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Old 04-02-15, 09:14 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 7th, '15

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"It is embarrassing to see the UK government spending more on surveillance and detaining an uncharged political refugee than on its investigation into the Iraq war, which killed hundreds of thousands." – Kristinn Hrafnsson


"Yes, you can make a beautiful-looking film on a shoestring budget. But you have to know 100 years worth of filmmaking." – James Ransone






































February 7th, 2015




Music Doesn’t Feature in The Pirate Bay’s Top 100 Most Popular Torrents
Tim Ingham

This is either very good news for the industry’s anti-piracy efforts, or slightly worrying news about pop music’s appeal in the big, wide world.

If you hadn’t heard, notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay returned to the web on Saturday (January 31). Carrying a Swedish domain, its reappearance arrived seven weeks after its servers were disabled.

MBW has analysed TPB’s Top 100 most-pirated files in the 48 hours since its re-emergence. And although you’ll find plenty of movies and a smattering of porn in there, you won’t see a single music release.

The Top 4 most-pirated files over the weekend were all movies, led by new Jason Statham vehicle Wild Card. It was followed by three more Hollywood releases – The Interview, American Sniper and Nightcrawler.

The fifth most-downloaded torrent was a TV show: series 2, Episode 9 of The Blacklist.

The Pirate Bay puts together its Top 100 list using a combination of the number of ‘seeders’ (people who have downloaded and are hosting the torrent) and ‘leechers’ (people who have downloaded the torrent but are not hosting it).

MBW analysis of the Top 100 shows that half of all downloads over the weekend were movies, while TV shows took up 33%.

Porn was the third most popular category with 9% – let’s face it, it had to feature somewhere – while PC games and computer applications shared 4% each.

The most-downloaded video game was Dying Light – the 25th most popular torrent overall.

As for music, the most popular torrent in the period was Avicii’s 2013 album True, followed by Taylor Swift track Shake It Off, John Legend single All Of Me and Chris Brown album X.

With 1828 ‘seeders’ and just 76 ‘leechers’, True is a fair distance behind the 100th most popular torrent overall: PC game Far Cry 4, which has 1604 ‘seeders’ plus 1260 ‘leechers’.
http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.co...ular-torrents/





MPAA's Lies About Films Being Available Online Easily Debunked In Seconds
Mike Masnick

Stan McCoy was, until recently, the lead negotiator on "intellectual property" for the US Trade Representative -- making him the main guy behind ACTA and the horrific intellectual property sections of the TPP and TTIP agreements. Then, last year, he jumped ship exactly where you'd expect him to go: becoming a lobbyist for the MPAA. McCoy, as we've noted, has a history of condescension and mocking towards anyone expressing concern for "the public," rather than "the industry" which pays his bills.

So, it should come as little surprise at all that, in his current role, he's out there trotting out more bogus claims that ignore reality, in order to push the agenda of his employer. In a blog post discussing his appearance on a panel in the UK, McCoy insists that he's busting the myth that there's piracy because the content isn't available from authorized sources:

We need to bust the myth that legal content is unavailable. Creative industries are tirelessly experimenting with new business models that deliver films, books, music, TV programs, newspapers, games and other creative works to consumers. In Europe, there are over 3,000 on-demand audio-visual services available to European citizens. According to a recent KPMG report, 86% of the most popular and highest quality films and television series are available across legal digital platforms to UK consumers.

Okay, so this is McCoy's attempt at mythbusting. And it fails, pretty miserably, as TorrentFreak's Ernesto showed with just a little bit of effort. He went and looked at the top 10 most downloaded films last week and busted McCoy's weak attempt at mythbusting.

And, of course the KPMG study that McCoy relies on is quite misleading as well, since it actually found that over 80% of the top movies are not available on Netflix, by far the most popular service. That means that if people actually wanted to see the movies they want, they face a fragmented, confusing market, in which they'd need to sign up for a bunch of different services with different limitations to actually see what they want.

In other words, despite the MPAA pretending otherwise again and again, it remains a simple fact that the lack of availability and convenience on authorized services has a difficult time competing with the availability and convenience of unauthorized offerings. The same thing has been true for well over a decade. The music industry has mostly figured this out, so why can't the movie industry?

Of course, what McCoy can't really say is the truth: the movie industry can't readily adapt because it will piss off the theaters. The recording industry couldn't more fully embrace the internet until the old record stores finally lost their power, and the studios are held back by the theaters nowadays. Of course, the MPAA could and probably should be trying to help transition to the future by pushing back against the theaters' outdated views and explaining to them how they can also easily compete with home viewing by providing a better in-theater experience. But that takes real work. Instead, the MPAA's focusing on "content protection" because that way it retains a reason to exist.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...-seconds.shtml





After Sony Hacking, the M.P.A.A. Considers Major Changes
Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

Fissures revealed by the hacking at Sony Pictures Entertainment have raised the prospect of profound change at one of Hollywood’s oldest institutions: the Motion Picture Association of America.

In a behind-the-scenes drama, the Sony Pictures chairman, Michael Lynton, last month told industry colleagues of a plan to withdraw from the movie trade organization, according to people who have been briefed on the discussions. He cited the organization’s slow response and lack of public support in the aftermath of the attack on Sony and its film “The Interview,” as well as longstanding concerns about the cost and efficacy of the group.

Reversing course in mid-January, as the Oscar nominations were being announced, Mr. Lynton stayed in. But he and other studio executives are now discussing proposals that could alter the structure, mandate and governance of a 93-year-old organization that has been the policy front for Hollywood’s major film studios.

If adopted, their still emerging propositions might jolt the group into line with the new realities of a changing entertainment business. They might, for instance, open the association to new members and expand its interests to include television programs or digital content. They might also reduce the heavy annual contribution of more than $20 million that is required of each of the six member companies: Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Sony.

One suggestion would even involve selling or perhaps redeveloping the organization’s Washington quarters, which is on prime real estate near the White House. Under tightened government ethics rules, the building’s screening room, though still active, is no longer the scene of lavish movie-and-dinner nights that were once popular with lawmakers.

Asked about the discussion of a serious reworking of the M.P.A.A.’s mission and structure, Christopher J. Dodd, chief executive of the association, said: “I’m for that, completely.”

Speaking by telephone on Wednesday, Mr. Dodd, a former senator from Connecticut, said he was on his way to a Los Angeles dinner with top studio executives, where he expected to engage in a broad conversation about goals and possible changes.

