Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - March 13th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week

"When your primary marketing message is understood to be ‘sue you,’ there’s something seriously wrong with your business model." – Adam Eisgrau.

"I'll hopefully be a happier man, giving [away] my music and also doing something really positive with my music if people are generous enough to donate to the site. I'll remove myself from all that negativity." - George Michael.

"The Taliban burnt them all – around 2,600 films – in the very place we wanted to raise a new building to house this archive. It was a catastrophe." - Siddiq Barmak, Afghan film director.

"Pay the artist as little as you can. Tie the artist up for as long as you can." - Walter Yetnikoff, ex-president, CBS Records.





Here and There

Big news this week on the legal fronts. In the third major blow to the RIAA a judge ruled the lobbying group must sue each file swapper separately instead of in bunches. A retail approach as opposed to wholesale you might say. This serves to reinforce basic American tenets of democracy while making life difficult for the RIAA, both equally valid actions in my view. The first and second blows were, respectively; P2P software is legal and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) doesn’t allow wholesale subpoenaing of file sharers. It’s a retail world it seems.

Speaking of which, all the latest sales reports indicate that retail record sales are up, up, up, demonstrating once again that peer-to-peer file sharing and record selling can peacefully and productively co-exist.

Halfway around the world Sharman Networks got a sliver of good news when an Australian Federal Court announced they’d allow an application to appeal a ruling that went against the company that makes Kazaa, the world’s most popular P2P program. That ruling resulted in secret “Anton Pillar” raids into private homes by the Australian equivalent of the RIAA. To get permission for such a raid all a company has to do apparently is tell a judge somebody’s copying their software, or allowing somebody to copy it, or contributing to an environment in which copying is possible. The court then leaps into action, letting loose the goons of war on terrible home-raiding sprees. When it comes to reevaluating their own decisions however the court takes a more delicate approach. Apparently it’s one thing to break into other people’s homes, quite another to expose your own house to ridicule. They insist on a slow and complicated maneuver. First the court might set a date to hear an application for an appeal. Maybe. There’s no guarantee they’ll do that, but if they do, and they in fact hear the application, they may then allow an actual appeal to proceed. Of course the odds of them deciding their first decision was wrong is a genuine long shot, even after all the bad publicity that follows. As a matter of fact judge Murray Wilcox, who gave the original go ahead for the home invasions passed the buck, complaining the record companies handed him some questionable pre-raid information. Tellingly, the judge stopped far short of saying he made the wrong decision. Never hurts to do a little homework before you break into someone's house, eh judge?

Though expected soon no date has yet been set to hear this application.

While Australia careens down a dangerous path, things are not so smooth elsewhere. The Europeans, getting ready to add 10 more stars to their flag next month, have made sure the new states get some serious copyright screws with which to squeeze the thumbs of their file sharing citizens. A bill regarded as even worse than the U.S.’s own draconian DMCA has left its committee and is now law. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It contains no changes from an earlier draft that alarmed just about everyone. Like Australia, it too allows secret raids on the homes of individuals suspected of minor violations. Does anyone actually think record companies are worth this? They write these laws.

Coming back around the globe to the U.S., which in comparison to China, Europe and Australia is now beginning to look like a bastion of individual-rights utopias (looks can be deceiving), 321 Studios is optimistic about it’s future. The company, which makes DVD back-up software, found itself with a product but no market when California judge Susan Illston ruled the ripper portion of the software violated section 1201 of the DMCA and told the company they couldn’t sell it anymore (CD back-up software remains legal to sell, own and use). This week the company issued press releases expressing confidence they’d eventually win even after New York district judge Richard Owen also ruled against them in a similar matter. Why the optimism? A federal judge issued a stay against the NY ruling. The separate rulings do not affect individual owners of the programs, who may continue to use them.

Meanwhile rumors that 321 Studios is offering “free downloads to all comers” have not been confirmed, but in what may be a well deserved tweak at the courts the company is making ripper-free versions available for sale, leaving it up to purchasers presumably to download and install the missing component. 321 Studios is planning an appeal of both judgments.












Enjoy,

Jack.











RIAA Must Sue One Swapper At A Time: Judge
Charles Farrar

PHILADELPHIA - Heard of “one man, one vote?” Meet “one file swapper, one lawsuit.” That’s the order from a federal judge March 5, after he authorized a single suit in a music industry action against 203 “John Doe” defendants, but ordered the Recording Industry Association of America to file separate, individual actions against the remaining 202.

P2P United executive director Adam Eisgrau hailed the ruling from Judge Clarence Newcomer as underscoring the idea that anyone who is to face any significant penalty under any kind of law is entitled to the full process of the law. Newcomer accepted the single filing, because in this instance, the RIAA offered a detailed case against the individual in question, according to one published report.

“The Recording Industry Association benefited initially form a draconian statute, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was criticized prior to its adoption for dramatically tilting the so-called copyright bargain in the favor of the significant corporate entertainment interests and against the users of information of all kinds,” Eisgrau told AVNOnline.com.

An earlier federal court ruling banned the RIAA from using the DMCA for its subpoenas, prompting the RIAA to take the John Doe course.

Eisgrau also said the ruling “ought to point” policymakers toward re-evaluating the DMCA, but without a “significant public outcry, it is unlikely that the political power and sophistication of the entertainment industry lobbying groups can be overcome.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania case, also praised the Newcomer ruling. “We’re glad the judge has recognized that the RIAA was trying to skirt around the regular rules for lawsuits by grouping over 200 individuals as a gang of file sharers,” EFF attorney Jason Schultz said in a statement. “We think each individual who is being sued has a right to have their own trial, and have their own privacy interests evaluated independently of anyone else who’s being sued.”

To Eisgrau, the ruling also reinforces the presumption of innocence, a presumption critics of the RIAA’s subpoena-and-sue strategy against peer-to-peer file swapping sometimes accuse the music industry trade group of neglecting or ignoring.

“To my knowledge, no court has yet actively considered in a detailed fashion whether some degree of the kind of downloading activity the RIAA has aggressively sued over falls within the established legal boundaries for what’s considered unauthorized, but still legal, use of copyrighted information,” Eisgrau said.

“In addition, clearly, courts in a broad sense have not determined whether there is or ought to be a difference in the way the law treats requesting a file from someone else, as compared to just making a file available for someone else’s use,” he continued. “It connects to this idea of the presumption of innocence because, were the RIAA permitted to make blanket allegations against hundreds of people, the court hearing that case necessarily would not be making fine distinctions between those cases.”

The RIAA has said only that they are “weighing their options” following the Newcomer ruling, as a spokeswoman told Wired after the ruling came down. The group has offered no other comment on the ruling at this writing.

Eisgrau said his group’s hope in the long term is to get the P2P issue out of the courts and into the halls of Congress and across informal bargaining tables, the latter option the music industry, he said, has so far refused at every invitation by their silence.

“Our longstanding position on the RIAA suits... is that at any given stage of this issue working its way through the courts, the RIAA may have been acting within its legal rights; but it was, nonetheless, wrong as a social matter, and as a matter of what policy ought to be,” he said. “When your primary marketing message is understood to be ‘sue you,’ there’s something seriously wrong with your business model and your view of the public policy process... It’s time to stop the suing and start the talking.”
http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary...ntent_ID=76604


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CD Sales-Decline Moderates
Thomas Mennecke

The RIAA has been reporting for years that file-sharing is directly responsible for the decline of the music industry. The logical approach, from the RIAA's point of view, dictated that as P2P networking thrived, CD sales declined.

However, an interesting situation has presentment itself, as the RIAA has released its updated 2003 sales statistics. Despite some initial success against FastTrack, the decline of CD sales continues to moderate. Seemingly, the RIAA's argument that a thriving P2P market directly and negatively affects CD sales is called into greater question.

From the RIAA's report:

"The value of U.S. music shipments from record companies to retail outlets declined 4.3 percent in 2003 (compared to a 6.8 percent drop in 2002) and unit shipments declined 2.7 percent (compared to a 7.8 percent drop in 2002.)"

File-sharing's impact on the music industry has always been a point of speculation. Alternative explanations, such as a global recession, have been suggested as the primary decline of music sales. For example, the great music sales decline of 2001- 2003 correlated well with the stagnation of the global economy; then increased as the economic picture improved in late 2003.

As file-sharing continues to grow and FastTrack shows no real sign of significant decline, it appears the RIAA's logic against the P2P community is at best faulty.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=422


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MEPs Wave Through IP Rights Enforcement
Lucy Sherriff

The European Parliament has passed the IP Rights Enforcement Directive, unchanged from its mid February draft.

It includes none of the amendments proposed by civil liberties and consumer rights groups, and sets the scene for a European version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The directive will become law in two days, and member states have two years to draft and pass legislation.

The announcement on the European Parliament's website refers to a "compromise agreement" with the Council, and says that the directive's full force need not be applied to individuals copying music files for their own use.

Although this sounds promising, the key phrase is: "need not be". Robin Gross, director of IP Justice, a US-based campaigning group, says there is no justification for such as statement.

"The scope of the directive, laid out in plain English in Article 2, remains unchanged," she says. This means file-sharers remain the same in the eyes of this law as large scale commercial pirates.

She also argues that references to a compromise are extremely misleading. In fact, the "compromise" is an earlier agreement between Parliament and the Council of Ministers, says Gross. The original draft had called for criminal sanctions. This was dropped by Janelly Fourtou, the MEP responsible for the directive, to get the bill passed before the European elections on 13 June. Her husband is the CEO of Vivendi Universal.

Gross continues: "Madame Fourtou, the Rapporteur who has been ramming this directive through the process, will personally be enriched by through her family ties to (one of the) the world's largest entertainment companies, which (could) now use these new enforcement procedures to harrass and extort consumers for non- commercial and other minor infringements."

Her concerns about Fourtou were echoed during the debate. UK MEP Sir Neil MacCormick, who sits on the jury committtee, it was inappropriate fo Fourtou to be pushing this bill through, because she stood to gain so much personally from its passing.

Some 330 MEPs voted in favour of the bill and 151 against, with 39 abstentions, so the bill will become law.

A statement on the European Parliament's website said the directive will help to combat counterfeiting and piracy in the single market, a problem which affects software, toys, CDs and even pharmaceuticals.

It also means European civil liberties and consumer rights have taken a serious knock, and file-sharers are on borrowed time.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/36128.html

More draconian than DMCA

The European Union is drafting copyright protection legislation that could end up being more comprehensive than the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA) signed into law in 1998, reports say.

The DMCA, signed into law by president Clinton, protects copyright holders from Internet piracy. The law has been used in several lawsuits concerning copyright infringement on the Internet, many of those involving the downloading of music on file sharing networks. Critics of the legislation say the law provides too much protection and stifles technological innovation.

The proposed European law has faced similar criticism, drawing charges of being overly excessive. According to reports, the legislation contains provisions that would make it legal for music companies to raid the homes of peer-to-peer file sharers. Critics also say the law fails to distinguish between unintentional copyright infringement and violations perpetrated by criminal organizations.
http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/eur030504.cfm


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Kazaa Gets Green Light For Appeal
AAP

The owner of the world's largest file-sharing network will appeal against an Australian court's ruling that it be prosecuted for alleged music copyright breaches.

A coalition of music companies claim Sharman Networks - owner and distributor of the Kazaa file-sharing software - has breached Australian copyright rules.

Sharman Networks lost its bid in the Federal Court on March 4 to have the lawsuit delayed until a similar case in the United States was finalised.

The company today announced it had lodged an application for leave to appeal against Judge Murray Wilcox's decision that the case should proceed.

Sharman Networks CEO Nikki Hemming said the court had failed to consider findings by foreign courts that the owners and operators of Kazaa had no means of control over the activities of users.

"We remain resolute about our position in this case," Ms Hemming said.

"This appeal is about standing up for what we believe in - the right for peer-to-peer technology to exist as a legitimate model for digital distribution."

Universal, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI Music, Sony Music, Warner Music Australia and BMG Australia are supporting the action.

Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) conducted last month's raids of three universities and several internet service providers.

MIPI general manager Michael Speck said Kazaa software was costing both the record industry and music creators billions of dollars in lost royalties each year.

The Australian Federal Court is expected to set a date to hear the application for leave to appeal, and the appeal itself.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...594497753.html


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Universal Pays Fine for Privacy Violations

The Universal Music Group in Santa Monica, Calif., has agreed to pay a $400,000 fine to the Federal Trade Commission for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The commission called it the largest such penalty ever.

The commission found that a Universal Music Web site promoting Lil' Romeo, a teenage hip-hop artist, had been collecting personal information from visitors younger than 13 years old for marketing purposes without securing parental permission, a violation of the privacy law.

Peter LoFrumento, a spokesman for Universal, part of Vivendi Universal, was traveling yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

The case began with a complaint from the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, part of the self-regulatory efforts of the advertising industry. Much of the work of the ad unit deals with cases involving the collection of online information from children that is deemed inappropriate for marketing purposes. In this instance, the commission said, the data that children were asked to provide included name, address, e-mail address, birth date, telephone number and preferences in music, sports and apparel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/bu...a/05addes.html


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Police Seize Bootleg 'Passion' DVDs in Pa.
AP

State police found more than 1,500 bootleg compact discs, DVDs and videocassettes, including a couple dozen copies of Mel Gibson's ``The Passion of the Christ,'' during a traffic stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Police didn't immediately release the man's name because charges hadn't been filed. He was being held at the Somerset County Prison on an outstanding warrant from Allegheny County for drug possession, Sgt. Anthony DeLuca said.

The 30-year-old Philadelphia man was stopped Tuesday morning for tailgating and using his high beams on the westbound turnpike, DeLuca said. Police discovered a small amount of marijuana and, while arresting him, noticed several movies and music and obtained a search warrant.

DeLuca said the man had 1,040 compact discs of recently released music and about 475 DVDs. Besides ``The Passion of the Christ,'' DeLuca said police found ``Starsky & Hutch'' -- which won't be in theaters until Friday -- ``Twisted'' and ``Monster.''

``He admitted he purchased them in New York for $5,000'' and was taking them to Pittsburgh, DeLuca said. He estimated they were worth $300,000.

DeLuca said there was no doubt the items were counterfeits, noting the movies seemed as though someone taped them during a theater showing and that the CD labels seemed to have been made on a color photocopier.

Police have contacted the FBI to help in the investigation.

Gibson's film, about the Crucifixion of Christ, took in $125.2 million over five days, the biggest debut ever by a film opening on a Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts...n-Bootleg.html


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If Jesus were alive He’d sue too

Film Duplicator Sued In Piracy Of 'Passion'
Jesse Hiestand, Sheigh Crabtree

Mel Gibson's Icon Distribution Inc. has sued the Hollywood duplication facility where allegedly illegal copies were made of "The Passion of the Christ," potentially fostering widespread piracy on the Internet and among bootleggers.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Lightning Media, seeks damages for lost sales because of piracy. The film earned more than $125 million in its first week of release.

"Damages could be in the millions if it turns out this thing is on the streets as a result of what these people did," said attorney George Hedges, who filed the case Thursday on behalf of Icon. "It's extremely serious to imagine a dubbing facility not having lock-down security on a film."

Last month, three former employees of Lightning Media were indicted for making copies of films including "Passion" and Miramax Films' "Kill Bill-Vol. 1" (HR 2/13). While Richard Young of Northridge, Victor Ochoa of Reseda and Frank Pelayo of Burbank were charged with conspiracy to violate federal copyright laws, the night- shift tape operators have not been named as defendants in the civil suit brought by Icon.

Lightning received a copy of the civil complaint late Friday afternoon. "We're in the process of investigating the facts," Lightning attorney Adam Bass said. "Piracy clearly is a brand-new area for the industry as a whole."

Bass noted that as a result of the alleged actions, Lightning has implemented rigorous anti-piracy standards: Areas where client materials are stored are now only accessible to Lightning employees with swipe cards, 24-hour surveillance cameras have been installed in duplication areas to guarantee the safety of clients' materials, potential hires are now be subject to criminal background checks, and employees will have to sign and adhere to Lightning's new anti-piracy policy.

"We figure that facilities all over town are investing lots of money right now into technology to ensure protection of customers' copyrights and property rights," Bass said.

According to the suit, Icon hired Lightning to make copies of "Passion" in September.

Hedges said his clients first became aware that the illicit copies were being circulated when an article on a film-related Web site boasted about how easy it was to obtain illegal copies of Hollywood films. Other copies also have been traced back to Lightning, he said.

"As a result of such actions by Lightning, unauthorized copies of the motion picture 'The Passion of the Christ' have been made publicly available through a number of different and widespread sources," the suit states.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr..._id=1000455680


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The computer ate my source code.

iTunes Song Swap Helper Vanishes From Net
John Borland

When a program called "MyTunes" appeared online last year, allowing networked users of Apple Computer's iTunes digital jukebox software to download songs from each other, it had the feel of a breakthrough that wouldn't last forever.

Now, as some predicted, the popular software has all but vanished from the Net, and its programmer's sites have gone dark. But this time, it's not the doing of an angry record industry or a conflict-averse Apple. Trinity College sophomore Bill Zeller, who wrote the program in less than two weeks of off-time coding last year, says he simply lost the source code in a catastrophic computer crash.

"I was about to release the second version, when I lost everything," Zeller said. "I may put it back online, but there won't be any updates. I don't want to rewrite it."

Zeller's MyTunes software was a prominent example of how even the most tightly controlled software can be retuned by its users for unauthorized purposes. Apple has worked hard to establish itself as a loyal supporter of the record industry's copyrights and has previously moved to block features of its software that allowed unauthorized file sharing.

The program took advantage of iTunes' ability to let computers that are located on the same network, such as those within a single home or office complex, to look at and listen to each other's music collections. But where iTunes itself only allows different computers to listen to other people's songs, streaming the music without saving it, MyTunes turned this into the ability to capture and save the songs as MP3 files.

The feature did not work with songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store, which are wrapped in copy protection technology and require passwords to copy them to additional computers.

Apple, which has spent considerable time over the past year wooing the music industry to support iTunes, did not comment on MyTunes' release last year and did not return calls for comment for this story. Previously, Apple had limited some iTunes music-sharing functions when Macintosh owners took advantage of them to share songs over the Net.

