the second generation of filesharing was decentral (=serverless) like gnutella and emule-kademlia, the third generation like JetiANts p2p or i2Phex tried to load indirect and encrypted, which means to simulate an overlay proxy network in which you download over a friend: Alice loads over Peter from Bob.

This paradigm is not wrong, were only organized with peers, with the risk: one peer going offline will destroy the whole tunnel-route and the direct neighbour (public peers!) and endpoints are always exposed for attacs.

Friend-to-Friend Instant Messengers have a more stable structure of connections to trusted persons, so even if one is offline, he can later rezume from a trusted neighbour.

This Friend-to-Friend (F2F) Network with hopping over Friends working as a proxy is so called NEW THIRD Generation.

To keep it short: The problem with existing filesharing networks is that you have no control over who you share information with. I don't want to share with the whole wide world, but I would love to share stuff with my friends. But this is not easy to do, safely and securely, over the Internet.

Retroshare Instant Messenger is the solution of these problems and worldwide one of the first serverless Friendslist with Filesharing and Chatrooms for trusted Friends only.

It is a simple Messenger & Filesharing Program which connects you and your friends together for safe and secure sharing. But even more: you can download from friends of friends, without knowing their IP adress: Alice is downloading a file from Bob by hopping over Peter, Paul and Mary. This means, in this friends-chain Alice knows only Peter´s IP and the one of Bob is hidden.
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/





Four out of five share files

P2PNet RIAA Survey: Online Now
p2pnet.net news

I've had an online question session going for just over a couple of weeks and I've found it so interesting, and useful, that I've decided to run a series of other surveys on a various subjects and I'm calling Survey #2 The Sultans of Spin.

I think it's the first survey of its kind and obviously, the more people who respond, the better. So please tell everyone you know about it.

Spin is the, "sometimes pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation," the Wikipedia sums it up, continuing, spin, "often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics." And it's, borrowed, says the post, "from ball sports such as cricket, where a spin bowler may impart spin on the ball during a delivery so that it will curve through the air or bounce in an advantageous manner".

The Sultans of Spin examines spin-doctoring in the pejorative sense --- the art of presenting stuff as it isn't.

I have Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG's RIAA in mind, for this particular exercise, but it's not alone. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and most other cartel organisations are offered up as 'trade' outfits acting on various issues for, and on behalf of, 'members'.

And there are literally hundreds of them run by smooth-talking, twinkle-toed reality adjustment specialists who are so fast on their verbal feet that their words never actually touch the ground.

They're at the sharps ends of organisations such as the RIAA, MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), BSA (Business Software Alliance), FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), and so on and so forth.

One of the most extreme examples of what spin can achieve comes in the manner in which RIAA fact realignment experts have turned a straightforward commercial concept, copyright infringement, into a major crime on a level with robbery, with which it's now equated.

In The Sultans of Spin, RIAA questions are all based on direct quotes from the highly reliable and factual RIAA site, which in Talking With Your Kids About Tough Issues still says Hilary Rosen is the 'chairman and ceo'.

She quit close to four years ago.

The results should be interesting and I'll run them in a post when I wind The Sultans of Spin up in a couple of weeks.

I'll also do a post on the results of the #1, the Reader Survey, in couple of days

Cheers! And thanks a lot for your help ...

============================

UPDATE:

In answer to a comment post, I've just posted this: From the results so far, the sue 'em all campaign is having almost no effect.

Here's where it was at as of 10:10 am PST on April 9:

The survey had been looked at 847 times, including half-a-dozen or so views by me, and 277 people had responded.

The first three questions are:

1. Do you share files online?
2. Have the RIAA sue 'em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing?
3. How do you rate your chances of you becoming an RIAA victim?

271 people answered Q1, the same for Q2 and 272 for Q3.

For Q1, 81.9% (222) people said they shared online, and 18.1% didn't.

Are the RIAA lawsuits stopping sharing? Yes, said 13 of 271 answers, and No, said the remainder, 95.2% (258).

Of the 272 answers to Q3, 4 people (1.5%) thought the lawsuits are guaranteed to result in a court case; 2 (0.7%) believe the chances of that are high, 25 (9.2%) think the odds of becoming a victim are medium, the majority, 131 people (48.2%), think the chances are low, and 110 people (40.4%) believe there's no chance of them ending up on the wring end of an RIAA subpoena.

When I wrap the survey, I'll make all the results public so anyone can tap and/or analyse them.
Jon

http://p2pnet.net/story/11902





Two Out of Three IT Staff Have Downloaded Software Illegally

Research finds that most of these people knowingly used illegal products
Tom Young

More than two-thirds of IT industry professionals have downloaded online content illegally, according to research collected at 3GSM World Congress.

The survey of 350 respondents by vendor Safenet found that 69 per cent of people admitted downloading or sharing content to their mobile phones or computers without checking for proper licensing or making a payment.

'Historically, download models which support legal file sharing were not easily accessible and were difficult for consumers to use,' said Simon Blake-Wilson, managing director, for digital rights management (DRM) at SafeNet.

'This has led to the proliferation of illegal download and sharing communities 'Worldwide, the music and motion picture industries alone lost a combined $22.6bn (£11.45bn) to piracy in 2005.'

Of the 69 per cent of executives who have downloaded illegal content, 70 per cent admit having done so intentionally, while the other 30 per cent state that their actions were accidental. Just 29 per cent of total respondents answered ‘never’ when asked if they have dealt with stolen digital goods, while two per cent said they ‘didn’t know’ if they have done it.

Some content distributors are now investing in Digital Rights Management (DRM), and according to a recent study, worldwide spending on the technology is growing, and will be over $1bn (£0.5bn) by the end of 2007.

'We are seeing more companies use next-generation technologies, but this investment needs to become the standard.' said Blake-Wilson. 'If inflexible and dated DRM solutions continue to be used to support the download model, illegal downloading will continue, the quality and variety of content from providers will drop, the model will fail, and everyone will lose.'
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing...aff-downloaded





News From The North



Pirate Bay to Start a New Download Service - and Pay the Artists, Too!
TankGirl

Pirate Bay will soon launch a new music download service called Playble. The idea of Playble is to allow people to download music for free knowing that they will support their favorite artists economically by doing so. How is this done? By channeling half of the advertising revenue generated by the site directly to the artists, with no record companies in between. The money will be split among the participants according to their relative popularity - the more downloads, the more money.

The concept has been developed in co-operation between Pirate Bay activist Peter Sunde - who is of Norwegian-Finnish origins - and Swedish rock group Lamont:

The Pirate Bay has started a unique collaboration with the members of the Swedish rock band Lamont and their manager Kristopher S. Wilbur. After lengthy discussions about the future of the record industry and its implications for the many talented artists and songwriters around the world, we discovered that we held the same vision. The shared insight that the record industry—with its current business model—is outdated inspired the birth of Playble.com.

Rumours about Playble circulated for a couple of weeks in the Nordic pirate circles but the project gained wider publicity when Swedish Television interviewed Peter Sunde about it. Playble is presently asking for the interested artists and advertisers to contact it in preparation for the actual launching, to be announced later.
http://www.p2pconsortium.com/index.php?showtopic=12662


The TankGirl Diaries
http://reflectionsonp2p.blogspot.com/





A Fork in the Road for Google
Andy Kessler

Whenever companies sue each other, my ears perk up. Not that I really care who wins, but lawsuits often showcase hidden vulnerabilities. Inevitably, as the fight plays out, the market thinks a lot differently about the long-term prospects of both parties, and money often sloshes away to play elsewhere.

The Internet has been all cute and cuddly throughout its childhood, given a pass for youthful indiscretions like stealing music and video clips. That just ended with Viacom’s copyright infringement suit against Google. By the time this lawsuit and others are finished, Google may have to change its way of doing business. That would be a shock.

Viacom, which owns cable channels like MTV and Comedy Central, recently charged Google with blatant copyright infringement for hosting 160,000 clips of Viacom shows and then having the audacity to allow bored workers and kids at home to view them 1.5 billion times. Viacom had to sue to protect itself because, well, beneath the surface, Viacom and Google are both in the same business, selling ads. For all Google’s claims to be a technology company, 99 percent of its business is ads — for essentials like megapixel cameras, poker sites and ambulance-chasing asbestos lawyers.

TV attracts huge audiences with Orange County teens and Dr. McDreamies and, once our eyeballs are locked in, advertisers sell us things we’re not even sure we need. Like Budweiser Select, Dove Regenerating Hand Cream Night Care With Shea Butter and ever-less-desirable GM cars. Some $70 billion in TV advertising drives a $7 trillion consumer economy.

But TV is expensive. Shows that cost millions per week to produce may not turn profitable until they are syndicated for late-night reruns or DVD sales. It’s a tired business model ripe for change.

Megabit Internet access changes the rules by making videos available away from the controlled conduits of network TV and cable. This is scary for Viacom, because why would advertisers pay to run commercials on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” if folks can watch the show on YouTube? Proponents of YouTube claim Viacom should be happy about getting free publicity for “The Daily Show.” YouTube has a 10-minute limit on video length and claims it’s not copyright infringement, but fair use (a fuzzy loophole in copyright law). This may sound compelling, but it is nothing more than a fig leaf on piracy. Why? Because Viacom owns its programming and should get to pick where and when the shows are shown.

To remain viable, Viacom had to have its clips taken down from YouTube. In fact, all broadcasters must limit the reuse of their expensive material or their business model will implode. They must build and control their own Internet ad networks or risk going the way of trolley cars.

And Google? Internet advertising is growing like a weed. Google makes profits large enough to make Tony Soprano blush simply by scanning all the Internet pages the rest of us put up (which costs them very little), and returning the results with ads. The ads are meant to encourage impluse shopping: see it, want it, buy it, click and ship. So we click on 25-word text ads, and Google becomes a $140 billion valued behemoth. More valuable than Viacom or CBS. Hey, no one said life was fair.

But now suddenly video is cool. Sensing opportunity, the Google geek squad tried to build its own video-delivery service. It was put to shame by an 18-month-old company, YouTube, which Google then bought for $1.65 billion in shares of Google stock. By the way, in the terms of the deal, Google also set aside several hundred million dollars for potential lawsuits. Not enough as it turns out.

The success of YouTube has been nothing short of stunning. More than 100 million videos are watched every day, and probably 100,000 new clips are uploaded. So what if many of them have been highlights of “The Colbert Report” and “The Family Guy,” copyrighted material to which YouTube has no rights.

Suing YouTube as a private company only would have ruined a few venture capitalists’ tee times. Once Google, with pockets as deep as the Mariana Trench, bought YouTube, lawyers from coast to coast started salivating. Viacom is the first of many. I hear talk of giant class-action suits, for billions and billions. Maybe Viacom is thinking too small.

But here is Google’s dilemma. The company’s huge margins are the reason why it is valued at $140 billion on the stock market. If Google suddenly finds itself in a less profitable business because it has to pay for content, instead of just sponging off of SpongeBob, it could see its stock price fall faster than Katie Couric’s ratings.

Don’t get me wrong. The Internet will soon deliver all our video clips — sitcoms, sports, the whole shebang. But whoever creates and controls this content is who will make the big returns from it. Google is tops at search. It’s not yet obvious it will be tops in video. The game of lifting video clips made by others is almost over. If Google wants to stay in the game, it will need to ramp up its spending on video big time.

As consumers, I suspect, we’ll win, because we’ll have better shows delivered in new ways. But when companies start suing each other, investors should be careful. It usually means the game has changed for both sides.
http://kessler.blogs.nytimes.com/200...ad-for-google/





Retailers Explore Movie Download Options

In Effort to Maintain Competitive Edge, Retailers Examine Movie Download Options
Joshua Freed

When movies shifted from videocassettes to DVD, retailers simply cleared the tapes off the shelves to make room for discs. That's not so easy now that movies appear poised to follow music onto the Internet.

The shift of music online has hurt stores such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Circuit City, and some retailers are looking to avoid a repeat with movies. Wal-Mart has launched its own movie download service, Best Buy is said to be in talks to start one, and Blockbuster explored buying movie download company Movielink earlier this year.

Music and DVDs are important to retailers because they've traditionally driven customers to stores. Each week's new releases give people a reason to come back. And for electronics retailers such as Best Buy Co. Inc. and Circuit City Stores Inc., discs are often a cheap impulse sale, unlike a pricey computer or TV.

But the decline in the number of CDs sold has accelerated every year since 2003, and dropped 11.7 percent last year, according to NPD Group. The number of DVDs sold grew 5 percent last year, but that was down from a 9 percent increase during the previous year. Selling prices for both music and movies have declined. And NPD said DVD sales would have slid faster if not for the growth of TV programs offered on DVD.

"They're seeing fairly rapid declines in their CD business. That's likely to happen in their DVD business," said Andrew Hargreaves, who covers electronics retailers for Pacific Crest Securities.

"There's less and less foot traffic coming in for CDs, and that's certainly hurt their traffic and hurt the conversion rates to other products," said Stacey Widlitz, who covers electronics retailers at Pali Capital. "You can be sure that they're exploring what their next move is going to be in the business."

Even if movie and music downloads don't drive shoppers into stores, they at least keep retailers like Best Buy in the movie and music business.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the farthest along after selling 3,000 movie downloads in its first month, February. Blockbuster Inc. spokeswoman Karen Raskopf said the movie rental chain intends to enter digital downloads by the end of this year, perhaps in partnership with another company.

"We don't see digital downloading becoming a huge business in the next year or two, but our view is we need to be in the business, and we don't want to be at a competitive disadvantage," she said.

Online movies have a long way to go before they're as easy-to-use as downloadable music. Even compressed movie files can be a hundred times larger than an individual song, and Wal-Mart says a full-length movie may take as long as an hour and a half to download even over a high-speed connection.

Tech-savvy listeners who load thousands of songs onto portable music players may feel less of a need to download many movies, especially if they're going to be watched on a TV anyway. And Apple Inc.'s simple buck-a-song pricing at its iTunes online store hasn't caught on in the movie world, where purchase prices vary widely and many movies aren't available at all. In many cases, movies bought online can't be burned to a DVD.

And it's not clear whether customers, once they've gone online to download a movie, will do it at the Web site of a bricks-and-mortar retailer.

"First of all Wal-Mart's typical customer isn't your leading-edge technocrat that's likely to download and store a movie on his computer," Hargreaves said. "Secondly, the quality is terrible."

Meanwhile, some online businesses already have tech-savvy customers. Netflix Inc., the online-only service that ships DVDs through the mail, is rolling out a streaming-movie option. And of course there's Apple, which has begun selling movies at its iTunes store online. Video-on-demand from cable offers another option for avoiding a trip to the store. Amazon.com Inc. offers downloadable movies that can be sent to your TiVo, and Microsoft Corp.'s XBox Live marketplace does, too, some of them in high definition.

"The advantages that a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy has in the traditional retail world really aren't there," said Prudential analyst Mark Rowen. For retailers, "their core strength is typically not technology and digital distribution."

Still, he praised Wal-Mart for trying.

"I think it's a sign that they understand that the business is going to be moving there in the next five years, and they want to be a player in it," Rowen said. Wal-Mart has its own music-download site, too, and Best Buy has partnered with Rhapsody on a music subscription site.

Best Buy thinks it can keep its DVD business going for a long time. It expects high-definition discs and traditional DVDs aimed at collectors will keep customers returning to stores.

Customers want flexibility, whether it's movies in high-definition, or on the PlayStation Portable, or downloads, said Best Buy Chief Executive and Vice Chairman Brad Anderson. "That's what the consumer is looking for. We want to do everything we can to facilitate the speed at which that becomes possible in the marketplace."

He said Best Buy is interested in downloads, but added, "We have to find a way that we're doing something that wouldn't be done otherwise. I don't think it's close."

Evan Wilson, who covers entertainment companies at Pacific Crest, said the movie and television industry believes that eventually all of their offerings will be available at the push of a button.

"One day," he said, "my kids will laugh at me for driving to a store and picking up a piece of plastic with content on it and putting it in a machine to play."
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3018090





Hi-Def P2P Network Vuze Leaves Beta
Ed Oswald

P2P provider Azureus, which provides software and technology for the transfer of large media riles, said Thursday that it had launched Vuze, a legitimate service that would specialize in high-quality video content.

Vuze will feature both DVD and HD-quality content, and offer premium content from around the world. BBC's hit television series Sorted as well as original programming from premium network Showtime will also be offered.

Azureus claims that the pre-release version of the site, code-named "Zudeo," had been visited by more than two million unique visitors in just the first two months. It says its offerings are currently unmatched in the entertainment industry.

"Vuze recognizes that the next generation online video experience lies within the integration of licensed and self-published content showcased in a theater-like viewing environment," Azureus CEO Gilles BianRosa says.

Enhancements over the beta include better navigation to allow support for what is expected to be a massive influx of content, as well as more options to publishers on how they can offer their content for purchase or rent.

Video would be offered "at a very low cost," and the company plans to provide several popular television shows for free to its users. Free content from self-publishers will also be included.

Azureus' current partners include the BBC, Showtime Networks, A&E Networks, Bennett Media Worldwide, G4 TV, National Geographic, Starz Media, and some 20 other media companies.
http://www.betanews.com/article/HiDe...eta/1175882400





Internet Radio May Stream North to Canada
Michael Geist

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on the legal rules surrounding Internet radio. Internet radio consists of several types of "stations" including conventional radio stations that simulcast their signal on the Internet, community and college radio stations that use the Internet to extend their signals from small communities to the entire world, and Internet-only stations that broadcast exclusively online. The Internet-only services are particularly intriguing as they include niche webcasters focused on content not found on mainstream AM/FM stations as well as customizable services such as Pandora and Last.fm, which help users identify new music personalized to their tastes.

Despite their popularity, there is growing fear that a recent U.S. royalty decision could effectively shut down thousands of webcasting services. The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board recently established a new royalty scheme that dramatically increases the fees that webcasters will be required to pay to stream music online.

Given the concern about the future viability of Internet radio in the U.S., there has been mounting speculation that some webcasters may consider setting up shop in Canada, where the U.S. rates do not apply. For example, Mercora, a service that allows individuals to launch their own webcasts, has established a Canadian site that falls outside U.S. regulatory and royalty rules.

Webcasters considering a move to Canada will find that the legal framework for Internet radio trades costs for complexity. There are two main areas of concern from a Canadian perspective - broadcast regulation and copyright fees.

Those expecting strict broadcast regulation from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will be pleasantly surprised to learn that webcasters operate outside of conventional broadcast regulation in Canada. The 1999 CRTC New Media Decision exempts webcasters, thereby relieving them of the need to obtain licenses or meet Canadian content requirements.

The copyright concerns associated with webcasting are far more challenging. While there are options that allow non-commercial webcasters to stream music without paying significant royalties - Soundclick lists more than 350,000 songs that are freely available under Creative Commons licenses - streaming commercial music will require royalty and license payments.

The Canadian fee structure is still under development with webcasters likely to face several charges. Next week, the Copyright Board of Canada begins hearings on Tariff 22, a tariff proposed by SOCAN to cover the performance of music online. The tariff actually dates back to 1995, when SOCAN endeavoured to hold Internet service providers accountable for the music available on their networks. The ISPs challenged the tariff, leading to nine years of litigation that culminated with a Supreme Court of Canada decision that exempted Internet intermediaries from liability.