Though he declined to discuss Sony’s near exit, Mr. Dodd said of Mr. Lynton: “He’s there. I’m glad he’s there. I think he’s handled this well.” As for other members’ position on revamping the organization, Mr. Dodd noted that “some feel more strongly about it than others.”

Strains within the film association were thrown into sharp relief in early December at the height of the hacking crisis engulfing Sony. That is when Sony’s sister studios — still unsure about the source of the attack, and most with an eye on their own interests — did not line up behind an effort by Mr. Dodd and the actor George Clooney to show support for Sony and “The Interview,” a comedic sendup of the Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Warner Bros. had been willing to sign on to a public expression of support, according to people briefed on the exchanges. But other studios were largely wary, and Mr. Dodd was hampered by a rule that requires alignment of all member companies behind any significant step.

The need for full agreement has kept the association from influencing some major policy debates, as member companies and their parent corporations wrestle with diverging interests.

The M.P.A.A. has taken no bold stand, for instance, on proposals to regulate the web through the Federal Communications Commission. Presumably, Comcast — which owns Universal and has a vast broadband operation — might view any such move differently from Sony or Disney, which own no such pipelines.

On another front, state and local film commissioners in New York and elsewhere have sometimes carried the brunt of legislative fights for production subsidies. Under Mr. Dodd, however, the organization has considerably stepped up its fight for incentives and support for commissioners.

Mr. Lynton declined through a spokesman to discuss tensions between Sony and its peers or deliberations about the future of the M.P.A.A. Similarly, representatives of the other M.P.A.A. member companies declined to comment.

But over a dozen people with knowledge of company actions and positions, most speaking on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, described over the last several weeks an industry debate that was likely to result in at least some changes.

Kevin Tsujihara, the chief executive of Warner Bros., said he, like Mr. Dodd, welcomed an examination of the organization that would mirror a similar review of cost and mission at his company. “Now is as good a time as any” to look at fundamental questions, Mr. Tsujihara said in an interview. He added: “We haven’t, as an industry, evolved fast enough.”

Sony, Warner and Paramount are clearly interested in proposals for change. Where the other companies fall in the debate remains to be seen.

“The bigger issue is that it’s the motion picture association,” said Katherine L. Oliver, who was New York’s commissioner of media and entertainment under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and now consults with cities through the Bloomberg Associates nonprofit.

“Who represents the growing television industry and the growing content creation industry?” Ms. Oliver asked, voicing a question that is now being examined by the M.P.A.A.’s member companies.

In private conversations over the last week, people associated with various member companies — with some exceptions — expressed satisfaction with Mr. Dodd, who succeeded Dan Glickman as the M.P.A.A. chief in 2011. Mr. Dodd’s current employment contract extends to the spring of next year. Mr. Lynton, who contributed to Mr. Dodd’s presidential campaign in 2007, was among those who strongly backed his appointment to the M.P.A.A. post.

And those people largely acknowledged that the film studios depend heavily on the association for core cross-company functions. Those notably include the supervision of a film ratings system, and the operation of a separate unit that protects movie titles from use by others under a voluntary industrywide arrangement.

But those briefed on the position of several companies said virtually all the studios have chafed lately at the high cost of maintaining the M.P.A.A., along with its worldwide antipiracy and market access operations, particularly as Sony, Warner and others are cutting staff and costs.

As recently as 2012, public tax filings by the film association, a nonprofit, showed one-year expenditures of about $69 million, supported by dues of about $10 million from each studio, plus income from the ratings system and other sources, to support a staff that then numbered about 200.

But the current contributions are approaching $25 million a year, according to several executives. (Others say the number is slightly lower, depending on how the spending on dues and other support is counted.) That reflects some growth in operating expense under Mr. Dodd, who was paid about $3 million in 2012, according to the tax filing.

Mr. Lynton and others have posited that including television companies and units in an expanded trade organization would better reflect the current realities of entertainment, while spreading the cost of global efforts among a larger number of participants. Television shows are generating more money and viewers than film, often for the same companies that make movies.

Any such expansion would probably end the rule of unanimity, theoretically making the M.P.A.A. or a successor more nimble. But it would also bump quickly into existing policy organizations — for instance, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association or CreativeFuture, Hollywood’s antipiracy alliance — with overlapping membership and mission.

On Wednesday, Mr. Dodd said he had “talked with a lot of people” about expanded membership over the last several years.

As for selling that Washington building, which is also near a number of embassies, he sounded a note of caution. “It’s an important spot,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/bu...r-changes.html





Amy Pascal Leaving as Sony Studio Chief
Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

Amy Pascal, whose passion for stars and story made her one of the last of Hollywood’s old-style studio chiefs, has resigned as co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and as chairwoman of Sony’s motion picture group.

Sony announced the move on Thursday. It followed Ms. Pascal’s rough ride through an online attack against the studio that exposed emails in which she made denigrating remarks about President Obama’s presumed movie-viewing habits — disclosures that prompted profuse apologies from her.

Ms. Pascal had been in contract renewal talks for months. She decided instead to accept a four-year production deal that most likely will involve her making some of Sony’s biggest planned films.

The studio said Ms. Pascal would leave her position in May and did not name a successor. For the moment, her resignation consolidates power over Sony’s film operation under the Sony Pictures chief executive, Michael Lynton.

Ms. Pascal, often cited as the film industry’s top female executive, had been with Sony continuously since 1996, when she became president of its Columbia Pictures unit after serving as production president of Turner Pictures. Before joining Turner, she had worked at Sony since 1988.

“I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures, and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home,” she said in a statement. Details of her new production venture were not disclosed.

Ms. Pascal’s support for the provocative comedy “The Interview,” which lampooned the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, turned to a monthslong blazing controversy last year after Sony, based in Japan, was the target of a hacking attack.

North Korea was identified by the United States government as having precipitated the devastating attack on Sony and its employees, exposing the staff to humiliation and financial risk, and putting Ms. Pascal’s own dealings in the spotlight for weeks.

While top studio managers stood behind her, the pressures apparently made alternatives to renewal more attractive.

In a drive to enhance profitability at Sony Pictures, one of Hollywood’s largest studios, Mr. Lynton has been cutting staff and shuffling executives. His moves have stacked up possible candidates for Ms. Pascal’s job. He recently promoted Douglas Belgrad to the presidency of Sony’s film operation; in effect giving him a lieutenant with film expertise, should he choose to supervise filmmaking without Ms. Pascal.

