Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - October 29th, 22

[JackSpratts]

Since 2002

October 29th, 2022




The Computer Scientist Who’s Boosting Privacy on the Internet

Harry Halpin wants our internet conversations to be more private. He’s helped create a new kind of network that might make it possible.
Steve Nadis

Harry Halpin works on internet privacy for many reasons, but perhaps the most pressing stems from an incident that occurred over a decade ago. Halpin, who was pursuing a doctorate in computer science at the University of Edinburgh at the time, was also a climate activist. In December 2009, while in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, he was arrested by law enforcement authorities and, he says, beaten severely. It turned out the British police had been monitoring his protest activities, and they told their Danish counterparts that Halpin was one of the ringleaders they should apprehend. (He says his actions were always peaceful.) Privacy and secrecy have been on his mind ever since.

After earning his doctorate, Halpin spent nearly a decade in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he worked for Tim Berners-Lee, widely heralded as the inventor of the World Wide Web. As useful as the web has been, Halpin is quick to point out its shortcomings.

“The web was not built with security and privacy in mind, although people subsequently tried to address those concerns as sort of an afterthought,” Halpin said. He has done his best to fix these issues, working to introduce layers of protection where none existed before. For example, in his job for the World Wide Web Consortium, Halpin helped create uniform cryptography standards, making sure these standards were incorporated into every web browser in a form that web developers could readily use.

But Halpin soon recognized that simply stopping leaks of information at the highest level of the internet — the level of browsers, apps and other advanced functionality — was not enough. He also wanted to protect the lower, foundational level: the network through which the information is transmitted. In 2018, he started Nym Technologies to take on this problem. The idea was to create a new kind of “overlay network” that would make use of the existing internet but alter crucial components — by rerouting traffic, among other means — to make some of the communications truly anonymous.

Halpin spoke with Quanta from Nym’s headquarters in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In several conversations over Zoom, he discussed being under surveillance, how to create a more private network, and the value of privacy itself. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What first drew you to computers?

My father was a salesman for Sun Microsystems, so I was around computers as a kid. But I started to rely on them as a middle school student in the early ’90s, just after my family moved from Charleston, South Carolina, to a more remote, wooded area in North Carolina. I kept in touch with my friends over the early internet and also got involved in multiplayer games. Then I took courses in programming in 1998 as a freshman at the University of North Carolina and worked as a systems administrator in the computer science department. I stopped playing online games altogether once I started attending protests and discovered that the real world was even more interesting.

It wasn’t until several years later — after entering graduate school in Edinburgh in 2002 and studying artificial intelligence — that I became aware of the possibilities of surveillance. I was struck by the fact that very little data had to be leaked before machine learning tools could infer large amounts of information about you, although I didn’t begin research in this area until later. And by then, things were starting to get personal.

By that you mean becoming the target of a concerted surveillance program? How did that come about?

In the fall of 2007, I was introduced to Mark Kennedy, who became active in the environmental groups I was involved with. My goal was to draw attention to climate issues, which I still regard as an existential threat. In 2010, the year I got my Ph.D., I discovered that Kennedy was an undercover agent working for the British police. What’s more, he seemed determined to destroy my life. I was constantly followed and interrogated every time I crossed a border. Kennedy was in touch with the FBI, and the FBI told MIT not to hire me, but fortunately that advice was ignored. I started working for the World Wide Web Consortium in January 2011, and by then it was abundantly clear that web security and privacy could stand some improvement.

Kennedy, incidentally, was soon discredited. A New York Times article in 2013 called his actions an “embarrassment to Scotland Yard.” That was also the year of the Snowden revelations, which showed that the [National Security Agency] was eavesdropping on a sizable proportion of telephone and internet communications. That reinforced the notion that internet privacy was not just my personal problem — it was everyone’s problem.

How can privacy on the internet be enhanced?

The notion of secret communications can be approached on two levels. We can use cryptography — a methodology based on number theory — to guarantee that no one, except the intended recipient, can understand what you’re saying. But the trickier problem is this: How do I communicate with you so that no one else knows I’m communicating with you, even if our messages are encrypted? You can get a sense of what people are saying from the pattern of communication: Who are you talking with, when are your conversations, how long do they last?

A couple of years ago, I spoke about this issue at a conference with Whitfield Diffie, a well-known computer scientist who invented “public key” cryptography. I asked him why he and others had focused almost solely on the cryptography part of the problem. “Because the other problem is too hard,” he said. That helped validate my decision to devote my efforts to the “other problem,” since there clearly was a need.