Undeterred by the decision, SOCAN restructured the tariff by identifying an extensive list of online uses of music, including on-demand streaming, webcasting, music streaming on gaming sites, and other services that potentially include podcasting. SOCAN has asked the Copyright Board to grant a tariff that features a minimum monthly fee of $200 and establishes a royalty rate that runs as high as 16.7 percent of gross revenues (or gross operating expenses if those are higher) for on-demand streaming. The webcast rates vary from three to nine percent of gross revenues, depending on the type of webcaster. Several groups are challenging the SOCAN tariff request and a final decision from the Copyright Board is not expected for months.

In addition to the Tariff 22 royalties, there are at least two other potential licenses. The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA) licenses the music reproduction right. CMRRA proposed a webcasting tariff in 2005 that sought five percent of gross operating revenue (or expenses if greater) with a minimum monthly payment of $200. CMRRA voluntarily withdrew its tariff application last year and is now negotiating individual licenses for Internet-only radio stations.

The Audio-Visual Licensing Agency (AVLA), which licenses the duplication of master sound recordings, has also created a license for webcasters that copy music onto Canadian servers for webcasting to Canadians. The agreement establishes transmission and subscriber fees as well as sets limits on the number of songs that can be webcast for any individual artists (no more than four in a three hour period) and prescribes the quality of the transmission (no greater than 96 KPBS).

The net effect of these tariffs and licenses is that webcasting in Canada can get expensive, particularly for non-commercial and niche webcasters. By wisely focusing on a percentage of revenue model rather than the U.S. per-stream approach, the Canadian framework may enable webcasters to get off the ground, yet a streamlined system for streaming will be needed before Canada develops into a genuine Internet radio haven.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1864/135/





Newsmagazine Plans Extra Online Issue
Stuart Elliott

Readers of a weekly newsmagazine will soon be getting a bonus issue, but they will miss it if they look in mailboxes or on newsstands.

The magazine, The Week, will publish the extra issue online, rather than in its regular printed format. The special issue will feature articles on the environment - hence the decision to spare trees by publishing it just on the Internet (theweekmagazine.com).

"Bringing our readers an extra issue in a digital format echoes the environmental issues we're trying to highlight," said Justin Smith, president and publisher of The Week in New York, which is part of Dennis Publishing.

The project represents the first time The Week has produced a themed issue as well as its first online-only issue. The bonus issue will also serve as a kind of Web-based sampling program for The Week, because nonsubscribers will be able to read it on the Web site.

The extra issue is scheduled to go live on April 20 and remain online for a week. It does not replace a print issue because the magazine, which prints 48 issues a year, had originally planned not to come out that week. (A double issue, dated April 20-27, is to appear on April 13.)

The special issue is being sponsored solely by the Lexus division of Toyota Motor, as a showcase for its hybrid products. It will be Lexus's first time to advertise with The Week, and the online ads are be followed by ads in print issues the rest of the year.

The project includes an event in Los Angeles on April 25, also sponsored by Lexus, centered on a discussion of environmental issues.

The cost of the sponsorship package for Lexus is being estimated at more than $500,000.

The project offers another example of efforts by the print media to expand their digital presences in response to changing habits of both readers and advertisers. Last week, Lauren Rich Fine, who follows advertising and media stocks for Merrill Lynch, raised her estimates for the worldwide growth of online ad revenue for 2007 as well as 2008.

For example, morning newspapers like The Chicago Sun-Times and The Toronto Star have started publishing online-only afternoon editions, which can also be downloaded.

And several publishers that have recently closed magazines or announced plans to close them are keeping the publications alive in online versions. Among them are the magazines Elle Girl and Premiere, from Hachette Filipacchi; Child, from Meredith; and Life and Teen People from the Time Inc. unit of Time Warner.

"We're going to learn so much about our readers," Smith said of producing the online-only issue. "We'll take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business."

Smith estimated that The Week typically posted 30 percent to 35 percent of its print content on the Web site, which draws about 150,000 unique users a month.

By comparison, the circulation of the print edition is 440,000 to 445,000 copies a week. The rate base for 2007 - the circulation guaranteed to advertisers - is 425,000, increased from 400,000 last year and 300,000 in 2005.

"We're trying to be as agnostic as possible about serving our readers in all the different media," Smith said. "Some people will want it in print, some will want it in digital and some will want it in a mobile format."

Executives at Lexus and its agency, Team One, part of the Publicis Groupe, have been meeting with many media companies, said Deborah Wahl Meyer, vice president for marketing at Lexus in Torrance, California, and "challenging them to help us use their media more effectively."

The Week "jumped on it, by doing something in a very different way," Meyer said. "We had not done business with them before, but we will now do a full schedule."

The Lexus ads to appear in the online issue will promote three hybrid models: the RX 400h, a crossover sport utility; the GS 450h, a sport sedan; and the LS 600h L, a sedan that is to be introduced in the summer to compete with the most expensive sedans sold by BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The ads will direct readers to a special Web site (lexus.com/hybridliving), Meyer said, offering "practical tips and ideas" as well as podcasts, video clips and a forum for owners of Lexus hybrids.

Marketing messages that go beyond traditional pitches like print ads and television commercials are increasingly important, she added, as Lexus pursues its potential customers, who are typically ages 35 and up with household incomes of more than $100,000 a year.

"This is a wonderful time for advertisers," Meyer said, adding: "It feels like an explosion of creativity among our media partners. Their willingness to go to the next level has increased exponentially."

Lexus worked last fall with several Condé Nast and Hearst magazines, Meyer said, on a promotion in four big cities that included so-called pop-up stores, boutiques that sold products produced by three designers.

The project is the second time in five months that The Week has made a deal with an advertiser to be the sole sponsor of an issue.

An extra 100,000 copies of the Nov. 10 issue were distributed free to commuters in metropolitan New York as part of a promotion sponsored by Philips Electronics and arranged by the Philips media agency, Carat, part of the Aegis Group. The extra copies in the promotion, with a budget estimated at $500,000 to $600,000, carried no ads; in their place was additional editorial content.

Single sponsorships, in print and on TV, are becoming popular among marketers as they seek to stand out from the commercial clutter.

Philips, for instance, has made such sponsorship agreements with media outlets like CBS, Gourmet magazine, NBC and TBS in addition to The Week.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/adco.php





Rewriting Ethics Rules for the New Media
Greg Sandoval

Some members of the so-called old-media establishment may no longer be able to wag a finger at what they say is questionable ethics among bloggers.

Two weeks ago, ABC News video blogger Amanda Congdon's appearance in online infomercials for chemical giant DuPont was widely criticized. Now an editor at financial news site MarketWatch, owned by The Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones, has acknowledged bending the rules for veteran columnist Bambi Francisco.

Last September, Francisco was allowed by her bosses to accept a stake in Vator.tv, a start-up that intends to play matchmaker for other start-ups and venture capitalists by showcasing Web videos of those newcomers.

It's unclear how large a stake Francisco received in Vator, which is backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. In an interview with CNET News.com, she wouldn't disclose the size but acknowledged that she didn't pay anything for her share of the company.

Francisco also acknowledged that she has a hands-on role with Vator, co-hosting with Thiel a regular synopsis of the start-ups making their pitches. Her role in Vator was first reported in a little-noticed posting on gossip blog ValleyWag last fall.

That Francisco was offered and accepted a stake in a company that operates in the industry she has covered for at least a decade is rare among journalists, who usually follow strict rules to prevent even the perception of a conflict of interest. That MarketWatch signed off on the deal is, to some, an even more remarkable sign that big media organizations are bending their traditional rules when it comes to online journalism.

"Good news organizations have checks and balances that protect the independence of the journalist," said Bob Steele, an ethics adviser at journalism think tank Poynter Institute. Steele spoke generally about journalism ethics and did not specifically discuss Francisco's situation.

"Editors challenge reporters who might get too close to sources. Organizational guidelines restrict financial investments to protect against conflicts and competing loyalties," Steele said. "Those standards, practices and guidelines, while imperfect, are still important."

MarketWatch Editor In Chief David Callaway said he gave Francisco his blessing before she accepted the offer.

"Conflicts and potential conflicts are something that journalists deal with every day," Callaway said. "We often have to deal with them on a case-by-case basis and find separate solutions. We feel that the guidelines we set up work."

Francisco is not allowed to write about any of the companies that make pitches through Vator, Callaway said, and she is not allowed to be Thiel's "marketing department," a shorthand way of saying she's supposed to steer clear of writing in favor of Thiel's interests.

Callaway acknowledged that Francisco's business relationship with Vator is unprecedented at MarketWatch. But when it comes to "solutions," Callaway said some of the practices adhered to for decades by traditional newspapers, magazines and television newsrooms may not be relevant in the Internet Age.

"You can't just totally rewrite the rules," Callaway said. "But there needs to be some happy medium...the rigid rules of the past may not always apply to new media. Is there a potential for a conflict in Bambi's case? Yes. Do I think we can avoid it? Yes."

Callaway emphasized that he was speaking only for MarketWatch and not for the entire Dow Jones company.

It already appears that Francisco has had difficulty adhering to the rules Callaway described. On November 7, Francisco wrote about a company called Powerset. The piece was penned two months after Francisco entered into her business deal with Thiel.

"Now I'm not one to get overexcited about a new technology, especially when a company keeps it mysteriously in stealth mode," Francisco wrote. "But in the case of Powerset--which received loads of blogger attention about its existence without any coverage about the actual product--there actually is a lot of substance behind the intrigue...Indeed, searching with Powerset was a far richer and more liberating experience than what you get with the rivals."

In the story, she mentioned that Thiel was joining Powerset's board of directors, but Francisco doesn't disclose her business relationship with Thiel.

In her defense, Francisco said that Thiel is on the board of many companies and that she wouldn't be able to write at all if she were barred from covering them. "I've known (Powerset's founders) outside of Peter," she said. "I've known (Powerset co-founder Barney Pell) for a while."

Francisco said she has not revealed her relationship with Vator to MarketWatch readers, nor on her personal blog because she was waiting for the company to "truly get off the ground." She said she has not written about any of the companies that have posted business ideas to Vator and that she would never give Thiel or his companies favorable treatment.

Francisco added that "old-media rules" are still important but that there has "always been a problem with judging objectivity."

On December 21, Francisco also wrote about LinkedIn, a social-networking company in which Thiel was an angel investor. She has also written about social-networking site Facebook, of which Thiel is a director. The venture firm he founded, The Founders Fund, is also a Facebook investor.

High-profile blogger Michael Arrington, who has received plenty of criticism about conflicts of interest in his tech news blog TechCrunch, said he was surprised by Francisco's deal. (Arrington proudly says his blog is all about "insider information and conflicts of interest" but argues that it's acceptable because he discloses his investments on his site.)

"Why would you give stock to a journalist?" Arrington asked. "Put it this way: I've stopped accepting jobs as an adviser for companies. These companies don't want me to be an adviser. They don't need me advising them. What they want is coverage on TechCrunch."

The issue, said Poynter's Steele, comes down to credibility and whether journalists surrender it by entering business agreements with people or companies they may have to cover.

"People practicing journalism, be it a newspaper or Web site, should adhere to the practice of independence," he said. "Journalists should have no competing loyalties."

Of course, one doesn't have to look hard to find signs that high-minded standards and practices haven't saved big media companies from questionable conduct by reporters in recent months.

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC show Mad Money, recently offered a quick tutorial on cheating the stock market, which included leaking false rumors to the press, during a recent video interview on financial news site TheStreet.com.

CNBC news anchor Maria Bartiromo caused a furor earlier this year when it was revealed that she accepted a free ride to China on Citigroup's private jet. Despite the acknowledgement of CNBC executives that they approved the trip, Bartiromo's ability to fairly cover Citigroup or its competitors was questioned.

ABC's Congdon hardly acted like a journalist caught with her hand in the cookie jar when asked about her work for DuPont. "I am not subject to the rules traditional journalists have to follow," she wrote on her blog. ABC editors fobbed off the issue, saying that since Congdon was technically a contractor, she wasn't held to the strict conflict-of-interest standards of other ABC reporters.

But for all the hand-wringing, do readers care?

"Part of fairness involves disclosure of the relationships between the reporter and the reported, particularly if payment in money or influence is involved," said Craig Newmark, founder of online-classifieds powerhouse Craigslist and the member of an investment group that's starting a news aggregation site called DayLife.

"I'd suggest anyone just state it," Newmark said, "and leave judgment to the mass of readers who are smarter than usually credited."
http://news.com.com/Rewriting+ethics...3-6173512.html





Telecom Italia Chairman Resigns in Dispute
Eric Sylvers

Guido Rossi, the chairman of Telecom Italia, resigned Friday after clashing with the company's largest shareholder, capping a week that began with AT&T and America Móvil offering to buy control of Telecom, the biggest Italian telecommunications company.

The announcement, made by Telecom Italia in a one-sentence statement, brought an end to Rossi's seven-month stint at the helm of the struggling phone company. Rossi, a former chairman of the stock market regulator who helped write Italy's antitrust law, is considered to be a specialist at turning around troubled companies and had been brought on in September to help Telecom Italia find an effective strategy to reduce debt while confronting increasingly stiff competition in its home market.

Rossi's resignation was not entirely unexpected because earlier in the week Olimpia, a holding company through which Pirelli controls an 18 percent stake in Telecom Italia, omitted Rossi from a list of proposed new board members to be voted on at a shareholders' meeting April 16. The chairman will be picked from among that list .

Rossi and Marco Tronchetti Provera, the chairman of Pirelli, have been feuding since last month, when the two openly disagreed on strategy. Rossi wanted to considerably reduce Telecom Italia's dividend, which normally equals about 90 percent of profit, so that more money would be available to pay back debt and invest in new technology.

Tronchetti Provera - who himself resigned as Telecom Italia chairman last September after arguing with the government over strategy - has insisted on the high dividend payments so that Olimpia can service its debt load.

AT&T and America Móvil, based in Mexico and the largest cellphone company in Latin America, offered to buy two-thirds of Olimpia for €4.5 billion, or $6 billion, in a deal that Pirelli has already accepted. Tronchetti Provera has announced that he wants to sell Olimpia's stake in Telecom Italia, which he bought in 2001 and which has steadily dropped in value since then. The price AT&T and America Móvil are prepared to pay values Telecom Italia at well above the company's market price.

Several Italian politicians have criticized Pirelli's plan to sell most of Olimpia to the two North American companies, and the chief executive of one of Italy's largest banks made a thinly veiled call for a group of domestic companies to band together to buy control of Telecom Italia.

Italian media have tipped Pasquale Pistorio, a longtime former chief executive of the French-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics, as the likely next chairman of Telecom Italia. Pistorio is on the list submitted by Olimpia.

Rossi said during an interview with the daily la Repubblica on Friday that Tronchetti Provera had decided to fired him because Rossi had not defended the interests of the phone company's controlling shareholder and had become "dangerous."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/...ness/phone.php





European Court of Human Rights: Personal Calls and Internet Usage from Work are (Maybe) Protected
Nate Anderson

A Welsh university employee has successfully sued the UK government in the European Court of Human Rights over surveillance that was conducted while the woman was an employee at Carmarthenshire College. According to the complaint, the woman's e-mail, phone, Internet, and fax usage were all monitored by the Deputy Principal (DP) of the college, who appears to have taken a sharp dislike to her. According to the complaint, the DP believed that the woman was using college facilities for personal use too often, and began collecting evidence about her activity. The woman claimed that her human rights were being abused, and pointed specifically to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (PDF), which governs private and family life.

The woman alleged that the DP began a campaign back in 1999 to discredit her. This campaign involved phone calls to numbers that the applicant had called in an attempt to find out who she had been speaking with, and apparently extended even to reading faxes that she sent to her solicitors from the office.

The case was made tricky by the fact that England lacked two things in 1999: a privacy law and a law governing employers' rights in monitoring their own employees. Because England had no general right to privacy enshrined in the law, the judges might seem to favor the government; but because employers had no law that gave them rights to monitor their workers, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights became important. That article says that "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence."

The government argued that the surveillance had been legitimate because it only involved the monitoring of the woman's communications, not the interception of them. That is, phone numbers were retrieved from telephone bills sent to the college, and the IT department logged e-mail addresses and web sites visited, but the contents of the phone calls and the e-mails were not recorded. Further, the government argued that it was pursuing "the legitimate aim of protecting the rights and freedoms of others by ensuring that the facilities provided by a publicly funded employer were not abused."

The court disagreed in a judgment handed down last week. According to its own case law, "telephone calls from business premises are prima facie covered by the notions of 'private life' and 'correspondence' for the purposes of Article 8." Because the woman had not been warned that she might be monitored at work, she had a "reasonable expectation as to the privacy of calls made from her work telephone." Internet usage received the same protection. In 2000, the UK did pass legislation that gave businesses certain rights with which they could monitor the e-mail and phone usage of their employees, but the law had not come into force when the surveillance in question took place.

The ruling may set only a limited precedent, however, since the legal situation in the UK has since changed. The ruling does suggest that all European employers need to make their employees aware of any monitoring that is taking place, but it sets no rules against monitoring in general.

The court granted the woman €3,000 for the "stress, anxiety, low mood and inability to sleep" that she complained about, but it granted her only €6,000 for legal fees. The woman claimed that her total legal bills amounted to nearly €14,000, so she made no money on the case, though her vindication will certainly come as a relief. The court also noted that the DP of the college has since been suspended, but the woman continues to work there.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...protected.html





PhotoBucket Videos Blocked on MySpace
Michael Arrington

Sometime around 10:30 pm PST tonight, MySpace began blocking videos embedded on MySpace pages that originate from Photobucket. This is a major blackout, affecting millions of embedded videos. Photobucket images and slideshows are not affected. Videos from competitors like YouTube are still working fine.

As with previous outages, embedded videos work fine until the user makes any edit to their profile. At that time, links to Photobucket are automatically replaced with “…” or removed, causing the embed to fail.

Photobucket has north of 40 million registered users.

This is turning into a habit for MySpace, which usually claims bugs, security issues or terms of service violations were the cause of a shut down. In January MySpace mysteriously shut down all Flash widgets on the site for 2.5 hours. An Imeem blockade came next. Vidilife, Stickam and Revver have been permanently banned.

Today’s shutdown of Photobucket comes suspiciously close to news that Photobucket is up for sale (Fox, MySpace’s parent company, was notoriously rumored to be furious when YouTube sold to Google). It seems that just when a company starts to break out from the pack, MySpace finds a security breach and shuts them down. Even though MySpace has flat out denied it to us, it is our belief that these blockages are meant to send a clear message to widget companies - don’t forget that MySpace is in charge.

More as this develops. I have a request for comment into MySpace PR, but I don’t expect to hear back from them until the morning.

Update: see The Photobucket blog for more details (read the comments to that post - Photobucket users are really angry.

Update: Photobucket CEO Alex Welch just sent me the following email:

Mike,

Tonight MySpace took the decision to prevent Photobucket users from posting certain types of media to their MySpace pages.

This action by MySpace means that millions of pieces of content created by our users may no longer be available on MySpace. This content represents hundreds of thousand hours of effort on the part of our users – hours invested using the editing, remixing and management tools and features available only on Photobucket. Conservative estimates put one in every two page views on MySpace containing content from Photobucket users. This step will have a drastic affect on the usability and appeal of MySpace.

More importantly, by limiting the ability of its users to personalize their pages with content from any source, MySpace, is contradicting the very ethos of personal and social media. MySpace became successful because of the creativity of its users and because it offered a forum for self-expression. By severely restricting this freedom, MySpace is showing that it considers its users a commodity which it can treat as it sees fit.