He also bolstered Mr. Belgrad with a seasoned adjunct of his own, the former DreamWorks executive Michael De Luca, and with production deals that put Thomas E. Rothman, former chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment, in charge of the TriStar division, and the former Warner studio chief Jeff Robinov in place as a producer with substantial outside funding.

All of that squeezed Ms. Pascal, who for years had governed Sony’s film unit without serious challenge. At the same time, she was pressed by strategic changes that came with the retirement of a supporter, Howard Stringer, as the chief executive of Sony. With Mr. Stringer’s exit, the studio tightened costs and looked to focus more heavily on the franchise and fantasy films that have sustained competitors like Warner and Disney.

Ms. Pascal’s tenure brought a flood of ambitious and inventive movies that traded on relationships with stars and filmmakers like Will Smith, Adam McKay and Adam Sandler. When those stars and moviemakers were hot, so was Ms. Pascal.

In 2006, Sony topped the domestic box office, as Mr. Sandler hit with “Click,” Mr. McKay with “Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” and Mr. Smith with “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

In 2012, Sony was on top again, with matching blockbusters from its two principal film franchises: “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which revamped the Spider-Man series, and “Skyfall,” from a James Bond series that it shared with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

But Sony faltered when Ms. Pascal’s favorites slipped. In 2013, the studio ranked fourth at the domestic box office, and suffered a particular embarrassment as Mr. Smith, the most reliable star in its stable, took in just $60.5 million in domestic ticket sales with “After Earth,” an expensive sci-fi thriller.

Last year was again wobbly, thanks to the relatively soft performance of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” which took in $202 million at the domestic box office, but underperformed its predecessors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/bu...dio-chief.html





My GRAVITY Lawsuit and How it Affects Every Writer Who Sells to Hollywood
Tess Gerritsen

Yesterday, the court granted Warner Bros’s motion to dismiss my lawsuit against them. While Warner Bros crows victory, the judge has in fact left the door open for me to pursue my claim, allowing my legal team twenty days to revise our complaint and address the single issue of concern: the corporate relationship between Warner Bros. and New Line Productions.

For those unfamiliar with why I sued, you can find my original statement here:

A quick wrap-up of the facts:

In 1999, I sold the film rights to my book GRAVITY to New Line Productions. The contract stipulates that if a movie is made based on my book, I will receive “based upon” credit, a production bonus, and a percentage of net profits. The book is about a female medical doctor/astronaut who is stranded aboard the International Space Station after the rest of her crew is killed in a series of accidents. A biological hazard aboard ISS traps her in quarantine, unable to return to earth. While my film was in development, I re-wrote the third act of the film script with scenes of satellite debris destroying ISS and the lone surviving female astronaut adrift in her spacesuit.

Alfonso Cuaron was attached to direct my film — a fact I did not know at the time. My project never made it out of development.

In 2008, Warner Bros acquired New Line Productions. The takeover was rumored to be brutal, with numerous New Line employees losing their jobs overnight.

Sometime around 2008 – 2009, Alfonso Cuaron wrote his original screenplay “Gravity” about a female astronaut who is the sole survivor after her colleagues are killed by satellite debris destroying their spacecraft. She is left adrift in her space suit, and is later stranded aboard the International Space Station. I noted the similarities, but I had no evidence of any connection between Cuaron and my project. Without proof, I could not publicly accuse him of theft, so when asked about the similarities by fans and reporters, I told them it could be coincidental.

In February 2014, my literary agent was informed of Cuaron’s attachment to my project back in 2000. Now the similarities between my book and Cuaron’s movie could no longer be dismissed as coincidence. I sought legal help, and we filed a Breach of Contract complaint that April. Please note: this is not a case of copyright infringement. Warner Bros., through its ownership of New Line, also controls the film rights to my book. They had every right to make the movie — but they claim they have no obligation to honor my contract with New Line.

This is why every writer who sells to Hollywood should be alarmed.

It means that any writer who sold film rights to New Line Productions can have those rights freely exploited by its parent company Warner Bros. — and the original contract you signed with New Line will not be honored. Warner Bros. can make a movie based on your book but you will get no credit, even though your contract called for it.

It means that any parent film company who acquires a studio, and also acquires that studio’s intellectual properties, can exploit those properties without having to acknowledge or compensate the original authors.

This is alarming on many levels, and the principles involved go far beyond my individual lawsuit. Every writer who sells film rights to Hollywood must now contend with the possibility that the studio they signed the contract with could be swallowed up by a larger company — and that parent company can then make a movie based on your book without compensating you. It means Hollywood contracts are worthless.

But as I said, the door is not yet entirely closed on my lawsuit. My attorney Glen Kulik has issued the following statement:

The court issued a long, detailed, and very thoughtful opinion in which it noted that we need to include more facts in our pleading relative to the relationship between Warner Bros. and New Line — that was the only issue before the court on the motion. This happens quite often in litigation, and now we need to go ahead and file an amended complaint which corrects the technical deficiencies using the court’s decision as our roadmap. I do not think that will be hard to do as we have learned a great deal more information about the Warner Bros/New Line relationship since the original Complaint
was filed.


We will push on.
http://www.tessgerritsen.com/gravity...lls-hollywood/





Louis CK’s New Straight-to-Fan Special Has No Buzz – and It’s Doing Better Than His First One
Peter Kafka

Three years ago, Louis CK filmed his own stand-up comedy special and then sold it on his own Web site. It was a huge deal: At $5 a pop, he generated $1 million in 12 days, tons of press coverage, and many gassy essays about What It All Means.

This week Louis CK did it again, and it barely caused a ripple. On Monday night, he told David Letterman’s audience he was selling “Live at the Comedy Store.” On Tuesday he put it up on his site and told his fans about it via email.

That’s about it. No buzz, no news blitz, no Big Thinkpieces.

No problem.

Four days into the launch, the new special was selling better than the old one did in the same time period, Louis CK told me via email Friday night: “It’s selling better so far than anything else on the site had this far in.”

That surprised me. I had assumed that a lot of Louis CK’s sales the first time around came from people who liked his story — doing it on his own, selling directly to his fans, and selling copies that didn’t have any kind of piracy protection. Later on, he got the same buzz for a concert tour he staged without assistance from Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth that control most of the concert business.