Because it worked only within a single network, MyTunes did not have that same ability to share songs widely and indiscriminately over the Internet. However, anecdotal stories from users showed that it was widely used by people to share music collections over internal corporate networks, which often have dozens or hundreds of people online.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has worked hard to shut down programs such as Kazaa or Grokster that allow file sharing over the Net, also declined to comment when the program was released.

Although Zeller said he might put the original version of the software, which was buggy enough to crash periodically, back online, he will not restart the project. He did not have backups of the source code and would have to start from scratch, the computer science student said.

Others might take up where he left off, however. The project would not be hard for another programmer to replicate, he said.

Zeller's program was downloaded more than 30,000 times over the course of several months, according to Download.com, a software aggregation site News.com publisher CNET Networks operates.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5171519.html


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U.S. Pressing China to Yield on Wireless Encryption
Steve Lohr

The Bush administration stepped up its pressure on China this week to back off its plan to impose a software encryption standard for wireless computers that American technology companies regard as an unfair trade barrier.

In a joint letter, Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the White House trade representative, Robert B. Zoellick, expressed their concern about the Chinese plan and urged China to work with the United States to resolve the issue. The letter was addressed to Deputy Prime Ministers Wu Yi and Zeng Peiyan, and delivered in Beijing on Tuesday.

The unusual appeal by three cabinet-level officers is an attempt to defuse the first of a handful of potential conflicts between China and the United States in high-technology trade. The wireless encryption issue, analysts say, points to what may be a trend of China setting its own exclusive standards, including formats for future generations of cellphones and DVD players.

American industry executives and trade officials express fear that the Chinese approach could fragment global markets in high-technology products in a misguided protectionist attempt to give Chinese producers an edge.

But some industry analysts note that powerful nations over the years - Britain and the United States, for example - have exercised that kind of power by setting technical standards. With its huge population and fast-growing economy, China, they say, is merely trying to take its turn as a standard-setter.

This week's letter refers only to the Chinese software standard for short-range wireless networks, known as Wi-Fi. In December, China announced that foreign computer and chip makers that want to sell Wi-Fi devices in the country would have to use Chinese encryption software and co-produce their goods with Chinese companies on a designated list. Foreign computer makers, led by Americans, have protested the plan.

In addition to having to use a separate standard, the foreign companies worry about the loss of intellectual property if they are forced to work with Chinese companies who might become competitors. The Chinese plan, unless modified, will take effect on June 1.

Industry representatives praised the effort by the Bush administration to resolve the issue. In recent months, administration officials have raised the wireless security standard with the Chinese. "But this will broaden and escalate the discussion," said Rhett Dawson, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group. "This makes it clear on a high-level, government-to-government basis that this is an important issue."

The cabinet letter is "unusual and significant," said Bruce Mehlman, a former Bush administration official who is executive director of the Computer Systems Policy Project, an industry group. "It speaks to the importance of the issue and the precedent of using technology standards as a nontariff barrier to restrict access to the Chinese market."

The administration has not released the letter. But an official confirmed that it focused on the wireless dispute and also expressed the broader concern about use of a technical standard as a trade barrier.

An economic counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment yesterday. But in recent months, Chinese officials have reiterated their commitment to free trade and said short-term conflicts could be negotiated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/bu...ss/04wire.html


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NCSU Professor Receives $400,000 Grant for Peer-to-Peer Research
Special To LTW

Dr. Khaled Harfoush has won a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue peer-to-peer research.

Harfoush, an assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State, received a Faculty Early Career Development Award, one of the top honors from NSF.

The grant is worth $408,894.

Harfoush is researching “New Directions in Managing Structured Peer-to-Peer Systems.” Peer-to-peer enables computer users to exchange resources and information.

“The key objective of this project is to address the challenges and opportunities that accompany the deployment of these systems, which are currently deployed on a limited scale and mostly for file-sharing applications,” NCSU said in a statement. “The primary focus will be on the design and implementation of robust network protocols that support new schemes for organizing structured P2P system resources, new strategies for locating and servicing these resources, and varied network measurement techniques for monitoring and optimizing the users’ experience. The final deliverable will be a publicly available prototype that will give researchers and students hands-on experience with new ideas in P2P technology.”

Harfoush, a native of Egypt, joined the NCSU faculty in 2002. He received undergraduate and master’s degrees in Egypt and a doctorate in computer science from Boston University.
http://www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=7316


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Pondering Digital Music's Future

Chiefs talk formats, paid services, and p-to-p at industry forum.
Jonny Evans

Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store was under discussion at New York's Digital Music Forum this week, even though the company did not officially attend the event.

RealNetworks Vice President of Music Services Sean Ryan offered the keynote at the show. He said, "2004 will be a great year for digital music", and said that successful services need to supply a "mix of offerings, multiple services (a la carte and subscription), control of the media player, and the ability to efficiently acquire customers and to get music off the computer."

With the industry ready to reach critical mass, Ryan shared his belief that the industry is now closed to new start-ups. "The time is over for start-ups in this sector," he said.

Ryan observed that a roughly 50/50 split exists between subscription and a la carte services, and warned that format incompatibility "will be the bane" of the year, predicting this would ease in 2005.

Format Wars

The latter remarks look at the emerging digital music format war. Real offers its own formats, which also support Apple's basic format of choice, AAC. Real's offering does not support the extended proprietary version of AAC (which integrates an Apple-developed digital rights management system called FairPlay). In the other corner sits software giant Microsoft, which parades a concept of "consumer choice" to promote its Windows Media Audio standard that it would like to see emerge as the industry standard in the sector.

Apple's outgoing Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson touched on the format war on Monday, saying: "With the HP deal we are going to get tremendous momentum behind establishing our digital music standard AAC as the digital music standard."

Anderson also confirmed that Apple is "hard at work" on bringing iTunes Music Store to other geographies, and agreed the company expects that doing so will "impact more on iPod sales."

He added that iPods are "doing really well in Europe", adding: "I hear in the U.K. it has generated the same sort of cultural change as you see in New York."

The format war highlighted by Ryan may be a tough campaign. Apple will fight to keep its leading position in the new industry. Anderson said, "We are not going to let anyone else take our leadership position."

World on a (Digital) Plate

A conference panel on selling music online alleged: "consumers want everything, everywhere and they want it now." Speakers from Napster, MusicNet, America Online, AOL Music, MusicNow, The Orchard Enterprises, and Payment One made a several key points on the topic.

They agreed that consumers want a lot from their digital music stores and operators that deliver what they want will "define the space." They also stressed the need to "sort out" format incompatibilities, and agreed that individual track downloads are easier for consumers to understand, and will therefore remain attractive to them.

Steven Marks, senior vice president of legal and business affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America, discussed the music industry's strategy to create a legitimate online music business.

He believes that educating consumers doesn't work without the litigation the RIAA is currently employing against 2,500 file sharers. He agreed that peer-to-peer services could emerge as part of the digital music industry mix, but existing groups would need to "legitimize" their services. He also said that current laws regarding copyright are good enough. "We have no plans to overhaul copyright law," he added.

P2P Levels the Field

Peer-to-peer champions at the show observed that peer-to-peer services are seeing massive growth, and claimed independent labels and artists have seen sales increases through such services, as they gain access to consumers--this reflects the major labels dominance of existing ways to reach consumers, TV, radio and retail.

"Peer-to-peer provides an entry point for smaller players" they said. Approximately 12 billion tracks are downloaded using such services, they said.

Jonathan Potter, who leads the Digital Music Association, warned that Apple may face unexpected resistance to its success: He described the "antiquated" rights system that exists in the US that hindered development of legitimate services, and limits the number of tracks services can offer today.

He warned that some music industry dinosaurs regard Apple's success as an indication that usage restrictions are too lax, and "should be tightened." He admitted to a sea change in the industry's treatment of the new services, noting "labels care about our success."
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115092,00.asp


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Record Company Turns to Net for Music Distribution
Lindsey Arent

When musician Shaun Bivens crafts his beats in his Northern California studio, he doesn't just play instruments. He punches buttons, stacks samples, and programs computers to create his digital sounds.

"I went from playing the drums, to guitar, to mixing. And [now] everything in here is basically a computer," Bivens says.

When it came to distributing his music, Bivens hit up a "digital record label" called INgrooves.

"I make the music. I send them tracks. And if they dig it, they upload it, put it in their system, and people can go to their site and get the music," Bivens says.

INgrooves exists solely on the Web (www.ingrooves.com).

"We don't make any physical CDs. We distribute it all online, market it online, and we find many of our artists online," INgrooves president Adam Hiles says.

INgrooves features mostly house and electronica music. Its goal is to find the coolest new artists out there and introduce them to the mainstream masses.

"We help in licensing their music for film and TV. We help distribute their music through all these new portals like iTunes, Napster, and Rhapsody," Hiles says.

INgrooves' talent scouts check out new demos and tracks daily.

"We give a lot of people a chance that wouldn't normally get a chance with the major record labels," Hiles says.

Artists Get Bigger Cuts

Bivens had record deals with labels before, but he hated their terms.

"You see how much money you make from your record sales, you think, 'Wow, I'm getting hosed,'" he says. "'I'm just getting ripped [off].'"

But he's hopeful his deal with INgrooves will result in more money for digital artists like him.

INgrooves pays its artists 50 percent on any sale of music to clients such as film, TV, and videogame producers. Artists receive a check every three months.

"With a regular record label, the record company would make 17 bucks and you'd make $1 off every CD," Bivens says. "This way you split it right down the middle."

If you want to hear some of Shaun Bivens' music, you can find his stuff at INgrooves.com under the name "jemel."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...tv_040304.html


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Carry a Concert Home in Your Pocket
Mark Walsh

MAXWELL'S in Hoboken is better known as a showcase for new rock acts than for new technology. But that could change later this month when the club becomes a testing ground for digital kiosks that will enable clubgoers to download a recording of the show to a small U.S.B. drive almost immediately after a performance.

The experiment is the brainchild of eMusic Live (formerly the Digital Club Network and a sister company of the online music service eMusic) and represents the latest initiative to offer concertgoers instant digital recordings of shows they have just seen. After the kiosks are introduced at Maxwell's and the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Tex., eMusic Live plans to install others this year throughout a network of 23 clubs nationwide from which it has been Webcasting live shows since 1999.

"We'll just be opportunistic about how this evolves," said Greg Scholl, a managing director at the private equity firm Dimensional Associates, which acquired eMusic from VU Net USA in November. Besides eMusic and eMusic Live, the firm's holdings also include the Orchard, an independent music distributor that supplies both online music sellers and physical record stores.

As Dimensional seeks to integrate the online offerings of eMusic and its live music affiliate, Mr. Scholl views the kiosks as a way to help draw new subscribers to eMusic, which specializes in independent and alternative music. EMusic fans were irked last fall when the service's new owner capped the previously unlimited number of downloads at 40 for $10 per month or 65 for $15. It now offers up to 90 downloads for $20 per month.

EMusic is not alone in trying to woo concertgoers with the instant delivery of concert recordings. Last year Clear Channel Communications introduced its Instant Live program, in which the concert giant uses dozens of CD burners at venues to pump out mastered CD's minutes after shows end. Last year bands including Phish and Pearl Jam began offering MP3 downloads of concerts through their Web sites within 48 hours of performances to satisfy demand from avid fans. EMusic Live itself started selling instant live CD's at certain clubs last year, including Maxwell's.

But with its digital kiosk plan, the company is taking the next step in instant audio gratification. A prototype of the wall-mounted kiosk, created with help from the interactive media design studio Funny Garbage in Manhattan, features a touch screen that gives users a few options for getting shows. For $10, nonmembers of eMusic can download a concert in about 30 seconds by entering an e-mail address (to generate a receipt, the company says), swiping a credit card and then inserting a U.S.B. drive with a 128-megabyte capacity, either their own or one they can buy from a dispenser attached to the kiosk at an anticipated price of $20.

Eventually, eMusic subscribers using a U.S.B. drive would be able to enter their account information and have the individual songs that make up the concert deducted from their monthly plan. Subscribers could also use the kiosk to log on and order the concert for download the next day from the eMusic site. Nonsubscribers could simply enter their e-mail address to begin a free 50-song eMusic trial and a free download of the show the next day. Kiosk users will someday be able to download concerts directly to an iPod or other portable music player.

While still working out some kinks with its homemade machine, the company expects it to be in place at the South by Southwest conference on March 18 and at Maxwell's a week later. EMusic Live's president, Scott Ambrose Reilly, said club owners throughout its network had expressed enthusiasm for the project.

Maxwell's co-owner, Todd Abramson, expects that the kiosks will appeal to the serious music fans who frequent the club. "I would think people would treat this as a new toy and be excited about the technology," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/te...ts/04musi.html


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QnA

Q. Is it possible to rip tracks from Super Audio CD's to MP3 files on a computer?

A. Older rock albums are being remastered and rereleased as super audio compact discs. SACD is a high-resolution audio format with sound that is thought to be superior to that of standard compact discs. You need a special SACD player to hear the improved fidelity fully, but many discs are available in a hybrid format that will allow an SACD to be played on a standard CD player.

Although most computer drives will probably not recognize a non-hybrid Super Audio disc, a hybrid SACD designed for use in all CD players may work. If you can get the computer to read the disc, you should be able to rip tracks to MP3.

Not all computer drives can handle the hybrid discs, though, and some may have copy- protection features built in to prevent such activity.
J. D. BIERSDORFER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/te...ts/04askk.html


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Review.

A Dizzying Ride on the Turntable
Janet Maslin

HOWLING AT THE MOON
The Odyssey of a Monstrous Music Mogul in an Age of Excess
By Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz
Illustrated. 304 pages. Broadway Books. $24.95.

Late in Walter Yetnikoff's memoir, when his career at CBS Records is on the rocks, and Barbra, Bruce and Mick have stopped speaking to him, he cites a former associate's remark: "The business is boring without you." Now, with slingshot in hand, Mr. Yetnikoff settles old scores while providing a book-length occasion to contemplate what those words mean. If there are other contenders for this year's Robert Evans Award for Self-Promoting Show Business Reminiscence, they may as well desist: Mr. Yetnikoff has it in the bag. As he makes clear in "Howling at the Moon," he brought a when-in-Rome attitude toward keeping up with the musical talent when he was president of CBS Records. "Not only was it cool to party with them, hell, it was practically obligatory," he says, before going on to provide countless name-dropping incidents to prove his point. Like the following exchange with Marvin Gaye.

Mr. Yetnikoff: "Don't you realize that pot can lead to coke?"

Gaye: "I have some of that too."

Mr. Yetnikoff: "Great. Bring it out."

Books in this "and then I drank . . ." genre pose an inevitable question: If the author was as ceaselessly pie-eyed, stoned or skirt chasing as he claims to have been, how much does he really remember? Mr. Yetnikoff's way of dealing with this is to rely on the services of David Ritz, a prolific ghostwriter with the lyrics to Gaye's hit "Sexual Healing" also to his credit.

Together Mr. Yetnikoff and Mr. Ritz devise a kind of sitcom snappiness that turns Mr. Yetnikoff into the Henny Youngman of CBS. This is an approach that definitely has its points. For instance, Mr. Yetnikoff claims to have had a dream of being with Paul Gauguin in Tahiti and wowing the local women by dropping the names of Billy Joel and Neil Diamond. "Gauguin grew jealous of all the attention I was getting," the book recounts. " `Keep painting, Paul,' I said, `and I'll give you my leftovers.' "

The book begins by presenting Mr. Yetnikoff at the height of his corporate powers and as a man uninterruptedly in touch with his inner child. He claims to have been fawned over at lunch by Jacqueline Onassis and serviced by a girlfriend called Boom Boom. His book is filled with big-shot quips about Mick Jagger ("He's under contract. He can wait.") and Michael Jackson. ("Your peacocks hate me. They're jealous.") His office is apparently Substance Abuse Central for CBS headquarters. He has a secretary who claimed never to have seen anyone take his clothes off and put them back on so many times in one day.

Then comes the wake-up call, right on cue. Here is Mr. Yetnikoff's doctor, warning him to quit his evil ways before it's too late. Now "Howling at the Moon" flashes back to a Brooklyn boyhood: "For high Yiddish drama, you couldn't beat the Yetnikoffs." Since both authors are savvy enough to know that readers are more interested in rock stars than in Mr. Yetnikoff's grandfather, who kept his fly open and spit on the floor, this section is mercifully brief.

Soon Mr. Yetnikoff has been to law school and landed a job in the record business courtesy of a classmate, Clive Davis, another future mogul. It is not this book's style to let Mr. Davis or anyone else get by uninsulted. But beyond the ad hominem swipes, "Howling at the Moon" also devotes itself to the special business etiquette that ruled the record business, or at least Mr. Yetnikoff's end of it. Something he learned early on: "If you hired a hooker for a company party, you buried the charge among the flowers and wine."

The cover of "Howling at the Moon" features Annie Leibovitz's vintage photograph of a bare-chested, robust and clearly maniacal Mr. Yetnikoff, flanked by images of the biggest stars in his particular galaxy. One of them was Mr. Jackson; anyone needing further evidence of his unusual nature will notice that he supposedly regarded Mr. Yetnikoff as the nice, kindly father he wished he'd had.

But Mr. Yetnikoff has his own problems with paternal authority, and he uses them to explain his own obnoxious, sometimes diabolically funny behavior in business situations. Surely he was the only CBS employee who insisted on addressing William S. Paley, the company's distinguished founder, as "Daddy," and suggesting that Paley adopt him.

"Howling at the Moon" describes some of the vicious in-fighting that led him to taunt Laurence Tisch and David Geffen, among many others, and eventually brought Mr. Yetnikoff to the brink (Time's headline on his career implosion in 1990: "A Music King's Shattering Fall.") However frivolous he is about recycling old party-boy stories, he is more serious about depicting the power struggles, back-stabbing airplane envy and creative accounting that defined the business as he knew it.

"What overall philosophy drives the companies?" he says he was asked by a lawyer. His answer: "Pay the artist as little as you can. Tie the artist up for as long as you can. Recoup as often as you can."

Nowadays Mr. Yetnikoff is a sober septuagenarian on a motorcycle, with a tendency to get bossy when he goes to 12-step meetings. "It took me a lifetime to learn to listen," he says, with about as much contrition as he can muster. But this is a book about his wicked, wicked ways, not a story that hinges on penance.