Faced with the prospect of recreating their content using only the limited resources available on MySpace, we believe users will vote with their feet (and their keyboards) and turn instead to the other sites that Photobucket links to on a daily basis. Photobucket users link to 300,000 different Web sites every day from their Photobucket albums – MySpace is just one of those sites. This action by MySpace in no way affects Photobucket albums. The content remains available in user albums for linking to other Web sites, discussion boards, forums, e-commerce sites and blogs.

At Photobucket, we’ve seen a steady and growing trend by users towards linking to a range of social networks – not just MySpace. If MySpace persists in blocking Photobucket and other personal media sites, users will transfer their loyalties to a combination of these networks. Photobucket’s business model is built on allowing users to support multiple identities by providing a central resource for creating, enhancing, managing and sharing their content. Our business is in no way dependent on being able to link to MySpace alone.

We believe this action by MySpace is a retrograde step in the evolution of the Web and an unacceptable attempt to limit the freedom of the very people who are its lifeblood – its users.

-alex

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/10...ed-on-myspace/





YouTube Offers to 'Educate' Thai Authorities About Web Site
VOA

Officials with the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube say they have offered to "educate" Thai authorities about how the service works, in the hopes of ending a ban on the site.

The head of global communications for YouTube, Julie Supan, said Saturday it is up to the Thai government to decide whether to block specific videos. But she says the government's technical team was having difficulty understanding how to block individual videos.

Supan said YouTube will not take down videos that do not violate the company's policies.

Thailand blocked YouTube Wednesday after the company refused to remove a slideshow of King Bhumibol Adulyadej juxtaposed with what Thais view as offensive images.

The anonymous user removed the clip, but several more videos mocking the king appeared on the Web site soon after.

Insulting the monarchy in Thailand is a criminal offense.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-07-voa22.cfm





Indonesian Court Finds Playboy Editor Not Guilty of Indecency
Peter Gelling

An Indonesian court found the editor in chief of Playboy magazine in Indonesia not guilty of indecency on Thursday, angering conservative Muslims who have been fighting to ban the magazine since its appearance last year.

The trial, which lasted months, highlighted growing divisions here between a rising conservative movement and the majority moderate Muslim population. Hundreds of conservative Muslims, most of whom belong to the Islamic Defenders Front, a hard-line Islamic organization that has led the fight against Playboy, protested outside the courtroom on Thursday, blocking traffic and shouting, "This country has become a pornographic country!" Hundreds of police officers, armed with water canons, were also stationed nearby.

The prosecution had argued that Erwin Arnada, the magazine's editor in chief, was guilty of indecency for selling pictures of naked women and sought a jail term of more than two years.

But the presiding judge, Erfan Basuning, rejected the prosecution's arguments, noting that the Indonesian version of Playboy did not include nudity and that shutting it down would have violated laws guaranteeing freedom of the press.

"This is not only a victory for Playboy, this is a victory for all of the press in Indonesia," Arnada said in an interview after the verdict. "This decision will become a legal precedent."

Playboy Indonesia, which has been published monthly since April 2006, carries photos of scantily, but not un-clad, women, and predominantly runs articles about Indonesian politics and culture. Far racier magazines and newspapers are available on street corners in all of Indonesia's major cities.

But a growing number of Islamic conservatives, who wield a powerful voice in a country that is about 85 percent Muslim, have zeroed in on Playboy as evidence of declining morals.

The magazine's offices were moved to the mostly Hindu island of Bali last year after they were pelted with stones by members of the Islamic Defenders Front, who also regularly harassed the magazine's employees and advertisers.

Playboy's initial publication prompted the Justice and Prosperity Party, which advocates strict Islamic Sharia law, to introduce a sweeping pornography bill in Parliament. It called for the banning of all pornographic materials and stipulated how women should dress and even dance. But the legislation has since been watered down considerably and is languishing in Parliament. Arnada, 41, said he was relieved by the decision, and impressed.

"The judge remained objective throughout the trial, even though there was so much pressure from hard-line Muslim organizations," he said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/indo.php





Putin Tightens Internet Controls Before Presidential Election
Henry Meyer

President Vladimir Putin has already brought Russian newspapers and television to heel. Now he's turning his attention to the Internet.

As the Kremlin gears up for the election of Putin's successor next March, Soviet-style controls are being extended to online news after a presidential decree last month set up a new agency to supervise both mass media and the Web.

``It's worrying that this happened ahead of the presidential campaign,'' Roman Bodanin, political editor of Gazeta.ru, Russia's most prominent online news site, said in a telephone interview. ``The Internet is the freest medium of communication today because TV is almost totally under government control, and print media largely so.''

All three national TV stations are state-controlled, and the state gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, has been taking over major newspapers; self-censorship is routine. That has left the Internet as the main remaining platform for political debate, and Web sites that test the boundaries of free speech are already coming under pressure.

In December, a court in the Siberian region of Khakassia shut down the Internet news site Novy Fokus for not registering as a media outlet. The site, known for its critical reporting, reopened in late March after it agreed to register and accept stricter supervision.

Plug Pulled

Anticompromat.ru, which wrote about Putin's pre-presidential business interests, had to find a U.S. Web server after a Russian service provider pulled the plug March 28, saying it had been warned by officials to stop hosting the site.

Last year, the authorities shut down a Web site called Kursiv in the city of Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow, that lampooned Putin as a ``phallic symbol of Russia'' for his drive to boost the birthrate.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia isn't restricting media freedom and that the new agency isn't aimed at policing the Web.

``If you watch TV, even federal TV channels, you'll hear lots of criticism of the government,'' Peskov said in an interview. ``This new agency will be in charge of licensing. It's not about controlling the Internet.''

Putin, 54, isn't allowed to run for re-election in 2008 under Russia's two-term constitutional limit. Instead, he is promoting two potential successors: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a 41-year-old lawyer, and Sergei Ivanov, 54, a KGB colleague of Putin who oversees much of Russian industry, including transport and nuclear power. The two, who both come from Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, have become fixtures on state-controlled television.

Gorbachev's Complaint

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policy of glasnost, or openness, ushered in media freedom in the late 1980s after decades of Soviet censorship, has condemned the state propaganda on the airwaves.

``The one thing I can say is that it's pointless today to watch television,'' Gorbachev, 76, said on the 20th anniversary of the launch of ``perestroika,'' his drive to allow more political and economic freedom that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While most Russians rely on television for news, increasing numbers are turning to the Internet. Around a quarter of the adult population -- 28 million people -- are regular Internet users, according to the Public Opinion Foundation, a Moscow-based research organization. In 2002, only 8 percent fell into that category.

A Mass Medium

``When the Internet becomes more of a mass medium, then governments start getting worried, and they start treating it like the mass media,'' said Esther Dyson, who helped establish the Internet's system of domain names and addresses, and has consulted extensively in Russia.

``You can't control the Internet, but you can control people,'' she said in a telephone interview during a visit to Moscow.

Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations in Moscow, predicted in a telephone interview that ``pressure on the media is going to worsen'' as the presidential succession draws nearer.

Reporters who write critically about government policies are subjected to intimidation, arrests, attacks and other forms of pressure, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights said March 27 in its annual report.

Facing Prison

Viktor Shmakov, editor of the newspaper Provintsialny Vesti in the oil-rich Bashkortostan republic, is facing up to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors charged him with inciting mass disturbances after his weekly urged readers to attend an opposition rally last year.

Russia is the second most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq, with 88 killed in the past 10 years, according to the Brussels-based International News Safety Institute.

Last October, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent reporter and Kremlin critic who uncovered human-rights abuses by security forces in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow.

A journalist for the Kommersant daily, Ivan Safronov, who was investigating Russian weapons sales to Iran and Syria, fell to his death from a window in his Moscow apartment March 2.

The government, meanwhile, has been expanding Gazprom's media role. The company already took control of independent channel NTV in 2001 and bought long-established Russian daily Izvestia in 2005.

Last year, Kommersant, once owned by tycoon and exiled Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, was sold to Alisher Usmanov, a steel magnate who is head of a Gazprom subsidiary. And Gazprom said in November it will acquire Russia's biggest-selling daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, which has a circulation of 800,000.

Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the Web site that lost its Russian server after mocking Putin, said the Web crackdown is part of the final phase of a campaign to stifle free speech.

``Thank God the Internet is difficult to close down, but I think they will go after journalists who write things they don't like,'' he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...NQ4&refer=home





McConnell Seeks to Boost U.S. Spy Powers
Katherine Shrader

President Bush's spy chief is pushing to expand the government's surveillance authority at the same time the administration is under attack for stretching its domestic eavesdropping powers.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has circulated a draft bill that would expand the government's powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, liberalizing how that law can be used.

Known as "FISA," the 1978 law was passed to allow surveillance in espionage and other foreign intelligence investigations, but still allow federal judges on a secretive panel to ensure protections for U.S. citizens — at home or abroad — and other permanent U.S. residents.

The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.

McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. spy agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, is signaling a more aggressive posture for his office and will lay out his broad priorities on Wednesday as part of a 100-day plan.

The retired Navy vice admiral recently met with leaders at the National Security Agency, Justice Department and other agencies to learn more about the rules they operate under and what ties their hands, according to officials familiar with the discussions and McConnell's proposals. The officials described them on condition that they not be identified because the plans are still being developed.

According to officials familiar with the draft changes to FISA, McConnell wants to:

_Give the NSA the power to monitor foreigners without seeking FISA court approval, even if the surveillance is conducted by tapping phones and e-mail accounts in the United States.

"Determinations about whether a court order is required should be based on considerations about the target of the surveillance, rather than the particular means of communication or the location from which the surveillance is being conducted," NSA Director Keith Alexander told the Senate last year.

_Clarify the standards the FBI and NSA must use to get court orders for basic information about calls and e-mails — such as the number dialed, e-mail address, or time and date of the communications. Civil liberties advocates contend the change will make it too easy for the government to access this information.

_Triple the life span of a FISA warrant for a non-U.S. citizen from 120 days to one year, allowing the government to monitor much longer without checking back in with a judge.

_Give telecommunications companies immunity from civil liability for their cooperation with Bush's terrorist surveillance program. Pending lawsuits against companies including Verizon and AT&T allege they violated privacy laws by giving phone records to the NSA for the program.

_Extend from 72 hours to one week the amount of time the government can conduct surveillance without a court order in emergencies.

McConnell, Alexander and a senior Justice Department official will appear at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on April 17 to discuss whether to amend the FISA law. Chad Kolton, McConnell's spokesman, declined to comment on the director's proposals.
Government officials have been publicly and privately discussing changes to FISA since last year. A senior intelligence official said the goal is to update the law to ensure Americans' constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure, while improving use of government resources to pursue threats against U.S. interests.

Critics question whether the changes are needed and worry about what the Bush administration has in store, given a rash of allegations about domestic surveillance and abuse of power. "Congress should certainly be very skeptical about proposals to give this government greater powers to spy on its own citizens," said Caroline Fredrickson, the Washington legislative office director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The proposed changes to domestic surveillance would be so broad that "you have basically done away with the protections of the FISA," said Kate Martin, head of the Center for National Security Studies.

Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., who unsuccessfully sponsored legislation last year to update FISA, said Congress must act because current court orders bolstering the president's terrorist surveillance program are legally shaky. She wants the law to be rewritten to ensure the NSA can continue the program.

Bush has faced months of criticism for his 2001 decision to order the NSA to monitor the international calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when terrorism is suspected. More recently, the Justice Department and FBI have been sharply rebuked for bad bookkeeping and other mistakes involving their powers under the USA Patriot Act to secretly demand Americans' e-mail, financial and other personal records through so-called national security letters. Top government officials have tried to dampen the outrage by promising accountability and have argued that the letters are essential tools to protect against terror threats.

McConnell hinted at his discomfort with current laws last week during a speech before an audience of government executives, saying he worries that current laws and regulations prevent intelligence agencies from using all of their capabilities to protect the nation.

"That's the big challenge going forward," he said, acknowledging changes would require significant congressional debate.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap3601359.html





Librarian Warns Against Secrecy in Terrorism Investigation
Andrew Miga

A Connecticut librarian who fended off an FBI demand for computer records on patrons said Wednesday the government's secret anti-terrorism investigations strip away personal freedoms.

"Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free," George Christian told a Senate panel.

In prepared testimony, Christian said his experience "should raise a big patriotic American flag of caution" about the strain that the government's pursuit of would-be terrorists puts on civil liberties.

The government uses the Patriot Act and other laws to learn, without proper judicial oversight or any after-the-fact review, what citizens are researching in libraries, Christian said.

A recent report by the Justice Department's inspector general that found 48 violations of law or rules in the FBI's use of documents, known as national security letters, during 2003 through 2005. Some congressional critics want to tighten legal safeguards on the letters.

"`Trust us' doesn't cut it when it comes to the government's power to obtain Americans' sensitive business records without a court order and without any suspicion that they are tied to terrorism or espionage," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said in prepared remarks. He heads the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can use the letters to acquire telephone, e-mail, travel and financial records without a judge's approval. Letter recipients are not allowed to disclose their involvement in a request.

Prosecutors have said secrecy in their demands for records is needed to avoid alerting suspects and jeopardizing investigations.

In July 2005, the FBI issued a national security letter to Christian and three other Connecticut librarians. Christian is executive director of Library Connection, Inc., a consortium of 27 libraries in the Hartford, Conn., area that share an automated library system.

The letter sought computer subscriber data for a 45-minute time period on Feb. 15, 2005, during which a terrorist threat was transmitted. A gag order prevented the librarians from talking about the letter.

The librarians refused to comply with the FBI's request.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal challenge on the librarians' behalf, but did not name them.

A federal judge ruled that the gag order should be lifted, saying it unfairly prevented the librarians from participating in debate over how the Patriot Act should be rewritten. Prosecutors appealed, but in April 2006 said they would no longer seek to enforce a gag order.

Last year, federal authorities dropped their demand for library patrons' computer records, saying they had discounted a potential terrorism threat that had led to the request.

The Patriot Act was rewritten last year and includes a way for letter recipients to challenge the gag order.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-11-17-11-05





A Giant Leap Forward in Computing? Maybe Not
Jason Pontin

DID D-Wave Systems achieve the incredible — a startling advance in computing that would radically expand human capacities for industrial activity and scientific discovery, long before experts believed it possible?

It says it did, and many concurred. According to the company and publications like The Economist, D-Wave, a start-up company in Burnaby, British Columbia, demonstrated “the world’s first commercial quantum computer” in February.

Something certainly happened. At a crowded event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, a proud and beaming Geordie Rose, the company’s founder and chief technology officer, showed how the Orion computer could search for a protein in a database and find the closest match, figure out the optimal seating arrangement for wedding guests and solve a Sudoku puzzle.

The purpose of the demonstration, Dr. Rose told me, was “to run commercially relevant applications on a quantum computer, which has never even been done before — not even close.”

Quantum computing is powerfully glamorous stuff: it partakes of the unworldly weirdness of quantum mechanics, and it promises a new class of quantum algorithms that could solve certain problems exponentially faster than any computer today.

If a “practical quantum computer” — as Dr. Rose, who has a doctorate in physics, often describes Orion — had been built and demonstrated, it would be a wonderful thing: analogous, according to quantum computing’s most ardent promoters, to the development of the transistor, or even the harnessing of electricity.

But as soon as D-Wave completed its demonstration, there were indignant objections from the people who know quantum computing best: the scientists who spend their lives thinking about such a machine. That’s because most academics believed that it would be many more years before anyone could construct one.

What was more frustrating, D-Wave provided no evidence to back up its claims: it has released only the sketchiest details about the inner workings of Orion. Something solved the problems at the demonstration, but it might not have been a quantum computer.
Scott Aaronson, a theoretical computer scientist at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Canada, fired the first shot. He wrote in his much-read blog, called “Shtetl-Optimized,” that Orion would be as useful at problem-solving as “a roast beef sandwich.” In an e-mail message to me, Dr. Aaronson denounced Orion as “hype.” He said that he could not “think of any interpretation under which” Dr. Rose was “telling the truth.”

Many quantum mechanics — as some like to call themselves — agree.

“D-Wave is misleading the public by calling their device ‘a practical quantum computer,’ ” said Umesh Vazirani, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “The whole point of quantum computing is achieving a large speedup over classical computers, something that D-Wave hasn’t accomplished.”

Dr. Rose dismissed such criticism. He characterized D-Wave’s approach as bluntly commercial: he expects the marketplace to endorse Orion and doesn’t care about evaluations in peer-reviewed journals.

“Our approach is to have it start solving problems; how fast it does that becomes the metric by which you’re judged,” he said. “Compared to the academic approaches, ours is quick and dirty, although I don’t think it’s any less careful.”

The high emotions inspired by the D-Wave controversy derive, perhaps, from the almost metaphysical allure of the field, an allure that has existed since the physicists Paul Benioff and Richard P. Feynman proposed the idea of quantum computing in the early 1980s.

In theory, a quantum computer in less than a minute could solve problems that would take millennia for a classical computer to solve.

For instance, a practical quantum computer could easily factor large integers, allowing them to break most cryptographic systems. A quantum computer could also simulate the behavior of nanosized structures like drug molecules; such “quantum simulations” would mean that biotechnologists could model drugs outside of a laboratory, potentially helping them to develop new therapies.

Dr. Rose is not shy about making even grander assertions. He said he believes that a bigger and better Orion computer could also speedily provide optimal solutions to difficult problems with many variables, potentially reshaping such diverse activities as investment, scheduling, logistics, and supply chain management. (Most computer scientists are more cautious: they say the dramatic speedups that Dr. Rose dreams of may be impossible with any quantum computer with a design similar to the Orion.)

But real, useful quantum computers, for all their interest and potential, have proved fiendishly difficult to build. To date, quantum computers have been more-or-less successful lab experiments.

D-Wave says it has succeeded where others have failed by using a simple design, derived from technologies already used to make standard computer chips. The company describes the Orion as built around a chip made from a superconducting metal called niobium, which becomes a superconductor when chilled to nearly minus 273 degrees Celsius in a bath of liquid helium.

Herb Martin, the chief executive of D-Wave, contends that this uncomplicated design will allow the Orion to expand its computing powers so that, by mid-2008, it will be able to tackle real commercial applications. He says D-Wave would earn money by renting time on the Orion as a Web service to businesses that need the power of quantum computing. Additionally, the company might build and rent quantum machines.

BUT does Orion work as advertised? No one knows, except for the people at D-Wave. According to the most skeptical of D-Wave’s detractors, because Orion can function as a slow analog computer, it’s possible that Orion was not really performing quantum operations at all when it was demonstrated at the Computer History Museum.

Dr. Rose concedes that his machine is still primitive. “In terms of the actual time it takes to solve problems, Orion as it currently stands is about 100 times slower than a PC running the best algorithms,” he says. But he argues that the demonstration in February showed that quantum computing was not merely a research project, and proved that there was a real and imminent value to businesses.

At the very least, his investors agree. Dr. Rose has raised $44 million in funding since starting his company in 1999, attracting the backing of venture capitalists like Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

At this point, we can say that Orion may be a demonstration of a quantum computer that can solve a limited set of specific problems. One day, it may offer significant increases in speed.

But for now, in lieu of direct evidence, it is very slow and not very useful. When D-Wave begins to allow outsiders to play with the Orion later this year, and if its inventors explain how the marvelous machine actually works, the company’s critics may become more generous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/bu...ey/08slip.html





Apple's Long Shadow Over Mobile Music
Marguerite Reardon

The wireless industry is finally offering a long list of phones with the music features some pundits have long predicted would diminish Apple's control of the market for digital music.