But it turns out that Louis CK’s real appeal is that he’s really, really funny. The business model doesn’t matter: After Louis CK sold “Live at the Beacon Theater” directly to his fans, he released his next special via HBO. And if you wanted to go to his sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden this month, you had to go through Live Nation’s Ticketmaster to buy tickets.

So now it looks like Louis CK has the kind of power almost no one else in the entertainment business has: He can work on his own — or with the help of an entertainment conglomerate. His fans will show up either way.

In this case, he said, “I wanted to give the subscribers a benefit for being on the list by just letting them have it first and let it grow from there.”

Other than CK’s Letterman appearance, I think the only pre-release publicity for “Live at the Comedy Store” came via a backdoor press release from FX, the network that airs his “Louie” series. “When FX wanted to announce the TV rights deal, I wanted to let them do that,” CK said. “Otherwise we may have not announced it at all.”

It’s worth noting that the do-it-yourself method that generated so much attention for Louis CK in late 2011 hasn’t generated much traction for other performers. Louis CK has sold a couple of other comedians’ shows on his own site; a few others like Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari have done it on their own, too. And sites like VHX allow comedians or anyone else to sell their own stuff without much effort.

But my educated hunch is that in most cases, comedians, musicians, filmmakers and everyone else will still take an upfront check from a distributor/studio/network/label rather than risk staging something on their own. (In the case of comedians and some filmmakers, Netflix has been happy to hand out cash in order to build up its own library of “originals”.)

It’s cool that Louis CK has a real choice.
http://recode.net/2015/01/31/louis-c...his-first-one/





How One of the Best Films at Sundance was Shot Using an iPhone 5S

A breakout hit made with an $8 app
Casey Newton

Tangerine, a breakout hit from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is full of surprises. There’s the subject matter: transgender prostitutes working in a not-so glamorous part of Hollywood. And there are the characters: flinty, funny, nobody’s victim. But the story behind the camera is as surprising as what’s in front of it. Particularly because the camera used to shoot Tangerine was the iPhone 5S.

Plenty of amateur films have been shot using iPhones, but by all reports, this is the first movie at the Sundance Film Festival to be shot almost entirely on an Apple device. It was a decision that indie writer and director Sean Baker made to accommodate the film’s small budget. But you’d never guess the camera, to look at it: Tangerine was shot in a widescreen, 2:35:1 aspect ratio, and its camera zooms through the streets of LA with a fluidity you’d never expect from a handheld device. And yet despite his camera of choice, Baker says the iPhone made for a good partner. "It was surprisingly easy," Baker says. "We never lost any footage."

So how do you make a Sundance movie for iPhone? You need four things. First, of course, the iPhone (Baker and his team used three). Second, an $8 app called Filmic Pro that allowed the filmmakers fine-grained control over the focus, aperture, and color temperature. Third, a Steadicam. "These phones, because they’re so light, and they’re so small, a human hand — no matter how stable you are — it will shake. And it won’t look good," says Baker. "So you needed the Steadicam rig to stabilize it."

The final ingredient was a set of anamorphic adapter lenses that attach to the iPhone. The lenses were prototypes from Moondog Labs, and Baker said they were essential to making Tangerine look like it belonged on a big screen. "To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have even made the movie without it," Baker says. "It truly elevated it to a cinematic level."

Like any conventional film, Tangerine underwent post-production. "With a lot of these social realist films, the first thing you do is drain the color," Baker says. "We went the other way. We pumped the colors and put the saturation through the roof. Just because the world there is so colorful, and the women are so colorful. We wanted it to match them." (Orange emerged as the dominant color in the film, inspiring its title.) The final step was to apply a digital grain to the movie, giving it a quality more reminiscent of actual film.

At first, the cast wasn’t convinced shooting with the iPhone would work. "I had some hesitancy about it, more out of pride," says James Ransone, who plays Chester, the pimp at the center of Tangerine’s love triangle. "I’m like, Jesus Christ, man, I was on The Wire. I’ve ended up in iPhone movies!" But Ransone came to appreciate the flexibility of the device. "There’s a lot that can be done with an iPhone." (One example: Baker shot several scenes while riding his 10-speed bicycle in circles around his actors.)

Ransone said that the key to shooting Tangerine was having a team well-versed in traditional filmmaking. "You still need to know how editing works. You still need to know how sound works. You still need to know how a camera works," he says. "You can’t just go out and shoot." iPhone footage hasn’t yet caught up with true 35 millimeter film — a high bar — but Ransone expects it will some day. "Yes, you can make a beautiful-looking film on a shoestring budget," he says. "But you have to know 100 years worth of filmmaking."

The unusual creative process behind Tangerine doesn’t stop with its camera. Baker made the movie after becoming obsessed with a donut store in his neighborhood, a seedy block on Santa Monica Boulevard with a notorious reputation. "It was a chaotic corner — there was always something going on in Donut Time," he says. "So I said, I wanna make a film about Donut Time." That idea led him and his co-writer, Chris Bergoch, to a nearby LGBT center, where they met Mya Taylor, an aspiring singer and actress, who in turn introduced the filmmakers to her roommate and eventual co-star, Kiki Kitana Rodriguez.

The two women began sharing some stories from around the block, ("People love to hear drama. Especially filmmakers," Taylor tells me) and happened upon a striking bit of drama from the neighborhood: a trans woman became enraged when she heard her boyfriend had slept with a biological female — "actual fish," as they say in Tangerine. The trans woman decided to hunt the other woman down, and thus Tangerine found its inspiration, with the writers collaborating with their cast on the script.

The result, at least for me, is the ideal Sundance movie: totally unexpected, set in a world I’ve never visited, with a story the major studios wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot selfie stick. Rodriguez is an effervescent blur as Sin-Dee Rella, an ex-con hunting down her pimp fiancée’s mistress on Christmas Eve. She stomps down Hollywood’s Walk of Fame like it’s a catwalk, spitting fire at anyone dumb enough to cross her, and manages to terrify nearly every man she meets. Taylor, as her best friend and fellow prostitute Alexandra, tries to talk sense into Sin-Dee every step of the way, cleaning up the damage in her wake. Their sisterhood in the face of real danger brings depth to the frequently over-the-top comedy.