There are two key elements: One is the “mixnet,” a technology invented by David Chaum in 1979 that my team has improved. It relies on the premise that you can’t be anonymous by yourself; you can only be anonymous in a crowd. You start with a message and break it into smaller units, communications packets, that you can think of as playing cards. Next, you encrypt each card and randomly send it to a “mixnode” — a computer where it will be mixed with cards from other senders. This happens three separate times and at three separate mixnodes. Then each card is delivered to the intended recipient, where all the cards from the original message are decrypted and put back into the proper order. No person who oversees mixing at a single mixnode can know both the card’s origin and its destination. In other words, no one can know who you are talking to.

That was the original mixnet, so what improvements have you made?

For one thing, we make use of the notion of entropy, a measure of randomness that was invented for this application by Claudia Diaz, a computer privacy professor at KU Leuven and Nym’s chief scientist. Each packet you receive on the Nym network has a probability attached to it that tells you, for instance, the odds that it came from any given individual. You can also calculate the average time it will take for a message to reach its destination, but you can’t know how long it will take for any single packet to get there.

Our system uses a statistical process that allows you both to measure entropy and to maximize it — the greater the entropy, the greater the anonymity. There are no other systems out there today that can let users know how private their communications are.

What’s the second key element you referred to?

Mixnets, as I said, have been around a long time. The reason they’ve never taken off has a lot to do with economics. Where do the people who are going to do the mixing come from, and how do you pay them?

We think we have an answer. And the kernel of that idea came from a conversation I had in 2017 with Adam Back, a cryptographer who developed bitcoin’s central “proof of work” algorithm. I asked him what he would do if he were to redesign bitcoin. He said it would be great if all the computer processing done to verify cryptocurrency transactions — by solving so-called Merkle puzzles that have no practical value outside of bitcoin — could instead be used to ensure privacy.

The computationally expensive part of privacy is the mixing, so it occurred to me that we could use a bitcoin-inspired system to incentivize people to do the mixing. We built our company around that idea.

First there are the people who use their own computers (running software that we design) to do the mixing. Then there are the people who monitor the system and, in a sense, bet on the mixers, literally putting money down to say that they think this particular mixnode will be successful. Success in this case means doing a good job of mixing, which relates both to not dropping packets and throughput — how many packets are going in and how many mixed packets are going out. People who vote on the best mixnodes get some of the money, but most of it goes to the people who actually run the mixnodes. Payment comes in the form of cryptocurrency, which has the advantage of decentralization. No single person or company is writing checks or wiring money. Instead, it’s all done automatically, making use of algorithms that we invented.

Moreover, the system is designed to maintain decentralization and prevent the rich from getting richer. When one mixnode becomes too popular, the people who vote for it will make less money. It’s in their interest to find new mixnodes that are not “saturated” but still offer high-quality performance. That’s how we promote decentralization.

A new paper that came out in June shows that this approach can lead to an economically sustainable mixnet. Drawing on ideas from game theory, my colleagues Claudia Diaz and Aggelos Kiayias and I showed that we can maintain Nash equilibrium (in a single,“one-shot” game), which basically means there is no incentive to cheat or game the system. We then showed, via simulations, that the system is sustainable (in an “iterative” game), even if the players are not perfectly rational and the mixing is repeated over and over again. Everyone gains by playing by the rules, whether you are doing the mixing or voting for a particular mixer who you think will do a good job.

Although we are inspired by some of the ideas behind bitcoin, our fortunes in the long term are not tied to the value of bitcoin. We are not building a currency system or trying to replace the dollar. We just want to provide privacy to ordinary people.

Another major criticism of bitcoin is that it promotes excessive electricity consumption. Does this apply to your network as well?

It’s true that privacy does not come for free. It will cost some electricity. But our energy use is a lot less than that associated with bitcoin. In fact, we use the minimum necessary to provide privacy — we don’t want any extra computation because that just slows the system down.

How far along is the Nym network?

An early test version of the network was launched in December 2019 at the Chaos Computer Congress in Germany. There were only about a dozen mixnodes at the time, but we’ve carried out larger-scale testing since then. There are currently about 500 mixnodes, but we think this approach could easily handle 10% of the world’s internet traffic, which would take about 20,000 mixnodes.

Our ultimate goal would be for everyone to use the Nym network, not just the people who have good reason to hide, like human rights activists. But we’ll start with those who really need it and hope that our bet is right — that people truly value their privacy. It’s then up to us to scale up our system so that it can accommodate everyday internet use.

Do you worry about drug dealers and other criminals taking advantage of improved internet privacy?

My philosophy is that the good of privacy outweighs the bad. Selling drugs can be bad, of course, and there are a lot of other things that we as a society don’t support. But to me, privacy is a fundamental right, a cornerstone of our freedom. I think we should do everything we can to protect it.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-c...ropy-20221018/





Is Pirating Intellectual Property a Boon or Bane?
Sasanka De Silva Pannipitiya

At a time when all seems lost and gloom is engulfing the Sri Lankans financially, politically, and sportingly, a person of Sri Lankan descent winning the Booker prize recently is something worth celebrating.