When he refers to himself as "Yetnikoff, that brilliant and fun-loving fox," he hardly seems to regret the excesses of his ancient history. Now those excesses have earned their niche in the Robert Evans Hall of Fame.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/books/05BOOK.html


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The Great Downloads War

Apple's iPod has put it in pole position in the MP3 downloads race, but with the entry of aggressive new competition, the running order may be about to change, says Victor Keegan

The music downloads industry is about to enter the third stage of its revolution.

The first phase was illegal downloads from the internet, the second was the corporate counter-revolution led by Apple with the runaway success of its 99 (54.4p) cents-a-track downloads through iTunes. This has all but killed the market for singles (though the music industry as a whole is in rude health).

The third stage is the turf wars between dozens of competing devices to establish market dominance five years hence. At the moment Apple is top banana with iTunes and the justly acclaimed iPod, and looks invincible.

But Apple has been here before - it dominated the computer market decades ago but later blew it - and the question is whether history will repeat itself in an eerily similar manner.

Among Apple's competitors are the corporate Siamese twins Roxio, a leading provider of digital-media software, and Napster, now selling paid-for music downloads, both of which have the same chairman and chief executive, Chris Gorog.

Napster, the former notorious file-sharing site, whose brand name and patents were bought by Roxio for a mere $5m, claims to have the world's largest catalogue of online music with over 500,000 tracks available. It also has a $9.99 a month subscription option (which Apple sneers at) enabling punters to sample or download a wide range of music at no extra cost.

Roxio claims a competitive advantage in being compatible with Windows Media Player, installed as standard in hundreds of millions of Windows-based PCs, leverage that Apple doesn't have, even though iPods and iTunes can be used with PCs.

Apple is trying to establish dominance with the quality and style of its products. It is also trying to keep customers within its own walled garden - just as it did in the early days of popular computing, with near-fatal effects.

But the attraction of all this could wane if Apple's first-mover advantage evaporates and second movers offer cheaper products compatible with Windows Media Player and by extension, the majority of the world's computers.

Of course this market dominance may not last much longer if the European commission, which is investigating Microsoft's Windows monopoly, insists that its Media Player must be detached from the operating system. Could this open up the possibility of Apple a greater toehold in PCs?

There is a third scenario: that mobile phones will provide a cut- down but viable alternative to dedicated digital music players. There are already a number of phones - like the Sony-Ericsson P900 - that offer digital music in MP3 form.

At the moment they do not have the quality or the capacity of dedicated music players. But there is an interesting comparison with phone cameras. They are getting better so quickly that analysts predict that in a few years' time most customers will use them as their main camera, removing the need for carrying around a second one.

If you mentioned that about digital music players now, you would be laughed out of court. But in five years' time?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/economicdi...163013,00.html


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Direct Connect Upgrade

From the site

Today's a big day for Direct Connect. We've released a new weekly build that brings a great new feature into the client - Tiger Tree Hashes. Most of you won't, don't and shouldn't know what this is. What it lets you do is what matters. Tiger Tree Hashes allow Direct Connect to find alternate sources for the files in your queue. These alternate matches are based on the content of the file, rather than its name. So, if two people have two copies of the same file, but with totally different names, and you start downloading from 1 of them and they leave, Direct Connect will automatically find the other copy and start downloading!

The feature required quite a bit of work to integrate, but make sure to try it out by right clicking on files in your queue and choosing 'Auto Complete' or 'Find exact copy'. If 'Find exact copy' isn't in your menu, it means you started downloading the original file from a user who did not support tiger tree hashing - no worries, as more people start using this build, the feature will become more prevalent.

Here's a list of some other changes -

· Tiger Tree Hashing! As described at http://open-content.net/specs/draft-...e-thex-02.html

· Automatic download completion. Direct Connect now finds alternate sources for file-transfers closed by remote peers. It can find alternates by Tiger Tree Hash (Exact Match) or it can choose files with similar names and the exact same file size.

· If the remote peer supports Tiger Tree Hashes, Direct Connect will verify data as it is written to disk. This prevents transfers from becoming corrupted.

· ZLib Compression

· GetZBlock/GetTestZBlock support

· Client-2-Client Tiger Tree Hash Exchanged via GetMeta command

· Preference to control automatic download completion. Choices are 'Exact' vs 'Apparent'. An exact match occurs only when you have the tiger tree hash of the file in question and are able to find another client exporting that same tiger tree hash. Hence, both clients must support hashing. Direct Connect currently works with BCDC++ at this point. An apparent match is a file with a similar name and the exact same size.

· The back-end of the queue (Not GUI) has been rewritten.

· When a file completes all queued files with he same local path are removed from the queue.

Have Fun - Jon Hess

http://www.neo-modus.com/?page=News


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A Software Aimed at Taming File-Sharing
John Schwartz

The record industry is hoping that a little magic will solve its problems with online piracy by file sharers.

The Recording Industry Association of America has been talking up a company named Audible Magic to lawmakers and regulators in Washington in recent weeks in an attempt to show that file-sharing networks can be tamed.

The company, based in Los Gatos, Calif., has developed a technology that it says can spot copyrighted materials while they are being passed from computer to computer and block the transfer.

Audible Magic executives say that their software can be used in devices that attach to computer networks, or it can be written into the file-sharing software from companies like Kazaa and Grokster.

"We think the technology is extraordinarily promising," said Mitch Bainwol, the chairman of the music industry group. "We said from the start that technology may pose some risks, but it offers the solution."

File-sharing companies have argued that they cannot control copyright infringement on their networks.

"I think it does change the game," said Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. "Now if you're a legislator, you're going to have to make a decision about whether you're going to protect the rights of downloaders, or of the people who own the copyrights to the music."

Record industry executives, who have said that they are against government-ordered technology fixes for copyright problems, said that they are not asking Congress to act, at least at this time. Instead, Mr. Bainwol said, his industry would like to see the "peer-to-peer" companies add the software to their wares.

"It really puts the P2P community to the test," he said. "Are they serious about becoming legitimate, or are they not serious?"

The chief executive of a company with a product that could be put to similar uses said that the file-trading companies were unlikely to sign up.

"It destroys their model," said Mark M. Ishikawa, the chief executive of BayTSP, a company that monitors file-trading activity for entertainment companies. He never developed a file blocker, he said, because "for us, it's a waste of time."

Vance Ikezoye, the chief executive of Audible Magic, said that businesses could emerge from the use of his technology, which he said could be used to help sell legitimate music, not just block the illegitimate kind.

The file-sharing companies and those that work with them are unsurprisingly unenthusiastic about the music industry's flirtation with Audible Magic. Marty Lafferty, the chief executive of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, a trade group for the companies, said the software "falls considerably short" of what is necessary to work with such fast-changing technology. "P2P is an evolving technology that can only be understood by working more closely with the developers of these applications."

But some universities are already looking at the technology. Charles E. Phelps, the provost of the University of Rochester, one of two schools that has signed a contract with the new Napster service to provide legitimate music to all students, said that he was impressed with Audible Magic's ability to allow legitimate files to be traded while preserving privacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/08/te...rtn er=GOOGLE


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Copyright Suit Raises Concerns
David Canton

A legal action that could potentially affect anyone who has downloaded music on the Internet was recently initiated in Canada. The plaintiffs in this civil suit are some of the biggest music record labels, represented by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

The action claims individuals have infringed upon the plaintiffs' copyright by reproducing the plaintiffs' sound recordings -- using peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as Kazaa and iMesh -- and have knowingly distributed this material in a manner that prejudicially affects the owners of the copyrights.

CRIA intends to go after "egregious" or high-volume file-sharers that make massive quantities of music available for free.

The defendants in these proceedings are unknown for the moment. CRIA is requesting a court order that could change that. If granted, it would require Internet service providers (ISP) to produce names and addresses of the alleged perpetrators.

Electronic Frontier Canada and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic have both been allowed by the court to intervene in this matter to argue the legal issues surrounding privacy, due process, and copyright law.

CRIA has tracked computers trading in copyrighted songs using their Internet protocol (IP) addresses through the use of surveillance technology. CRIA needs to match those IP addresses with subscriber information to identify the defendants.

Five ISPs have been targeted by CRIA for the disclosure of personal information that would lead to the identification of subscribers using the Web to upload music. The court ordered an adjournment until March 12 so the parties can cross-examine each other's affidavit documents to determine the technical and legal issues in dispute.

Downloading involves taking information from another computer. Uploading is transferring data from one's own computer to another. It is generally accepted that the Copyright Act allows music downloading so long as it is for personal use. Uploading is not so clear. These issues have not yet been decided in courts.

One might ask why CRIA is trying to stop uploading when the recording industry gets royalties from the sale of blank recording media as a result of the same Copyright Act provisions that allow downloading.

Unfortunately, the fact that the case may ultimately be between several large recording companies on one side, and a few individuals on the other, may skew the chances for a proper hearing in the courts in order to determine the answer once and for all.

Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), an ISP is not permitted to disclose a subscriber's personal information without the person's knowledge and consent. One exception is a court order.

There are many issues to be considered, such as whether civil actions should be held to a higher threshold before privacy is violated than in criminal cases, and whether uploading music as done by the peer-to-peer networks is actually copyright infringement.

There is also concern about the accuracy of the information being sought. Dynamic IP addresses can be reassigned to different customers on a continual basis, making it difficult to determine which individuals upload music files.

The worry is that ISPs could be compelled to provide private information that wrongly identifies someone. One of the ISPs maintains it can not accurately match the IP addresses with alleged file-sharers.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...06/372123.html


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Global Swarming
Edmund Tadros

Downloading illegal MP3s using programs such as Kazaa may be quick and easy (and illegal), but downloading pirated movies has always been trickier. Even over a broadband connection it can take hours, if not days, to download files that are usually hundreds of megabytes in size.

But a new generation of file-sharing programs has emerged that allows large files to be rapidly downloaded by swarms of users without crashing the website hosting the file. In fact, the more "swarmloaders" simultaneously downloading the file, the quicker the download.

These swarming programs get around the main problems of existing music sites and peer-to- peer file-sharing programs - namely too many users and not enough sites hosting the files - by allowing users to share bandwidth.

"File-sharing networks like Gnutella or KaZaA can quickly become flooded with search requests," says Doan Hoang, an associate professor at University of Technology, Sydney. "'Leeching', where users download files without sharing, is also a problem. This results in more people fighting to download popular pirated files from the same small group of 'super-sharers', putting pressure on their websites and increasing download times."

Swarming programs, such as the well-known BitTorrent, allow downloaders to share their bandwidth, easing pressure on individual websites and decreasing download times, says Mark Gregory, a senior lecturer in computing at RMIT University.

"The principle of this system is it splits the larger file up into many smaller chunks that you download at the same time," Gregory says. "The minute you download a whole chunk, you're also making it available from your system. Retrieval speeds are far better, because you can get one file from multiple sources at the same time. The more people downloading the file, the more you will experience an exponential speed increase."

Gregory says these types of programs discourage leeching because download speeds are affected by how much a user shares their bandwidth. The net result is an elegant solution to the cyber-problem of having a file that everyone wants.

While the system was designed to help websites cope with large levels of traffic, its most prominent use to date has been sharing copyrighted material across the internet. There has been an outbreak of renegade sites packed with pointers to pirated "seed" files of copyright movies, television shows, programs and music. The pointer files are easily downloaded by swarmsharers for use in programs such as BitTorrent, to find and download pirated material.

Naturally, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), with fields of copyright material to protect, has taken note and called in the legal exterminators. But this time around, the copyright holders aren't going after swarming programs such as BitTorrent. Instead, they want to shut down the websites filled with pointers to their material.

"BitTorrent does not have its own search function, such as that found in popular peer-to-peer applications," says the MPAA's Marta Grutka.

"Once a user has installed the BitTorrent client application on his computer, the user can click on BitTorrent links on websites to begin downloading files. Since November 2003, the MPAA has sent approximately 300 infringement notices to the hosts of these types of sites."

The MPAA hopes their lawsuits will kill or push into obscurity many of the websites providing pointers to copyright materials. Whether they can legally do so, and whether this will prevent the sites from re-emerging in countries without strong copyright protection, remains to be seen.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...464632708.html


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Streaming on a Shoestring
Doug Kaye

About a year ago I decided to build IT Conversations, a Web site of recorded audio interviews, and I wanted to do it for essentially no money. I was already running a Linux/Apache server, but nothing else. The project is still evolving, and what follows is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the options, but my experiences to date should be enough of a guide for anyone who's got the same ambitions and budget to get started.

We're all familiar with the Windows Media Player (WMP) and the RealPlayer (RP), since most high-end streaming sites tend to deliver content encoded for one or both. The players are free, but RealNetworks charges for its Helix servers, and the latest Windows Media Services run only on Windows Server 2003. Either option would have cost something. Besides, I had in mind that listeners would like the option to download .mp3 files into their iPods and other players, and I wondered if there was a way to stream those same .mp3 files rather than use proprietary .rm or .wma files.

I found two free server solutions. SHOUTcast (shoutcast.org) from Nullsoft, suppliers of the Winamp audio client for Windows, is available for Windows, OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris, and can deliver streaming and on-demand .mp3 files. Icecast (icecast.org), an open- source project available in source or pre-packaged for Windows or Red Hat Linux, supports .mp3 and Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) files. The latter format can be important, since there are intellectual-property rights associated with the creation and distribution of .mp3 files. I found both servers very easy to install, although I had to do a little digging to uncover all the configuration documentation I needed for on- demand streaming. (Two options I didn't test are the mod_mp3 Apache add-on and GNUMP3d.)

The most significant difference between both of the .mp3 and .ogg solutions and the proprietary RealNetworks and Microsoft technologies is the protocols they use. By default, Real's Helix server uses PNM and RTSP listening on ports 7070 and 554, respectively, while Microsoft's server typically uses its own protocol over UDP or TCP on port 1755. SHOUTcast and Icecast, however, both use good old HTTP, nominally over port 8000. From an .mp3-streaming client's perspective, SHOUTcast and Icecast appear identical.

Until recently, users who wanted to listen to streamed .mp3 files had to download one of the specialty players such as Sonique, Macast, SoundJam, Winamp 2.x, 5.x (not 3.x) or Zinf. But just recently, the mainstream players have added support for .mp3 streaming, so visitors can now use the latest versions of iTunes, Windows Media Player, and RealPlayer.

So that takes care of the servers and players, but what about the source material? Streaming servers depend on small metafiles. RealNetworks uses .ram and .rpm files to specify content for standalone players and browser-embedded content respectively. The formats are simple - they merely contain the URLs of the actual content - but they must be delivered with the proper MIME types. Similarly, Microsoft uses ASX metafiles containing XML and allow for the optional specification of various metadata such as artist, title, copyright information, etc.

In the non-proprietary world of streaming .mp3 files, there are two metafile playlist files: .m3u and .pls. The former originated with Winamp, but the latter now seems to be the more widely used. Both are simple text files containing the URLs of the .mp3 files and, in the case of .m3u, a bit more information. You can create playlists with a text editor, or you can write scripts to create them in batch or on- the-fly.

The most important conclusion I've drawn from my experiments is that it's now quite practical to offer streaming audio without an expensive proprietary server. So long as you stick to HTTP, you can stream virtually every type of compressed audio file: .mp3, .ogg, .rm and .wm, and you can do it with free software, even a standard web server. The results may not scale as well as when using a specialized protocol, and a few users may experience more connection and buffering problems, but my experience has been that these problems are minimal for low-volume sites.
http://thewhir.com/king/doug-kaye-021604.cfm

You’ll find IT Conversations here. - Jack.


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House Passes Bill to Help 'Webcasters'
David McGuire

Small Internet radio stations are facing improved odds of survival after the House of Representatives approved a bill yesterday to make it more affordable for them to negotiate royalty deals with music publishers and the recording industry.

The House voted in favor of the Copyright Royalty Distribution and Reform Act, which would authorize a judge appointed by the Librarian of Congress to hear royalty disputes, eliminating a system that webcasters say excludes them from the process of determining the amount of money they pay to musicians, songwriters and record companies for broadcasting their music.

Under the current system, arbitration panels decide the royalty rates that Internet radio stations pay, but the cost of participating can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The new system would charge participants $150 to argue a royalty case before a judge.

"Those are the folks your sympathy goes out to. They incurred incredible expenses before they even got to the point of hiring an attorney," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the bill's sponsor and chairman of a House subcommittee on intellectual property.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Congress said that webcasters must pay copyright royalties to songwriters and record companies when they play songs online. The government-approved royalty rates that were negotiated in the arbitration panels proved manageable for large Internet radio operations owned by major companies but were prohibitively expensive for small webcasters.

That small webcasters have been able to survive so far is in some part because of a law signed by President Bush in late 2002 that allows them to negotiate royalty payment rates on a case-by-case basis with SoundExchange, the recording industry's principal royalty collector. Bush signed the bill after many webcasters complained to Congress that they could not afford paying .07 cents per song per listener as determined by the Library of Congress.

Smith's bill will make it more feasible for webcasters to challenge the Library of Congress's royalty rate, said Ann Gabriel, president of the Las Vegas-based Webcaster Alliance.

"It does give small webcasters a better chance to be heard," she said.

Gabriel said she expects a judge to do a better job tracking the effects of previous royalty rulings on the industry and keeping abreast of the complicated issues associated with royalty payments.

In hearings on the bill, Smith said all the major participants in the royalty debate have criticized the current arbitration process.

"It was clearly a system that everybody from individuals to large businesses felt was not working," Smith said. "There was a unanimous agreement among all our witnesses that the process itself needed to be streamlined and needed to be modernized."

Smith said he plans to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) next week to discuss the legislation. He predicted that it could pass the Senate and go to the White House within one or two months.

Hatch aides were unavailable for comment.

Recording Industry Association of America spokeswoman Amy Weiss released a statement saying that the group "appreciate[s] this step forward in addressing important issues related to the process of determining the royalty rates for music delivered by digital services."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Mar4.html


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Use Of World Wide Web Is Widening, Says Study

In yet another sign that the Internet has become more pervasive, a quarter of adult users have logged on outside the traditional settings of home or work.

Some are lower-income Americans who have no other choice but to do their Web surfing in schools or libraries. But many are younger adults who are "moving toward this anytime, anywhere access," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which conducted the study.

Beside work and home, the most popular places for logging on are friends' or neighbors' homes, schools and libraries. Less common are from a relative's house, Internet cafes and churches.

Work PCs are used to swap music files, survey reports

Employees are using their companies' computer networks to download and swap music and video files, showing little concern about recent legal threats issued by the major music labels' trade group.