Last week at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Orlando, Fla., Sprint Nextel reduced the price of its over-the-air music downloads to 99 cents per song, while AT&T announced it would offer new subscribers free access to the Napster music service for a year. Handset makers Samsung and Sony Ericsson introduced their latest music-focused phones, and mobile virtual network operator Helio introduced a new device specifically designed for tunes.

But guess what? The most talked-about and sought-after device at the three-day conference was Apple's iPhone, which wasn't showcased at CTIA and doesn't even ship until June.

"I think 2007 will be a huge year for mobile music," said John Burris, vice president of data services at Sprint. "There won't be anyone who doesn't know that a mobile phone will be able to play music."

But will they want it if it's not made by Apple? There are still lots of issues that need to be worked out before mobile music can really live up to the hype, say experts. From their difficulties with incompatible digital rights management technology to their struggles with short battery lives and poor user interfaces, mobile operators and handset makers have a long way to go before the experience of purchasing and listening to music on mobile phones--even the ones made by Apple--lives up to consumer expectations.

"Apple is known for hitting home runs consistently," said Suzanne Cross, head of marketing for Sony Ericsson. "But I think the hype around the iPhone has confused people, because many consumers aren't aware of what music phones can and can't do. So (phone makers) have to make sure expectations are met and the consumer experience is positive."

The wireless and handset industry has been trying to jump on the mobile music craze for years. In 2005, Cingular Wireless, now the new AT&T, launched Motorola's Rokr, a music phone that allowed subscribers to play songs from the iTunes music store. But the Rokr was a major flop. The phone had limited memory capacity and allowed only 100 songs to be stored.

Other phones have been introduced that also offer music-playing capability, such as Motorola's Razr and Krazr, but few consumers believe they are replacements for an iPod or any other MP3 music player. When used to play music, most of these phones run out of battery life very quickly. Using them to navigate through the music library can also be difficult, and loading songs can be cumbersome.

Mark Nagel, director of premium content at AT&T, said the company learned a lot from the Rokr experience. As a result, AT&T is not only adding new phones, such as the iPhone, to its lineup, but it's also introduced a subscription-model service that will allow consumers to pay a monthly fee to listen to as much music as they like from services like Napster and Yahoo. To promote this business, the company is offering new subscribers a free subscription to Napster for a year.

Mobile music ready for prime time?
There are signs that mobile music is catching on. Record companies' digital music sales are estimated to have nearly doubled in value in 2006, generating about $2 billion in revenue, according to the industry group IFPI, which is affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America. Mobile music accounted for half of this revenue. The split varied greatly among markets around the world, with Japan leading the pack with around 90 percent of its digital music sales accounted for by mobile purchases.
New phones specifically designed for music will likely fuel the trend. At least three new music phones were introduced at CTIA. The Ocean, a new handset manufactured by Pantech for Helio, is designed to help alleviate some of the issues plaguing earlier phones, such as short battery life. For example, it uses a separate microprocessor to run the media player, which Helio claims allows the device to play up to 15 hours of music on a single battery charge. The phone will be available later this year and will cost about $295 with a two-year contract.

Samsung's Upstage, available through Sprint, is a "flip" phone with one side designed to be a regular phone and the other designed to play music. The regular phone side has a number pad and small screen for dialing calls and typing text messages. The other side looks like an MP3 music player, with a large screen and touch-sensitive controls that allow the user to navigate through a song library and view videos. There's a button that lets users switch between the sides and functions of the phone, which costs $149 with a two-year Sprint contract.

Sony Ericsson, which has already been selling its Sony Walkman phones in the U.S. through AT&T, introduced its latest addition to the music playing family of phones this week. The W580 is a slider phone that the company claims can offer up to 30 hours of music playing time. Sony Ericsson didn't provide pricing information, and it hasn't announced which carrier will sell the phone. But given the company's relationship with AT&T, it's likely the phone will appear there first.

Then, of course, there is the iPhone, which, despite its absence at CTIA, still created a buzz. AT&T's COO Randall Stephenson said during a speech at the convention that 1 million people had already signed up on the Web asking for more information about the iPhone.

While new music-playing phones should spur excitement among consumers, there are still issues that need to be worked out. One of the major hurdles will be making sure people can buy and transfer music easily onto their wireless devices. The ability to download music over the air is seen as a crucial piece of this puzzle--and it's something the iPhone can't do.

"Isn't the whole point of putting music on a wireless device so you can download tracks over the air?" asked Sky Dayton, CEO of Helio. "I think that is a glaring omission in terms of the iPhone. It's great for side loading, but the lack of over-the-air downloading will be a huge disappointment to people."

Right now, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Helio offer their own music stores with over-the-air downloads. Sprint announced this week that it has reduced the price of songs sold this way from $2.49 a song to 99 cents a song. Meanwhile, AT&T does not yet offer over-the-air downloads. This means subscribers use their PCs to purchase individual songs or access subscription services like Napster; then they can sync their phones to the PC to load the music onto their devices.

But Cross of Sony Ericsson said the industry is not quite ready for over-the-air downloads, because today songs purchased over a cellular network can be used only on specific handsets. The limitation is due in large part to the fact that mobile operators use different digital rights management technology to distribute copyrighted songs.

"The song is only playable on your phone," she said. "You can't transfer it to another MP3 device or burn it onto a CD. So the music has very limited use. And I don't think that is what consumers want."

Operators have tried to get around this limitation by sending copies of songs to subscribers' PCs. But Cross said the industry needs to rally around some sort of DRM standard so there is interoperability among devices. Until that happens, she doesn't believe mobile music will live up to its fullest potential.

"Over-the air downloading isn't nirvana, but it's necessary to grow the market," she said. "And today when people download music on their laptops, they expect to reuse it on other devices. As an industry, we have to be careful about educating people what they can and can't do with their music or risk disappointing them."
http://news.com.com/Apples+long+shad...3-6172313.html





Only 10% of MP3 Players Support AAC

Although the iPod dominates the MP3 player market (especially outside of Asia), Billboard writes

"...less than 10% of the digital music players in the market currently support AAC, according to digital music retailer estimates. And meeting the level of penetration that MP3 currently enjoys -- support by tens of thousands of devices -- will require years to catch up."

In an article Rob Beschizza of Gear Factor and I posted two days ago, we postulated that Apple and EMI's decision to sell music in the unprotected AAC format would hurt Microsoft, because device manufacturers will now have a big incentive to support AAC rather than WMA (both require per-unit licensing fees). Commenters have correctly pointed out that EMI and other labels could decide to sell music in the unprotected WMA format as well, and that EMI said the Apple deal was only the first of its kind. But Apple's dominance of digital music sales means that AAC support will become a crucial feature on any MP3 player.

Susan Kevorkian, audio analyst for IDC, agreed with me that manufacturers now have an incentive to add AAC to their players. I am in contact with Creative, which does not currently support AAC on its Zen line of MP3 player, to find out whether they plan on adding AAC support, and will post their plans here if I hear anything.
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/04/...0_of_mp3_.html





A Hundred Million iPods!

Back in January, 2004, Apple released a press statement trumpeting the fact that it had sold over two million iPods. Neat. A year later, it bragged that it had sold ten million of 'em. Even more impressive.

And today, it's telling the world that it's sold a hundred million iPods since the first one appeared a bit over five years ago, which it says makes its iconic little gadgets the fastest-growing music players in history. (I'm assuming that it's including music players of all sorts in there, including Walkmans (Walkmen?); it's kind of a given that the iPods has been a tad more successful than any digital audio player with another company's logo on it.)

The Apple press release has an aw-shucks sound bite from Steve Jobs about how the company is pleased to help folks rediscover their music, and also quotes Mary J. Blige, John Mayer, and Lance Armstrong (fascinating fact: Lance likes to listen to music when he runs) and doesn't otherwise have much to say other than obvious factoids about iPods, iTunes, and another Apple music product it's going to release later this year (apparently the company plans to release a phone--who knew?).

Some of the things I'd like to know about those sales probably won't show up in any Apple statement. Such as....

* How many of those 100,000,000 iPods are sitting in drawers?

* How many broke and were replaced by other iPods?

* What's the exact figure of how many iPods have been lost (I once left mine on an Air France flight) or stolen?

* How many cumulative scratches are there on all those iPods?

* What are the total number of songs stored on the 100,000,000 iPods, and how many were bought from Apple, ripped from CD, downloaded from P2P networks, etc., etc.?

* How long will it take Apple to get to 200,000,000 iPods, assuming that it does, eventually? 300,000,000? A half a billion?
http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/004048.html





Unknown Musician Tops iTunes Chart
Ruth Lumley

A classically trained pianist turned acoustic guitar player who does not even own an iPod is heading for stardom after her homemade album topped the national iTunes chart.

Folk singer Kate Walsh, 24, of Brighton, knocked Take That from the top of the album chart just over a week ago with the songs she recorded in her producer's bedroom.

Lacking a major record deal, Kate made the record available in digital form only but soon won devotees after placing songs on her MySpace web page.

She persuaded iTunes to sell the album, called Tim's House, and last week it topped the online store's UK download album chart, displacing Take That and Kaiser Chiefs.

Not that Kate was a regular iTunes customer.

Kate, who trained at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, was given her first iPod when she was invited to perform at Apple's main London store to celebrate hitting the top of the charts.

Since then, she says, she has downloaded everything onto it but her own album.

She said: "Since iTunes became involved the album has been noticed by lots of people who have really loved it and bought it.

"It has been a bit of a whirlwind and since then I have been on tour. I am also still working part-time while all this is going on but it is just lovely to know that people know the album's out there and they are enjoying it."

The homemade quality of the album reflects the fact it was recorded at the home of producer and musician Tim Bidwell, of the Brighton band Hardkandy.

He created a sound-insulated vocal booth in the bedroom of his home in Kemp Town, Brighton, with velvet curtains he bought for £580 from Debenhams.

Kate, whose musical influences include Joni Mitchell, The Longpigs and Tori Amos, brought the album out on her own record label, Blueberry Pie, with Tim's help.

She said: "I really liked what he did and by the time I decided to release the album myself I really wanted him to produce the record."

Oliver Schusser, director ofiTunes Europe, said: "This is an incredible achievement when you consider Kate Walsh is unsigned and still outsold several major international artists."

Kate will spend this week touring the country supporting British artist Aqualung in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Glasgow before starting her first headline tour at the end of May.

She will play at an uncut night at the Red Roaster Cafe on St James's Street, Brighton, on May 17, as part of The Great Escape Festival which runs over three days next month.

To find out more about Kate and her music go to www.myspace.com/katewalsh
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/local...unes_chart.php


Thanks Daddydirt! – Jack.





iPod Saves Soldier’s Life in Iraq
Stevie Smith



It’s not often that a piece of modern everyday consumer technology actually becomes involved in a genuine bona fide miracle while out in the big bad world, but that’s exactly what happened to an Apple iPod as it was innocently occupying the upper left chest pocket of a patrolling American soldier based in Iraq.

This tragic tale of electronic self-sacrifice unfolds thanks to a post appearing on the popular public imagery website Flickr, which relays the story of Kevin Garrad of the American 3rd Infantry Division, who amazingly survived a close quarter exchange of gun fire with an Iragi insurgent… thanks to his conveniently placed iPod music player.

According to the post, Garrad rounded a corner while on routine patrol in Tikrit, only to come face to face with an insurgent armed with a Russian-made AK-47 (Kalashnikov) assault rifle. With only a matter of a few feet separating the two unwitting duellers, frantic shots were exchanged, subsequently leaving the insurgent dead and Garrad struck in the chest.

At such close range, the 7.62x39mm calibre bullets discharged from an AK-47 are likely to pass through the protective standard-issue body armour that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are fitted out with, and in normal circumstances the abrupt gunfight would have left Garrad dead if not mortally wounded.

Yet the lucky American serviceman took no wound from the exchange, thanks to his brave Apple (HP edition) iPod music player, which successfully slowed the incoming round and prevented it from passing through the armour plating and finding its fleshy target.

Further to Garrad’s already overwhelming rush of good fortune, an update on the Flickr post has revealed that an amazed engineer at Apple Inc. has shown images of the mangled iPod around the office and a replacement iPod could soon be winging its way to a now empty left breast pocket in Iraq.

An Apple a day, in this case, quite literally keeps the reaper at bay.
http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/n...s_life_in_Iraq





iPod Tells Soldier He Was Shot

I talked to Kevin Garrad this afternoon and here’s the story firsthand:

The armor stopped the bullet.

The iPod was how Kevin Garrad found out he was shot. This is the real story.

Kevin said he got into the fight with the insurgent and afterwards he did not know he was even shot. He said he returned to his bunk after the patrol, put on his earbuds and began to clean his weapon.

He said: “you get into a ritual out there.”

No music came on. He dug around in the pockets where he kept the iPod and pulled out the twisted hunk of metal that is in the pictures. He said that was how he found out that he had been shot during the fight. He was happy that his armor worked.

He said the upgraded armor he was wearing could stop the AK-47 round. It was not the newest armor that is in Iraq now, but it was an upgrade. This was his second iPod that he had brought to Iraq. The first had been damaged earlier and the store would not replace it, even with the additional warranty he purchased.

The pictures are what happens when an AK-47 bullet hits an iPod.

He’s talked to Apple and is happy that they sent him another iPod. He’s gone through two already. If any others send him iPods he’ll put them in care packages back to friends in his unit who don’t have them.
http://havanalion.com/2007/04/08/ipo...he-real-story/





Kaspersky Lab Discovers First iPod-Specific Virus
Bryan Gardiner

Russian computer security company Kaspersky Lab announced on Thursday that it had discovered the first virus designed specifically to infect iPods. The catch? You actually have to put it on your iPod-and your iPod needs to have Linux installed on it. The virus, dubbed Podloso, is what's known as a "proof of concept" virus-or one that is created in order to demonstrate that it is possible to infect a specific platform. As such, the company said that it does not pose any real threat. If installed on an iPod, Podloso proceeds to further replicate itself to the folder that contains program demo versions, according to Kaspersky Lab. "Once launched, the virus scans the device's hard disk and infects all executable .elf format files," the company said in a statement. "Any attempt to launch these files will cause the virus to display a message on the screen which says 'You are infected with Oslo the first iPodLinux Virus.'"

Kaspersky Lab stressed that Podloso does not carry a malicious payload and is unable to spread. Despite Kaspersky's claim that Podloso is the first iPod virus discovered, a small number of iPods were actually shipped with a Windows virus installed on them last October. Less than 1 percent of the video iPods sold after Sept. 12 were infected with the Windows RavMon.exe virus, Apple said. Furthermore, it only affected Windows computers and was easily detected and removed with up-to-date anti-virus software.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2111845,00.asp





The Blogs That Ate Cyberspace
Dan Silkstone


Still blogging: Jorn Barger, who created the term weblog.

IT HAS been the most extraordinary rise, and it happened while you probably weren't even looking. In just under a decade, the blog has swamped the virtual world, multiplying at a rate usually seen only inside Petri dishes. Some now say it is poised to deliver a killer blow to mainstream media, others reckon it to be a fad that will soon be forgotten.

Welcome to the blogosphere, home to 70 million blogs, splogs, vlogs and moblogs. It's enough to make you slightly groggy. And of course make you wonder: where did all of this come from? Perhaps more importantly, where is it going?

Last week, News Limited papers suggested the blog might be set for lean times. Unnamed "analysts" described a "cultish enthusiasm for self-expression" that was "rapidly wearing off". Anonymous forecasters predicted the fad would soon be superseded by newer media forms such as the online meeting place MySpace.

But some of blogging's most famous exponents believe otherwise, and the figures appear to back them up. In the minute or so you have been reading this story, more than 80 new blogs have been created. Apparently, there's life in the old blog yet. Take Jorn Barger, one of the digital world's true eccentrics. Even on the internet, where quirkiness is a badge of honour, he stands out.

In the mid-1990s, Barger was one of a handful of computer geeks who started collecting links to all the cool stuff he had found on the internet. In 1997, he gave his creation a name. He called it his weblog.

"I was overwhelmed with the sense that there was much more out there on the web than I knew how to find — like being in a giant treasure house with only a candle for light," he told The Age. "My motive was just to explore and share my explorations."

Barger searched day and night for interesting material, adding it incessantly. He had been impressed by a young woman named Anna Voog — a "camgirl" who filmed her every moment and posted it online. "She was trying to live her life 100 per cent openly, which I thought was a righteous ideal," he says. "I wanted to emulate it in my own way by logging everything I found interesting, whether art or politics or silliness or even occasionally good porn."

Barger's site, Robot Wisdom, compiled matter-of-fact lists of eclectic links — summed up by short descriptive phrases. It still follows this form (witness recent posts such as "Overview of Chavez's radical policies" or "Great long Scorsese interview".)

For a year or so, little changed. Barger gradually attracted more readers and a few started sites of their own. One day, he stumbled across one called Honeyguide Weblog. His name was catching. Excited, Barger began compiling a list of all the webloggers he could find. By 1998 he had about 100.

Among the pioneers was Peter Merholz, a San Francisco-based designer who entertained his workmates by emailing them lists of links to cool and funny websites. In 1998, to save time, he started posting them online in a weblog, but the moment that changed his life came a year later. While editing his page, Merholz hit the space bar on a whim — changing the title from weblog to we blog. With this keystroke, the blog was born. "I think we did have a sense of being at the forefront of something," Merholz told The Age. "We all talked to each other."

In those early days, he knew about 20 pioneers like himself and excitedly shared links with them. Now he calls it "ye olde school". This cross-linking would become one of blogging's defining traits and a key ingredient of its success.

On the fast-moving web this is ancient history, so it's somewhat bizarre to realise how recently it happened — such is the extent to which blogging is now etched into our language and consciousness. In 1999, the Kangaroos and Wayne Carey ruled the AFL and The Matrix dominated the box office, offering a future in which identity was virtual and fluid. Alone in their bedrooms, Jorn Barger and Peter Merholz were already there.

So was David Sifry. You can't ask the question about how many blogs there are and where they all came from without asking Sifry, the 38-year-old founder and CEO of blog-monitoring company Technorati. In 2002, the long-term blogger wanted to know what others like him were writing and (more importantly) who was reading it. Conventional search engines weren't good at finding this out, so Sifry retreated to his basement with four computers over a long weekend and created Technorati. Six months later his "science project" became a company. Now it is the Google of blogging (a claim to fame that would have made little sense a decade ago).

By November 2002, Technorati had identified 30,000 blogs worldwide and ranked them for popularity according to how many other blogs linked to them. The emergence of easy-to-use programs such as Blogger and LiveJournal meant anyone could blog. You didn't need to be a computer geek, you could just type in the text box and hit "publish". Millions did. In 2003, the word "blog" debuted in the Oxford Dictionary and by February last year the Washington Post wondered aloud if the blogging fad had plateaued, noting that Technorati had tracked more than 38 million blogs. "There are indications the numbers are peaking," the newspaper said. A year later, the figure is more than 70 million.

Then came last week's shrill warnings, cribbed selectively from a four-month-old report by US technology consultants Gartner. The report estimates there are now 200 million dead blogs, basing this on a creative reading of data from Technorati. David Sifry disagrees. "I don't know where they get those figures from," he says.