However, the euphoria was short-lived when a pirated version of the book started doing the rounds on many social media platforms.

Some readers, with limited resources, were happy to be able to get their hands on it very cheaply to quench their thirst, and some are annoyed because it amounts to stealing, according to them.

Further, it is denying the owner his rightful return for years of research and work to get the idea into book form.

Yes, it is a valid argument, but what is the alternative to meeting at the halfway point so both needs can be met?

It is no secret that while publishers are making a killing on such successes, the real owner gets a paltry sum as the writer’s royalty.

Many publishing houses present the same book in many different ways.

Electronic access, hardbound and paperback versions of the same.

Despite all of these avenues, they still fail to cater to the reading public who are not as affluent as the rest, and their only option is to read a pirated version or buy secondhand, and it will take years to hit the market, by which time the allure of it may have worn off in many minds.

Though a pirated version will not give a direct return to the publisher and the writer immediately, in the long run, it will, as the buzz created even by reading a pirated one can later turn into a direct purchase.

Looking at the big picture, I believe that all efforts should be made to stop pirated works, but if those efforts fail, no further efforts to bludgeon the pirated market should be made.
https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/...-boon-or-bane/





Lil Uzi Vert & Frank Ocean Music Hacker Sentenced To 18 Months In Prison
Tai Saint-Louis

Lil Uzi Vert, Frank Ocean and several other artists have been fully vindicated now that a U.K. man charged with pirating their music has been sentenced to prison.

After confessing to 19 charges including copyright infringement and possessing criminal property, 23-year-old Adrian Kwiatkowski has been sentenced to 18 months by a British Court. Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec also said that he may be forced to pay a fine or some level of financial restitution, the BBC reports.

Adrian Kwiatkowski was arrested by City of London Police in 2019, following an investigation that was triggered by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several artists’ managers had reported having music stolen from their clients’ cloud accounts by Kwiatkowski’s online alias, Spirdark. The artists reps also accused him of selling some of the music online.

After identifying an email address used to set up a cryptocurrency account under the username Spirdark, authorities also linked his home address in the U.K. to an IP address used to access one of the hacked cloud accounts.

A search of Kwiatkowski’s home yielded seven devices, among which was a single hard drive with 1,263 songs by 89 different artists. His Macbook also contained 565 stolen audio files.

According to Complex, in addition to Lil Uzi Vert and Frank Ocean, his victims included Ed Sheeran, Kanye West, and Post Malone.

There was also a document on the hard drive that broke down exactly how Spridark had accessed the files, along with records of bitcoin transactions. Adrian Kwiatkowski made approximately $147,000 by exchanging music — including 12 unreleased tracks by Uzi — for cryptocurrency.

“Kwiatkowski had complete disregard for the musicians’ creativity and hard work producing original songs and the subsequent loss of earnings,’’ Jakymec said. “He selfishly stole their music to make money for himself.”

When he entered his plea to the Ipswich Magistrates Court, Adrian Kwiatkowski admitted to having received the cyber payments. He pleaded guilty to three charges of unauthorized access to computer material, 14 charges of selling copyrighted material, one charge of converting criminal property and two charges of possession of criminal property.

“Cybercrime knows no borders, and this individual executed a complex scheme to steal unreleased music in order to line his own pockets,’’ stated Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr. “New York and London are cultural capitals of the world, and through our enduring partnership with the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and law enforcement organizations around the world, we have sent a clear message that we have the ability and tools to stop this type of criminal activity and protect victims.”

No word as to when Adrian Kwiotkowski will begin serving his sentence.
https://hiphopdx.com/news/id.74345/t...nced-18-months





Windows 11’s New Features Make File Sharing Easier

Users can share files with more discoverable devices nearby directly from their desktop

With an aim to enhance user experience, tech giant Microsoft has rolled out several new features, including files sharing, to help users share files and photos easily to Windows 11.

To make sharing files even more accessible, the company has enhanced the Windows Share experience so that users can share files with more discoverable devices nearby directly from their desktop, File Explorer, Photos, Snipping Tool, Xbox and other apps.

"Today, we are excited to announce the availability of new features in Windows 11 along with some exciting new experiences to help you be your most productive and creative, while also having fun," the company said in a statement.

"Announced in September, these new features and experiences begin to be available today and are a continuation of our commitment and journey to deliver continuous innovation in Windows to inspire and empower you," it added.