An e-mail survey of several hundred people, conducted by online security company Blue Coat (www.bluecoat.com) found almost 40 percent said they are using peer-to- peer networks at work.

"The enterprise environment appears to be a safe haven for the use of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing," said Steve Mullaney, Blue Coat's vice president of marketing, in a statement.

Almost 15 percent of the respondents said they spend more than an hour a day sharing files. "In addition to the legal risks created with illegal P2P file sharing, downloading can easily consume 30 percent of network bandwidth, consume network storage and initiate spyware," Mullaney added.

Maker of toner-cartridge chips seeks court go-ahead

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A company at the center of a legal skirmish over remanufactured printer toner cartridges has re-engineered its computer chips to address the objections.

A year ago, a federal judge in Kentucky barred Static Control Components from making or selling chips that match remanufactured toner cartridges to Lexmark International Inc. printers.

Lexmark's chips have a formula for computing how much toner is loaded in a cartridge, and Lexmark claimed Static's use of them was a copyright violation. Static attorney Skip London said that Static's new chips for Lexmark's T520, T620 and T630 printer cartridges use a different formula Static developed.

Last week, Static asked a court to declare that it can sell its re-engineered replacement chips.

In a statement, Lexmark said it would obtain copies of the new chips to determine if they are legal.

New fluid-based lens uses electricity to change focus

AMSTERDAM — Philips Electronics has developed a fluid-based lens whose focus can change using an electrical charge.

Philips, Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics, said the lens does not employ moving parts, so it is difficult to break and can focus more than a million times without wearing out.

"The idea isn't new," Philips spokesman Koen Joosse said. "As far back as the 17th century people made a fluid lens, but it wasn't capable of focusing."

The company believes it can mass-produce the lens for digital cameras, camera phones, home security systems and other uses. Many low-cost models of such cameras now have only fixed-focus lenses.

The FluidFocus lens contains two fluids, one of which responds to a weak but variable electrical charge. Adjusting the charge changes the surface tension of the solution and hence the shape of the lens.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...tbriefs08.html


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Keeping It RealNetworks
Dawn C. Chmielewski

At the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge last week, RealNetworks Chairman Rob Glaser spotted the father of hip-hop on the patio, reclining under the palms in a cream sweater and slacks, chatting on his cell phone.

They'd met twice in recent months so Glaser couldn't resist stopping by to greet Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons.

"Where are we meeting next?" joked Glaser.

"I've got your schedule," rejoined Simmons.

The exchange reveals how deeply a button-down computer guy from Seattle has established ties with the Hollywood elite. The Mercury News asked Glaser to talk about online music, movies and RealNetworks' looming antitrust suit against Microsoft.

QUESTION: RealNetworks is transforming itself from a provider of technology to broadcast music and video over the Internet to selling consumers subscriptions to digital media content. What prompted the change?

ANSWER: We launched Real Audio in 1995. The very first day we launched we had available on our Web site ABC News, National Public Radio. So we always thought of ourselves as more than a technology company.

In 2000, we started getting into subscriptions and premium content. There was clearly a chicken and egg problem. Nobody was buying content on the Internet, therefore people weren't making premium content available. ...

This was just around the time the Napster phenomenon was ramping up. I remember having conversations with the labels in which they said they'd sue Napster. And we said, "Listen, you can sue an instance of this but I don't think you can sue away the phenomenon. It isn't going to go away because you won a court case." And sure enough, that's how it played out.

Q: The original Napster is gone, but file swapping certainly hasn't gone away. Despite the more than 1,000 lawsuits brought against individuals, usage is up 40 percent since December 2002. How can a paid service compete?

A: I said all along that I think our No. 1 competitor is the pirate services. We will continue to grow because consumers that have their own charge cards, or are parents of small children, understand that the law is clear and that file sharing is illegal. But there is a very large market of people whose attitude is, "Well, I don't yet see a reason why I have to stop."

The music industry is going to continue to file lawsuits around that. The cows just got so far out of the barn with illegal piracy, before there were legitimate services, that I think we should expect that the amount of time it will take to really turn it around will be measured in years, not months.

Q: What happens to services like RealNetworks' Rhapsody if the music industry finds a way to license these peer-to-peer services?

A: I think it would be great if the music industry came up a true detente with the peer-to-peer, but the problem is there's not just one you can create a detente with. What happened with Napster is instructive because one company, Bertelsmann, tried to do just that. The other guys' attitude was, "Hey why do we want to give you, Bertelsmann, control over this thing that's so important to the future of our industry?"

Q: When will RealNetworks begin offering downloadable movies as part of its RealOne subscription service?

A: We think as sure as night follows day, movies will follow music. And will be a hugely important part of our business.

We work very closely with MovieLink (a company that sells downloadable movie rentals over the Internet). The same happened with the initial form of music services like Pressplay and MusicNet, where the rights holders were too restrictive as to the rights.

For instance this phenomena where you download a movie on MovieLink and 24 hours after you start watching it, it gets deleted from your hard drive. It would be kind of like if Blockbuster sent, after 24 hours, some guy with brass knuckles to your door and grabbed the tape back from you.

The way Blockbuster did it is they understand you want to rent another video. And when you rent another video, they ask for that one back and they charge you a late fee.

Q: When will studios permit consumers to create a permanent copy of a movie purchased though a service such as MovieLink?

A: I don't think that the studios understand the degree to which there is pent-up demand on these things. I don't want to sound pessimistic. We've seen a sea change in the last six months that's encouraging. But I do think that more communication from average consumers will only accelerate the studios doing the right thing.

The good news is the movie industry and the television industry understand the need to slice and dice distribution. They have the rights, generally speaking, all packaged up. So once the decision is made, the infrastructure is in place to move.

Q: RealNetworks filed a complaint against Microsoft in December, in which your company alleges a wide range of anti-competitive conduct. Was RealNetworks forced to change its business in response to the competitive landscape?

A: We're growing business. We're a successful company. We made a set of transformations in our business for sure. Some of those transformations we would have made, regardless of anti- competitive activities. The importance of them was enhanced, let's say, by Microsoft's anti- competitive activities.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...al/8132914.htm


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What Does Broadband Mean?
Simon Aughton

'What does broadband mean?' might sound like a stupid question, but a spate of new 'broadband' services are leading many to ask whether the word has lost its meaning.

Not only are connections which offer only slightly more than twice the speed of dial-up being called broadband - 128 and 150K services from the likes of NTL and Tiscali for instance - but the increased take-up of ADSL in some urban areas is reportedly having a significant decelerating affect on 512K users contending for one fiftieth of a busy pipe.

To cap it all, Supanet has just launched a 'broadband- enabled' 60Kbps service; that's a whole 4Kbps faster than dial-up. Industry-regulator Ofcom defines broadband at 128Kbps. Supanet as so far declined to comment.

Questionable speeds are only part of the problem. The latest initiative from the ISPs in order to get monthly charges below £20 is to introduce hefty capping - limiting the amount of traffic to your computer to 2GB or 3GB per month.

That may sound a lot, but average it out over 30 days and it makes a mockery paying the extra for a broadband connection. Three gigabytes over a month is 100MB per day. Now consider the limitations of that when engaging in perfectly legal, typical online activities. (The effect of P2P file-sharing is a separate issue, given its dubious legality.)

In a single day you could view streamed media, download software - including recommended security updates, hold a video or voice conference via instant messaging software, play an online game and buy music (at around 4MB per song an album could add up to over 50MB). And if the Internet connection is shared amongst two or three computers in a household or small business, usage will be multiplied.

At what point does the combination of bandwidth, capping, contention and usage render broadband as a meaningless description. It is something that Ofcom needs to address, though its recent pronouncement at the ISPA Awards that the industry should self-regulate was not promising.

MP Michael Fabricant is campaigning for a new definition of broadband. In a speech to the Access to Broadband Campaign Conference in January, he argued that the current definition is '"Always On". And that's it.

'But you and I know,' he continued, 'that a fast pipe should be the criterion.' Because it is not, one in ten 'broadband' users are unhappy with the speed of their connection.

Supanet's 60Kbps service illustrates this perfectly. Spokesman Adrian Kerr said, 'We've found there is a genuine interest in a package that may be the same speed as dial-up, but gives customers the other benefis of true broadband packages: an always-on connection and the ability to use the phone and surf at the same time.' He added that a new less ambiguous description would be on the website by tomorrow, but under some definitions of the term the service can be legitimately labelled broadband.

'Broadband' these services may be, but whether they provide a true broadband experience is questionable.

We are constantly being told, by government, by analysts and by business, how important broadband is to the economy. We run the risk of diluting the experience to such an extent that people begin to switch off.

We also risk being left behind. As BT and the ISPs continue to divide up the existing ADSL capacity, other countries are investing technologies that, in the case of Japan, are already delivering 100Mbps services. Per second, when certain ISPs in this country are limiting users to that per day.

UK ISPs are quick to defend themselves, and to be fair they have a strong case. With one or two exceptions, they have to make do with the services that BT makes available to them, through its near monopoly of exchanges. Local loop unbundling was meant to dilute BT's dominance, but up to now has failed to do so, although interest in it is being rekindled.

There is also the suspicion that BT's presence on the retail side - through both BT Openworld and BT Retail - has a strong bearing on what it decides to do on the wholesale side. It would be interesting to see the effect of excluding BT from retail altogether, forcing its efforts into developing a truly competitive broadband infrastructure, which would be a much better way of getting prices down than usage capping.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.p...y.php?id=54578


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Groups Challenge File-Sharing Suits
Samantha Chang

NEW YORK (Billboard) - In yet another round in the unending saga of music downloading, civil-liberties groups are arguing that individual (as opposed to group) complaints be lodged against file sharers.

The move is an attempt to block the efforts of the Recording Industry Assn. of America to efficiently prosecute multiple accused file sharers in a single lawsuit. Forcing the RIAA to pursue each defendant individually would drastically slow down settlement efforts.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed amicus briefs asking that accused file sharers be accorded "minimal due process rights before subpoenas are authorized to identify them."

So far, the courts appear to be listening. Earlier this month a Philadelphia judge ordered record companies to file separate complaints against each of the 203 "John Doe" defendants in BMG Music v. Does 1-203.

Judge Clarence Newcomer ruled that the recently subpoenaed group should not be tried in a single lawsuit and ordered the plaintiffs to pay a full filing fee for each case, for a total of $30,000.

The move is clearly an efficiency challenge for the RIAA, which is seeking quick settlements to discourage illegal file sharers, lawyers note. Meanwhile, the RIAA insists it will continue to seek group settlements and litigate.

The case was filed in Philadelphia against defendants whose Internet service provider (ISP) is Philadelphia-based Comcast.

In a similar case filed in Atlanta against 252 "John Doe" defendants whose ISP is Cox Communications, Judge Willis Hunt authorized a subpoena but required that Cox be given 25 days before complying with it, to give subscribers time to object to identification if desired. The case is Motown Record Co. v. Does 1-252.

Meanwhile, the judges who are hearing Virgin Records v. Does 1-44 (filed in Atlanta seeking to subpoena the identity of alleged file sharers whose ISP is Earthlink) and BMI Recordings v. Does 1-199 (filed in Washington, D.C., against defendants whose ISP is Verizon) are still mulling the issues presented by amici, according to the EFF.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...section=new s


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Some Like It Hot

OK, P2P is "piracy." But so was the birth of Hollywood, radio, cable TV, and (yes) the music industry.
Lawrence Lessig

If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio, and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation - until now.

The Hollywood film industry was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and directors migrated from the East Coast to California in the early 20th century in part to escape controls that film patents granted the inventor Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through the Motion Pictures Patents Company, a monopoly "trust" based on Edison's creative property and formed to vigorously protect his patent rights.

California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers like Fox and Paramount could move there

Marilyn photo from Kobal Collection, pirate photo from Corbis
and, without fear of the law, pirate his inventions. Hollywood grew quickly, and enforcement of federal law eventually spread west. But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative property.

Meanwhile, the record industry grew out of another kind of piracy. At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for reproducing music (Edison the phonograph; Fourneaux the player piano), the law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies and public performances of their music. Thus, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit, "Happy Mose," the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy of the score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform it publicly.

But what if I wanted to record "Happy Mose" using Edison's phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. If I simply sang the piece into a recording device in my home, it wasn't clear that I owed the composer anything. And more important, it wasn't clear whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those recordings. Because of this gap in the law, I could effectively use someone else's song without paying the composer anything. The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to pirate.

In 1909, Congress closed the gap in favor of the composer and the recording artist, amending copyright law to make sure that composers would be paid for "mechanical reproductions" of their music. But rather than simply granting the composer complete control over the right to make such reproductions, Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set by Congress, after the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law. So, by limiting musicians' rights - by partially pirating their creative work - record producers and the public benefit.

A similar story can be told about radio. When a station plays a composer's work on the air, that constitutes a "public performance." Copyright law gives the composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money.

But when the station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy of the composer's work. The station is also performing a copy of the recording artist's work. It's one thing to air a recording of "Happy Birthday" by the local children's choir; it's quite another to air a recording of it by the Rolling Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the composition played on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly consistent, the station would have to pay the artist for his work, just as it pays the composer.

But it doesn't. This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. You own the exclusive right to authorize public performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, she has to get your permission.

Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under today's law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The public performance of her recording is not a "protected" right. The radio station thus gets to pirate the value of Madonna's work without paying her a dime.

No doubt, one might argue, the promotion artists get is worth more than the performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if that's the case, this is a choice that the law ordinarily gives to the creator. Instead, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for nothing.

Cable TV, too: When entrepreneurs first started installing cable in 1948, most refused to pay the networks for the content that they hijacked and delivered to their customers - even though they were basically selling access to otherwise free television broadcasts. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more egregiously than anything Napster ever did - Napster never charged for the content it enabled others to give away.

Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. As then Screen Actors Guild president Charlton Heston put it, the cable outfits were "free-riders" who were "depriving actors of compensation."

Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing. The debate shifted to Congress, where almost 30 years later it resolved the question in the same way it had dealt with phonographs and player pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they broadcast, but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright owner. Instead, lawmakers set the price so that the broadcasters couldn't veto the emerging technologies of cable. The companies thus built their empire in part upon a piracy of the value created by broadcasters' content.

As the history of film, music, radio, and cable TV suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all piracy is. Or at least, not in the sense that the term is increasingly being used today. Many kinds of piracy are useful and productive, either to create new content or foster new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition, nor any tradition, has ever banned all piracy.

This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy concern - peer-to-peer file-sharing. But it does mean that we need to understand the harm in P2P sharing a bit more before we condemn it to the gallows.

Like the original Hollywood, P2P sharing seeks to escape an overly controlling industry. And like the original recording and radio industries, it is simply exploiting a new way of distributing content. But unlike cable TV, no one is selling the content that gets shared on P2P services. This difference distinguishes P2P sharing. We should find a way to protect artists while permitting this sharing to survive.

Much of the "piracy" that file-sharing enables is plainly legal and good. It provides access to content that is technically still under copyright but that is no longer commercially available - in the case of music, some 4 million tracks. More important, P2P networks enable sharing of content that copyright owners want shared, as well as work already in the public domain. This clearly benefits authors and society.

Moreover, much of the sharing - which is referred to by many as piracy - is motivated by a new way of spreading content made possible by changes in the technology of distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, radio, the music industry, and cable TV, the question we should be asking about file-sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists.

The question is one of balance, weighing the protection of the law against the strong public interest in continued innovation. The law should seek that balance, and that balance will be found only with time.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html

[JackSpratts]

Take this job and shove it.

Hollywood Can’t Fill Jack Valenti’s $1M Job; Help Wanted
Albert Eisele, Jeff Dufour

It’s one of the most prestigious and powerful lobbying positions in the nation’s capital.

It comes with a seven-figure salary and a fistful of perks, including a limousine and driver. You get to hang out with movie stars and Hollywood celeb-rities, present Oscars at the Academy Awards, and wine and dine top politicians while they view first-run feature films at your office two blocks from the White House.

The K Street crowd is wondering who will succeed Jack Valenti.

So why doesn’t anybody want Jack Valenti’s job as the chief lobbyist for the movie industry?

That’s the question the K Street crowd is asking these days after several top political figures turned down offers to succeed the 82-year-old former aide to President Johnson, who has held the job of chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for almost 34 years.

Valenti, who made what he hopes will be his last appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend, has thrown up his hands and taken himself out of the picture as far as picking his successor goes after Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) turned down the chance to succeed him.

Valenti announced this week that the MPAA has retained an executive search firm, Spencer Stuart, to develop a short list of candidates for the position that has been held by only three people since the MPAA was established in 1922.

Sources in the movie industry and the D.C. lobbying community say the job, for all its glitzy appeal, has become much more difficult as the film industry faces many new challenges, including fighting off tighter government regulation and censorship, competing with cable TV and broadcast networks, and combating the threat of digital piracy of films.

“The structure of the industry has changed greatly in recent years,” a Washington lawyer and confidant of Valenti said. “It has an international dimension to it, along with all the other new problems the industry faces.”

He added, “Jack’s successor has to be somebody who not only understands how legislation is enacted, but it has to be somebody who can deal on a peer level with powerful studio executives” like Harvey Weinstein. “It’s a job with a lot of high-powered and demanding bosses.”

Although some industry moguls would like to hire an existing Hollywood executive, that could cause friction with rival studios. That’s why two names have surfaced in recent weeks as potential leading candidates.

One is 12th-term Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), the chairman of the Rules Committee who headed the successful gubernatorial campaign of movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger and has been romantically linked to several movie actresses.

The other is even better known: White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who perhaps not so coincidentally was given a warm introduction at a Valentine’s Day party last month hosted by Bill Cohen, the former defense secretary and Republican senator from Maine.
http://www.hillnews.com/under_dome/030404.aspx


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MSN Messenger Flaw Allows Hard-Drive Access
Michael Kanellos

Microsoft has revealed three new vulnerabilities in its software, including the first to affect MSN Messenger 6.0, and is urging customers to patch their systems now.

Two of the vulnerabilities are considered medium-level risks, while the third presents a medium- to low-level risk, according to security software specialist Symantec and others. Three separate patches to repair the flaws--which affect different pieces of software--have been released and are available for download. The identification of the vulnerabilities came Wednesday as part of Microsoft's regular security bulletin process.

Later, the software giant will also send notices about the Messenger patch through MSN Messenger itself, said Stephen Toulouse, security program manager for the Microsoft Security Response Center.