Tangerine isn’t perfect — it slows considerably in its final third, and the big climax at Donut Time feels less convincing than the film that led up to it. But in a festival full of coming-of-age dramas and straightforward documentaries, it’s a minor miracle: a good long look at the margins, captured by a $550 phone.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/79...rine-iphone-5s





Cable TV Viewing Declined by More than 12 Percent in January
Janko Roettgers

Looks like Netflix and other streaming services are starting to have an impact on traditional TV viewing: Total live TV ratings were down 12.7 percent year over year across the networks of major media companies, according to a note from Nomura Research, which is based on recent numbers from Nielsen. Nomura analyst Anthony DiClemente wrote that this was “one of the worst declines we have seen since we launched coverage of these companies.”

So why is live TV struggling? DiClemente pointed the finger at streaming services as the reason for the decline: “Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Hulu, continue to siphon viewers away from linear TV,” he concluded.

There are some differences between individual networks, which in turn weigh on media companies’ bottom lines. January was a particularly bad month for Viacom, which saw ratings decline by 23 percent when compared to January 2014, with declines largely driven by MTV and Nickelodeon. Disney on the other hand only faced ratings declines of 7.5 percent, thanks in part to great ratings for ESPN.

Numbers like these run counter to the notion that online video viewing is additive to traditional TV consumption. That may have been true when people only streamed 15 minutes a day, but recent numbers from Netflix show that its subscribers watch an average of 90 minutes of Netflix programming every day.
https://gigaom.com/2015/02/03/cable-...nt-in-january/





Major Labels Keep 73% of Spotify Premium Payouts – Report
Tim Ingham

New record company figures out of France suggest that artists receive just 68 cents from every €9.99 monthly music streaming subscription – as major labels keep hold of 73% of payouts from the likes of Spotify.

French recorded music trade body SNEP, whose members include Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music, ran a recent study with Ernst & Young to discover where money paid by a subscriber to the likes of Spotify or Deezer ultimately ends up.

As you can see below, in terms of the turnover that these platforms generate, the major labels (‘producteurs’) take home the lion’s share, pulling in an average of €4.56-per-subscriber every month after tax.

In terms of the total subscription payment, that’s a 46% share of the spoils.

However, further analysis from MBW gives a more interesting split: who takes home what from the revenues paid out by streaming companies to music rights-holders.

If SNEP’s figures are correct, €6.24 of every €9.99 subscription is paid to music rights-holders – that’s what’s left after tax and the digital platforms’ fee.

That would means the labels keep 73% of payouts from Spotify/Deezer etc.

They’re followed by writers/publishers with a 16% share, and then artists – mostly paid by their labels – who get 11%.

Here’s how that €9.99 turnover payout share looks when you divide it up by percentage – both in terms of total revenue, and the recipients of the €6.24 payout by Spotify/Deezer etc.

How can the majors justify taking home such a huge chunk? Well, SNEP and E&Y’s research doesn’t stop there: they also estimate how much each party brings home in net pre-tax profit.

That means scoping how much major labels, publishers and digital platforms spend on costs – including marketing, making and/or distributing the music in the first place.

Here things get debatable: the net income of labels and digital platforms is, in SNEP/E&Y’s eyes, estimated at just 5% of total revenue.

That, in itself, will be a highly contested figure; many managers would argue that a 95% margin of cost doesn’t ring true on digital platforms devoid of packaging, breakages and returns.

Applying the 5% profit margin to SNEP’s figures changes the percentages of ‘take home’ money quite dramatically, as you can see below.

SNEP and E&Y calculate that labels earn €0.26 net profit for each subscription, while digital platforms earn just €0.10 per €9.99.

These tiny profit margins – if at all accurate – go some way to explaining why even the biggest streaming services find turning a profit no easy task.

It’s also the exact reason why managers want more streaming cash for their artists… and why major labels say they can’t pay it.
http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.co...abels-take-46/





Zoë Keating Fights YouTube to Control Her Music and Reputation

The Google-owned company has used aggressive negotiating tactics and attempts to manage media coverage.
Sam Lefebvre

Last month, Zoë Keating found herself on the wrong end of a phone call with one of the world's most powerful companies. A representative from the Google-owned video platform YouTube foisted a raw deal upon Keating, the terms of which appeared unfair and inflexible.

"Wow, that's pretty harsh," said Keating.

"Yeah, it's harsh and trust me, it is really difficult for me to have this conversation," the caller responded.

It was difficult for Keating, too.

According to a transcript of the conversation provided by Keating, YouTube told the successful independent cellist and songwriter that, unless she opted in to YouTube's new streaming service, Music Key, by signing a proposed contract without stipulation, her ability to earn ad revenue from the 9,696 videos featuring her songs, and their roughly 250,000 monthly views would be effectively revoked; her music would appear on Music Key anyway; and furthermore, YouTube would have to block her from uploading new material from her current account.

Keating's blogpost about the exchange went viral. It garnered media attention from outlets such as The Guardian and Digital Music News. Some journalists then received demands for headline retractions from YouTube. To many industry observers and advocates for musicians in the digital realm, the dramatic exchange provided a rare look into YouTube's aggressive negotiating tactics, media meddling, and a public effort to discredit Keating's objections.

YouTube, which has roughly a billion monthly users, has long been used as a streaming service. Most songs are uploaded to the site. Announced last year, Music Key is YouTube's plan to compete with the market's dominant forces: Pandora, Spotify, and Apple's new player in the streaming game, Beats.

To launch the service, which is currently in the beta-testing phase, YouTube must strike deals directly with sound copyright owners. Arrangements with the major labels materialized last year, but one prominent holdout was the indie label umbrella organization Merlin. In June of last year, YouTube's head of content and business operations told the Financial Times that the company planned to begin blocking videos in "a matter of days." Within a month, however, YouTube was "back-flipping and backtracking," according to a source quoted by the Financial Times.

YouTube now appears to be wrangling independent artists who manage their own material. Keating's objections echo the Merlin dispute, but she lacks the collective bargaining entity's clout. To compensate, she's exhibited a level of transparency that's rare in an industry in which non-disclosure agreements reign.

Under Keating's current contract with YouTube, she is a music partner, which means she has access to YouTube's ContentID system, an interface for monitoring her own uploads as well as third-party videos that feature her music. In a testament to Google's content-trawling faculties, ContentID is constantly scanning YouTube for descriptions, metadata, or audio file details for which Keating holds copyrights. Through ContentID, Keating then has an option to mute audio that matches her music; block the entire video from being viewed; monetize the video by running ads against it; and track the video's viewership statistics, according to YouTube's website.