The taskbar is getting two highly requested enhancements. First, if you like to pin a more extensive selection of apps to your taskbar than space allows, Taskbar gives you an entry point to an overflow menu that will enable you to view all your overflowed apps in one space.

Second, when you right-click on the taskbar, in addition to Taskbar Settings, you will also see an option to jump directly into your Task Manager.

"These improvements have been made in direct response to your feedback and to give you access to what is important with a single click," the company said.

The company also announced the Memories feature, which resurfaces pictures' users have saved on OneDrive, making revisiting life's magical moments simple and effortless.

Through its partnership with Amazon, you can now access Android apps and games from the Amazon Appstore, generally available in 31 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK, the US, among others.

With more than 50,000 titles to choose from, it's easy to discover and download your favourite apps and games on your Windows device.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/sc...-easier-444048





Apple Raises Prices on Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple One

It’s joining the long list of companies hiking their prices
Mitchell Clark and Emma Roth

Apple is increasing the prices across its services, including Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and its overarching Apple One subscription, according to a report from 9to5Mac. This marks the first time the company has raised the prices of these services in the US.

Here’s a breakdown of the new pricing:

Apple Music for individuals will increase by $1 a month to $10.99, or by $10 for the annual plan, which will now cost $109 a year. Apple Music for families is going up by $2 a month to $16.99. The voice plan introduced last year, which lets you access the company’s music library via Siri, is staying the same at $4.99 a month.

Apple TV is going up by $2 a month to $6.99 or $20 annually to $69.

Apple says musicians will get more money thanks to the price hike

Apple’s One bundle, which includes TV and Music subscriptions, along with Apple Arcade and 50GB of iCloud storage, is going up by $2 a month to $16.95. The family version which bumps the iCloud storage up to 200GB, is going up by $3 a month to $22.95, as is the Premiere bundle which adds even more storage, along with access to News and Fitness Plus. That plan will now cost $32.95 a month, and is also shared with your family.

“The subscription prices for Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple One will increase beginning today,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to 9to5Mac — the new prices are already live on the company’s site. “The change to Apple Music is due to an increase in licensing costs, and in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming of their music. We also continue to add innovative features that make Apple Music the world’s best listening experience.” Apple didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

While Apple’s kept its introductory prices around for years — Apple Music launched in 2015, TV Plus in 2019 — it’s far from the only company making its services more expensive. Throughout the past year, Hulu, Disney Plus, and Netflix have all gotten significant price bumps, as has YouTube Premium’s family plan, which also includes access to the company’s music streaming service. However, Amazon and Spotify (at least in the US), have kept their music services at $9.99 a month.

If those prices don’t go up, it could be harder to choose between them. Apple Music will cost more, but includes lossless support which hasn’t materialized for Spotify. And while Amazon offers “HD” and “ultra HD” lossless music, neither it nor Apple can match the viral end-of-year sensation that is Spotify’s Wrapped feature.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/24/...price-increase





The Days of Cheap Music Streaming May be Numbered

Apple Music gets a price hike, and Spotify may be ready to debut its Platinum Plan
Ariel Shapiro

I am really bummed that we are likely going to have to wait until 2024 for the next season of House of the Dragon and also kind of ashamed that I know more about Westerosi history than I do about, like, World War I (A Wiki of Ice and Fire is a real bottomless pit). I will also miss my day-after routine of HOTD pods like Talk the Thrones and Boars, Gore, and Swords, so if anyone has some fresh pods to recommend, hmu.

Anyway, in the real world, Apple is hiking its subscription prices, Spotify is reporting earnings, and Taylor Swift is one of the last real music stars.

Apple is raising its subscription prices

Yesterday, 9to5Mac reported that Apple is increasing the prices of its plans for Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple One. It’s the first time Apple has raised its prices for these services in the US, and given market forces, the move makes perfect sense (even if it is annoying for me personally).

The video side seems pretty cut and dry. TV streamers raise their prices regularly — Netflix did so in March, Hulu saw a hike this month, and Disney Plus will get more expensive in December. Plus, Apple TV Plus is in a much stronger position than when it debuted three years ago at a measly $4.99 per month. It has since scored commercial and critical hits with Ted Lasso, Severance, and For All Mankind and even took home the Academy Award for Best Picture this year for Coda. The streamer now costs $6.99 per month.

The audio side is a little trickier. In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple cited the recent increase in licensing fees. Apple Music and its competitors will have to pay 15.35 percent of music revenue to songwriters and publishing rights holders starting next year, a 0.25 percent increase over the current rate and nearly 5 percent more than the old rate. But at $10.99, Apple’s service is now more expensive than Amazon Music, which is $8.99 per month, and Spotify, which has been stuck at $9.99 per month for more than a decade. And unlike with video streamers, you can access (mostly) the exact same music no matter which audio service you pick.