The vulnerability in MSN Messenger versions 6.0 and 6.1 could let an attacker view the contents of a victim's hard drive during a chat session with the victim.

Attackers "could view files through MSN Messenger on their computer," Toulouse said. "They can do it, and you are not necessarily aware of what they are doing."

Users who do not block anonymous callers are most vulnerable to the exploit. If anonymous callers are blocked, the attacker has to be identified on the victim's address list. To obtain particular information, such as credit card numbers, attackers have to troll the hard drive, said Toulouse.

Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager for Symantec's security response team, said that victims don't actually have to be in conversation with the attacker. As long as the user permits anonymous callers to send messages, an attacker could come in and peruse Quicken files or other identifiable files that could likely contain sensitive data. However, most people block that function, so random attacks will likely be rare, he said.

The second medium-level risk could allow a hacker to take over a system by executing Internet Explorer code through a flaw in Outlook 2002.

A computer has to be configured in a particular manner, though, said Toulouse. The user has to set "Outlook Today" as the Outlook home page.

"If you go to Outlook through your in-box, you are protected," he said.

The third flaw allows attackers to instigate a denial-of-service attack against servers running Windows Media Services 4.1. The vulnerability exists because of the way Windows Media Station Service and Windows Media Monitor Service, components of Windows Media Services, handle TCP/IP connections. If an attacker sent a particular sequence of packets to a server running Media Services 4.1, it could interrupt any video streams.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5171898.html


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Court Puts DVD-Copying Decision On Hold

A New York federal judge has temporarily put on hold a ruling against 321 Studios, which makes DVD-copying software, pending a hearing next week. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Owen ruled last week that 321 Studios' software violated copyright laws and that the company must stop selling its DVD products.

Owen's ruling on Friday has little practical effect, however, since a similar ban, instituted by San Francisco federal Judge Susan Illston, is in effect. The company is still seeking a stay of Illston's order, and has said it would appeal both judgments.
http://news.com.com/2009-1014_3-5103...l?tag=nefd_top


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Universal Access to All Human Knowledge
Steven Garrity

A link found from Matt Haughey's a.wholelottanothing.org lead me to a talk by Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive. His organization is working a variety of projects to make public domain content available in an "internet library". Among these projects is the WayBack Machine, which archives the web.

The talk is part of a series at the Library of Congress and runs 1 hour and 26 minutes in RealVideo format. It is worth watching: Brewster Kahle: Public Access to Digital Materials (1hr 26min RealVideo).

Kahle's basic idea is universal access to all human knowledge. Every book, speech, TV show, website, concert, etc. should be available to all of us. He looks at three main questions:

· Should we? Yes!
· Can we? Is it logistically possible from a technical and financial perspective? His answer: Yes.
· May we? Will we be allowed to make all knowledge available under law? His answer: Yes.
· Will we? He leaves this as an open question.

His numbers on the cost to digitize (scanning, etc.), store (disk space), and make available (bandwidth) all human knowledge are fascinating. According to Kahle, the hardware and labour costs required to make all book and all television and all music ever created available are not that difficult (within the hundreds of millions of dollars).

Taking books for example:

There are roughly 100,000,000 books ever created
The Library of Congress has about 26,000,000 books (I was impressed and amazed that the Library of Congress has 26% of all books ever created)
A book costs between $10 and $100 to acquire and digitize
A book takes up about 1Mb of space
26,000,000 books would take 26 TeraBytes.
1 TeraByte costs about $60,000
The entire Library of Congress could be stored for about $1.5 million dollars
Books can be printed, cut, and bound for $1/book from a mobile book printer (~$15,000)

If anyone has the right to make these claims - it would be Kahle - who's organization is storing massive amounts of data as part of their WayBack project and other projects.
http://www.actsofvolition.com/archiv...niversalaccess


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And a place to put it all.

Hitachi To Unveil 400GB Drive
Ed Frauenheim

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce this week a massive hard drive designed to store corporate data or record about 400 hours of video for consumers.

The new drive has a capacity of 400GB, spins at 7,200 revolutions per minute, and uses ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) interface technology, according to a source close to Hitachi. The drive can come with either the parallel ATA interface long used in desktop computers or the newer Serial ATA interface. Dubbed the Deskstar 7K400, the drive is being tested by manufacturers and could be in digital video recorder products available to consumers later this year, the source said.

Hitachi's product continues a push by hard drive makers to play a larger role in the consumer electronics industry, which is using drives for devices including digital video recorders and personal music players like the iPod and iPod Mini.

The company is billing the Deskstar 7K400 as the largest- capacity ATA drive with 3.5-inch platters. Currently, the largest 3.5-inch ATA drive is a 320GB product from Maxtor, according to John Monroe, an analyst at research firm Gartner. That drive, though, spins at 5,400rpm, which translates into slower performance than a 7,200rpm drive, Monroe said. He said 3.5-inch ATA drives running at 7,200rpm top out at 250GB.

Hitachi hopes its whopper of a drive gets the attention of manufacturers in both the consumer and corporate markets.

In the latter, the drive is targeted at disk-based data storage gear called "nearline." That class of equipment has lower performance and is less reliable than systems with drives using the SCSI (small computer system interface) or Fibre Channel interfaces, but it's faster for data recoveries than magnetic tape storage.

Hitachi recently announced a large-capacity 300GB drive designed for high-end storage devices, as well as a prototype of a small-size 2.5-inch drive for corporate customers.

The Deskstar 7K400 also aims to find a place in digital video recorders (DVRs), which are devices that can record broadcasts as well as temporarily pause live programming. Hitachi already makes a 250GB drive that appears in DVRs. The roomier new drive is designed to store about 400 hours of standard broadcasts, or 45 hours of high- definition television, according to the source close to Hitachi.

DVRs are growing more powerful and popular. Monroe expects hard drives to play an increasing role in TV watching. "Every TV in the next five years will have a rotating magnetic device in it, on it or near it," he said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1015-5171944.html?tag=nefd_hed


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Sears To Rid Shelves Of PCs, Film Cameras
Michael Kanellos

Sears, Roebuck and Co. will remove PCs and film cameras from its store shelves in the third quarter to make room for TVs, DVDs and other consumer electronics devices.

The retailing giant, which has carried computers from Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Dell, Sony and others at various times, is winding down PC sales, after results failed to meet expectations, said Toni Duboise, an analyst at ARS. Film cameras will concurrently vanish from Sears shelves, she added.

"They didn't get the response they wanted," Duboise said. "When you think of Sears, you think of tools and dishwashers."

A Sears spokesman confirmed the company's plans to stop selling PCs and film cameras in the third quarter. "We're expanding the assortment of high-traffic items such as DVDs and software," the spokesman said. "(The PC) has been a small slice of family entertainment revenue."

Although never a giant in PCs, Sears definitely put some elbow grease into its attempt to sell them, crafting distribution deals with a number of manufacturers. Dell agreed to set up kiosks inside Sears stores but cancelled the effort after only opening a few kiosks. Sears didn't confine itself to the low end of the market but sold a wide variety of configurations.

The extra shelf space will be dedicated to TVs, DVD players and digital imaging products like cameras, Duboise said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1042-5171078.html


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WiMax Firm Raises $20 Million
Richard Shim

Aperto Networks raised $20 million in a series D round of funding, bringing its total financing to $77 million. The Milpitas, Calif.-based company said earlier this week that JK&B Capital, along with Canaan Partners, Alliance Ventures, Innovacom, Tyco Ventures, Labrador Ventures and Satwik Ventures, pumped cash into Aperto.P>

The WiMax product maker will use the money to expand its sales efforts and further develop its technology portfolio. WiMax networks are expected to have a range of up to about 30 miles, with data transfer speeds of up to 70 megabits per second. WiMax is viewed as a cheaper alternative to digital subscriber lines and cable broadband access, because the installation costs of wireless infrastructure are minimal when compared with the wired versions.
http://news.com.com/2110-1039-5171956.html


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Is Coke Really It For Digital Music Or Will It Fall Flat?
Jonathan Briggs

The cola wars have begun in the digital music market. As Coca-Cola gives mycokemusic.com to consumers in the UK and US, Pepsi is giving away 100 million tracks through Apple's iTunes.

But, is Coke really interested in becoming a music distributor or is it just a branding exercise? Mycokemusic has been greeted with some criticism since it launched on 12 January. It certainly suffered some early technical glitches, but most have been ironed out.

With a broadband connection, the site loaded fast and I was able to browse music, listen to previews, set up an account and buy tracks for 99p. But I did find a couple of technical gremlins. It took three attempts to charge my credit card and I haven't been able to download single-play songs for 1p. The credit gets deducted from my account, but there's no song.

The site has been well branded with the Coke image and there is an impressive 250,000 available music tracks. Navigation is generally straightforward and integration with Windows Media Player is slick. I like the 30-second track previews that slide in at the bottom of the screen, but I was disappointed that there is little engagement with music fans. Suggesting similar artists, inviting comments or helping users to explore genres, such as Jazz, would be good. Just having an alphabetical list of artists is insufficient.

Some internet users may be put off by the requirement to upgrade your Windows Media Player with a new licence key. This provides copy-protection for each downloaded track, linking them to your computer and, in effect, preventing you passing them on to friends.

I can, however, question the complete lack of consideration for accessibility. Surely, as we head towards the deadline for compliance with the Disabilities Discrimination Act in October, it is unacceptable for a big brand to ignore its blind and partially-sighted customers to such an extent, particularly when music and soft drinks are enjoyed by this audience.

And that leads me on to the question of why it has created the site at all. It looks very Coke, but only until I buy and download the tracks. Then, it is simply Windows Media Player and my association with the brand ends. Tracks bought on mycokemusic simply join the music I have already bought from other sites. Is this planned as a revenue stream for Coke, rather than a promotion, or will we see linked sales drives for the soft drink to drive people to the site? We've seen Coke move into clothing, but running a music retailer seems a bigger proposition.

It will be interesting to see if it provides further music content over the next few months, and if both the technical and accessibility problems are ironed out.

Downloading music presents a choice: do you do it legally from sites like mycokemusic or use a file-sharing peer-to-peer network, which could be illegal. Recent moves by Apple, Microsoft and brands like Coke will make most of us go legal, especially if the price of digital music falls.

I looked at Kazaa (www.kazaa.com), Grokster (www.grokster.com) and Napster (www.nap ster.com) on my PC and Acquisition (www.acquisitionx.com) on my Mac. Three of these are file-sharing operations. Napster has gone legal, but I couldn't do anything other than download the Napster software as there is no available music in the UK.

Grokster, Kazaa and Acquisition provide software for searching other people's computers to find stored tracks. PC software generally comes in two versions: a free one, supported by ads, and a paid-for version without pop-ups. These ads definitely set the tone for the experience and I suspect few FMCG brands will rush to advertise alongside internet casinos, spyware software and health products.

The experience is like a car-boot sale. Searching for 'Kylie' produces results that are definitely not tracks from her latest album. Less common tracks took ages to download and a few of the popular ones were corrupt. The only advantage is that the music, like radio, is free.

Mycokemusic is one of a family of web sites powered by Peter Gabriel's company, On Demand Distribution (OD2), (www.on demanddistribution.com). HMV, MSN, Freeserve, Tiscali, Ministry of Sound and Virgin Megastores use the same underlying store with different graphics and content. These sites work with Windows Media Player (WMP) and you can listen to all the music you buy on one player. I can also burn CDs from my downloaded music. Track pricing is generally similar, though some sites are experimenting with a mix of subscription and a lower per-track price. There is a chance for more brands to get involved in innovative offers linked to these sites.

This is the route Pepsi (www.pepsi.com) has taken in the US with Apple in launching a 100-million track giveaway. Customers have a one-in-three chance of finding a token on a bottle of Pepsi. Entering it into Apple's iTunes Music Store (www.itunes.com) will allow the track to be downloaded free. This offer, like the Music Store itself, is unavailable in the UK for now, but, unlike Napster, I can preview all of iTunes' tracks. ITunes works identically on PCs and Macs, although the music format it uses, AAC, is not inter-changeable with Microsoft's. iTunes also has the advantage of being the power behind iPod and this, together with support from companies like Pepsi, give it a real chance against WMP.

The contrast between Coke and Pepsi is interesting. Pepsi is definitely using music to encourage consumption of their drinks, while Coke may have a longer term interest.

This is an area of new media that is very much in its infancy, but it's clear that music distribution online will eventually replace CDs, at least in the retail channel. It's good to see firms experimenting with technology and pricing. Most people will want to buy music that's cheap, convenient and reliable.

I'm a big fan of radio as a distribution medium and look forward to online subscription and pricing models that let me listen to a track without having to buy.


Top Five Digital Music Sites

Rank Web address Visits Bookmarks
(% relative market share) (%)
1 www.kazaa.com 33.06 0.97
2 www.mycokemusic.com 13.22 2.28
3 www.musicmatch.com 13.06 0.85
4 www.blubster.net 11.07 0
5 www.grokster.com 9.09 0


Rank Web address Pages Bookmarks
(% relative market share) (%)
1 www.kazaa.com 32.48 0.97
2 www.mycokemusic.com 23.66 2.28
3 www.musicmatch.com 13.23 0.85
4 www.grokster.com 8.42 0
5= www.blubster.net 6.82 0
5= www.apple.com/itunes 6.82 0


Rank Web address Session time Bookmarks
(minutes) (%)
1 www.musicmatch.com 4:39 0.85
2 www.mp3.com 4:03 1.06
3 www.grokster.com 3:44 0
4 www.kazaa.com 3:12 0.97
5 www.apple.com/itunes 2:25 0

Source: Hitwise. Figures for week ending 31 January 2004
http://www.brandrepublic.com/dmbulle...gin=DM09032004


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1394 Trade Association Creates Latest Home Entertainment Network for Demonstrations at EH Expo in Orlando March 10-13, Booth 1539

Electronic House Expo Spring 2004
Press Release

The 1394 Trade Association will feature the latest and most advanced home entertainment network, moving video and audio at up to 800 Megabits/second over CAT-5 and plastic optical fiber, at the Electronic House Expo in Orlando March 10-13.

Populated with the latest in HDTV, Digital VHS, computer, storage, and audio equipment from industry leaders worldwide, the home entertainment network demo will showcase how FireWire can connect a wide range of different devices over distances up to 80 meters at significant speeds.

"We are focused on the 1394 standard's excellence in overcoming the challenge of linking many diverse consumer and computer devices on the network, easily and reliably," said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association. "We are making significant strides in wired and wireless networking, and FireWire is pre-eminent in delivering audio and video in a peer-to-peer environment where every device on the network can act as a client or server."

In the network demo, high definition video originates in a pair of D-VHS systems provided by Mitsubishi and JVC, and is delivered over CAT- 5 cabling through a master network hub developed by USTec, a leader in advanced home wiring systems. From there, it moves to a Mitsubishi HD5000 for display on a plasma or flat panel display, and to a Hewlett-Packard Media Center PC. The demonstration also includes file sharing between Sony VAIO and Media Center computers, as well as a shared Internet connection between them. It also incorporates whole house audio, using a Pioneer DVD player.

1394b Hub Anchors the Network

At the center of the demo is USTec's TP-FH4 FireWire five-port 1394b hub. It is designed to connect four 1394b wall plates using CAT-5 or better cables. The wall plates are powered via the CAT-5 from the hub. The fifth hub port is a bilingual jack used to connect to 1394-enabled equipment located in the cabinet, or to connect two TP-FH4 hubs together to work as an eight-port system.

POF Added to Network Demo, Delivered by Firecomms Corp.

For the first time, Plastic Optical Fiber has been added to the home entertainment network demonstration, illustrating how easy it is to install and use. Fibers are inserted into basic 1394 connectors, then snapped into place.

POF can carry over 250Mbps over 50 meters, and is much smaller and lighter than copper cabling POF also is not subject to noise from radiated emissions (EMI).

The 1394 Trade Association is a worldwide organization dedicated to the enhancement and advancement of the 1394/FireWire standard. For more information and a complete list of all products with IEEE 1394, visit www.1394ta.org.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...&newsLang =en


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Internet Providers Sue Hundreds for Unsolicited E-mail
AP
Some of the nation's largest Internet providers, in an unusual joint effort, said Wednesday they filed six lawsuits against hundreds of people who were accused of sending millions of unwanted e-mails in violation of the new U.S. law against ``spam.''

The legal actions by Microsoft Corp., America Online Inc., Earthlink Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., represent the first major industry actions under the ``can spam'' legislation that went into effect Jan. 1. The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in California, Georgia, Virginia and Washington state, were announced at a news conference.

The companies said the defendants include some of the nation's most notorious large-scale spammers. The Internet providers -- collectively with tens of millions of subscribers -- said they shared information, resources and investigative information to identify some of the defendants.

``Congress gave us the necessary tools to pursue spammers with stiff penalties, and we in the industry didn't waste a moment moving with speed and resolve to take advantage of the new law,'' said Randall Boe, AOL's top lawyer and executive vice president.

Dozens of those named in the lawsuits, however, were identified only as ``John Doe'' defendants who were accused of e-mailing unwanted pitches for prescription drugs, herbal potions and weight loss plans.

Among the named defendants were Davis Wolfgang Hawke of Medfield, Mass., whom AOL lawyers said also is known as Dave Bridger, and Braden Bournival of Manchester, N.H. They and others were accused of sending millions of e-mails offering weight loss supplements, handheld devices called ``personal lie detectors'' and other products.

The ``can spam'' legislation requires unsolicited e-mails to include a mechanism so recipients could indicate they did not want future mass mailings.

The law also prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line, and it prohibits senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/tech...t-Spam.html?hp


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“We are talking about some serious brain capacity here.”

The Ultimate Grid
TankGirl

Scientists and other specialists have been working for some time to design and set up a new computing and communication platform called ‘the scientific grid’. Their idea is to hook together a number of powerful supercomputers from around the planet with dedicated high-speed lines. With proper control hardware and software this grid of supercomputers can be configured to act as a single virtual ‘hypercomputer’ with horsepower far exceeding that of any of its components. The researchers can then use their new number crunching beast to tackle the very hardest jobs on fields like astronomy, biology, chemistry and physics.