The News Limited story suggested that net-savvy types were giving up on blogging and turning their attention to MySpace. The owner of Myspace is, of course, News Limited. Also conveniently not disclosed was the fact that, according to the Gartner report, use of MySpace has been falling steadily during the past year.

Now some disclosure of my own. To borrow from Peter Merholz, I blog (or should that be iBlog?). I've never been a computer guy, and it seemed a trifle nerdy at first, but it was one of those things you fall into — in this case coming along with membership of a rock'n'roll band who choose to communicate with each other (and their vast army of fans) by blogging.

It turned out to be fun. Important issues I have posted about in the past few weeks include getting my guitar fixed, the best song on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and my favourite animal name of all time (it's Nubian Wild Ass — thanks for asking). You might find these things trivial but they aren't to me. And that is the whole point.

Blogs give you voice and validation. Say anything you like and if you are lucky, somebody will hear you and leave a reply. Once upon a time people wrote their most private thoughts in a diary and hid it in their top drawer. Now they post them for all the world to see. Then, the writer's warning was publish and be damned. Now, the great fear is publish and be ignored.

I return hungrily to my posts, looking for comments, and there's one from a stranger, Meva, which is warmly positive. A quick click on her name takes me to Meva's blog. Her favourite song of the week is Man of the World by Fleetwood Mac. I loathe Fleetwood Mac but should I tell her? Are we friends now? Would she be offended?

Meva has also linked to a "free David Hicks" blog and a bunch of stuff about refugee rights. She prefers an untidy house to a tidy one and she currently has an ear infection. These appear to be the two most interesting things about her.

On the right side of the page is a list of about 50 other blogs she endorses. I think about choosing Lady Pirates but instead select Jabberwocky, which transports me to an account of a recent trip to Teotihuacan, Mexico: "I've quit my job, kissed my boy goodbye and I'm off … on the other side of the world."

From the list of recommended blogs, I opt for Bland Canyon — "ravings and whingeing from a 26-year-old girl who spends far too much time surfing the interweb and watching TV".

Here I find a surprisingly funny dissection of the TV show Next Top Model as well as an amusing summary of the junk mail in the writer's mailbox. From Bland Canyon I jump again, via the recommended list to Much Ado about Sumthin, "Gobsmackingly banal rantings, of a vapid, attention seeking, famewhore". Said famewhore writes vividly about coming home from a weekend wedding to find her cousin asleep on her couch and vomit all over her bed. Suddenly I wish I'd chosen the lady pirates.

Originally, blogging was about making the net's limitless tumult easier to navigate, trusting a more dedicated or resourceful web surfer to guide you to the newest, coolest sites. But the proliferation of blogs means any such function has long disappeared behind a wall of noise. Now sites such as Technorati are required to help the overloaded surf through an ocean of blogs.

But while blogging must certainly slow as it matures (exponential growth cannot continue forever), it's not happening yet, says Rebecca Blood, a pioneering blogger, cyber-commentator and author of the bestselling Weblog Handbook. "At the moment, I think the reach of blogging is still widening, as new people discover blogs and start their own," she says. It may be true that more people are starting blogs than keeping them up, Blood says, but that's always been true of any form of expression.

And starting them they are. Every single day, all around the world, 1000 new blogs spring to life. "It continues to catch on, not just in terms of the number of new blogs but in terms of posting volume," Sifry says. Six months ago, the world created 1.1 million posts a day. Now it is 1.4 million. That's 58,000 posts an hour.

It is true, though, that many blogs are dead or inactive. Of the 70 million Technorati identifies, just 55 per cent have been updated in the past three months. About 11 per cent are updated weekly or more often.

But not all abandoned blogs are debris left by disenchanted confessionalists. Many were always intended to have fixed life spans — tied to conferences, academic courses or specific projects. Often, though static, they remain useful resources.

Some in mainstream media have cast blogging as the new journalism, but there is little support for the idea in the blogosphere. While some blogs aim for genuine news reporting or informed comment, just as many or more are about wine appreciation, football fandom, conservative politics or kinky erotica. In the US, bloggers have only occasionally broken big news — most famously unravelling the career of veteran newsman Dan Rather by revealing he had been hoaxed by fake documents about George Bush's war record.

Sifry says blogs can't really replace traditional news sources, but they are starting to cut into their revenue. "Not everybody cares about breaking news. Some just want to talk about golf or music or whatever," he says. "If there are enough of those people gathering somewhere, advertisers will want to market to them."

If webloggers aren't apeing mainstream media, the reverse is certainly happening. Publishers such as The Age now run whole stables of bloggers on their online sites. One of The Age's blog posts — Jack Marx's masterful backstab of Russell Crowe, won a Walkley Award last year. But only after editors realised how good it was and stuck it in the paper.

So who is blogging? It's hard to break down the numbers by nation; the internet just doesn't work that way. But if you look at language groups, the picture gets interesting. Astonishingly, 37 per cent of all blogs are now written in Japanese. "It has now become the single largest language in terms of posting numbers," David Sifry says. English runs second at 36 per cent. Chinese is third with just 8 per cent. Plenty of room to grow. According to Technorati, the most linked-to blog last year was that of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei.

The biggest threat is spam blogs (or splogs), a nuisance that has multiplied in recent times. "We have definitely seen an increase of those in the last four or five months," Sifry says. Canny sploggers create multiple blogs, using them to manipulate search engine results, artificially boosting their rankings at Google or Yahoo.

But while some fear splogs could threaten the form that spawned them, Sifry says he and others are racing to create better filters that will weed out junk. "It's a threat, but all healthy ecosystems have parasites," he says.

Technorati gets 10 million unique visitors each month. Traffic to the site has doubled in the past four weeks. For your blog to make its top 10 rankings it must be linked to by tens of thousands of others.

By contrast, Jorn Barger's once swollen readership has shrunk. Now only 100 or so regulars link to his site and he has barely made a cent from his labours. He is a wild figure — bushy-bearded and occasionally homeless — who devotes himself to his blog and his life's other work — compiling a fully annotated online version of James Joyce's indecipherable masterpiece Finnegan's Wake. Barger's fans go into apoplexy when he periodically vanishes (sometimes for months at a time). During one absence, in mid-2005, a writer for internet style mag Wired encountered him on a San Francisco street. A dishevelled-looking Barger was carrying a cardboard sign that read "Coined the term 'weblog', never made a dime."

Given all this, you might expect Barger to be pessimistic or bitter about the future of blogging. He is the opposite. "What could be bleak?" he says. "If they try to suppress minority viewpoints, it will just make the game that much more exciting. In other words, I can't see anything but rosier and rosier."

For Peter Merholz, blogging has been more lucrative. Handsome and smooth, he is now president of San Francisco consultancy Adaptive Path — a juggernaut that advises some of America's biggest companies on how to adapt to the digital age. "I don't know what the future holds for blogging," he says. "I don't think it's a passing fad. As long as there are people who want to communicate, there will be things like blogs. Now, as the technology evolves, blogging will likely evolve with it."

Already there are videologs (vlogs), photoblogs and podcasts (audio blogs). Then there are the moblogs, those written from a phone or PDA device. In one respect, the naysayers may be right. Blogging might not be dying, but it is always morphing into new forms: "Young people today expect to have their own place on the web, and they will always find a way to have one," Rebecca Blood says.

What this all means is still very much up for grabs. A common charge levelled against bloggers is that their lives are boring and they should stop inflicting them on everybody else. But from the start, there have been different ideas of what a blog might be. Many blog analysts evoke the wunderkammer, an idea with roots in Europe's renaissance. Gentlemen would collect and compile items of exotic interest for a "cabinet of wonders" (usually an actual room). Skins and horns of exotic animals, artworks, strange machines — all were sought and hoarded. The idea was to show off your own eclectic taste, to amuse your friends and yourself with a bunch of wacky stuff.

Many bloggers use this as a metaphor for their own collecting and sharing of links, an idea first put forward by early blogger Jason Kottke, who has now reached such levels of fame that he blogs for a living. Kottke responded to The Age's queries by saying he was not "doing any media at the moment" (but sweetly wished us luck).

Then there are the diarists who post pictures of their cats, details of last night's dinner and other random thoughts, as though they were papal pronouncements. In the early days, some called themselves escribitionists — surely one of the more painful examples of the internet's insatiable invention of new words.

Peter Merholz says he has gradually moved from sharing links on his blog to sharing his thoughts, though he thinks both forms are valuable and important. Others aren't so sure and many bloggers give themselves self-deprecating titles, drawing attention to the vanity and possible pointlessness of their craft.

So are many bloggers deluded when they think their lives and thoughts are interesting or worthy of recording? "Of course they are," Rebecca Blood says. "But Paris Hilton's life isn't particularly interesting either and the mainstream press is infatuated with her."

To be fair, Blood says, most bloggers' everyday lives are interesting to the people who are close to them. For the vast majority, this is the only audience ever sought or found. But there are also a large number of personal blogs with significant readerships. Maybe it's just voyeurism.

In the end, Blood says, the "who cares?" question is probably the wrong one to ask — betraying an old-fashioned, mass media assumption that success relates to audience size. "The blogs that will survive are the ones whose creators find them to be rewarding," she says. "A blogger doesn't have to have a single reader in order to continue publishing every day."

Of course it's not just nobodies who blog, celebrities are in on it too. On hers, actress Pamela Anderson reveals that her favourite albums are Led Zeppelin IV and 50 Cent's The Massacre. Her favourite books include works by Herman Hesse, Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller, as well as … herself.

Former child star Wil Wheaton is now almost as famous for his blog as he once was for roles in Stand by Me and Star Trek. Readers flock to hear him riff about his online poker habit and the bunch of old Star Trek props stashed in his basement.

Speaking of Star Trek — and on the internet it's never far away — William Shatner's page, BillSpace, carries the breathless update: "Bill Shatner addresses the rumour that Leonard Nimoy and he met recently with the production team of the new Star Trek movie." (for the record, nothing happened). Sheryl Crow had a blog but it died of neglect. Same with Mariah Carey and Barbara Streisand (what, these people don't have enough free time on their hands?) Hillary Clinton has been busy too. She hasn't posted on her Blog for Hope since September 2005.

Jorn Barger says "lazy and sensational" journalists have dismissed blogs as mere diaries, neglecting the social benefit of collecting a network of links to information sources — archiving and drawing connections between items that would otherwise be scattered and soon-forgotten. Peter Merholz reckons most blogs should probably have a readership of about five people but thinks there's nothing wrong with that.

For two regular geeks who were there at the start, life has thrown up wildly divergent paths. But a decade on, Barger and Merholz are still blogging. And people still read them.

"It's very nice to hear of people I admire starting blogs, or to see the word in comics, songs, etc," Barger says. "But if that's all I'm remembered for, it wasn't worth the bother." Merholz is, not surprisingly, more content with his place in history. "I am jazzed that I was able to be at the start of something that became so big," he says in Silicon Valley hipster slang. "I'm even more jazzed that the word I coined entered into the lexicon."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-dep...66469530.html#





A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs
Brad Stone

Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?

The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse.

Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers “gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online,” said Mr. O’Reilly, who posted the preliminary recommendations last week on his company blog (radar.oreilly.com). Mr. Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company’s site (blogging.wikia.com), and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around what constitutes civil behavior online.

Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Wales talk about creating several sets of guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another, it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news they write about.

Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself.

“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.

The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (hyperorg.com/blogger) and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway,” he said.

But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge. Some online writers wonder how anyone could persuade even a fraction of the millions of bloggers to embrace one set of standards. Others say that the code smacks of restrictions on free speech.

Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly were inspired to act after a firestorm erupted late last month in the insular community of dedicated technology bloggers. In an online shouting match that was widely reported, Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author from Boulder County, Colo., and a friend of Mr. O’Reilly, reported getting death threats that stemmed in part from a dispute over whether it was acceptable to delete the impolitic comments left by visitors to someone’s personal Web site.

Distraught over the threats and manipulated photos of her that were posted on other critical sites — including one that depicted her head next to a noose — Ms. Sierra canceled a speaking appearance at a trade show and asked the local police for help in finding the source of the threats. She also said that she was considering giving up blogging altogether.

In an interview, she dismissed the argument that cyberbullying is so common that she should overlook it. “I can’t believe how many people are saying to me, ‘Get a life, this is the Internet,’ ” she said. “If that’s the case, how will we ever recognize a real threat?”

Ms. Sierra said she supported the new efforts to improve civility on the Web. The police investigation into her case is pending.

Menacing behavior is certainly not unique to the Internet. But since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability, online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than those in other media.

Nowadays, those conversations often take place on blogs. At last count, there were 70 million of them, with more than 1.4 million entries being added daily, according to Technorati, a blog-indexing company. For the last decade, these Web journals have offered writers a way to amplify their voices and engage with friends and readers.

But the same factors that make those unfiltered conversations so compelling, and impossible to replicate in the offline world, also allow them to spin out of control.

As many female bloggers can attest, women are often targets. Heather Armstrong, a blogger in Salt Lake City who writes publicly about her family (dooce.com), stopped accepting unmoderated comments on her blog two years ago after she found that conversations among visitors consistently devolved into vitriol.

Since last October, she has also had to deal with an anonymous blogger who maintains a separate site that parodies her writing and has included photos of Ms. Armstrong’s daughter, copied from her site.

Ms. Armstrong tries not to give the site public attention, but concedes that, “At first, it was really difficult to deal with.”

Women are not the only targets of nastiness. For the last four years, Richard Silverstein has advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace on a blog (richardsilverstein.com) that he maintains from Seattle.

People who disagree with his politics frequently leave harassing comments on his site. But the situation reached a new low last month, when an anonymous opponent started a blog in Mr. Silverstein’s name that included photos of Mr. Silverstein in a pornographic context.

“I’ve been assaulted and harassed online for four years,” he said. “Most of it I can take in stride. But you just never get used to that level of hatred.”

One public bid to improve the quality of dialogue on the Web came more than a year ago when Mena Trott, a co-founder of the blogging software company Six Apart, proposed elevating civility on the Internet in a speech she gave at a French blog conference. At the event, organizers had placed a large screen on the stage showing instant electronic responses to the speeches from audience members and those who were listening in online.

As Ms. Trott spoke about improving online conduct, a heckler filled the screen with personal insults. Ms Trott recalled “losing it” during the speech.

Ms. Trott has scaled back her public writing and now writes a blog for a limited audience of friends and family. “You can’t force people to be civil, but you can force yourself into a situation where anonymous trolls are not in your life as much,” she said.

The preliminary recommendations posted by Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly are based in part on a code developed by BlogHer, a network for women designed to give them blogging tools and to guide readers to their pages.

“Any community that does not make it clear what they are doing, why they are doing it, and who is welcome to join the conversation is at risk of finding it difficult to help guide the conversation later,” said Lisa Stone, who created the guidelines and the BlogHer network in 2006 with Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins.

A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left by visitors. They say that bloggers should also have the right to delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.

That may sound obvious, but many Internet veterans believe that blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor’s comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech. It is too early to gauge support for the proposal, but some online commentators are resisting.

Robert Scoble, a popular technology blogger who stopped blogging for a week in solidarity with Kathy Sierra after her ordeal became public, says the proposed rules “make me feel uncomfortable.” He adds, “As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran.”
Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/te...09blog.html?hp





Research Finds Opera Users are Most Satisfied
Daniel Goldman

Researchers at NetApplications found that Opera has the most satisfied users of all other browsers.

“When the browser share is factored into the best browser voting, the analysis is even more revealing. The results imply that Opera has the most satisfied user base, followed by Firefox and [Apple’s] Safari,” according to NetApplications.

“Opera is retaining its status as one of the internet’s best-kept secrets - less than one per cent of surfers worldwide use the browser.”

I don’t find this report surprising at all. I’ve been a fan of Opera for more than 6 years already, and I truly notice the superiority of Opera when I use other browsers here and there.
http://operawatch.com/news/2007/04/r...satisfied.html





Web Browser Shows Glance of 9 Favorites
Anick Jesdanun

Forget the bookmarks.

The latest version of Opera's Web browser lets visitors see mini versions of their nine favorite sites at a glance. Click on any thumbnail to load the full site.

The Speed Dial feature also lets people access the site by typing its corresponding numeral -- 1 to 9 -- in the address bar.

"Speed Dial is a fresh way to call up the top sites you enjoy throughout the day," Jon von Tetzchner, chief executive of Opera Software ASA, said in a statement. "It's a cool, new way to access those sites."

Users still have the option of typing in the entire Web address or calling up the site using a traditional bookmark.

The feature, available in the 9.2 version of the Opera browser released Wednesday, represents the Norwegian software maker's latest attempt to distinguish itself from more popular rivals like Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox.

Opera's free software is available for the Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...i-bizfront-hed


Best version yet. Speed Dial is a great idea that works. – Jack





Five Critical Reasons to Update Windows Today
John Leyden

Microsoft has released six bulletins, five covering critical vulnerabilities, as part of its latest Patch Tuesday update.

The critical list includes flaws in Universal Plug and Play, Windows CSRSS, Microsoft Agent and Microsoft Content Management Server that create a means for hackers to inject code into vulnerable systems.

The security update follows last week's patch (MS07-017) for the ANI vulnerability, which Microsoft released early amidst reports of widespread hacking attacks targeting the flaw. Redmond also pushed out a hot-fix for this top priority patch designed to resolve conflicts with other applications. There's also an "important" patch designed to address a vulnerability in Windows Kernel that might allow privilege elevation.

Security vendors said Microsoft had done the right thing in releasing patches early, despite the application glitch problems. Alan Bentley, managing director of PatchLink EMEA, said: "Microsoft is becoming more adept at dealing with vulnerabilities by releasing key ones early, even when they are only a week before. It is also an indication that Microsoft is listening to its customers and responding to them rather than sticking to its own agenda."

Both the ANI vulnerability and CSRSS patch affect Windows Vista as well as other Windows operating systems, Bentley notes.

"Organisations need to take notice that although Vista is more secure, it is certainly not immune from vulnerabilities. PatchLink recommends that organisations prioritise deploying the Vista-related patches ASAP," he said.

"Since all five critical patches are for remote code execution, which is oftentimes a vehicle for botnets and other targeted attacks, it is essential that organisations remediate these vulnerabilities quickly."

Users are advised to update systems promptly. There's more information in Microsoft's security bulletin summary here (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec.../ms07-apr.mspx) and an advisory by security clearing house US CERT here (http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA07-100A.html).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04...patch_tuesday/





Windows XP to be Phased Out by Year's End Despite Customer Demand
Angus Kidman

Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems.

By early 2008, Microsoft's contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. "The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January," said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. "At that point, they'll have no choice."

Despite Microsoft's relentless promotion of Vista, manufacturers are still seeing plenty of demand from customers for systems preloaded with XP, especially in the finicky SOHO market.

In a recent post on its Direct2Dell blog, Dell reaffirmed to concerned customers that it wasn't about to force small business users -- who typically purchase PCs piecemeal, rather than in large enterprise-style orders -- to shift to Vista, which has experienced a less-than-stellar reaction from many buyers because of driver issues and moderately beefy hardware requirements.

"Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system," the post read in part. "The plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron systems until later this [northern] summer."

"From a local perspective, the post was a reminder more than an announcement," Dell ANZ corporate communications manager Paul McKeon told APC.