That means the audio streamers have to work harder to differentiate themselves. Apple Music and Amazon Music offer high-quality audio, whereas Spotify is exploring HiFi only for Platinum Plan subscribers, who could reportedly be charged $19.99 per month. Both Spotify and Amazon offer exclusive podcasting content, too, while Apple Music is completely separate from Apple Podcasts.

For me, the lossless audio on Apple and having access to the music library I have been building since middle school is worth the extra $1 per month. And the price difference may not last long — I would not be surprised if Apple’s decision spurs similar price increases from Spotify and Amazon. Between inflation and the licensing fees, it seems inevitable.

What to look for in Spotify’s earnings today

Spotify is posting its third-quarter earnings after market close today. Here are some of the things I’ll be keeping my eye on:

• Podcast stats (duh): Last week, a user spotted a notification from Spotify that said the streamer is now home to 5,523,475 podcasts. Spotify has not confirmed that number yet, but the company loves to tout the size of its podcast library as a sign of success (in lieu of, you know, profits). If that number turns out to be true, that would be a pretty massive jump from Spotify’s second-quarter figure of 4.4 million podcasts. Also, expect some serious celebrating of Meghan Markle’s podcast, the streamer’s most successful original talk show to date.
• Subs: Spotify’s subscriptions have consistently exceeded expectations, and there is no reason to expect that they won’t again. Wells Fargo analyst Steve Cahall said in a note that while he is curbing his estimate for free users, based on third-party data, he still expects premium subscriptions to hit 195 million (up from 188 million last quarter). Wall Street consensus is closer to 194 million, which would still represent a healthy addition of 6 million paying subscribers.
• Ad revenue: This is where the worsening economy may be most strongly felt for the company. Advertising still represents less than one-seventh of Spotify’s overall business, so a decline in ad revenue may not have a huge impact. However, this is where podcasting falls. The company wants to see podcasting contribute more in ad revenue in order to be less reliant on music (which, re the licensing fee development above, is becoming costlier).
• Platinum Plan: The Spotify survey making the rounds earlier this month points to the possibility that Spotify may finally deliver HiFi — for a price. The survey included multiple different versions (and prices) of a Platinum plan, but the one that has grabbed the most attention would go for $19.99 per month. In addition to HiFi, that plan would include limited ads on podcasts, library and playlist managing tools, and audio insights. I’ll be listening to see if it’s mentioned on the investor call at 4:30PM ET.
• Audiobooks: Okay, there will likely not be much to say about audiobooks, which debuted on the app only a month ago. But perhaps they will give a few tidbits on what to expect for the vertical.

Taylor Swift’s Midnights has biggest debut of any album in the last five years

I may be partially responsible for this, having listened to “Anti-Hero” on loop all weekend. Taylor Swift is perhaps the only artist alive who can still sell 1 million albums in a week, an achievement that was rare even before the rise of streaming. According to research firm Luminate, which provides the data for Billboard’s charts, Midnights earned 1.2 million equivalent album units in its first three days. The last time an album managed to rack up such numbers was in 2017 with Reputation by… Taylor Swift.

Hot Pod Summit and On Air LA Annex are next week

We’re looking forward to seeing a bunch of you in LA next week! Hot Pod Summit is sold out, but tickets are still available for On Air LA Annex. On Air Fest announced the event’s full lineup this week, including a live taping of Object of Sound with Hrishikesh Hirway and the world premiere of ESPN 30 for 30’s Pink Card.

That’s all for today! See you next week.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/25/...s-taylor-swift





How Does the Music Industry Work? Planet Money Started a Record Label to Find Out
Erika Beras, Sarah Gonzalez

Earlier this year, a musician named Kinny Landrum sent Planet Money an email, and he made an unusual proposal.

Back in the 1970s, Kinny explained, he was the keyboardist for an instrumental funk band called Sugar Daddy and the Gumbo Roux. This was the height of the "stagflation" era, when stagnating growth and skyrocketing prices were wreaking havoc on the American economy. The band collaborated with a singer named Earnest Jackson, who had written a song with lyrics that captured that era's zeitgeist. The song was called "Inflation."

Sugar Daddy and Gumbo Roux recorded a demo of the song in 1975 at a famous studio in New Orleans called Sea-Saint Studios. The demo, however, was never released. The band broke up. And the song disappeared. So did high inflation, after the US Federal Reserve hammered it down in the early 1980s.

Fast forward to 2021. "Inflation" is making a roaring comeback. And Kinny gets a text message from a friend, Arthur Rouse. Kinny had given Arthur a cassette copy of "Inflation" decades before. The surge in prices rekindled Arthur's memories of the song — and, it turned out, he still had the copy. All of a sudden this dusty recording had resonance again.