Besides the scientific grid, there is also another grid - even more exciting and interesting - in the making. This grid is also a computing and communication platform but of a different architecture and composition. Instead of supercomputers it will be powered by consumer level workstations, and instead of dedicated lines it will use mere domestic broadband connections over public Internet. Its strength does not come from raw power or raw speed but from big numbers. By binding together millions and millions of computers it will be a powerful beast on its own.

There’s a fundamental difference between how the scientific grid and the ‘domestic’ grid are designed and built. The scientific grid is managed in a systematic, organized and professional fashion by the participating organizations and nominated persons - just as you would expect from any important international co- operative project. The domestic grid, in comparison, evolves in a wild and uncontrolled, almost organic fashion. It does not have any committees or organizations to steer its growth; there is rather a Darwinian battle for best solutions. Who builds it? Anybody who decides to join. Who provides the software? Anybody who is willing and up to the job. Who decides what solutions and protocols will prevail? Anybody and everybody by their own choices and selections in their own sphere of influence. So instead of being built and organized, the domestic grid rather builds itself and organizes itself - just like living systems tend to do.

The greatest difference between the two grids, however, comes from a special computing device attached to each computer in the domestic grid. This gadget, even if literally ancient in its design and circuitry, is nevertheless sophisticated and powerful enough to give the domestic grid all sorts of fancy capabilities that the scientific grid can not have by its design. The attached device is nothing less than the human brain, kindly made available by the living human intelligence residing in it.

More

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Click The Vote Launches Petition in Support of Legal File Sharing

Petition calls for an equitable, balanced and reasonable system for legal file sharing that promotes learning and rewards creators.
Press Release

Click The Vote today announced the launch of a petition in support of legal file sharing. The petition is now available online for people to sign at the ClickTheVote.org website. http://www.ClickTheVote.org

"Millions and millions of people cannot be felons," said Click The Vote founder John Parres, "and this petition gives everyone a way to express support for legal file sharing that rewards creators. People should not have to live in fear of lawsuits and bankruptcy for sharing their collective culture."

The petition calls upon the world's creators, entertainment executives, peer-to-peer sharing software programmers and Internet Service Providers to create fair, equitable and reasonable systems for legal P2P sharing. If those parties can't do it on their own, the petition then calls upon the world's elected representatives to enact new laws that conform to the abilities and limitations of technology so that creators will be compensated and music fans will be free from abusive law suits and unwarranted criminal charges.

"Famous singer-songwriter Don Henley testified before the U.S. Senate recommending a system that legalizes P2P file sharing. Advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation and respected professors at Harvard University and UCLA have proposed systems," Parres said. "Signing this petition is a way for people to urge the consideration of these serious proposals while also signaling to the U.S. Congress and European Parliament that laws needs to keep pace with advances in technology."

Click The Vote will collect signatures throughout the year for later presentation to members of Congress and Parliament.

ABOUT CLICK THE VOTE

Click The Vote is an independent grassroots non-profit 501(c)(4) public benefit corporation organized to promote the rights of new technology users. ClickTheVote.org provides a variety of services for its members including a tools-driven website designed to educate and focus activism that influences candidates, legislators, and legislation.
http://www.clickthevote.org/newsview...a7ea41e0dd792b


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When Worlds Collide
Mark Hollands

The more technology changes, the more we stay the same. Up to a point.

Too often technology convergence is spruiked lavishly as if the melding of technologies into one device is a true meaning of life that escapes most of us until it is too late.

Visions of a single machine that embraces equally phone, e-mail, calendar, music and photography are still not fulfilled. Sure, there are machines the size of your hand that can do all this and more, but each design lends a distinct preference for a particularly technology. Multi-purpose gizmos made by phone companies are best at handling voice, while the likes of HP or Dell create their converged nirvana around e-mail and multimedia messaging.

For some companies, convergence means collision. Products, management and culture can be so wrapped up in their old technologies that their very existence inevitably meets the wall of oblivion at G-force. Traditional camera companies know this only too well. Some have committed old technologies to ritual suicide, knowing their future can never be a repeat of their past. Eastman Kodak’s recent decision to stop making point-and-click APS cameras and focus only on digital photography has been seen as a watershed decision for its industry.

This is a company trying to embrace, not collide, with convergence.

It is a painful journey. Sales in the last quarter of 2003 were down 20 per cent on the previous 12 weeks and demand for film dropped 11 per cent. It has responded by announcing 15,000 lay-offs, on top of the 22,000 jobs that have disappeared since 1998, and committing itself to new technologies to fight off new competitors.

Phone manufacturers, consumer electronics specialists, such as Sony and Samsung, and even film companies like Fuji and Konica, have changed their business models already and they — not Kodak — hold the advantage in this converged world.

Eastman Kodak is not the only company in this unpleasant position. Investors who play roulette at the Nikkei table of the Japanese Stock Exchange have been sending south the shares of Nikon and Pentax in recent times. The once Herculean hold of those companies on the photographic market is gone. And it shows in their most recent six-monthly sales and profit statements to the market. Their industry has changed beyond recognition in the space of three years and they have been caught like rabbits in the headlights.

The experts say, however, that despite all the gadgets captured in one plastic chassis, we are far from the perfect convergence. Gartner’s Ken Dulaney said recently: “There will never be a converged device that suits everyone. You can read your e-mail on a camera but that is not optimal.”

Double Trouble

Convergence doesn’t only spell trouble for those companies that refuse to change, or are incapable of reacting sufficiently quickly and appropriately.

As a rule, convergence is not greeted with gleeful anticipation inside IT departments. So much of the change is consumer driven that imposing corporate rules on what staff can or cannot use often proves futile. IT staff observe bitterly that cameras on phones results in resources being taken up by users storing photos of family and friends on the system.

Trouble often comes from the most senior executive level, which discovers a bright shiny piece of technology and then demands it is supported by the technology department. Issues such as security are conveniently forgotten in their satisfaction of possessing a new toy. Network Associates’ Allan Bell says many of the viruses that squirm their way on to a corporate network now come from the synchronization of calendars between mobile phones and PCs, bypassing the standard safety measures.

The situation will get tougher for IT managers because convergence is an irresistible force. Research houses Meta Group and Gartner predict that within the next five years at least 50 per cent of computers used for business will not be desktop computers but a variety of converged devices.

Gartner’s Dulaney, an American, reckons it will be the Yanks driving this change through their demand for e-mail on the move, having completely missed the SMS boat. “The American enterprise market is demanding e-mail rather than SMS on their wireless mobile devices,” he says. “This could result in a leap in productivity of US workers by 2005 as they process business messages more efficiently. Australia should move more quickly than Europe in this area.”

Motivation for this user-driven change to the corporate IT environment is more to do with lifestyle than business. Photography is not the only industry dealing with the ramifications of convergence. Music is a more powerful catalyst. This industry faces great challenges because of its battles in the press and courtrooms with the young and old who are accused of breaking copyright by downloading songs using sites’ peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, such as Kazaa and Morpheus.

But there is another agent of change in the form of the converged device.

Music companies are frantically renegotiating contracts with groups and songwriters to take advantage of the advances in mobile technology that will soon render the CD player as irrelevant as the turntable. Industry executives are convinced the mobile phone will be our next personal stereo. And as a result, Web sites run by global brands such as Coca-Cola, Telstra, Nokia or Microsoft will be our local music store.

Within five years most kids will not wander shopping malls for music but dial it up and pull down favourite tracks to their phone. When they’re ready, they will transfer the music to a home theatre system. No boxes, no CD covers. No hunting for treasure in a grungy record store down some back street of Melbourne. No romance. Just technology and convenience.

Music players, such as the famed iPod and a plethora of copycats, already give us more than 30,000 tracks in our pocket, providing on-tap tunes in numbers unthinkable 18 months ago. The success of iTunes, the Apple music site that has quickly gained legendary status in the music industry, was built around the company’s iPod. Without a portable digital player to download to, iTunes would have been just another failed online music site.

But the iPod has a limited lifespan, too. And at some future point it will yield to the converged device offering not only entertainment but communications.

The new business models this creates for musicians are fascinating. Korea Telecom has built a $90 million revenue stream in 12 months by offering music as a ringtone with a difference. Each time you call your spouse, instead of them hearing a tone they have chosen, they hear your selection for them. Koreans and Japanese are using their 2.5G devices to select particular songs for wives, husbands, children and friends. It has become a craze that will arrive here eventually.

The manager of rock group INXS, David Edwards, says his band is one of the few home-grown acts that understands what is happening. “I’m currently negotiating with Nokia to use our music for polyphonic and true-tone ringtones,” he says. “It’s a new way to sell our music, and we’ll be experimenting and seeing what happens.”

And so will the public.
http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?seci...&id=1499283073


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Internet File-Sharing Firm Ordered To Face Music On Copyright Case

Australian-based Internet file-sharing network Kazaa failed to delay a copyright case brought against it by major recording labels.

The Federal Court told Kazaa's owner in Australia, Sharman Networks, that it would not grant a request to delay proceedings until a similar case in the United States was finalised. Universal, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI Music, Sony Music, Warner Music Australia and BMG Australia allege Sharman Networks breached Australian copyright laws. Federal Court Justice Murray Wilcox ruled that the action against Sharman Networks should go ahead as planned. Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), which gathers information on file-sharing for the record companies, said the ruling was a victory for the music industry. "This represents a massive victory for the copyright owners," MIPI general manager Michael Speck said outside the court. "It's time for Kazaa to stop using delaying tactics and face the music." Speck said the Australian record industry was confident it would win the case, despite the Dutch Supreme Court ruling last December that Kazaa was a legal operation and did not violate copyright. "It's an entirely different situation (to that in the Netherlands)," he said. "This is a case about Australian copyright infringements being committed by Australians in Australia." The Kazaa file-sharing software, which allows users to swap digital music files, was costing both the record industry and music creators billions of dollars in lost royalties each year, Speck said. Kazaa was founded in the Netherlands, but the service was sold two years ago to Sharman Networks. Since then, several lawsuits have been brought in the US against companies offering Kazaa software. Internet experts say Kazaa is different from Napster, the service which largely spawned music file-sharing in the late 1990s. Napster, banned in 2002 by a US judge, based its activities on a central server, while Kazaa facilitates a connection between users on a peer-to-peer basis. The case will return to court on March 23, when a hearing date will be set.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040304/323/enn57.html


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Canadian Supreme Court Takes Strong User Rights Stand
ILN

Canada's Supreme Court this morning released its decision in the Law Society of Upper Canada v. CCH Limited case. The court reversed an earlier decision that favored the publishers, finding that a large and liberal interpretation of the research branch of fair dealing should be used to ensure that users' rights are not unduly constrained. In a discussion that could impact digital copyright issues, the court also notably held that the LSUC did not infringe copyright by providing self-service copiers, ruling that a person does not authorize infringement by authorizing the mere use of equipment that could be used to infringe copyright.

Decision at http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-sc...cc013.wpd.html


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Ringtones: 10 Per Cent Of The Market For Music
Tyler Hamilton

It defies logic. A 15-year-old is reluctant to pay 99 cents to download a favourite song from the Internet. On the other hand, this same teenager won't think twice about spending $1.50, sometimes more, to get a 15-second snippet of the same song - inferior touchtone blips and beeps, really - as a ringer for a mobile phone.

As the music industry grapples with online music piracy and the resulting plunge in CD sales, it's also coming to the realization that "ringtones" for mobile phones are proving a significant source of future revenues. Lucky for them the wireless industry has done much of the early legwork.

"We've actually had to evangelize it a little bit," says John Boynton, vice-president of consumer marketing at Rogers Wireless Inc. Rogers, Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility and Fido each have areas on their Web sites that let customers download a growing selection of ringtones - everything from 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake to the Hockey Night in Canada theme and voiceovers from Mickey Mouse. Pretty soon, you could have Tie Domi, the scrappy Maple Leafs right winger, ordering you to pick up your damn phone. The content varies from site to site. Some have even arranged exclusive deals. Rogers, for example, has done ringtone promotions with Shaggy, Remy Shand and Nickelback. The phone has to be compliant, mind you, but newer handsets can generally handle the job. I'm testing out the Samsung SPH-A600 camera phone from Bell Mobility and, after a few minutes of sifting through the ringtones on Bell's Web site, I decided to download Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim. I selected the ringtone and within a few seconds the file was sent to my mobile phone. A half-dozen clicks and less than a minute later I was annoying my newsroom colleagues with a polyphonic symphony.

"The ease of use, and the cool content, is what has driven the success of this," says Julia Quinton, a spokesperson for Telus Mobility. "It has to be intuitive." Canadian wireless companies don't have specific numbers on the growth of the market, saying only that demand is robust. Boynton says the number of ringtones downloaded every month through Rogers is "in the six digits" and that nearly half of those customers are buying more than two ringtones each month. The worldwide ringtone market was worth $3.5 billion (U.S.) last year, up 40 per cent from 2002 and representing about 10 per cent of the global music market, according to estimates from U.K.-based research firm ARC Group. Most of those sales have taken place in Europe and Asia, where mobile phone markets are more mature. ARC predicts global sales will surpass $5.2 billion by 2008. Closer to home, ringtones are gaining momentum. Technology research firm International Data Corp. estimates that by 2007 ringtones will be a $1 billion market in the United States.

What explains this phenomenon? "To me, one of the beauties of ringtones is the personalization," says Roma Khanna, vice-president of CHUM Television Interactive. CHUM's MuchMusic opened an online store in January that lets Rogers, Bell and Telus mobile phone customers download ringtones and have them charged to their wireless bill. It's being touted as the first third-party ringtone store in Canada. New ringtones are added weekly and more than 1,000 are already in the archives. Khanna says mobile phones are more than just a utility. They've become a fashion accessory that defines the person using it. Ringtones, like screensavers and other accessories that come in different colours and shapes, are a means of personal expression and a reflection of individuality. When your phone rings, you know it's your phone. She describes the familiar situation of being in a crowded room and watching everyone reach for their mobile phone when a ringer goes off. "I don't reach anymore. Unless it's Depeche Mode or Blur, it's not my phone," says Khanna. The ability to assign certain ringtones to certain phone numbers means you also know who's calling.

It all began with monophonic ringtones - essentially a series of beeps that sound remotely like a song. These ringtones were more novelty than anything, freely available, and generally playable on any mobile phone. More popular today are advanced polyphonic ringtones, which sound like your phone is playing an electronic synthesizer. Most new handsets have this capability and, because a number of instrument sounds can be played at the same time, the songs are much closer to the originals. Polyphonic ringtones generally sell for between 50 cents and $2.50. The fact that these tiny programs only work on certain phones and must be transmitted over the wireless networks has so far protected the market from the kind of rampant piracy that has gutted CD sales. The next phase after polyphonic ringtones is "mastertones" or "truetones" - or what some call "ringtunes." These are MP3-like song clips that play the actual song on your phone when it rings. A few mobile phones, such as the Nokia 3300, already do this. As the ringtone market has grown, so too has interest from the music industry. Already, music publishers are collecting royalties on polyphonic versions. With the move to true mastertones, the record labels are lining up to collect their share of the pot. "I know that the Canadian labels are speaking to individual carriers about licensing to their stores," says Khanna. "I think the labels are excited about this." The MuchMusic store, which sold more ringtones in the last week than it did in its first month, is also working on licensing deals with the labels. It hopes to become the premier ringtone aggregator in Canada.

Many in the industry call it a fad, and believe it's only a matter of time before the novelty wears off. Khanna says the ringtone opportunity will certainly change as the market evolves, but she doesn't see it going away. "Is the ringtone around forever? On some level, yes. Will it evolve? Of course it will. It will step back out of the limelight when the next thing comes along and will just become part of the mix."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=969048863851


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Sounds That Surround You Make It Onto Your Playlist
Ivan Berger

The air is full of sounds that are not filed on your digital music player: new recordings and live performances on FM radio, not to mention the ambient music of the world around you. The JMTek MelodiBox MP3 lets you add them to your collection on the fly.

A built-in tuner with 20 station presets picks up FM signals, and a built-in microphone picks up your voice and other sounds, enabling you to add them to the MP3 and WMA music files on the MelodiBox's hard drive. Input jacks let you encode audio from external sources as MP3 files, too, and an equalizer with one user-defined and five preset curves lets you shape the sounds.

Available at www.usbmall.com for $250, the MelodiBox has a 20-gigabyte hard drive that can also store and carry files of any kind; text files can be read out on the built- in display. Tech-savvy users can increase capacity to as much as 137 gigabytes by replacing the 2.5-inch drive. The battery supplied allows 10 hours of playback per charge.

But capturing a world full of sound does not mean a pocketful of MelodiBox: the unit measures less than 3.2 by 1 by 5.2 inches and weighs only 9.1 ounces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/te...ts/04tune.html


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As if.

EU: Keep Your Hands Off The Net
Reuters

Granting governments full powers to set Internet policies would be a "gigantic mistake," a European politician said Thursday, in the European Union's strongest statement yet in favor of preserving the medium's free-market commercial structure.

The Internet's growth as a marketplace of more than 750 million users over the past decade has been helped by the decision to allow it to grow at its own pace with little interference from government, Lucio Stanca, Italian minister for innovation and technologies, told reporters via a conference call.

This existing regime should not be tinkered with, he said in summing up the position of the 15-nation European Union bloc.

"Government must be involved only when public policy issues are at stake, but it is not the role of government to manage the Internet or to interfere in its free development," Stanca said.

His comments, made at a meeting of technology officials in Rome for Internet industry group the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), comes at one of most fractious times for the Internet since the communications network was turned over to the private sector a decade ago.

A host of governments in the developing world recently challenged the pro-business nature of the Internet, saying it is aggravating a "digital divide" where the world's poor remain unconnected to modern Internet and telecommunications innovations.

A United Nations task force was formed in December to investigate the matter and determine whether government officials should step in and set Internet policy in an effort to speed up the bridging of the technology gap.

But with so many governments in the developed world eager to promote relatively environmentally friendly Internet businesses and their so-called e-government initiatives, the richer nations of the world have urged a preservation of the status quo.

"One of the most important reasons for the Internet's success is that no single entity controls it," Stanca said.

The United Nations task force is currently discussing with ICANN ways to tackle the digital divide, plus stamp out spam, cybercrime and the preservation of freedom of expression and rights to privacy.

Both groups agree a clampdown on some of the unsavory aspects of the Internet--ranging from child pornography to computer hack attacks--is a worthwhile objective that may require international treaties. Neither side has offered a clear idea of how to tackle the problem, however.