As part of Keating's current agreement with YouTube, she cannot disclose how much she makes from the service. But, Keating revealed in her blogpost that, as the sound recording copyright owner and featured artist, about 250,000 monthly spins on Pandora earns her roughly $324. For the same amount of plays on YouTube, she wrote, the compensation is "far less."

Keating has disclosed her earnings from streaming services in the past. As noted in the Express cover story on Pandora (See "The Tyranny of Free," 11/19/14), Keating disclosed in detail her paltry earnings from various internet radio services in 2012. In regards to Music Key, however, the issue is less about the proposed compensation than it is about control.

Keating objected to several components of the proposed Music Key contract, including a requirement that all of her catalog must be included in the free and premium tiers of YouTube and Music Key; that her new releases must appear on Music Key at the same time as other services; and that the contract lasts for five years.

YouTube's representative reportedly told Keating that if she declines the proposed terms, "the content that you directly upload from accounts that you own under the content owner attached to the [pre-existing] agreement, we'll have to block that content." If she doesn't opt in to Music Key, the transcript makes clear, her ability to selectively monetize videos featuring her recordings will disappear.

David Lowery, the Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven songwriter and an outspoken advocate for artist rights in the digital music industry, underscored Keating's objections. Denied by Music Key's proposed terms is her ability to strategically "window" releases and offer websites exclusive premieres, which Lowery called an effective and widespread marketing strategy that he and countless other artists regularly employ.

"We're developing these new monopolies, but they don't necessarily abuse the consumer," Lowery said in an interview. "They use their power to abuse the producer."

Furthermore, on his blog, TheTrichordist.com, Lowery posted an open letter to the Federal Trade Commission explaining how the terms of Music Key amount to an antitrust concern. "Independent artists have no way to take on anticompetitive behavior by Google in the courts," he wrote. "Zoë Keating's experience is emblematic of all of us and I implore you to listen to her voice." Impala, an indie label trade organization, filed a complaint with the European Commission last year similarly attacking Google's antitrust behavior.

He added in the letter, "I understand that Google is conducting a whisper campaign with journalists in an attempt to discredit Zoë Keating."

One of the journalists who reported on Keating's plight was Paul Resnikoff at DigitalMusicNews.com. He republished her blogpost under the headline, "YouTube is Removing Any Artist That Refuses to License its Subscription Service." A representative from YouTube contacted him and demanded a retraction of the headline, calling it "patently false." In a subsequent email exchange, which Resnikoff posted online, the representative cited a basic terms of service policy as proof that any user in agreement can upload content, not contesting other terms dictated to Keating. (When I contacted YouTube with several specific questions, I received the same statement.) When reached by email, Resnikoff said that he didn't plan to heed the retraction demand. "YouTube is exhibiting some pretty ugly treatment toward artists," he wrote. "And understandably they don't want it reported accurately."Following the exchange, Keating posted the transcript of her phone exchange with YouTube's representative. Digital Music News' headline remains, as does a very similar one published by Forbes, whose author was also contacted by YouTube, according to Resnikoff.

Resnikoff's original article appeared on January 23. An interview with Keating on the matter, conducted by Glenn Peoples, who regularly reports in detail about the digital music industry, appeared on Billboard.com on January 28. It mentioned YouTube's denial while acknowledging that, "meticulous note-keeping helps back up Keating's version of the story."

The next day, however, Billboard published another article condescending to Keating as a "confused" "part-time pundit." The piece states that YouTube had been in touch to "clarify" the contract proposed to Keating, directly contradicting Keating's transcribed conversation and her unsigned contract. According to explanations provided to Billboard, the Music Key agreement wouldn't deny Keating's ability to window releases. Additionally, her music wouldn't be available through Music Key without consent, another claim that's contrary to Keating's conversation with YouTube's representative.

A day after the lengthy interview, Billboard even appeared to imply doubt about Keating's note-taking: "These responses go against descriptions of the agreement presented to Keating (and transcribed by her)," the article read, "and presumably present an update to the contract's terms."

Keating wrote in an email, "I've been negotiating with [YouTube] for a year, and at no point have any of the terms I've been concerned about been flexible in any way. Then suddenly, after a little public sunshine, a couple of the more onerous points have disappeared? [YouTube] has yet to contact me about any of this."

She continued, "Now it's clear to everyone except a Wall Street banker that there are elements of the contract that are fundamentally unethical, and that [YouTube] wouldn't be able to insist on some of these terms if they weren't hiding behind [non-disclosure agreements]."

YouTube appears to be working toward mending its public image while ignoring Keating's contractual dispute. Despite the Google-backed company's damage control campaign, Keating's bargaining power remains compromised.

As Resnikoff wrote in an email, "The only groups that aren't getting totally pushed around and exploited are the ones that bring a giant gun to the negotiating table." He continued, "What happens to successful indie artists that aren't signed? I think we're seeing exactly what is happening to them, in real time."
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oaklan...nt?oid=4185350





Pono Player Review: A Tall, Refreshing Drink of Snake Oil

Specs at a glance: Pono Player
Screen 2.5"
OS Android 2.3
CPU ARM Cortex-A8
RAM 256MB
Memory 64GB (plus additional 64GB MicroSD card included)
Ports Micro USB, MicroSD card reader, 2 x 3.5mm headphone jacks
Size 5" x 2" x 1" (13cm x 5cm x 2.5m)
Weight 4.6 ounces (130g)
Battery "Up to 8 hours"
Starting price $399.99

We give Neil Young's high-res music player a spin and do a few cochlea kegels.
Sam Machkovech

One of my Ars colleagues hadn't yet touched the Pono Player—the Neil Young-championed portable music player, nearly one year out of its successful Kickstarter and finally ready to make a mainstream hullabaloo about higher-resolution audio. However, he already "wrote" the review.

"You know how every once in a while you buy the $40 bottle of wine instead of the $8 one, thinking you're gonna have a special dinner or something?" Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson wrote over instant message. "And you get home, and you make the salmon or the pasta or whatever and you light the candles? And you pour the wine, swirl it like they do in Sideways so that it looks like you know what you're doing... you bring it to your lips and after smelling it—it smells like wine—you have a sip? And it's like… yeah, I guess this tastes good or something, but really it just tastes like wine?

"The Pono Player is kinda like that, but for music."