"This was something we'd always planned during the transition phase since businesses will have different time frames to adopt the new OS. If you're a consumer, you're unlikely to be managing more than say 2.4 OS images at home, so it's less of an issue"

There's general agreement amongst PC resellers that Vista has provided a minor boost to PC sales, but hasn't produced blockbuster numbers. A similar story applies in the retail space. Figures from marketing consultancy GfK suggest that after an initial sales surge, around 1500 copies of Vista are now being sold through Australian retailers each week, according to a recent report in the AFR.

While Dell's post suggested it wouldn't be promoting Vista systems to the home market, manufacturers still have the option of selling XP-based systems for consumers this year.
http://apcmag.com/5835/vendors_in_no...h_xp_for_vista





FTC Official: Let's Imprison Spyware Distributors
Anne Broache

Steep fines are nice, but one of the best weapons against spyware purveyors is locking them up, a federal regulator told senators on Tuesday.

At a morning Senate Commerce Committee hearing here, Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers in the spyware arena "can only be described as vicious organized criminals."

"Many of most serious wrongdoers we observed in this area, I believe, are only going to be deterred if their freedom is withdrawn," so it's important for the FTC to collaborate on its cases with criminal law enforcement authorities, Kovacic said.

Kovacic's remarks came in response to a question from Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who was presiding over Tuesday morning's hearing, about whether the FTC is sufficiently equipped to combat the scourge of software planted surreptitiously on a user's computer.

"It's a real source of frustration for my constituents, my family, my office...basically anyone who has a computer," Pryor said.

Congress has been trying for years to pass legislation aimed at curbing spyware and adware, but most of that activity so far has occurred in the House of Representatives, as opposed to the Senate.

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz repeated his agency's call for Congress to elevate what it perceives as limited fining powers--not just in spyware cases, but in other situations within the FTC's enforcement range, such as when a person is caught using false pretenses, or pretexting, to obtain telephone records.

The purpose of Tuesday's hearing--which lasted about 90 minutes and featured appearances from only four senators on the 22-member committee--was to allow the FTC commissioners to update the Senate on their progress and to request $240 million for next year's budget--an increase of $17 million from last year. The event marked the first appearance by all five FTC commissioners before the panel since an identity theft hearing in June 2005.
http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-617...-0-5&subj=news





Federal Government Sees Modest Computer Security Gains
Brian Krebs

The federal government earned an overall grade of "C-minus" last year for securing its computer systems and networks from hackers, viruses and insider threats, a slight improvement from its performance in 2005.

According to data to be released by a House committee today, the Department of Defense led a group of eight agencies that received failing marks for computer security. Also receiving that dubious distinction were the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Interior, State and Treasury, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Department of Homeland Security earned a D, although its overall performance improved since 2005. The Department of Veterans Affairs did not provide enough data to earn a grade. In 2005, it received an F.

While the government-wide grade improved from a D-plus in 2005, nine agencies earned lower scores than they did the previous year, with some falling behind considerably. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was awarded a grade of B-minus in 2005 and dropped to a D-minus in 2006. The Department of Education was assigned a failing grade for 2006, after earning a C-minus the prior year.

Eight agencies earned grades ranging from A-minus to A-plus, with some showing strong improvement. The groups leading this year's report card were the Agency for International Development, Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Social Security Administration.

The grades were based on the agencies' internal assessments and information they are required to submit annually to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The letter grades depended on how well agencies met the requirements detailed in the Federal Information Security Management Act.

The 2003 law, known as FISMA, requires agencies to meet a wide variety of computer security standards, ranging from operational details -- such as ensuring proper password management by workers and restricting employee access to sensitive networks and documents -- to creating procedures for reporting security problems.

The scores will be handed out today by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and author of the FISMA law.

Critics of the process have called the annual FISMA reports more of a paperwork exercise than an accurate representation of the security of federal agencies' computers and networks. They say the reports do not require or give agencies credit for taking certain types of security precautions, such as penetration tests to locate gaps in security defenses.

Davis Staff Director David Marin said the congressman plans to address those criticisms by awarding extra credit points in next year's grades to any agencies that beat a White House deadline for meeting new federal computer security standards. An administration memo issued last month requires agencies to ensure that any existing or newly purchased personal computers that use Microsoft Windows XP or Vista software platforms include certain default settings designed to decrease time and money spent securing those personal computers and in repairing systems that have been compromised by hackers or viruses.

Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute, a security training group based in Bethesda, Md., has been a vocal critic of how FISMA measures security at federal agencies. But Paller said Davis's incentive program could have "a profound effect" on the level of computer security at federal agencies.

"Shifting even half the money from report writing to actual security improvements could enable the government to lead by example in cyber security and provide the critical mass of incentive to integrators and system and software vendors to bake security into every product they sell," Paller said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041201010.html





Protected Memory Stick Easily Cracked
Martin_Sturm writes

A $175 1GB USB stick designed to protect your data turns out to be a very insecure. According to the distributer of the Secustick, the safety of the data is ensured: "Due to its unique technology it has the ability to destroy itself once an incorrect password is entered."

The Secustick is used by various European governments and organizations to secure data on USB sticks. Tweakers.net shows how easy it is to break the protection of the stick. Quoting: "It should be clear that the stick's security is quite useless: a simple program can be used to fool the Secustick into sending its unlock command without knowing the password. Besides, the password.exe application can be adapted so that it accepts arbitrary passwords."

The manufacturer got the message and took th[e] Secustick website offline. The site give a message (translated from Dutch): "Dear visitor, this site is currently unavailable due to security issues of the Secustick. We are currently working on an improved version of the Secustick."
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/13/1230223





New Technology Aims to Bore Impatient Spammers
Brian Krebs

Spammers are impatient, so a Canadian company has developed new technology to capitalize on that impatience to cut the volume of unwanted e-mail messages flooding the Internet.

For spammers, volume is king; the more e-mails sent advertising penny stocks or miracle cures, the higher the odds that someone, somewhere will open the message and buy the "product." Thus, the spammers focus on sending as many unsolicited e-mail messages as possible in the shortest amount of time.

MailChannels of Vancouver, Canada, found that by forcing e-mail programs to wait a few seconds before being allowed to communicate with Internet servers handling the recipients' incoming mail, most spammers give up and move on.

Normally, when an e-mail server receives a request to accept incoming messages, it quickly agrees. But MailChannels' product, Traffic Control, changes that dynamic by meting out that digital handshake very slowly, a few bits at a time. The receiving server normally would acquiesce to the incoming request in less than two seconds, but Traffic Control's software lets e-mail administrators extend that communication gap anywhere from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes.

Based on data collected after deploying Traffic Control, MailChannels co-founder Ken Simpson said 90 percent of spammers give up trying to send their message after 10 seconds of being "on hold"; legitimate e-mail senders, however, tend to persevere and eventually get their message through.

"Even after eight minutes [of waiting], 60 percent of legitimate e-mail senders are still hanging on trying to get their message delivered." Simpson said. "This is the technique spammers are really only going to get hurt by, because if we just build a better spam filter, the spammers will respond by increasing the amount of junk mail they're blasting out. But if you throttle them, there really is nothing they can do except persist like legitimate senders, but if they do that then the economics of spamming goes out the window."

The company has secured customers in a wide range of fields since its founding in 2003. The city of Richmond in British Columbia reported halving its spam volume after deploying the company's software across its government networks. Cornell University and Northeastern University also are clients.

The service has been a boon to Frank Wiles, information technology manager for Sunflower Broadband, a cable-based Internet service provider. Wiles said his Lawrence, Kan., company is locked in a daily battle against junk e-mail, noting that spam makes up 97 percent of the average one million e-mails his company's 20,000 customers receive daily.

Without MailChannels' software, Sunflower would have had to invest at least $50,000 in new hardware to deal with the huge increase in spam over the past year, Wiles said.

Forcing e-mails to wait around for many seconds to determine their legitimacy can quickly create a backlog of messages, especially since many e-mail networks receive hundreds or thousands of messages per minute. To get around that problem, Traffic Control offers the added feature of helping e-mail servers operate more efficiently.

E-mail servers operate by addressing sequentially each message's meet-and-greet. That means that tiny pauses in the communications process on either end can quickly add up and slow the receiving mail server to a crawl. Think of it as a digital square dance where each dancer's hand hovers in the air for a brief moment before grasping onto the next partner's hand. MailChannels' software looks for those handshake gaps. It then reassigns each message in the queue to a different incoming connection until the original connection is completed.

If more and more companies deploy Traffic Control, the technology could fall victim to its own success, as some experts maintain that MailChannels' technology is effective only if it is not widely adopted. Lawrence Baldwin, chief forensics officer for myNetWatchman.com, a company investigating malicious software that often usurps PCs for nefarious uses, said spammers are constantly tweaking their networks to evade the latest anti-junk mail techniques.

"I'm of the mindset that every action we take to fight these guys just serves to make the attackers smarter," Baldwin said.

New Hampshire resident Bill Stearns, a spam researcher and volunteer for the anti-spam group SURBL.org, attended a talk by Simpson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Spam Conference last month. Stearns said he was impressed at the volume of spam that Traffic Control was able to filter out.

Stearns said even if a large number of companies begin adopting the software, the technique should remain effective in the short run.

"In one sense this is a little bit like your house being the only one with a locked door on a street full of nice homes, because the spammers are just going to start ignoring you and move on to the next target," Stearns said. "It's going to take a long time before a technique like this becomes useless."

As the recipient of the MIT conference's Best Paper prize, MailChannels was awarded a decorated can of SPAM. Simpson said he is grateful, but that he has no plans to consume his trophy: He is a lifelong vegetarian.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041000479.html





Warner’s Plea to EMI Investors
Paul Durman and Dominic Rushe

WARNER MUSIC is considering pursuing a merger with EMI by making a direct appeal to its rival’s shareholders in an attempt to undermine the opposition of EMI’s management. The EMI board last month rejected what it described as a “preconditional offer” pitched at 260p per share. Any deal between the No 3 and No 4 recorded music companies would require clearance by competition regulators.

Warner remains keen to press ahead because it believes the European Commission’s review of the Sony BMG merger provides an opportunity to reshape the global music industry, creating three strong “majors” and a vibrant independent sector.

Warner sources said the American company’s planning was given fresh urgency last week after EMI announced an initiative to scrap copyright protection on digital music. Although the move was widely praised by technology and consumer commentators, Warner is concerned that EMI could be making a grave mistake. Its management was astonished that EMI had made a decision with such potentially far-reaching consequences while it was a bid target.

Some of EMI’s shareholders were similarly shocked. Hugh Hendry, chairman of Eclectica, an investment fund, said he was “aghast that they could get away with it”. Given EMI’s uncertain future, Hendry said: “It seems like a very, very big decision in a company where shareholders such as ourselves have such a low opinion of management.”

Under Eric Nicoli, who recently took over as EMI’s chief executive after a long spell as chairman, the music group has endured years of problems, including two recent profit warnings. Nicoli made the announcement to drop digital rights management in a briefing alongside Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, the owner of iTunes, the dominant online music store.

David Pakman, boss of eMusic, another online music retailer, said EMI’s move was “terribly exciting”.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle1625913.ece





Last.FM Quietly Unveils Subscription... Guess What Else

Yesterday, I met with Martin Stiksel, one of the three founders of Last.FM, the popular interactive radio service, for a briefing on what the site is up to. Among other things, he said the site recently stealth-launched a subscription service (you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to see it).

Before I get to the details, let me pose a question... Stiksel said that Last.FM is planning 2 or 3 new features by the summer. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what they might be? (The last time I posed a question like that, I got a pretty decent answer.)

On to the tidbits. Here's a paraphrased summary of what Stiksel had to say.

- Last.FM has an ad-free subscription service that costs $3/month, and offers more interactivity, including the ability for registered users to stream their own custom radio station to anyone. He said a "full-fledged" Last.FM subscription service would be available by the summer, and that the site had recently made content deals with EMI, IODA, The Orchard, and Warner Music Group.

- The site differs from its competitor Pandora (he called it a "friendly rivalry"), because Pandora hires experts to classify music, while Last.FM tracks users' collections in order to generate associations between songs. Stiksel compared Last.FM's system to democracy, and Pandora's to aristocracy. He also said this approach makes Last.FM more scalable than Pandora, and that the inspiration for this feature came from the way the original Napster let you search for a band liked, and then browse the other songs shared by users who had that song.

- Last.FM's catalog includes currently over 10 million artists and 65 million songs (iTunes has about 3.5 million), amassed through its "scrobbling" software, which tracks what users play in iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player and adds it to their profile, in order to generate recommendations (granted, some of these are probably duplicates). A decent percentage of these are in languages other than English, according to Stiksel (Last.FM currently scrobbles in ten languages).

- Someone from Nick Cave's office complained to Last.FM that album information was available there before a Cave album was released. However, this was due to someone with one of three three copies of the album in existence having Last.FM's scrobbling software installed.

- The Copyright Royalty Board's decision to back SoundExchange's webcasting royalty rate proposal could be a boon to subscription services, because, he said, charging $5 a month would allow a company to pay the rates and stay profitable. However, he said, "by hiking up the rates so much, they're punishing people for doing the right thing," and that the higher rates would drive people to illicit services that pay no rates at all. Finally, he said, "music has to stay free to listen to, at least at the ground level."

- Last.FM is so-named because it's designed to be "the last music station you'll ever need." (The ".FM" comes from the fact that they registered in Micronesia.)

- I mentioned that native American reservations might be exempt from webcasting laws, which he found interesting (I am not implying that Last.FM will pursue this strategy... just thought I'd point out that Stiksel is now at least aware of the potential option).

- Last.FM has asked EMI and Warner Music Group for a mash-up license that would allow its users to create "1,000 Grey Albums." About online music creation and collaboration, Stiksel said, "I believe this will be the next major development in music" (stay tuned for more in this topic).

- Bands or labels can designate some of their uploaded tracks as available for free as an MP3 download. Last.FM says "thanks" by promoting those tracks within the system. There are currently over 120,000 free MP3s available for download on the site, and users have ten free recommended MP3s show up on their Last.FM dashboard each week.

- There's more of an emphasis on live music. Bands and labels can upload live shows to Last.FM. In addition, a new Events section can match you up with shows in your area based on the music you like. He said this feature will be much more useful than TimeOut, which requires too much drilling down.

- Apple's and EMI's decision to sell unprotected music is "a move in the right direction," but the associated price hike (to $1.29 a track) is "a bit cheeky."

- Last.FM is looking at its portable hardware options, but has nothing to announce about that now.
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/04/..._subscrip.html





Google Settles Suit by French News Agency

The Web search engine was accused of copyright infringement for posting AFP material without permission.

Global news agency Agence France-Presse has settled its lawsuit against Google Inc. and will allow the Internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP journalists.

The deal, announced Friday, settles the copyright infringement lawsuit that Paris-based AFP filed in March 2005 accusing Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

Financial details of the settlement weren't disclosed.

The deal will allow Mountain View, Calif.-based Google to use headlines and photos on Google News and other services that drive online traffic to sites displaying AFP news.

The companies declined to disclose where else AFP's news would be used by Google.

Google settled a separate dispute with the Associated Press last August. At that time the two companies disclosed a new business relationship under which Google would pay the New York-based wire service for news and photos, but financial details of that arrangement weren't disclosed.

Eric Scherer, AFP's director for strategic planning and partnerships, said the French news agency was pleased because "the work of our journalists and photographers will be recognized in a normal way."

"With the other major Internet players like AOL, Yahoo or MSN, we have been licensing our content to them for years and years," he said.

Scherer said Google would make use of AFP news in novel ways, but he declined to provide details.

Google said in a statement that the deal would "enable the use of AFP's newswire content in innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users experience newswire content on the Internet."

The company is still fighting copyright suits on other fronts. Copiepresse, a group representing French- and German-language newspapers, has sued Google for copyright infringement for including links to newspapers.

In February a Brussels court ruled that Google violated the newspapers' copyrights and ordered the company to remove the links. Google is appealing that decision.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...lines-business





Google Tests Directory Assistance for Phones
Eric Auchard

Computer Web search leader Google Inc. on Friday stepped up an experiment to use speech recognition on telephones so consumers can ask for local information, in a challenge to directory assistance providers.

The company is inviting U.S. callers to dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone to test a voice-activated service free-of-charge that it calls Google Voice Local Search, which is available on its experimental Google Labs site.

"Using this service, you get fast access to the same local information you'd find on Google Maps," an explanation of the new experiment said on the Google Labs site. "You don't need a computer, you don't need an Internet connection, and you don't even need to use your cellphone keypad," it said.

Details are available at http://labs.google.com/goog411/.

Google's experiment comes weeks after Microsoft Corp. agreed to acquire voice search firm Tellme Networks, in a deal sources said is valued at more than $800 million. The transaction is Microsoft's largest acquisition in five years.

Improving quality and falling costs of voice search technology are enticing Internet players Google, Microsoft, and rival Yahoo Inc. to expand beyond pay-per-click Web search advertising business into pay-per-call marketing.

Kelsey Group analysts estimate the U.S. directory assistance market generates $9.4 billion a year. Worldwide, the market rings up $13 billion, according to data published by Opus Research.

Google has staged on-and-off again tests stretching back to 2002 of ways to allow phone users to use their voices to ask for information, rather than telephone keypads or other more cumbersome approaches. The prior test remains up on the Web at: http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html/

Matt Booth, an analyst with Kelsey Group in Pasadena, said Google's potential entry into the directory assistance market could transform the economics of the business, where callers to conventional "411" services can expect to pay $1 or more.

Booth said it costs such services at least 16 cents per call to pay human operators to answer such calls.

By hooking the automated service into advertising-supported local business information, Google could be able to slash the costs of providing directory assistance to around 2 cents per call, while generating around 10 cents for each business referral, Booth said, citing estimates by investment bank Thomas Weisel.

"This would allow Google to put its Internet ad business onto mobile phones," Booth said. "It's voice in and data out," he said, contrasting the voice search service to how users type keywords into a browser using classic Google search services.

Start-ups that offer free directory assistance include 1-800-FREE411, a service Jingle Networks Inc.

In a blog post, Booth said Google is running advertising tests on Jingle Networks (800-Free411) in two local markets.

Google Voice Local Search can be used from either mobile phones or land lines. Mobile phone callers can request listing details to be sent as a text message to their phones.

Callers dial the Google number and can ask for a pizza parlor, dry cleaner other business by name, Google said. The service runs on computers and uses no human operators.

"Eventually, I think you will be able to call up and do a voice search and have general Google results come back," said in a phone interview.

Google said it is seeking to fine-tune the computerized system to improve how the service recognizes users' requests. Voice Local Search is available in English, in the United States, and offers only U.S. local business listings for now.

The Mountain View, California-based company cautioned that Google Voice Local Search remains an experiment: "It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users."

Google doesn't charge users for the toll-free call or for connecting the caller to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, depending on the user's telephone service provider.

Story





Webcams Help Families Stay Connected to Loved Ones
Heather Barr

In the past six months, Jeff Heyel and his son, Ryan, 11, have assembled a model train town they call "Bedford, U.S.A."

It has mountains and trees, and a main street with buildings and little people.

Heyel showed his son how to build the train layout, which is about 10 feet in width by 12 feet in length, as well as how to electrically wire all the components, design the structure and detail the scenery.

They created the little town together, even though they are not in the same town themselves.

Heyel is in Danbury, while Ryan lives with his mother, Kelly, Heyel's ex-wife, in Springfield, Ill.

Heyel, a local attorney, and his son visit each other on some holidays and in the summer.

But through the eyes of inexpensive Web cameras, or Webcams, on their computers, they can see and talk to each other whenever they want.

"I like designing the railroad and placing the buildings, tracks and roads," Ryan said.