The more urgent matter is the question of which group will lead the medium into the next decade: the 5-year-old ICANN or the UN-sanctioned telecommunications standards-setting body the International Telecommunication Union?

Stanca made it clear Europe stands behind ICANN. "We see ICANN as an asset. It should play a major role in the future," he said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5169866.html


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What Copy Rights?

Courts continue to halt traditionally legal duplication in digital world; congress must step in with legislation.
Mercury News Editorial

A record of 0-3 in the courts is not heartening; for copyright reformers, it's a signal to turn up the heat in Washington. If the courts won't uphold consumers' rights, then Congress, which created the problem by passing a bad copyright law, must.

Three times in the past three years, federal courts have banned the distribution of technologies that let consumers make copies of the digital works that they own. In the latest case, a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco ordered a Missouri company to stop producing software that evades anti-piracy protections on DVDs.

Judge Susan Illston acted at the request of the major Hollywood studios. Software made by 321 Studios evades Contents Scramble System, or CSS, the principal encryption technology used to protect movies.

The software company argued that its products were legal; under the copyright law's fair-use exemption, people have a right to make backup copies of copyrighted works they buy. If your child damages your DVD of ``Mystic River,'' you don't have to buy it again, if you've made a copy.

But Illston found that in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress unambiguously made it illegal to make and sell products that circumvent copyright protection technologies. The technology is at issue, she wrote, not the uses to which the copyrighted material may be put.

Two years ago, in a San Jose case, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte reached a similar finding. He ruled against a Russian firm, Elcom Ltd., whose product let readers thwart encryption on Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader.

In both cases, the judges upheld the law but provoked a bigger question: What can consumers do when copyright holders deny them basic rights, like making personal copies, that they have had in the non-digital world with videotapes, records and books? Apparently not much.

Sure, you can hold a video camera up to the TV and make a poor-quality duplicate of a DVD. Or, with an eBook, write out a copy longhand. To the judges, that would satisfy fair use: There's no constitutional guarantee, they said, to make perfect duplicate copies. Such a narrow view, while pleasing copyright holders, denies consumers huge benefits of digital technologies. Movie studies and recording companies can write software protections that permit personal copies and other fair uses; they simply choose not to, and Congress, by banning circumvention technologies, has let them get away with it.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose introduced a bill that would explicitly allow purchasers of digital works to use them in the same ways that courts have said they could use videotapes and records. The latest court decision should prod Congress to get off the dime and pass it.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...printstory.jsp


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End of ropee karaoke

Recording Companies Launch Copyright Campaign Against Chinese Karaoke Bars

Recording companies including Time Warner and EMI are launching a campaign to force thousands of Chinese karaoke bars to start paying for the tunes their patrons croon to, a lawyer for the companies said Wednesday.

The move by 49 foreign and Chinese firms marks the start of a new battle over rampant piracy in China of movies, designer fashions and other intellectual property.

Lawyers have sent letters to ``several thousand'' karaoke parlors throughout China demanding they pay copyright fees, said Guo Chunfei of the Beijing Tianwei Law Firm.

``As far as I know, no karaoke parlor here in China pays fees. That's why it is urgent to resolve this,'' Guo said. She said the companies hope to reach agreements without going to court.

Karaoke is hugely popular in China, where bars, hotels, restaurants and some homes are equipped with karaoke rooms. In bigger cities, karaoke parlors are neon-lit, multistory entertainment palaces with bars, private lounges and space for hundreds of patrons. Karaoke bars can be found in the tiniest provincial towns.

The music often comes from illegally duplicated recordings, with no fees paid to copyright holders.

In most countries, licensing organizations collect fees from karaoke operators or companies that manufacture music discs.

In the United States, karaoke bars are supposed to get a license from groups like the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, said Jim Steinblatt, an ASCAP spokesman. The license is an all-in-one agreement that gives companies permission to use all of ASCAP's properties.

Guo said the scale of the recording companies' effort to secure copyright fees in China is so huge that her firm has retained 40 other Chinese firms to help pursue violators.

Companies involved in the campaign range from global giants Universal, Time Warner and EMI to Hong Kong's Emperor Entertainment Group and smaller Chinese firms, Guo said.

The lawyer said she didn't know how much money would be involved.

But the official Xinhua News Agency, citing an unnamed industry consultant, said fees would vary by the size of the karaoke bar and could run as high as $12,000.

That would mean the total for overdue copyright fees could run into the tens of millions of dollars.

Despite repeated promises by the government to crack down, China's piracy industry continues to copy everything from Ralph Lauren shirts to Microsoft software. Copies of new Hollywood movies are readily available for as little as 50 cents on the streets of Beijing.

International trade groups say Chinese piracy costs Western companies an estimated $16 billion in lost sales each year.

A spokesman for the Taiwan-based Cashbox Karaoke Group, which operates a well-known chain of karaoke bars in China, said it already was paying music fees through the China Music Copyright Association.

``We heard about the demand by the law firms,'' spokesman Zhou Gang said by telephone from Taipei. ``But we haven't received any letters.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8096891.htm


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Too much information

China Bans New Internet Cafes Near Schools

BEIJING (AP) - Claiming that ``harmful cultural information'' online was hurting children, China said Thursday that Internet cafes may not open within 660 feet of schools.

The official China News Service did not say whether those already operating would be affected.

Although Chinese leaders encourage Internet use for business and education, they have expressed growing alarm that it is exposing young people to pornography and influences the government deems harmful. Officials also worry that students spend too much time playing video games.

``Currently some online services such as Internet bars are breaking the rules, using the Internet to spread harmful cultural information and seriously hurting the mental and physical health of young people,'' the report said.

The government already limits when and how long minors can use Internet cafes. The announcement threatened to punish efforts to ``clandestinely set up an online service'' by disguising it as a computer school.

The government says China had 79.5 million Internet users at the end of 2003 -- the world's second biggest population online after the United States.

According to official figures, the number of Chinese people playing games online last year grew to 13.8 million. Many are children and teenagers.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8106359.htm


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ISPs Left In The Dark Over Internet Copyright Law
Selina Mitchell and Kate Mackenzie

INTERNET service providers cannot expect quick resolution of concerns surrounding the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

In side letters to the FTA released last week, Australia agreed to the US "takedown notice" regime, where copyright owners can force an ISP to remove material such as music, video or text files by serving written notice.

The Government has promised more discussion before any new system is enforced.

ISPs, copyright lawyers and the Internet Industry Association are concerned that "draconian" US copyright protection laws will be transplanted here, forcing ISPs to shut down sites displaying content suspected of being illegal, without first ensuring there has been an infringement.

There is also concern that ISPs will be forced into mass handovers of personal information on suspected copyright violators.

WHile detail of the FTA was released last week, both the US and Australian governments must seek approval for the deal before it is enforced.

In Australia, approval will require legislation.

"Our concern is that the agreement is taking us far closer to the way the US manages copyright," Internet Industry Association head Peter Coroneos said.

"We have a different approach to privacy, and a much less litigious culture, and we would be concerned if that was jeopardised through US rights holders gaining the upper hand."

Mr Coroneos said he would prefer a co-regulatory approach to the FTA, rather than legislation, which would be less flexible.

ISPs and web hosts supported Mr Coroneos's comments, and said they were awaiting the outcome of the FTA measures.

"We look forward to working with the Government on the issue," a spokeswoman for number-two ISP OptusNet said.

Lloyd Ernst, chief executive of Australia's largest web host, WebCentral, said he was concerned at any measures that could disadvantage Australian hosting providers, who competed in a global market, even for local customers.

As it appeared in the Australia-US papers, the new procedure could increase the burden on ISPs, he said.

"It's absolutely vital that we get the FTA right, and we are going to be working with the various industry bodies to express our concerns to the Government and provide some solutions that address those concerns," Mr Ernst said.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Communications, IT and the Arts Daryl Williams confirmed that the FTA did not contain detail on how ISP liability provisions were to be applied.

"The Government will be coming up with Australian solutions to implement the FTA and will consider the views of stakeholders," she said.

"A co-regulatory regime to address certain aspects of the ISP liability provisions is one option the Government will consider."

It is unclear whether ISPs will be given the same immunity from court action over copyright that their counterparts receive in the US.

"Australia has a different regime and we are not required to import US laws into Australia as a result of the FTA," she said.

"ISPs will be able to avoid paying damages if they satisfy certain conditions designed to assist copyright owners in combatting online piracy.

"Currently, under Australian copyright law, more general authorisation liability provisions apply.

"A system to carry out the FTA's obligations is currently being developed and the views of stakeholders will be taken into account."

Australian Digital Alliance executive officer Miranda Lee said the depth of concern about the FTA would depend on the detail of legislation, and how it was interpreted by the courts, but it was a "worrying addition" to the copyright regime.

In the US, copyright owners give notice of a suspected breach and if ISPs take down the content immediately they limit, or even eliminate, their liability.

Because the ISPs are keen to avoid litigation, they often take down the material without investigation.

This led to rights by assertion, rather than proof, and unilaterally gave copyright owners the power to take down material, Ms Lee said.

In some instances, takedown notices, or server closures, had caused chaos, lawyers said.

In the US and Canada the recording industry is gathering personal information on alleged copyright infringers from ISPs.

It is unclear whether Australian ISPs would be required to pass on similar private information, Ms Lee said.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html


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Rights Groups Target Antipiracy Directive
Matthew Broersma

Civil liberties groups are engaging in a last-minute attempt to alter a controversial intellectual-property law that they claim will lead to a flood of frivolous lawsuits against consumers and small businesses.

The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive, which passed through the European Parliament's judicial affairs committee last month, is scheduled for a parliamentary debate on Monday. The parliament is set to vote on the directive Tuesday, in the last chance for members of the European Parliament to introduce amendments before ministers vote on the directive Thursday. If approved, member states would have two years to incorporate the directive's provisions into national laws.

The directive is primarily aimed at cracking down on organized piracy and counterfeiting in the EU, which is a growing problem. Critics, however, say the directive's scope has been broadened to cover not just piracy for commercial purposes, but also involuntary acts or those committed by individuals without commercial intent or impact.

According to U.K. civil rights group the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), the law would also allow large companies to use draconian legal measures to threaten and harass smaller competitors, for example, by raiding their premises, seizing evidence and freezing bank accounts in highly technical patent infringement cases.

A coalition of citizen- and consumer-rights groups, including FIPR, is calling for parliament members to support a collection of amendments that it asserts will place appropriate limitations on the directive. More than 100 parliament members have already pledged to support the amendments.

Ian Brown, FIPR's director of the coalition, said the directive must be limited in order to serve the interests of EU citizens and rights holders. "Otherwise it will lead to a flood of lawsuits against small businesses and consumers that will discredit European law in this area," he said in a statement.

A representative for the Business Software Alliance, which has been fighting to broaden the directive's scope and penalties, recently said stronger enforcement was needed to curb the activities of criminal gangs. The alliance cited research that 37 percent of the software in use in Western European businesses is illegal. Reducing the United Kingdom's software piracy rate from 25 percent to 15 percent would add $18.5 billion (10 billion pounds) to the country's gross domestic product, $4.6 billion in tax revenue and 40,000 IT jobs, according to IDC figures quoted by the Business Software Alliance.

The European recording industry association has criticized the directive as not going far enough to crack down on piracy because its measures are not as harsh as those in some member states.
http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5171387.html


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Have a cigar.

Army to Gates: Halt The Free Software
Ina Fried

Microsoft has been mailing free copies of its pricey Office productivity software to government employees, but CNET News.com has learned that at least two federal agencies are warning recipients to return the gifts or risk violating federal ethics policies.

Since the launch of Office 2003 last year, Microsoft has given out tens of thousands of free copies of its flagship software, which retails for about $500, to workers at its biggest customers. The giveaway was expanded to government workers this year, but ethics offices at the Department of the Interior and Department of Defense have said the offers constitute unauthorized gifts and must be returned.

The Department of the Army went a step further, calling on Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to stop sending the software to Army personnel.

"We ask that you cease immediately the mailing of free software, and other types of gifts, to the Department of the Army personnel," Deputy General Counsel Matt Reres said in a Feb. 19 letter seen by CNET News.com. "Your offer of free software places our employees and soldiers in jeopardy of unknowingly committing a violation of the ethics rules and regulations to which they have taken an oath to uphold."

The issue comes up as many governments are looking at open-source alternatives for Office and the Windows operating system. The British government has been evaluating a switch to the Linux OS, while open-source software is also being eyed in Korea, China, India and even at some local agencies in the United States.

Microsoft's giveaway also comes as the company faces ongoing oversight by the Justice Department as part of its settlement of antitrust allegations.

A Microsoft representative said giving away the software is a way to let some customers experience new features. "The goal of the program was to give customers a taste of the software and allow them to learn how it might be of use to their organizations in a positive way," Microsoft spokesman Keith Hodson said.

Although Office has captured more than 90 percent of the market for productivity software, convincing customers to upgrade to the latest versions of Office has become a growing challenge for the company. And upgrades are essential to Microsoft: Office and Windows produce substantially all the company's profits.

To address ethical concerns, Microsoft includes a note with copies of the software letting government workers know that they can send the software back to Microsoft without charge if receiving such a gift violates their agency's rules.

"Government Entities: Microsoft intends that this product be used in accordance with applicable laws and regulations for the evaluation, use and benefit of your government agency only," Microsoft states in the note. "You may, at your discretion, return this product package to Microsoft at its expense."

Hodson said the company hoped such language would allow any agency that did not appreciate the offer to easily send back the software.

"Not every government organization, as we're learning, finds it to be a valuable program," Hodson said. "We would like to think that there will be a variety of government organizations that will find value in the program."

For now, Microsoft said it will continue the strategy but will stop sending software to any particular agency that requests the company do so. The software maker did not say how many copies of the program have been sent to government employees.

According to the Department of Defense, delivery of the software was preceded by a card explaining that Office would be arriving "in the coming weeks" and that the software was being sent "without obligation."

The Defense Department's Standards of Conduct Office was among the first to take action, warning its workers in a Feb. 13 advisory not to accept the software.

"These items have been determined to be gifts from a prohibited source, and may not be accepted by (Defense Department) employees," the agency said in its advisory. "If received, the items should be returned to Microsoft."

The ethics office of the Department of the Interior said it had not heard reports of its employees receiving the software, but decided last month to warn its 65,000 workers after hearing about the Department of Defense's reaction.

"We looked at it as a marketing gambit," said Arthur Gary, deputy director of the Interior Department's ethics office. "We just wanted to apply the gift rules to it."

The department, which oversees national parks and other federal lands, concluded last month that the software constituted an unacceptable gift--one valued at more than $20 and from a party with whom the department does business or whom it regulates. Since issuing the memo, Gary said, the agency has heard of at least one employee receiving the software.

"We just kind of wanted to spread the word," Gary said. "We want to head off any problems."

If the response of those two government agencies is any indication of how other departments will respond, Microsoft may back away from the program.

"Based on an overall response we receive from governments," Hodson said, "we may look at doing things differently the next time."
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5171976.html


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Coming to a monitor near you

Osama And Afghan Cinema: An Interview With Siddiq Barmak
Maggie Loescher, Maryam Maruf

Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban feature film, a bleak yet lyrical story of a young girl forced to ‘pass’ as a boy in order to support her widowed mother, is provoking worldwide interest in the country’s cinematic heritage and future. As Siddiq Barmak presents the film in open-air screenings around Kabul, Maryam Maruf of openDemocracy and Maggie Loescher talk to the acclaimed director.

openDemocracy: Osama is a very beautiful and poignant film, but also extremely sad.

Siddiq Barmak: Yes, I’m very sorry about that! All my friends have been telling me that I must make a comedy next time.

openDemocracy: You also wrote the screenplay for Osama. When did the idea come to you for this film?

Siddiq Barmak: When I was in Pakistan I was searching within the Afghan community for a good story. I heard a lot of stories from children working on the streets. But in fact, the film’s story came from Saha, a Pashtun-language Afghan newspaper published in Peshawar.

The newspaper article described a little girl who went to school during the Taliban period, something that was forbidden according to Taliban – not Islamic – beliefs. She decided to cut her beautiful hair and dress like a boy, and she went to the school, which was a hidden, underground one. But this secret school was exposed, its principal arrested by the Amr bil-Ma’aruf – the Taliban’s religious police – and executed. The girl’s true identity was revealed.

It was a very short story but I was shocked that the girl wanted to change her sex under pressure. It seemed like a kind of fascism. I really wanted to make this the subject of my film. Then, when I started to write the script, I started to collect some other true stories and it became not so short.

For example, when I returned to Kabul from Peshawar I saw that the priority for people in Kabul was to feed themselves and their family. I made the mission of the little girl in the film to get a job rather than to go to school. The story was not completely changed, but I introduced different things.

There were also things I filmed which I left out. There was a scene where the little girl, who ends up being the mullah’s wife, escapes from the house with all the other women. They go on a long journey over a very beautiful landscape. The final scene is a shot of them crossing the rainbow. It was very beautiful, and it was my dream that they should reach this freedom. But it was not very true. It felt like lying, it wasn’t part of myself. That’s why I decided to take it out.

openDemocracy: While you were in Pakistan, the Taliban destroyed many of your films. Can they be restored? What’s happening about that?

Siddiq Barmak: Not only my films but the work of other filmmakers was destroyed. They searched my house and destroyed my 8mm cameras, photos, projectors. The Taliban not only blew up the Buddha statues in Bamiyan; the Taliban leader Mullah Omar also gave orders to destroy the National Gallery, the National Film Archive, the radio and studio archive.

They actually started with the film archives. Fortunately, some very bravehearted radio colleagues came to the main building of the Afghan Film Institute, closed the door and started to hide all the original films – everywhere! Under the floorboards, in the dark rooms, on the roof, behind the screens – everywhere they could. They also cut the electricity, so it was completely dark, just like a film studio.

The Taliban didn’t know the structure of the building, so they couldn’t find these hidden things. But they did find some copies of these films outside the building. There were a lot of wonderful films from Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, USA, even two or three from Britain. The Taliban burnt them all – around 2,600 films – in the very place we wanted to raise a new building to house this archive. It was a catastrophe, actually.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates...-1-67-1769.jsp


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George Michael Shuns Music Industry
BBC

Pop star George Michael is abandoning the music business to release his songs online for free instead.

The multi-millionaire singer said he will never make another album for sale in record shops because he does not need the cash and does not enjoy fame.