I stole Lee's take, because the Pono Player's sales pitch must deal with this exact sort of hurdle deal. That's especially true if the device is targeting the likes of many Ars readers or staff, who know better than to buy into the advanced-technology snake oil so often pushed on A/V geeks. Around the Orbital HQ, we've laughed off countless cables, circuit boards, speakers, and "advanced" displays—all smothered in gold in one way or another—that, when it came right down to it, didn't make a squat of difference (or certainly not enough to command some ridiculous asking prices).

To many, Pono's trying to do just that. "You need this device to hear music the best way possible"—in a music-playing world where everybody has a perfectly good media player in their smartphones. Yet, Pono's push to deliver a not-crazy-expensive FLAC player has a surprisingly low number of peers. We're not foolish enough to describe a $400 player (with no built-in speakers, by the way) as a bargain, but that's chump change compared to the bonkers price of $1,200 that Sony slapped onto its latest Walkman. If you're gonna buy a dedicated music player that costs as much as a TV, at least this one's only in the Vizio range.

Personally, I consider myself the kind of customer Pono has in its sights. I'm a gadget hound, a rabid every-genre-under-the-sun music consumer, and a person who doesn't want to build a massive, $1,000s-strong stereo system. Give me a nice pair of headphones and an effective, all-in-one way to max out the sound they receive, and I'll be in jazz-snob heaven.

Up until now, I've gotten my special-ear-time fix from my MacBook Pro, whose hard drive already has hosts of my music and whose headphone jack supports high-res audio output of 96kHz. If I'm really, really paying attention, I can pick out the differences between a variable bitrate MP3 and a larger FLAC file of the same song on my Audio Technica ATH-AD900 headphones—or I'd like to think that, at least. It's rare that I fret over the bass resonance and cymbal shimmering of a song while going about my day.

That's the perspective I came from when I finally located, purchased, and turned on a Pono Player. Neil Young wants us to believe that higher-res audio files played through his banana-colored Toblerone will improve our music-loving lives. I'm here to say that he and his team are kinda full of crap—though that doesn't negate the amount of quality found in this little, weird-looking thing.

Is that a Pono Player in your pocket...

As of press time, if you want to purchase a Pono Player right now and you didn't already put $300 of early-bird-discount faith into the hardware's Kickstarter campaign—many of those units have shipped—your only option is to walk into a Fry's Electronics store. We checked online to learn that a few Fry's locations near Ars staffers' homes had them in stock on January 22, at which point I rushed to my nearest super-sized computer parts shop.

I'd already placed an online order to ensure that a Pono would be waiting for me at the massive checkout line, so I wandered through the store to see what its display might look like. I was hoping for a cardboard cut-out of Neil leaning back with eyes clenched shut in the middle of a guitar solo, only his guitar had been digitally replaced with a bright-yellow Toblerone-shaped thingie. Instead, I found... nothing. After speaking to two clueless staffers, a third one told me that "the guys in video games were talking about that thing," so I went to the game department. A 19-year-old asked if I wanted to place an online order so that the back-room staffers could fish a Pono out. "We're supposed to get a full retail display pretty soon, I think," he told me.

I swear, this box isn't just full of $400 worth of Hustler mags.

The Pono Player sold at Fry's comes in the most non-descript cardboard box possible, its only giveaway being a $399.99 price tag on one of its sides. Open that box up, and you'll find a far more handsome, wooden, Pono-branded box—in a square shape, shockingly—that unfolds to reveal the player and its accessories. (No cheapo earbuds, which we kind of appreciated, to be honest. Why waste another $5-8 on headphones that Pono's target audience would detest?)

Everything in the wooden box.

Pono Player's primary face contains a 2.5-inch touchscreen and three hard buttons: two for volume, along with a multi-function play/pause/skip/power button. Their plus/circle/minus arrangement, with the shapes cut to be the whole of each button, is more attractive than a standard square or circle button design, but it gives the unit even more of a toy aesthetic than its yellow paint job already does.

The body is covered in a smooth, rubberized plastic, meaning fingers can easily rub across its sides while still finding traction if the unit rests in your hand; the player is just a tad smaller than a grown-up hand. The primary face is the largest of the three, since, yes, the Pono Player comes in an isosceles triangle shape. Pono's creators insisted that the triangular shape was necessary to fit all of the player's parts. After reviewing a recent teardown, we wonder if the capacitors—the major culprit for Pono's circuit board bulge—could have been repositioned for a flatter design without increasing the size all that much.

Want to use studio-quality headphones with your new audio player? They better come with a 3.5mm adapter, because Pono doesn't support any larger jacks. If you happen to own a pair of headphones with two "balanced XLR connectors," you can plug them both in for supposedly improved sound. Otherwise, the two 3.5mm jacks on this device are meant for friends who want to listen to an album on their own headphones at the same time. The hardware comes packed with 64GB of on-board memory, and the box includes a 64GB Micro SD memory card, as well. Should you want to expand your memory, you can add a 128GB card.

We took the Pono Player on the go for an entire day, which proved to be a bit of a logistical nightmare. This isn't just a bad device to put in a pocket—the triangular shape feels noticeable and obnoxious in your pants pocket—but it's also lousy in a messenger bag. The creators elected not to include a hardware "hold" button of any sort. As a result, the volume and multi-function buttons got pressed on a regular basis during our testing—meaning this thing reached its maximum, incredibly high volume level so quickly that we had to rip earbuds out. We soon opted for handheld use, which was fine enough in terms of quickly adjusting volume, skipping current songs, or pausing. However, we couldn't disable the screen turning on every time we tapped the volume dial, and turning the screen off required holding the multi-function button down for way too long (so we reduced the auto-sleep timer accordingly).

The best thing we could say about on-the-go Pono use was that the unit fit neatly into our palm and felt like a media-player version of a drum stick. When this thing was cranked to high volume on a good song, we couldn't help but flick our wrist along and rock out in public.

It's a small MusicWorld, after all

Our Pono Player came pre-loaded with only one song—unsurprisingly, a Neil Young cut—so we visited a variety of online shops to grab MP3 and FLAC editions of albums. In the case of the Pono Player, we had to use its ugly-but-serviceable app to buy and download albums, but we were ecstatic to find that we didn't need to touch the app at all to load other music into the hardware. After you connect a Pono Player to a computer, both its internal memory and any attached memory card appear as folders that you can drag-and-drop new tunes into. Once you disconnect the Pono Player, it will automatically recognize and add new albums (in FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, MP3, and unprotected AAC formats) that you'd loaded manually.