He points out details for his dad's advice, to make sure the set looks realistic. They are trying to make the scene look like a New England mill town in the 1970s.

"It is surreal, almost," Heyel said of the experience. "Sometimes I forget we are 1,000 miles apart. I'm in his living room and he is in mine. I can't express in words how important that connection is."

Heyel got the Webcam in August 2006.

Webcams have been growing in popularity as a way for people to stay in touch. Some states even order virtual visitation rights for divorced parents and children.

Some people use Webcams to talk with loved ones in the military. College kids far away from their families have them in their dorm rooms, and people in other countries waiting for their visas stay in touch with relatives already in America with Webcams.

Grandparents use them to stay in touch with their children or grandchildren in other states.

Ryan said his best friend at school has a Webcam, but like Ryan, he uses it only with parental supervision.

Webcams range in price from $30 to more than $100. Salesman Paul Wang at PC Warehouse on White Street said he sells 10 to 15 Webcams a week.

"Sometimes they will get them for their family in a different country. Brazilians, Spanish, a lot of people in the area," said Wang.

"We sell A4 Technology," said Wang of a popular Webcam priced at $35. One doesn't need to spend a lot of money to get a decent Webcam, he added.

And the great thing about a Webcam is that it "is not hard to set up," because all you have to do is install the hardware and connect the Webcam. To operate a Webcam, one needs high-speed Internet capability, with a cable modem and a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection.

Kathy De Santi of Brookfield has shared Christmas and his recent 25th birthday with her son, Specialist Rickey Olivier, a Connecticut National Guardsman stationed with Alpha Company 1-102nd Infantry Battalion in Afghanistan.

Being able to stay in contact with him has been a godsend, she said. "I couldn't have lived without that Webcam."

They talked a few times a week. Even though the Webcam had delays and sometimes the picture was still, "at least I knew he was safe every time I saw him," said De Santi.

She also liked that he could see things at home, like their Christmas tree -- "it brings a piece of home to him. I think everybody in the service should have one and have one back home. It makes the time (away) more easy to handle."

Heyel has been able to share everyday events with his son, too. The two play chess and strategy games online together.

"I can beat him!" Ryan said.

Heyel also can help his son with homework using the Webcam.

On Halloween, Ryan, a fifth-grader, showed his dad his Halloween costume before going out. Ryan dressed up as someone in his father's profession -- a lawyer, complete with a briefcase he borrowed from his dad.

"To be able to participate with him in something as simple as that, it literally changes lives," Heyel said.

When Heyel graduated with his master's degree from Pace University in White Plains, N.Y., his son got to participate because the university used Webcams.

"He may as well have been three feet from me," said Heyel. "It was really cool. Even more important than earning my degree was being able to share that moment with my son. Otherwise, families apart can't share these events."

To Heyel, while the technology is years away from the 1940s, a Webcam gives the same feeling as when families gathered around the radio together to listen to news and music.

"It is so intimate," he said.

Making sure he stays close to his son is important to him, and being able to see and interact with him this way helps builds their relationship.

"There is no rule book for parenting," said Heyel, but with "more communication and more access (to one another), only good things can come. It is a positive thing."

Jeff Heyel's parents got a Webcam about a year ago that they plan to continue using when they retire next year and move to North Carolina.

At Christmas, Heyel and Ryan give Heyel's brother and wife, Jeremy and Kris, of Danbury and kindergarten-age daughter, Kelsey, a Webcam. The couple are expecting their second child soon, and the Webcam will help them share the new baby with relatives and friends.

"As the country is growing farther apart and people go in different directions," Heyel said, "technology is bringing people closer."

Ryan said he wishes he had $1 million to buy everyone in the world a Webcam so they could experience all the great things he has with his.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1043551





The Internet Study: More Detail
Press Release

What do users do on the Internet?

We asked each of our 4000 respondents to select among a list of 17 common internet activities and tell us which they did or did not do. This is what we found:
E-mail is by far the most common Internet activity, with 90% of all Internet users claiming to be e-mailers. (Note: the corresponding table has been updated from the previous version of the press release)

For the most part, the Internet today is a giant public library with a decidedly commercial tilt. The most widespread use of the internet today is as an information search utility for products, travel, hobbies, and general information. Virtually all users interviewed responded that they engaged in one or more of these information gathering activities.

A little over a third of all Internet users report using the web to engage in entertainment such as computer games (such as online chess, role games, and the like). Thus, the current Internet is also emerging as an entertainment utility.

Chat rooms are for the young and the anonymous. While a quarter of internet users claim to have used chat rooms, this activity substantially decreases after age 25. And the chatters report that the overwhelming portion of their chat room interaction is with anonymous others whose identities remain unknown.

Consumer to Business transactional activity-- purchasing, stock trading, online auctions, and e-banking--are engaged in by much smaller fractions of Internet users, with only a quarter reporting they make purchases online and under fifteen percent doing any of the other transactional activities. Despite all of the sound and fury, business to consumer commercial online transactions are but in their earliest stages.

How many different activities do Internet users engage in?
Building from the data in chart B, we find that the average Internet user reports engaging in 7.2 different types of activities. While there is probably some double accounting due to our attempt to be comprehensive in our list activities, the average user is engaging in at least 5 distinct types of activities on the Web: a combination of different types of information searches, entertainment and games, and for one quarter, some commercial transactional activity.

Length of use correlates with amount of use.
The Internet has been around for about five years now, and the longer people have been web users the more hours and the more activities they report engaging in. While self-selection may be playing a role with early adopters, the data in Chart, along with the generational data presented here and in the press release, strongly suggest a model of social change with not only a growing number of Internet users, but with web users doing more and more things on the internet in the future.

Myth and Reality of the 'Digital Divide':
There are some demographic differences in Internet access.

21 percent of differences in Internet access can be explained by demographic factors. By far the most important factors facilitating or inhibiting Internet access are education and age, and not income - nor race/ethnicity or gender, each of which account for less than 5 percent change in rates of access and are statistically insignificant. By contrast, a college education boosts rates of Internet access by well over 40 percentage points compared to the least educated group, while people over 65 show a more than 40 percentage point drop in their rates of Internet access compared to those under 25. Age really reflects generational differences, and thus shows what to expect in the future.

There are few demographic differences in Internet use.

Only 6 percent of differences in Internet use can be explained by demographic factors: Thus, once people are connected to the Net they hardly differ in how much they use it and what they use it for - except for a drop-off after age 65, and a faint hint of a gender gap. Demographic differences in Internet use involve at most an hour and a half a week, mainly reflecting people's time budgets and work status; and they involve hardly more than half an additional Internet activity, in the latter case reflecting levels of education. Instead - and above all - Internet use increases dramatically, both in terms of amount of time and in terms of range of activities, the longer people have been connected to the Internet, and this fact will make for steady growth in the future.

>

The more time people spend using the Internet …
... the more they lose contact with their social environment.

This effect is noticeable even with just 2-5 Internet hours/week, and it rises substantially for those spending more that 10 hours/week, of whom up to 15 percent report a decrease in social activities. Even more striking is the fact that Internet users spend much less time of talking on the phone to friends and family: the percentage reporting a decrease exceeds 25 percent - although it is unclear to what extent this represents a shift to e-mail even in communicating with friends and family, or a technical bottleneck due to a single phone line being preempted by Internet use.
... the more they turn their back on the traditional media.

This effect increases proportionally with hours of Internet use: for every additional hour on the Net, people report further decreases in time spent with traditional media, reaching 65 percent for those spending more than 10 hours a week on the Net. Clearly the media are competing with the Internet for time, especially in the case of television where even with as little as two hours/week on the Net, a quarter of Internet users report decreases in TV viewing - you can't surf the web and watch TV at the same time. For newspapers, the same effect is less dramatic and may also reflect the fact that people could substitute reading the news on the web for reading the paper.

... the more time they spend working at home - and at the office.

Even with less than 5 hours/week of Internet use, about 15 percent of full-time or part-time workers report an increase in time spent working at home. And as their amount of Internet use rises above 5 hours/week, a growing number - up to an additional 12 percent - even report spending more time working at the office, as well as at home. For heavy Internet users with regular jobs, a substantial portion of their total Internet use is likely to take place at the office to begin with - and it seems to be keeping them there for longer hours, in addition to invading their home. There are at present no indications suggesting the beginnings of telecommuting.

... the less time they spend shopping in stores and commuting in traffic.

This effect grows with the number of Internet hours/week, and as might be expected, stands out particularly clearly for people who use the web for researching product information or for actually making purchases online, thus saving trips to the store. But it does not affect time spent commuting in traffic, which decreases with the number of Internet hours for the non-working population only, whether or not they shop on the web - working Internet users drive to work just as much as before.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/...ss_detail.html





"Grindhouse" Suffers Box Office Horror

Bad-boy directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez fell victims to a box office bloodbath on Sunday as their ambitious double feature ``Grindhouse'' bombed during its first weekend of release.

The three-and-a-quarter hour film -- actually a package of two movies honoring the low-budget horror movies of the 1970s -- opened at No. 4 with three-day ticket sales of just $11.6 million, distributor Dimension Films said. Box office forecasters had expected it to hit the $20 million level.

``Are we disappointed about the gross?'' studio co-chairman Harvey Weinstein told Reuters. ``I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't. I am disappointed.''

The $53 million project consists of Rodriguez' zombie thriller ``Planet Terror'' and Tarantino's slasher picture ``Death Proof,'' complemented by ersatz trailers and scratchy prints that give a period feel to the undertaking.

Critics raved but moviegoers were evidently underwhelmed, opting to give the Will Ferrell ice-skating comedy ``Blades of Glory'' a second weekend at the top with sales of $23 million.

Weinstein said the public is always demanding new moviegoing experiences, ``and then it takes a while to educate them.''

``NOBLE ATTEMPT''

``What Robert and Quentin did was a very noble attempt to re-educate American cinema-goers as to what's good and what was great about seeing those old double bills,'' Weinstein said. ''They tried and the story's not written in one week when you do something this bold.''

The movies will be released individually overseas, beginning May 31, and Weinstein said ``it's certainly something we could consider'' for North American moviegoers, although there are no current plans for such a reissue.

Dimension is a unit of the Weinstein Co., which Harvey and brother Bob launched in 2005 after they left Miramax Films. The studio has struggled to find its footing at the box office. but the Weinsteins said ``Grindhouse'' would be a financial success after foreign and DVD sales are included.

``Grindhouse'' was one of four new entries vying for the attention of moviegoers over the Easter holiday.

The best of the bunch was the family comedy ``Are We Done Yet?'' at No. 3 with $15 million. The film, starring pioneering rapper Ice Cube, has earned $19.1 million since opening on Wednesday to get an early start on the holiday.

The Hilary Swank horror movie ``The Reaping'' opened at No. 5 with $10.1 million for the three days and $12 million since opening on Thursday. Another family comedy, ``Firehouse Dog,'' failed to ignite, coming in at No. 10 with $4 million, and $5.3 million since Wednesday.

``Blades of Glory'' has earned $68.4 million after 10 days. It was released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. The animated ``Meet the Robinsons'' held steady at No. 2 with $17 million, also in its second weekend. The Walt Disney Co. release has earned $52.2 million.

``Are We Done Yet?'' was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. ``The Reaping'' was released by Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of Time Warner Inc. ``Firehouse Dog'' was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/compa...29787420070408





Films From the Weinsteins Falter, but the Brothers Stay Focused
Michael Cieply

As last weekend’s box-office take for the heavily promoted “Grindhouse” tumbled in at just $11.6 million, a chilly realization came with the numbers: Not all is well with the Weinstein Company.

Indeed, the namesake entertainment boutique founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein as they acrimoniously left Miramax and the Walt Disney Company two years ago has seen its highly visible movie operation suffer humiliations that might have sunk a less tenacious start-up.

Marquee filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, with “Grindhouse,” and Anthony Minghella, with “Breaking and Entering,” have tanked. Michael Moore has yet to unveil “Fahrenheit 9/11.5” and “Sicko,” a pair of films that were supposed to yield tens of millions of dollars in profit by now.

Meanwhile, “Factory Girl” and “Shut Up and Sing” had plenty of media sizzle as last year’s awards season got going, but they missed the Oscars and sold barely $3 million in tickets between them.

“It could be better, obviously,” said Bob Weinstein, speaking by telephone from New York. “Our drive and ambition are to be better than perhaps we’ve been.”

Yet Mr. Weinstein was also markedly buoyant, insisting that the ministudio had not so much failed in its aims as succeeded in ways not widely understood. If “Grindhouse” had people asking “ ‘Wow, what’s going on with the Weinstein Company?’ ” he said, “I’ll use the opportunity to say, ‘Wow, the kids are all right.’ ”

More to the point, Mr. Weinstein described a strategic shift that, only shortly after its birth, began transforming the Weinstein Company. Instead of acting as a minor league film producer and distributor, exposed to market risk and filmmaker whims, the brothers are trying to create a somewhat less minor media conglomerate, one that may be equipped to survive the vicissitudes of show business.

The underlying logic has been somewhat obscured by a blizzard of announcements connecting the fledgling company to deals with partners as far-flung as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Cablevision, Blockbuster, the aSmallWorld Web site, the Ovation cable channel and the Halston couture house, in which the Weinstein Company acquired a stake in March.

At least one of the Weinstein Company’s private investors — which include Goldman Sachs, the French television broadcaster TF1 and the advertising company WPP Group — expressed wariness at that flurry.

“My only concern is that they may be taking on too many challenges outside their core business,” said that investor, Mark Cuban, whose other interests include the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and the HDNet high-definition television network, in an e-mail exchange this week. He added: “That said, I have confidence in them.”

Asked if he was comfortable at this point with WPP’s investment in Weinstein, Martin Sorrell, the company’s chief executive, said: “Very much so. It’s the early days.”

Mr. Weinstein said that his company’s most significant step had been its acquisition last summer of a 70 percent stake in Genius Products, a Santa Monica, Calif., video distributor.

Genius, said Mr. Weinstein, distributes the company’s movies at half the 10 percent fee he would pay a major studio for the service. (In fact, the Weinstein Company paid no cash for the distributor, but received the stake in return for rights to its products, according to a person involved with the transaction.)

Genius has grown rapidly in the last year — and has predicted as much as $800 million in revenue this year — as producers like ESPN and Robert Halmi Inc. signed on, in part because high-profile Weinstein films had opened the doors to major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. The operation provides the kind of stable income that larger film companies get from their film libraries, while providing a pipeline for the release of older films that have been acquired by the Weinsteins. In a further twist, the Weinsteins have quietly been building a direct-to-video business that is intended over the next several years to produce dozens of films that may not be distinguished. (Mr. Weinstein, who fostered the “Hellraiser” series while still with Miramax, talks of keeping a Romanian-based crew in permanent production.)

Such films, with an expected profit of $1 million or $2 million each on minuscule budgets, would provide regular income.

“We want to be very much like the bigger companies, in a humble boutique way,” Mr. Weinstein said. He called the direct-to-video gambit, helped by a deal under which Blockbuster contributes a substantial share of production costs for exclusive rental rights to the films, “a sneaky little business.”

That emphasis on the small was not widely expected when the Weinsteins parted with Disney in March 2005, in a highly public rift over spending at their Miramax unit, which Disney had acquired in 1993. Under an unusual arrangement, the brothers remained at Miramax for six months while building their own company, which amassed $1.2 billion in financing from various sources, including $490 million from its equity investors.

Mr. Weinstein said his company has sufficient financing and does not expect to recapitalize itself soon, despite widespread talk in the film industry that new money would be needed to maintain a release schedule that is still reckoned at 15 to 20 theatrical films a year.

He also pointed to bright spots in the box-office record, which, by his tally, added up to $311 million in ticket sales last year. “Scary Movie 4,” split with Disney, took in nearly $180 million in worldwide ticket sales last year. And “Hoodwinked,” he noted, cost the company less than $10 million, and far exceeded expectations when it took in $100 million at the global box office, showing a path toward success in animation, where the brothers had never been a presence.

But for all that, the theatrical film business remains the public face of the company, and that has been plagued by hitches aplenty.

Mr. Weinstein acknowledged, for instance, having delayed production on “Opus: The Last Christmas,” an animated film that has long been in the works.

Another such kink occurred when the director Kevin Smith, the director of films like “Clerks” and one of the Weinsteins’ showcase talent relationships, first delayed, then dropped out of the coming “Fletch Won” in a dispute over casting. It became another Weinstein Company film to falter on the way to the screen.

The film, set for release this year, was taken over by Bill Lawrence, the writer and producer of the “Scrubs” television series.

Mr. Smith, whose “Clerks II” became one of the Weinstein success stories when it took in about $24 million at the domestic box office last year, said he expected to work with the brothers on a pair of coming films.

“It really feels like the long, sharp knives are coming out,” Mr. Smith said, speaking on Wednesday of the shock that accompanied the failure of “Grindhouse.” “Everybody’s entitled to an off year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/movies/12movie.html





Porn Could be the Key to Next-Generation DVD War
Michael Kahn

In the battle over next generation DVDs, pornography could prove to be the XXX factor that helps determine a winner.

Thirty years ago, VHS toppled Betamax in part because of the adult film industry, and now some see blue movies playing a key role again as backers of HD-DVD and Blu-ray maneuver to make their formats the standard.

The stakes are high. As prices of high-definition televisions and DVD players fall, backers of the rival -- and incompatible -- formats are looking to tap a home and rental DVD market approaching $25 billion.

Yet so far, neither next-generation format has been able to land a knock-out blow.

James McQuivey, a principal analyst at technology research firm Forrester, said in the VHS-versus-Betamax war, porn provided a significant boost for the winning format.

He also noted the adult entertainment industry has often paved the way with new uses of technology -- such as streaming video on the Internet -- and said porn could help tip the scales in the current DVD format battle.

"If the porn industry wanted to break the logjam of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it could," McQuivey said. "If they said 'We are going to go with HD-DVD' you would see a few million homes immediately go out and buy HD-DVD players. They have that power."

It is a potential weapon that one side, at least, has ignored. Instead, Blu-ray backer Sony Corp.(6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) blocked manufacturers from producing porn DVDs in that format -- a move that some say has pushed adult film studios into the camp of HD-DVD camp led by Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research)

Steven Hirsch, founder of Vivid Entertainment Group, said Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) also refuses to use DVD makers -- known as replicators -- that press porn titles.

This makes finding a Blu-ray replicator willing to alienate Sony and Disney almost impossible for porn studios because the format requires costly new equipment and there are only a handful of replicators able to make such DVDs.

That isn't a problem for HD-DVD because that technology is based on previous-generation standards, which makes it far simpler and cheaper for companies to hire replicators to press their DVDs.

Hirsch said that Vivid -- home to adult film stars such as Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick and Briana Banks -- found a willing manufacturer to press "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again," which the company plans to issue in April.

But the cost and difficulty of doing so for the sequel to the 1978 adult film classic "Debbie Does Dallas" clouds whether more adult films in Blu-ray will follow, said Hirsch, who declined to provide details on who is pressing the movie.

"We have been able to find a replication facility to do our title but it wasn't easy and it has deterred us for the most part from releasing titles on Blu-ray," Hirsch said. "That can be potentially problematic for Blu-ray."

Studios like Vivid say they have been shooting films in high-definition for years to build up a library, but so far the number of titles is only a trickle as the industry weighs the advantages of each format.