That's when Kinny reached out to Planet Money, and requested we do something with the song. Of course, Planet Money is not in the business of publishing records or promoting musicians. We make podcasts. But we began to investigate the story behind the song and brainstorm what we could do with it.

Many of the members of Sugar Daddy and the Gumbo Roux went on to have solid careers in the music industry, playing in successful bands, writing jingles, and scoring movies. The most famous member, Randy Jackson, went on to be a music executive and co-host of American Idol. But, sadly, despite his incredible talent, Earnest Jackson (no relation to Randy) never made it. Even worse, he's felt burned, exploited, and cast aside by the music industry.

But now Planet Money is trying to change all of that.

The creation of Planet Money Records

Because we love Earnest Jackson — and we love his incredible song about the economic trend of our times — Planet Money has decided to back him (and the band) to try to right the wrongs, and give him his shot at stardom.

To make this happen, we licensed the song and became our own record label. Planet Money Records has the sole purpose of releasing and promoting Jackson's "Inflation" song. The journey to create that label was a dizzying and intimidating leap into the unknown for us, and it gave us a unique opportunity to explore the business and economics of the music industry from the inside.

In setting up our own record label, Planet Money wanted to avoid the shady practices that are all too common in the music business. It's an industry where artists regularly get pennies on the dollar for the songs they create. That has always been the case, but the death of physical record sales and the rise of digital streaming has only made things worse for musicians.

We learned that the typical record contract hands only about 20 percent of profits to the artist and the other 80 percent to the label. We decided to do something radically different, which you can learn about in our series. You may decide we made a terrible business decision, but, to be fair, we're not in the music business!

Of course, it wasn't enough to license Earnest Jackson's song. We also have hopes to create merchandise, plan a music tour, and figure out how the heck to make this song popular. In the coming months, we're looking to explore topics like how streaming has revolutionized the music industry, how payola works, and how to manufacture a hit.

We hope you'll tune into our series. Perhaps more importantly, you should check out the song! "Inflation" is a throwback funk tune that speaks to the current state of the global economy. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music.

Greg Rosalsky, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Arielle Retting contributed to this story.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2...arnest-jackson





Why Streamers Are Getting on Board With In-Flight Entertainment

New tech with more onboard options and upgraded seatback screens ensures captive audiences with cash to spend for streamers: “You’re not going to get a better marketing point than an airline.”
Kirsten Chuba

In 1921, Aeromarine Airways projected the promotional short Howdy Chicago onto a screen in the front of the cabin while flying over the Windy City, marking the first in-flight film. Cut to 100 years later, and onboard entertainment has had quite the revolution: It’s now a $250 million- to $300 million-a-year industry, according to Joe Leader, CEO of the Airline Passenger Experience Association — a network of the world’s leading airlines and suppliers — and has expanded to include films, TV, music and podcasts. In the past few years, streamers, starting with Netflix and followed by HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock, have continued to evolve the space, offering original content on seatback screens across the globe in addition to the classic mix of new and old theatrical releases.

Taking to the skies gives streamers a unique marketing opportunity: a captive — and likely affluent — audience of consumers who probably can afford streaming subscriptions, too. “We have passenger eyeballs for four to eight hours at a time,” says Josh Marks, CEO of onboard entertainment provider Anuvu. “If you want to hook subscribers on that new series, you’re not going to get a better marketing point than an airline.” According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. airlines carried 674 million passengers in 2021.

In-flight entertainment (IFE) offerings are generally programmed 90 days in advance, and with new tech, airlines can change them more easily. “[We used to rely] on what we jokingly called ‘sneakernet,’ someone coming onto the aircraft with the dongle connecting over USB and loading everything for the month,” says Leader, adding that it took about a week to update an entire fleet. “The airlines can now load the content over Wi-Fi.”

While planes can now hold lots of content on their physical servers (versus only a handful of films 15 or 20 years ago), it’s still not unlimited, resulting in a capped number of spots. Post-COVID budgets also are restricting, as the IFE industry recovers after being hit from both the airline and theater sides. “It was a double whammy,” says Terry Steiner, a distributor who notes that airline content budgets are still not back to 2019 levels. So there’s less budget for smaller, non-tentpole films (which are typically prioritized below blockbusters), especially as streamers are taking up a bigger piece of the pie. But, for indies that can land a coveted spot, Steiner says it “could be a significant chunk of change” in revenue.

Airline content deals for studios and streamers vary: Some projects are sold individually, others are part of a slate; some have exclusive deals, others are placed on many carriers at once. Hulu/Disney partners with multiple airlines, while Peacock has homed in on American and Netflix flies with Virgin. Windowing also is a challenge. Just as theaters had long held exclusive screening rights before films went to streamers, airlines typically had early access to new releases, but that’s no longer a given.