Fans will be given the option to make donations online in exchange for downloading the tracks, and the proceeds will be given to charity.

He is promoting his latest album, Patience, which he said is his last.

The 40-year-old star made his announcement during an interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 1.

Speaking about his decision, he said: "I'm sure it's unprecedented, it's definitely unprecedented for someone who still sells records.

"I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years so I really don't need the public's money."

He added that he hoped people downloading his music would donate to his favourite charities.

'All the negativity'

Explaining his decision, the former Wham! frontman said: "It does two things - it takes the pressure off to have a collection of songs every so many years, which is what nearly killed me.

"I'm not pretending I won't be famous any more, but in the modern world if you take yourself out of the financial aspect of things, you're not making anybody any money, you're not losing anybody any money.

"Believe me, I'll be of very little interest to the press in a certain number of years.

"I'll hopefully be a happier man, giving my music and also doing something really positive with my music if people are generous enough to donate to the site. I'll remove myself from all that negativity."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...nt/3499534.stm


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Napster, IBM Promise Cache Savings
Matt Hines

Napster on Wednesday launched a digital media delivery system based on IBM blade server technology that's meant to aid universities and businesses in conserving bandwidth while offering downloads.

Delivered via IBM eServer BladeCenter systems running on Linux software, the Super Peer application is designed around the idea of active cache-management, which allows for improved bandwidth provisioning.

Napster claims the tool will help free-up valued network space for universities, Internet service providers and other organizations with networks used for downloading content.

The Los Angeles-based digital music service, re-launched by Roxio in October 2003, is increasingly marketing its services to colleges and universities, which are seen as key contributors to digital music-swapping networks. University administrators have been actively seeking ways to ameliorate legal risk and stress on their own networks as digital file sharing remains popular with students and as the recording industry pursues lawsuits against file swappers.

The new system offers universities and other customers the ability to cache digital media in on-site servers managed by Napster and IBM. Traditional peer-to-peer computing technology, which helped music services such as Napster attain wide popularity, does not account for bandwidth management. It has caused headaches for schools and other providers as waves of end users eat up network resources downloading tunes.

Super Peer is designed to save customers bandwidth and money by letting them to keep frequently accessed digital media files in their cache systems so users can download the files without leaving their networks. Napster estimates that in a typical university or ISP setting, such a system could save as much as $50,000 per year in bandwidth-related expenses.

"The reason we called (the system) Super Peer is because we think it represents the best aspects of peer-to-peer computing, but puts the caches in the right places and adds network security," said Bill Pence, Napster's chief technology officer. "In a typical peer-to-peer network there are usually only a few content sources distributed randomly; this brings the content much closer to the users."

The Penn State test drive
Among the first institutions to pilot Super Peer will be Pennsylvania State University, which was also the first school to sign-on for Napster's university program. Last November, PSU reached a deal with Napster to give students access to music funded by student fees, in an attempt to replace campus file swapping with legal listening alternatives.

Since launching its download system in January, Penn State students have accounted for a staggering average of 100,000 file streams and downloads per day. That number appears even more impressive when considering that the program has only 10,000 registered users. According to Pence, these figures only validate Napster's strategy to actively court universities as customers.

"If you look at file sharing in the university setting, most of the problems were caused by the legal issues and network traffic," Pence said. "When we relaunched Napster we helped reduce the liabilities of file sharing; here we're addressing problems related to bandwidth purchasing fees."

Pence said Super Peer also increases universities' network security by eliminating the potential presence of hidden programs such as spyware and spoofed files, since Napster and IBM actively manage the systems and monitor them for unauthorized content.

In addition to supporting the Napster application on its server systems, IBM is offering installation, support and managed-services packages for the system, including several payment options.

Napster is making Super Peer immediately available to institutions already providing its services to end-users.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5172046.html


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Commercial P2P Networks Gaining Ground
John Borland

While peer-to-peer piracy continues to grab the entertainment industry's attention, a few technology companies are gaining headwind, using almost identical means to distribute legal downloads.

After several years in the shadows, Red Swoosh--a company founded by veterans of Scour, one of the first file-swapping services Hollywood shut down–-emerged Tuesday with the seeds of a healthy content distribution business. While prominent peer-to-peer companies such as Kontiki and Groove Networks have focused on business applications, Red Swoosh has kept its eyes on entertainment and consumers.

In part, that's why the company's CEO is now reaching out to the broad community of people using BitTorrent, an underground file-trading application using similar technology that has exploded in popularity among people distributing or downloading video and software programs.

Red Swoosh CEO Travis Kalanick said he wants to tap that energy. He's offering free use of Red Swoosh's content distribution services to noncommercial filmmakers, game developers or other publishers.

"I don't want to fight BitTorrent," Kalanick said. "I want to have a relationship with that community. That's not just about cutting a deal; you have give to that community."

The peer-to-peer technology world has been proceeding on two tracks almost since the emergence of Napster, despite similarities on the technological front. Underground networks like BitTorrent and Kazaa have flourished, while companies like Red Swoosh that have taken the copyright-friendly track are now just beginning to see their efforts bear fruit.

Red Swoosh and rival Kontiki, along with a handful of other companies, say peer-to-peer technology allows content distributors to pass off much of their distribution costs--largely in the form of Net bandwidth charges--to their customers. For companies distributing large files to many people, such as gaming or video publishers, that can be a huge benefit, they say.

As with more familiar networks, like the defunct Napster or Kazaa, people interested in specific files download them and store them on their hard drives. With Kontiki or Red Swoosh, they also download the peer-to-peer company's sharing application, which then lets other people interested in the same files download from them instead of from the original publisher.

Kontiki counts GameSpot, a game site News.com publisher CNET Networks owns, among its clients--though it now focuses more on internal corporate communications. Red Swoosh has signed GameSpot rival IGN Entertainment, as well as Net video site IFilm. Largely as a result of those two customers, the company's network has peaked at transmitting 7 terabytes of data in a single day, Kalanick said.

IGN Chief Technology Officer Ken Keller said Red Swoosh's services have saved the company considerable amounts of money, including about $36,000 on the distribution of more than 18 terabytes of data last month.

Some analysts remain skeptical of peer-to-peer companies' ability to play a large role in entertainment distribution, however.

"Large companies I've talked to didn't seem to want to adopt it because (of) a lot of the uncertainties around it," said Lawrence Orans, a Gartner analyst. He noted that people uploading content could be violating some Internet service providers' terms of service or even exceeding monthly bandwidth limitations, in some cases.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5172564.html


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Groove Spreads Collaboration to Remote Users
Dennis Callaghan

Groove Networks Inc. is launching an upgrade to its flagship peer-to-peer collaboration platform designed to make it easier for enterprises to add a collaborative element to their business tasks.

The company on Thursday will release a public beta of Groove 3.0, which has enhancements geared toward teams of workers spread out at different locations.

The upgrade represents Beverly, Mass.- based Groove Networks' first ever public beta.

Chief among the new features in this version is a new forms tool, which company officials said enables users to design their own lightweight applications for project and business process management. The forms tool supports the generation of scripts or macros using JavaScript or VBScript as well as a Web services API to import data from enterprise applications.

The overall user interface in Groove has been improved as well, particularly in the area of file management. In this version, Windows Explorer on a user's PC becomes a Groove workspace and can be synchronized across other users' PCs, lessening reliance on e-mail for file transfer.

Groove user Jeff Tucker said he liked this new file sharing capability.

"It's the perfect solution for people who are working remotely or mobile and have to collaborate across different networks," said Tucker, assistant vice president for information systems at Marlborough Savings Bank, which is using Groove 2.5 now for secure IM and for exchanging information in collaborative workspaces.

Other new interface improvements in Version 3.0 include Groove LaunchPad, a new starting point for managing workspaces, contacts, and presence and awareness; Workspace Explorer, a new interface for working within Groove Workspaces; and new visual and audible alerts of user presence activities.

Interface improvements should help as well, as usability is key to the software's success in any environment, Tucker said.

"You can spend a lot of money on software like this, but if your users don't understand it, you're sunk," said Tucker, in Marlboro, Mass.

Groove Networks, whose technology has a hybrid model of peer-to-peer clients tied to a server backbone, is also releasing a new Enterprise Management Server designed to improve security and identity management of the technology within an enterprise. The Enterprise Management Server includes native support for an organization's public key infrastructure for identity authentication, plus centralized usage and data auditing and improved directory integration, company officials said.

Groove 3.0 also added new .Net Web services APIs to its Enterprise Integration Server, which also supports Windows Server 2003.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1547185,00.asp


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FSC Students Download Music Despite Threat Of Lawsuits
Lindsey Gardner, Ashley Thomo and Justin Murphy

I think downloading music is a great way to get free songs, and it is just too easy to do, said a Framingham State College junior who wished to remain anonymous. She added, I wouldn't consider it stealing, but it probably isn't right.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has begun a nationwide investigation against file-sharing users on the premise that downloading music is illegal.

According to the RIAA Web site, the goal of the association is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world.

According to a Dec. 3, 2003 article by the Collegiate Presswire, the RIAA has filed 41 new lawsuits and sent out 90 lawsuit notifications, in addition to the 341 lawsuits that have been filed since September.

Massachusetts' college students are just some of the estimated 60 million people who download music and have already received subpoenas. Boston University, Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are some of the local colleges where students have been targeted.

WDJM disc jockey Bill Marsh disagrees with the action that the RIAA is taking against music downloaders. He said, I think it's ridiculous that the record companies point to [downloading] as a major reason for the decline in record sales, and then think that a logical response to that is to sue their customers.?

An unscientific survey conducted in the fall of 2003 showed that a large number of Framingham State College students download music. Three hundred and fifty-four out of 400 students surveyed have downloaded music off the Internet at some point.

Senior Jen Vito said the survey numbers were accurate. Everyone I know downloads music.

The RIAA claims to lose approximately $4.2 billion each year due to online piracy. The RIAA defines piracy as the illegal duplication and distribution of sound recordings.

Junior Hanna Herrman believes that the RIAA is being melodramatic. She said, I think it'w a big deal about nothing and a waste of people's time. . .corporations being bitter over stupid things. It seems to me that they're not really losing money.

The four types of piracy that the RIAA deems as illegal are:

Pirate Recordings - the unauthorized duplication of only the sound of legitimate recordings. This includes mixed tapes and compilation CDs.
Counterfeit Recordings - the unauthorized recordings of the prerecorded sounds as well as the unauthorized duplication of original artwork.
Bootleg Recordings (or underground recordings) - the unauthorized recordings of live concerts, or musical broadcasts on radio or television.
Online Piracy - the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold.

Amanda Madden, a junior and DJ at WDJM, believes musicians need to understand the importance of having access to downloading music. She said, I believe that while musicians have a right to be upset about a loss in their profit, they don't have the right to put us down for using alternative sources. I think everyone should take a step back and musicians should realize their fans want one thing: to listen to their music.

FSC students have not been targeted yet, but the survey showed that students are continuing to download.

In regard to handling the FSC downloading issue, President Helen Heineman said, We have tried to limit that type of activity [file-sharing] during the academic hours so that we can make sure that people who need to use the computers for classes can use them.

FSC is currently blocking the ability to access music servers in the residence halls. However, they have not stopped students from downloading music on their own. By stopping students from file-sharing, the FSC administration hopes to demonstrate their disapproval and their attempts to stop music downloading.

Senior Jessi Walsh no longer downloads music due to the blocking. I stopped because everything I used got shut down. I miss it because I want to download all of these new songs that have come out, but I can't!

Cynthia Forrest, former dean of student services, said, I think if they [the students] do get caught, it would be their problem. If they do get caught, the college would take action if we knew about it.

Patrick Laughran, chief information technology officer at FSC, agreed. We can't protect anyone from being sued.

He added, [It's the] good faith on our part to demonstrate our trying to stop [it]. We're trying to do more through education and awareness. Our focus is service and quality.?

At FSC, downloading music is not monitored. Administrators see the problem more on a macro-level than on an individual level. There is technology to monitor this; however, it does not seem necessary at this point, according to Laughran.
http://www.thegatepost.com/archives/s04/s04_080.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sad News…

ShareReactor Down Indefinitely
Thomas Mennecke

ShareReactor has become one of the most popular link sites for the eDonkey2000/Overnet community. This site made the "search" feature irrelevant by using hash codes to directly link an individual with a file. Hash links have proven to be invaluable in the fight against corrupt or false files.

However, after approximately three years as the top link site for eDonkey2000/ Overnet, its future is drawn into great question. The site has been down for several days, with little in the way of an explanation. The little information that has surfaced has been confined to the ShareReactor chatroom and a few forum posts. The ShareReactor IRC chat room topic states the following:

"MAINPAGE & FORUM WILL MOST LIKELY NOT BE BACK UP, PLEASE DO NOT ASK WHY, WE WILL TELL YOU WHEN WE KNOW MORE!"

In addition, a post on FileHeaven.org by ShareReactor admin "BadM" states that the exact details of the site closure remain unclear. The site administrator, Simon Moon, has been unreachable since the site closure.

Here are the two statements from FileHaven.org. Please keep in mind that this is a fluid situation, and these statements may be continuously updated:

OFFICIAL STATEMENT (or as official as it gets at the time)

As of now you probably noticed that the main page (www.sharereactor.com) and the forums (forum.sharereactor.com) is offline. However our IRC server is still running, although you CANNOT connect to it through the DNS, so use 217.160.142.238 instead, and feel free to join #ShareReactor if you want too…

Now enough of this babbling…. Why is ShareReactor down? You’re all asking. The truth is, none of us knows. However it’s seems to be DNS problems, since jigle.com and a few other sites is online which is running on the same line as ShareReactor is/ was. SimonMoon has been offline for almost 2 days at the time you are reading this, so nothing can and have been confirmed, so please don’t jump to any conclusions.

Now you all probably wonder when ShareReactor will be back up. Again none of us knows, however the core and some of the users still hang around at IRC, and when the page gets back online, that’s the first place it will be announced.

If you wish to contact anyone from the crew and are unable to get on IRC, you can use the mail addresses at the bottom of this post. If the person you seek is not listed, send the mail to someone else and tell him/her to pass it on

- The ShareReactor Crew

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Official Statement regarding ShareReactor.com

As of now, 8 pm on friday March 12, 2004, ShareReactor is dead.

We from the SR crew don't know what happened, but we do know SR is dead, at least for the coming weeks, and maybe forever.
It was great while it lasted but now it is over.

Thanks to everyone who supported SR, we wish you all the best!

Goodbye,

The ShareReactor Crew

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=424












Until next week,

- js.











~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Current Week In Review.





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

[telefunkin_u47]

Story

Internet providers argue against identifying music uploaders

ANGELA PACIENZA
Canadian Press


Friday, March 12, 2004
ADVERTISEMENT



TORONTO (CP) - Internet service providers shouldn't be used as the music industry's private investigators to smoke out the names and address of 29 so-called uploaders, lawyers argued Friday in Federal Court.

The case is to determine whether the record industry should be granted a court order forcing high-speed Internet providers to release the names of people who allegedly shared hundreds of songs with others using programs like KaZaA last November and December. Without the names, the Canadian Recording Industry Association can't begin filing lawsuits.

"This is a complicated and imperfect process at best," said Joel Watson, a lawyer representing Telus Corp. "It will never identify who was using the PC at the time."

Last month the association moved to begin civil litigation against individuals who store songs on their hard drives to share with others through file-sharing software. It filed motions against 29 John and Jane Does who it alleges are high-volume music traders.

They're currently identifiable only through a numeric Internet protocol address and user handles like Jordana(at)KaZaA who, according to court documents, allegedly uploaded songs by Jay Z, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez.

Telus and Shaw Communications said linking actual names with the handles and IP addresses isn't easy. It requires the companies to analyse data and use deductive reasoning to make accusations against their customers. They maintain the information is not 100 per cent reliable.

The recording industry association, which is representing record labels like BMG, Sony and Universal, maintains that Internet service providers should be forced to reveal the alleged offenders so that it can begin recouping the millions lost in the past five years since technology was created to swap music freely.

"The plaintiffs are facing substantial infringement of copyright works. This lawsuit is meant to stop all or some of that," association lawyer Ronald Dimock told the court. "The ISPs hold the key to identifying these defendants."

Videotron is the only company not opposing the association's application for a court order, saying it will comply because owner Quebecor is also concerned about piracy in other parts of its business, which includes newspapers, television, Internet services and CDs.

Dimock argued the five Internet providers - the others involved in the case are Bell Sympatico and Rogers Communications - can't hide behind privacy legislation because those laws don't cover protecting illegal activity. He pointed out that ISPs are often ordered by the courts to reveal the identities of clients for police and banks.

The case, which will continue Monday, is challenging several legal issues including copyright and privacy laws and individuals' right to anonymity. The decision could pose ramifications far beyond the 29 individuals currently being sought.

There was also a lengthy debate Friday about what the recording industry association intends to do with the information should the order be granted.

Shaw said the association would begin "fishing expeditions."

"They'll follow the practice of their American cousins . . . (lawsuits will be) nothing more than threats," said Charles Scott, a lawyer representing Shaw.

Also in court were lawyers representing two public advocacy groups, Electronic Frontier Canada and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. The groups, which were granted intervener status last week, argue the association can't prove there was any copyright infringement by the alleged uploaders.

The rise of free file-sharing networks on the Internet in the past few years has made it easy for millions of individuals to distribute songs worldwide. The Canadian Recording Industry Association has already tried to curb people's behaviour using an education campaign aimed at teenagers who download music.

In the U.S., more than 500 such lawsuits have been launched against file swappers over the past year. They've typically resulted in settlements of between $1,000 and $2,000 US.

© Copyright 2004 The Canadian Press

[pod]

Originally posted by telefunkin_u47
Telus and Shaw Communications said linking actual names with the handles and IP addresses isn't easy. It requires the companies to analyse data and use deductive reasoning to make accusations against their customers. They maintain the information is not 100 per cent reliable.

No shit. I work there, so I can say that. With computer systems, unless you have end-to-end auditing across a company's network, you cannot guarantee reliability. Even if you could magically turn on auditing, all you could say is that there's a mismatch, 1000000 records were sent, but only 999999 logged. Because log records get dropped or duplicated all the time, and unless it impacts actual billing systems, no one cares. Even then, it's easier to give the customer a break if there's a dispute, than go back and trace the data. It'd be all too easy to accuse the wrong person.