HD-DVD machines are cheaper but Blu-ray has backing of a majority of the mainstream studios and an advantage in that the format is compatible with the PlayStation 3, the latest version of Sony's popular series of video game consoles.

The founder of adult studio Digital Playground -- whose films include "Island Fever 3" and "Pirates" -- believes Blu-ray backers are erring in not embracing porn as they fight over billions of dollars in royalties.

"The reason they should want to work with us is that they are in a war with HD-DVD and in a war you would want as many people in your corner," said Joone, the Digital Playground founder who goes by one name.

Joone said in an ideal world Digital Playground would offer films in both formats. Instead, he sees Sony and other Blu-ray backers pushing the adult entertainment industry toward HD-DVD, whose supporters he said have welcomed porn producers.

"In general we need to have one format because it cuts down the confusion in the marketplace for the consumer," Joone said. "HD-DVD has helped us tremendously to get titles out."
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...o_on_ reuters





Joost Scores First Deal with Major Broadcaster, CBS
Ken Fisher

CBS has been something of a leader in embracing new distribution models for content, turning to embrace webcasting back when few major players were interested. Now CBS is at it again, this time hooking up with Joost, the P2P "Internet TV" platform spearheaded by the Skype guys.

CBS is the first national broadcaster to ink a deal with Joost, but it isn't an exclusive deal. CBS will be distributing content on a number of web portals as well, including AOL and MSN. The company also hopes to strike a deal deal with the new News Corp/NBC joint venture. As you would expect, CBS will be licensing shows that have already aired on television. Early titles will include the original CSI, NCIS, and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Rather than try to control each distribution point, CBS is willing to license its content to "secure" partners like Joost in exchange for a favorable cut of the ad revenue. The WSJ cites "people familiar with the matter" who put CBS' asking price at about 90 percent of ad revenues, but it is not yet clear what CBS actually scored. Still, this is the general lay of the land for these deals, and it's quite aggressive. In fact, CBS and others must expect significant revenues from this approach to distribution, because 10 percent doesn't leave much for its partners unless they're splitting a really big pie. Of course, these broadcasters wouldn't be running to the web were they not chasing the advertising revenues that area already headed in that direction.

CBS was not party to the creation of News Corp. and NBC's so-called YouTube killer, which CBS executives have painted as perhaps an overzealous move. From watching CBS operate, it's clear that they intend to focus on their core business and license content whenever possible. The Journal claims that there are fears inside CBS that the News Corp./NBC joint venture won't work out.

The news is yet another boost for Joost, who had recently worked a deal with Viacom to secure content from smaller networks like MTV, BET, and Comedy Central. That deal will also see full-length movies from Paramount on Joost, too.

Joost itself is still in beta, available on both the Mac and the PC. In our testing, the application has performed well, and the selection of content seems to be getting better each day. The video quality is a bit of a downer, however, as it is something less than standard TV quality. However, you can't complain about the cost, as there is none: Joost is advertising-supported.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-with-cbs.html





Nielsen to Get Off Sofa, Into Bars and Gyms
Louise Story

Who watches more television — the business traveler or the sports fan?

The Nielsen Company, the longtime arbiter of television viewing, may soon suggest an answer.

Beginning in September, Nielsen will release national ratings for television viewing outside the home in places like bars, hotels, gyms and offices, the company announced today. For decades, Nielsen has rated television viewing based only on what viewers in its panel watch while they are home. The moment those viewers traveled or went to the gym, however, any television they watched was not recorded.

For some types of television programs, the new ratings may provide a significant boost. Sports fans, for example, often watch games in restaurants or bars, and business people often watch the news in airports, their offices or at hotels.

Television networks like ESPN, CBS and CNN have complained for years that out-of-home viewing was not counted because they are generally paid by advertisers only for the viewers counted by Nielsen. The move by Nielsen is a step in the rating company’s larger plan to measure television viewing everywhere it occurs, whether on televisions, computers and mobile devices.

“Nielsen has a mandate to follow the video wherever it goes,” said Sara Erichson, executive vice president for client services at Nielsen Media Research North American, a unit of the Nielsen Company. “A lot of where video is going is outside the home.”

The ratings will be calculated using cellphone tracking devices that recognize programs by sounds. The cellphone will be provided free to 4,700 participants, who will be paid a small fee each month. The participants pay their own cellphone bills. Integrated Media Measurement has recruited 3,000 people who are in six cities — New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Denver and Houston — and Nielsen will recruit 1,700 others, aiming for them to be demographically representative.

Nielsen will sell the national ratings as an additional product to television networks and advertising agencies and deliver regular reports. Ratings will also be available for the six cities with the majority of the cellphone participants. Nielsen will share income from the out-of-home ratings with Integrated Media Measurement, a company based in San Mateo, Calif., that developed the phone technology. Eventually, Nielsen plans to integrate the out-of-home ratings with its standard at-home ratings.Network executives said the new ratings are an important step in following television consumption wherever it occurs. As much as 20 percent to 30 percent of people watching major sports events may view them away from their houses, said David Poltrack, the chief research officer of CBS Corporation.

CBS, Fox, NBC and other television networks have already been buying data from Integrated Media Measurement as they tried to track the viewership of their programs and their commercials. The company helps networks and movie studios determine whether their commercials or radio ads drive viewers to watch their shows or movies, said Tom Zito, the company’s chairman and chief executive.

Mr. Zito’s company will continue to offer its custom services to advertisers separate from its deal with Nielsen.

Television networks have tried to measure television viewing outside of the home on their own, and some networks have presented their findings to advertisers, hoping to persuade them to pay for those viewers.

But Nielsen will be the first neutral source that produces the ratings nationally on a regular basis, and advertisers might be more inclined to pay for out-of-home viewing when they can compare that viewing across all television programs.

“This is the first time there will be broad-based measuring of out-of-home viewing,” said Taddy Hall, chief strategy officer at the Advertising Research Foundation, a nonprofit group in New York that studies advertising. “Think of it as a streetlamp on a dark street. This just expands the area on which there’s some lighting.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/bu...elsen.web.html





New WiMAX Broadband Technology a Boon for Labels
Antony Bruno

If you've never heard the term "WiMAX" before, don't sweat it. You're probably not alone.

But in the hyper-wonk, tech-speak jargon of the wireless industry, WiMAX is the latest thing making its way through the byzantine maze of acronyms and buzzwords used to remind the rest of the world (with all apologies to Chevy Chase), "We're wireless, and you're not."

But WiMAX sometime soon is likely to be one of those terms that the music industry, and others in the content world, will need to know all too well as wireless technologies become an increasingly important distribution channel.

Simply put, WiMAX (also known as 4G, or "fourth generation") is a wireless Internet broadband technology similar to Wi-Fi, but with a much greater range. While Wi-Fi access points have a range of about 100 feet, WiMAX base stations can cover an area roughly the same as existing cellular networks, making it relatively easy to blanket an entire metropolitan area with just one provider.

However, unlike Wi-Fi, WiMAX networks require dedicated, licensed wireless spectrum to use -- in the expensive 2.5GHz band. Many operators are willing to pay for this spectrum as it is available now, while the international standard bodies are dragging their feet in offering more high-bandwidth wireless spectrum.

So what does all this mean to the music industry? This bastard cousin of Wi-Fi and wireless networks has the potential to solve several problems that have plagued the evolution of mobile entertainment. First, it costs much less to transmit data over a WiMAX connection than a traditional cellular network. Cheaper distribution means cheaper prices, which in turn likely means more people buying mobile music. Taken together, the result would be a greater slice of the revenue pie for wireless operators and record labels to share.

"Then we're negotiating over a much larger number, rather than the tight margins we have today," Warner Music Group senior VP of digital strategy/business development Michael Nash said at a panel discussion at the recent CTIA Wireless conference.

Second, WiMAX networks can transfer high-bandwidth content much faster and in bigger packets. That means faster download times for not only single tracks but also full albums and video content.

The wireless operator most bullish on WiMAX's potential is Sprint. The company says it will spend $1 billion this year alone, and another $2 billion next year, to build a WiMAX network in 19 cities by April 2008, covering more than 100 million people. It plans to test mobile WiMAX networks in Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area by the end of the year.

Virtually every wireless network infrastructure provider is actively producing equipment for these new services. Samsung, Nortel, Alcatel, Nokia and Motorola are all involved in deploying the technology on a global scale.

With this on the horizon, content producers are already planning to create more sophisticated fare. MobiTV, a producer of mobile video programming, in January began demonstrating high-definition-quality programming on a WiMAX demo network at the Consumer Electronics Show.

And according to MobiTV CEO Phillip Alvelda, WiMAX has the added benefit of supporting multiple delivery functions, not just mobile. So, a service provider can broadcast content over a WiMAX network, which consumers can then access on a mobile phone, home computer or eventually a set-top box at one price through one service.

"We are changing the economics of the mobile and broadband market," Alvelda says. "You'll see a tremendous reduction in cost (and) better access to your fans."

But WiMAX is no slam-dunk. Overlaying existing wireless networks with new technology is not cheap, and building a whole new network is even more costly. For wireless operators still losing sleep over how to pay off their existing third-generation (3G) networks, this is a headache many don't need.

But to be fair, WiMAX networks are much cheaper. Compared with the approximately $40 billion that Verizon is expected to pay to build its FiOS IPTV network, WiMAX seems like a steal.

Another challenge will be the process of outfitting potential customers with new devices that can access WiMAX networks. Reseeding the market with new devices takes about 18-24 months. For content providers, the plus side is that operators will be relying on more sophisticated content to drive this migration--much like entertainment services have spurred people to buying new 3G phones.

However, it's not limited to mobile phones. WiMAX enthusiasts, including several Sprint executives, see video players, digital cameras and even automobiles connecting to the WiMAX network.

For these reasons and others, Ericsson believes WiMAX revenue will account for only about 5%-10% of global broadband wireless revenue by 2010, and as such has opted to focus its efforts on traditional 3G services.

But make no mistake: WiMAX is coming, and coming soon.

"It would not be accurate to call 2007 'the year of mobile WiMAX,'" says Tammy Parker, an analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media. "But it's clear that the future of this technology in the U.S. will be built upon the foundation being created this year."
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...26234420070409





Silicon Valley Moneymen Make a Play for Airwaves
John Markoff

Some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capitalists and technology investors have joined an investment group that is preparing to challenge cellphone carriers, cable and satellite companies for valuable radio spectrum that will be freed when television broadcasters convert to digital signals.

The government mandated the transition to digital, to be completed by Feb. 19, 2009, so it could reclaim a broad swath of radio spectrum and reallocate the frequencies to public safety organizations and commercial broadband networks.

The venture capitalists L. John Doerr and James L. Barksdale have joined an investment group that is promoting a plan that would open a portion of the radio spectrum for both uses, through technologies flexible enough to support both next-generation wireless Internet devices and public safety emergency communications.

The plan is being put forth by Frontline Wireless, formed earlier this year by Reed E. Hundt, the former Federal Communications Commission chairman. Frontline Wireless is one of several potential bidders for spectrum in the 700 MHz band, used until now by UHF television, that is being opened up by the move to digital.

Mr. Hundt said that Frontline had begun building an investor group, which would ultimately include large banking partners, to participate in the auction. Significantly, the company’s first public investor was K. Ram Shriram, an early Google investor and board member and managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures.

Cellular carriers and their rivals covet the spectrum because it has significant capacity and greater range and can easily penetrate buildings and other structures.

But Frontline’s backers argue that their plan is unique because it would be more accessible than today’s commercial wireless networks, which are tightly controlled by their licensed operators. The auction, which will be governed by rules that the F.C.C. is expected to issue this month, could generate up to $30 billion in revenue for the federal government, by some estimates.

The F.C.C. has a range of options to consider, including breaking the spectrum up for regional purchases or creating a single nationwide license.

The rule-making process is being watched closely by all sides because those regulations will determine whether several ideas for exploiting the spectrum with advanced technologies will be accepted.

The Frontline proposal, for example, calls for flexible access by public safety agencies to a wide section of spectrum in the event of emergencies. That makes it significant that Vanu Bose, an entrepreneur and technologist, is investing in the consortium along with Mr. Barksdale and Mr. Doerr, who were both involved in the creation of Netscape Communications, the pioneering Web browser company.

Mr. Bose, son of the audio designer Amar G. Bose, is pursuing an advanced radio technology known as software-defined radio, which controls frequencies through software rather than hardware.

In principle, this would permit much more efficient use of radio spectrum, allowing the sharing of frequencies through a variety of techniques .

Frontline proposes to create a large spectrum block that could be sold wholesale to companies that are building services for new portable Internet devices for receiving and transmitting voice, video and data. In the event of public safety emergencies, however, the spectrum could be reclaimed for use by the police, firefighters or medical emergency workers.

Mr. Doerr, who is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, has previously invested in M2Z Networks, another technology-based proposal to build a wireless broadband network that is being promoted by Milo Medin, a well-known Silicon Valley computer network designer, a potential competitor to Frontline with a different business strategy.

Along with Mr. Barksdale, the two men were partners in @Home, the early and ultimately financially unsuccessful effort to build a nationwide Internet-based network in alliance with cable companies.

“I think we’re starved for spectrum for digital applications in this country,” said Mr. Doerr. “The idea that we can have one or more great new digital networks is very exciting.”

He noted that the United States was ranked 12th in the world last year in broadband penetration by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Mr. Hundt said that Mr. Barksdale was an important addition for the Frontline group because he had been working on public safety issues and his background was in the cellular telephone industry. After Hurricane Katrina, he was appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi to lead the governor’s commission on the recovery, rebuilding and renewal of the state.

Having Mr. Doerr and Mr. Barksdale as a part of his investment group is a bit like “a reunion of Shaq and Kobe,” said Mr. Hundt, referring to the basketball stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, who once played together for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Last week, several trade publications reported that Kevin J. Martin, the F.C.C. chairman, was preparing to include the Frontline proposal, or something similar, in setting the guidelines for the auction. If that framework is announced this month, the auction could take place as early as this fall.

In anticipation of the F.C.C. ruling, a number of companies and industry associations have filed comments with the agency. Last week, Steve Largent, president of CTIA, a trade group for the wireless industry, questioned the legality of the Frontline proposal in a letter to Mr. Martin, while Google filed a letter supporting the Frontline proposal and urging the F.C.C. to avoid further delays in the auction process.

This year the F.C.C. rejected a competing plan put forward by Morgan O’Brien, founder of Nextel Communications. Called Cyren Call, it would have set a portion of the spectrum aside for a nonprofit organization, with priority for public service organizations in emergencies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/te...9spectrum.html





Virgin Group Ties up Console Radio Deal
Stevie Smith

Opening with the truly bizarre (and, we might add, monetarily inaccurate) boast of: “We can turn your two-hundred-quid Wii, or your three-hundred-quid PlayStation 3, into a five-quid radio” the Virgin Group has this week revealed a history-making deal that will bring streamed radio direct to Nintendo and Sony’s next-generation videogame consoles.

As of yesterday, users of the Nintendo Wii (£180 GBP) and PlayStation 3 (£425 GBP) have been able to access various broadcasting Virgin Radio stations thanks to the Web browsers imbued within the hardware of each console – though notably Microsoft’s Xbox 360 misses out on the radio opportunity as it presently doesn’t offer its users a dedicated browser.

As neither of the consoles is compatible with streams provided via Windows Media or RealPlayer, they will both stream signals through Virgin Radio’s online 128Kbps player. The stations on offer will include mainstream Virgin Radio UK, the timeless sounds of Virgin Radio Classic Rock, new music temptation through Virgin Radio Xtreme, and the laidback soul of Virgin Radio Groove.

“It’s great for us to achieve another new media first and be the only UK radio station available on both of these massively popular games consoles,” enthused James Cridland, director of digital media, reports Radio Today. “People are treating the [videogame] consoles as part of their home entertainment media centre and now Virgin Radio will be part of that experience. This platform has great growth potential, particularly among early-adopters and the 25 - 44 audience popular with advertisers,” he added.

Beyond the attraction of listening to Virgin Radio through their Wii or PlayStation 3 (though it should be noted that the radio reception cannot be enjoyed while playing videogames), gamers will also be able to purchase concert tickets, CDs, and downloadable tracks through Virgin Radio’s online Ticket Store.

And what of the Xbox 360? Virgin Radio is apparently “working on a solution” that will bring the radio service to Microsoft’s next-gen monster at some point.
http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/n...ole_radio_deal





Virtual Museum Preserves New England's Musical Scene
Mark Pratt

From the power chords of Aerosmith to the jazz beats of Roy Haynes and the funky dance rhythms of the Tavares, New England has been home to a diverse and vibrant music scene for decades.

Until recently, however, there has never been a single repository for that musical history.

A few men with deep roots in the region's music scene have set up a Web site to celebrate some of the area's greatest artists. Their goal is to one day open a bricks and mortar museum.

"We want to preserve all of this rich musical history," said Harry Sandler, one of the founders of the Music Museum of New England and drummer for the 1960s band Orpheus. "We're doing it for the love of music."

Sandler, now the vice president of a speakers' booking agency who's still performing with some original members of Orpheus, has been a part of Boston's music scene for more than four decades. His first band opened for the Rolling Stones when they played the Manning Bowl in Lynn in 1966. Orpheus played with Cream, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin and The Who, among others.

He's known Steve Nelson since the '60s when Nelson was manager of the legendary Boston Tea Party concert venue.

Sandler and Nelson, along with friends Michael Fondo and Gary Sohmers - an expert on pop culture collectibles - came up with the idea for the museum.

"Whenever we'd get together for dinner, the conversation would always turn to music and this idea of a museum was always kicking around," said Nelson, now a business video producer. "After we'd talked about it so much, we thought we'd better do this."

The evolving site, online since November, has biographies of 52 artists. It also features sound and video clips, a list of some of the region's top concert halls and links that take visitors to the artists' official sites.

"We want people to hear this stuff, and see this stuff and bring it to life," Nelson said.

The only qualification for inclusion: Artists must have made a "substantial contribution" to the region's music scene. The site includes those born in New England, including Connecticut native and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Gene Pitney; those who made their name here, including New Wave pioneers The Cars; and those who made the area their home, including folk singer James Taylor.

The artist bios represent the wide spectrum of the region's music - rock, jazz, folk and more.

"We really want to be broad based, and that is a reflection of the New England music lover, who tends to be a bit more eclectic, more so than in other areas of the country," Nelson said.

There are plans to add more bios. The founders originally came up with a list of about 400 artists to include on the site.

The original foursome make selections along with an advisory board.

Fondo, an executive at Fidelity Investments, got involved in Boston's music scene while attending Boston University in the 1970s. Although not a musician - he's a self-described "accomplished air guitarist" - he's a music fan.

"This really taps into that vein of emotion and nostalgia that people have for these artists and those times," he said.

The next step for the museum is applying for grants and doing some fund raising. Fondo envisions a physical museum within three to five years that would house their own memorabilia along with loans or donations from the artists themselves.

New England's music scene has been one of the most influential in the country.

"Boston and New England have always been underestimated when compared to New York and LA and even Nashville," said Rob Rose, vice president for special programs at Berklee College of Music, who has no association with the museum but has looked at the site. "But a lot of artists from this area were pioneers in their genre."

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the finest orchestras in the nation, Rose said, adding that Aerosmith, The Cars, disco queen Donna Summer, even boy band New Kids on the Block paved the way for dozens of followers.

"People from this area helped shape the music of this country," Rose said.

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On the Net:

Music Museum of New England:

http://www.mmone.org

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-08-11-19-31