“Theatrical is sometimes not in the mix and airlines still want an early window and they want to go before streaming,” says Cathie Trotta, managing director of indie distributor Penny Black Media, who adds that airlines seek to pay significantly less for a film if it follows a streaming release. She says: “Everyone [used to] follow suit; you had your theatrical, then airline. Now, it’s all mixed up.”

While airline exclusivity is resurging in some cases — as with Top Gun: Maverick, which followed a more traditional release schedule — Leader says some streamers remain “super competitive” and want films early “as a hook to make sure that people stay with the streaming service.”

Warner Bros. Discovery content licensing exec David Decker says in-flight releases are still a key supplement to the company’s theatrical, cable and streaming offerings: “You’ll see our new releases be on airplanes in the early stages of the windowing, where it is still top of mind for everybody and they may not have caught it yet in theaters or on the streamer.” Added Peacock executive vp global partnerships and strategic development Annie Luo of the streamer’s partnership with American Airlines, “We are always looking for new and innovative ways to bring our content to customers wherever they are, even in the skies.”

Then, there’s in-flight bandwidth to consider, as many passengers are skipping the seatback screens for their phones and laptops. Experts say that’s not the way of the future, as in-flight Wi-Fi can’t support hundreds of personal devices at once. As a result, airlines are investing heavily in onboard screens. Leader points to United Airlines, which is adding 500 new planes equipped with upgraded IFE over the next five years (United said in 2021 that it would spend billions for aircraft and aircraft improvements).

“We’re heading toward a world where the seatback screen in front of you is fully connected to the internet, where the airlines and studios push content to you as an individual passenger, and where all of the systems are designed to tie in to loyalty programs and studio subscriber platforms,” says Marks. “If the airline knows that you’re a Paramount+ subscriber and they have a special deal going with HBO Max, you might get an HBO Max-heavy set of content. The airline knows a lot about you that they can use to work with the studios to make money. And, from your perspective, you interpret it as targeted content that’s more enjoyable.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...nt-1235243769/





Comcast’s New Higher Upload Speeds Require $25-Per-Month xFi Complete Add-On

10Mbps uploads become 100Mbps—but only with xFi Complete hardware rental plan.
Jon Brodkin

For Comcast Internet customers frustrated by the cable service's slow upload speeds, there have been some welcome announcements recently. But the availability of faster Comcast uploads has a catch—users can only get the higher upstream speeds by purchasing xFi Complete, which adds $25 to monthly broadband costs.

"As markets launch, Xfinity Internet customers who subscribe to xFi Complete will have their upload speeds increased between 5 and 10 times faster," an announcement last week said. "xFi Complete includes an xFi gateway, advanced cybersecurity protection at home and on the go, tech auto-upgrades for a new gateway after three years, and wall-to-wall Wi-Fi coverage with an xFi Pod [Wi-Fi extender] included if recommended. Now, another benefit of xFi Complete is faster upload speeds."

Comcast is deploying the speed upgrade in the Northeast US over the next couple of months. Plans with 10Mbps upload speeds will get up to 100Mbps upload speeds once the new tiers roll out in your region—if you pay for xFi Complete. Comcast told Ars that faster upload speeds will come to customer-owned modems "later next year" but did not provide a more specific timeline.

There is a cheaper way to get the same xFi Gateway with Wi-Fi 6E, as Comcast offers the option to rent that piece of hardware for $14 a month. But Comcast is only making the upload boost available to those who subscribe to the pricier xFi Complete service.

While the standard monthly rate for xFi Complete is $25, new customers who sign up by December 31 can get it for $20 monthly during the first year of service.

Comcast vague on timing for user-owned hardware

We asked Comcast today if there's any technical reason it can't deliver the higher upload speeds on customer-owned equipment. A company spokesperson responded that Comcast is working on bringing faster uploads to non-Comcast modems.

"We intend to extend the experience to customer-owned modems later next year and are working through the technical requirements as we learn," Comcast said. "We started offering it with our own equipment first and now are working through how to extend to customer-owned equipment."

Comcast also said that giving the upload boost to xFi Complete customers first follows its "typical validate, test, and certification process for a new network innovation." But if the reasons for limiting the upload boost to Comcast hardware initially are purely technical instead of revenue-based, it's not clear why people who rent the gateway for $14 a month shouldn't get the same benefit.

Comcast has also been teasing Full Duplex upgrades that are supposed to provide symmetrical download and upload speeds over cable. Comcast says it will offer multi-gigabit download and upload speeds to at least some cable customers "before the end of 2023." It won't be surprising if those upgrades require subscribing to xFi Complete.

Unlimited data also tied to xFi Complete

This isn't the first time Comcast has bundled a seemingly unrelated feature into xFi Complete. Customers in areas where Comcast enforces its 1.2TB data cap can get unlimited data either as part of xFi Complete or through a separate fee.

Last week's announcement of higher speeds was focused on the Northeast US, where Comcast still doesn't impose the data cap that it enforces in most other states. Comcast faces stiffer competition in the Northeast thanks to Verizon's un-capped FiOS fiber-to-the-home service.

Northeast US customers might not have felt compelled to buy xFi Complete previously because they aren't subject to Comcast's data cap. The availability of higher upload speeds could push some holdouts to buy the $25 monthly add-on, even if their own modems and routers should technically support the speeds available in Comcast's new service tiers.

"Comcast continues to be ahead of customer demand," Kevin Casey, the company's Northeast division president, said in the announcement. "Through advanced digital network innovation, we are again evolving our network to provide faster speeds for customers and are excited to begin rolling out a multi-gig speed tier to customers in the Northeast."

Details on new speed tiers

The announcement said Comcast "will increase speeds for its most popular Xfinity Internet tiers across 14 northeastern states from Maine through Virginia and the District of Columbia," with the speed upgrades rolling out by the end of this year.

Unlike the upload boosts, the download speed upgrades don't require buying xFi Complete. Performance Starter tier download speeds will rise from 50 to 75Mbps, Performance tier download speeds will rise from 100 to 200Mbps, and Performance Pro download speeds will rise from 300 to 400Mbps.

For all three of those tiers, upload speeds will remain at 10Mbps if you don't have xFi Complete. For people who do buy xFi Complete, the 75Mbps download speeds will be paired with 75Mbps upload speeds. The 200 and 400Mbps download plans will both get 100Mbps uploads, but only with xFi Complete.

Comcast is raising its 600 and 900Mbps download tiers to 800Mbps and 1Gbps, respectively. Without xFi Complete, those two tiers come with 20Mbps uploads. With xFi Complete, they get 100Mbps uploads.

A 1.2Gbps download plan that has 35Mbps upload speeds without xFi Complete will have 200Mbps uploads with xFi Complete. Finally, a new 2Gbps download plan "in select markets" will get 100Mbps uploads without xFi Complete and 200Mbps uploads with xFi Complete.

Comcast previously announced similar download and upload boosts in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Augusta, Georgia; and Panama City Beach, Florida. Those upgrades should come to all of Comcast's territory eventually, presumably with the same caveat that customers must buy xFi Complete to get the higher upload speeds. The xFi Complete requirement for faster upload speeds was also mentioned in a brief Comcast announcement dated June 16.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-xfi-complete/





USDA Announces $759M for High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas
Josh Boak

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is making available $759 million in grants and loans to enable rural communities to access high-speed internet, part of the broader $65 billion push for high-speed connectivity from last year’s infrastructure law.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House senior adviser Mitch Landrieu are unveiling the grants in North Carolina on Thursday.

There are 49 recipients in 24 states. One is North Carolina’s AccessOn Networks, which will receive $17.5 million to provide broadband service to 100 businesses, 76 farms and 22 educational facilities in the state’s Halifax and Warren counties. Both counties are rural and have predominantly Black populations.

The announcement and visit to North Carolina, a state with an open U.S. Senate seat, come as President Joe Biden and other top Democratic officials are trying to sell their achievements to voters before the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Landrieu, the infrastructure coordinator and former New Orleans mayor, told reporters on a Wednesday call that the Biden administration has already released $180 billion for various infrastructure projects.

The administration is specifically targeting support for small towns and farm communities, places that generally favor Republicans over Democrats.

“Rural communities are the backbone of our nation, but for too long they’ve been left behind and they have been underrecognized,” Landrieu said. “We all know how essential the internet is in order to access lifesaving telemedicine, to tap into economic opportunity, to connect with loved ones, to work on precision agriculture and so much more. That’s just beyond unacceptable that that’s not available to rural America.”

Vilsack said he and Landrieu will “learn firsthand” from people in North Carolina about the opportunities internet access can create. They plan to meet with state and local officials including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper at Wake Technical Community College, where they’ll announce the grants. They will also hold a town hall in Elm City.

Neither candidate in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race — Democrat Cheri Beasley and Republican Ted Budd — is slated to appear at the events.

Vilsack said that past trips show how broadband connectivity is starting to make a difference. While in Nevada this summer, he heard from people in the town of Lovelock who plan to use the improved internet to enhance their emergency responder services and tourism opportunities as well as help high school students who are earning college credit online.
https://apnews.com/article/technolog...2713abb2aa8415

















Until next week,

- js.



















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