Pono MusicWorld, we should note, includes a horrible storefront that looks ripped from an early '00s music-sharing app like LimeWire. We didn't waste any time before switching to HDTracks' Web storefront for our browsing purposes, especially since we wanted high-res music for testing. HDTracks' simple browsing system had easier ways for us to quickly see which albums were sampled as 192kHz/24-bit audio. The song selection on both sites overlaps plenty (with the unsurprising exception of Neil Young and his bands remaining Pono-exclusive), and both sites charge a relatively hefty premium for their larger albums, starting around $18 per album and jumping all the way to $24.

Considering Pono's firm sales pitch about us needing the highest-res audio available, we were surprised to not find any "highest resolution only" filter in its internal storefront. This is where Pono's snake oil really begins, because when you play any 192/24 songs on the player, it rewards you by—we're not kidding—turning on a little blue neon light. This doesn't happen if your 192/24 songs didn't come from Pono's storefront, however, as those are apparently not 192 enough.

The player's touchscreen interface, which displays Pono's custom Android fork, is serviceable enough. It sorts your library by performing artist, album, playlist, or song title. You'll need to flip to the "song" section to enable shuffle mode, if that's your bag. Only the "album" list has any visual flair, in the form of album covers.

To switch from your current song or album to another one, you must tap on spots whose screen footprints are the tiniest bit too small for our liking—and that's just in portrait mode. Those taps are even tougher in landscape mode. The Pono Player has been designed to ideally rest in that mode on a desk or next to a stereo, so we found ourselves frequently needing to pick the hardware up and wait for its screen to rotate just to get new tracks going. Thankfully, the player's ability to switch tracks and search through audio doesn't have any hitches or pauses, but that doesn't quite make up for the screen's sluggish response time.

Sssssssibilance?

Before we begin discussing how the Pono Player sounds, let us reiterate: Our testing was highly subjective. We did not conduct lengthy double-blind trials with a wide range of participants. We did not have a variety of smartphones, laptops, stereos, headphones, or other equipment to compare and use with the Pono. And we certainly didn't install microscopic measuring devices into our ears to confirm how many frequencies survived the journey from the Pono Player's guts to our brain holes.

If you're wondering, we tested with the following equipment: Audio Technica ATH-AD900 headphones (which have since been discontinued in favor of the AD900x model), Koss IL100 earbuds, a 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (with VLC as our app), and a couple of mid-range stereo systems with decent subwoofers, including a Pioneer SX-828 receiver connected to Genesis 1s speakers. We fed audio directly from the Pono Player at all times as opposed to any scenario involving pass-through devices.

The few blind tests we conducted, as predicted, were inconclusive. The only consistent response we got from three friends—all of whom are musically inclined, some more fiendish about audio gear than others—was that the Pono Player's handling of one particular album, Sleater-Kinney's 2015 alt-rock record No Cities To Love, sounded a little more crisp and distinct in both compressed MP3 and uncompressed, CD-quality FLAC on a Pono Player than on a MacBook Pro. This album, however, that wasn't even a record sampled at an exotic, higher-res rate.

The other 192/24 material we tested—Ella Fitzgerald's 1969 record Ella, Freddie Hubbard's jazz classic Hub-Tones, and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On—was chosen because these albums had received supposedly painstaking care in their super-sampled remasters. And their volume levels, as compared to recent CD releases, weren't wildly different. That's the biggest inconsistency any Pono tester will find when trying to compare versions of, say, Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps. Most of Neil's offerings, and other stuff we came across in our HD music acquisition, had wildly different volume levels and even wholly remixed stereo separation in their newer versions. That stuff will sound better on any device, really.

When it came to comparing albums that were nearly identical, save their sampling rates, we sometimes heard an opportunity to pick out sibilance in a vocal or the ringing sound of a cymbal and say, "Oooh, there's the higher-res version." We were right on those calls every single time. But we had to really, really pick at the audio, asking for frequent replays of short snippets, to make those calls. Some albums, particularly Ella, gave us very few obvious moments like that to work with.

We did notice a difference between songs rendered through a Pono Player and the same ones on either a stereo or a MacBook Pro. Mostly, we preferred on the Pono where the bass sat in the mix, which we noticed was less of a bitrate issue and more of the Pono Player's on-board mix of pre-amp and digital audio converter (DAC). We confirmed this preference after countless volume adjustments to make sure the Pono wasn't just tricking us with volume bumps. We should point out that this bass improvement was most noticeable on pop-rock albums; jazz and classical have plenty of bass action going on, but in those cases, it was actually the higher-end sounds (like an endlessly banged high-hat) that sounded noticeably brighter and crisper compared to other sound sources.

Our verdict

To clarify our ultimate sonic takeaway: We noticed improvements, however slight, with higher-res audio on a Pono Player at low-to-medium volume during our workday than we did with the same files on a MacBook Pro. The same couldn't be said for the resolution of the audio in question, however—certainly when listening casually but sometimes even when we were paying careful attention.

And we're fine with that. As most audio-obsessed geeks will tell you, research and tests about high-res audio tend to make Neil Young and his Kool-Aid salesmen sound like fools. In many cases, higher-rate sampling can make audio sound worse. (Go down a real frequency rabbit hole here if you want.) Hell, Mr. Young must know by now that his older, degraded ears are less likely to pick up higher-range frequency audio than any of his potential customers.

We're not interested in re-buying our entire music libraries yet again to cash in on some very unsound assertions about audio sampling. We're pretty happy with our CD-quality collection, which we've purchased from reputable outlets or ripped ourselves with good ol' LAME, and we'll probably continue being satisfied with our smartphones as a way to listen to tracks on the go. That being said, we think $400 for an all-in-one, 128GB (expandable to 196GB) player with a quality pre-amp and DAC solution—as a quality piece of home kit that we can toss in a bag and enjoy at a friend's house or in a hotel room—is a reasonable price for something to max those songs out with.

We could see a Pono Player 2.0 being a killer device, honestly, especially since the iPod Classic has exited the space. Perhaps now there's significant room for $300-ish high-end dedicated music players. Worry less about being particularly portable, we say, and add features like wireless audio transfer (so we can leave a Pono plugged into a home stereo), a suction grip for placing on surfaces like car dashboards, a slightly bigger screen, and a damned hold button, and we just might throw this overpriced bottle of wine into our messenger bags after all.

The good

• Quality pre-amp and DAC do the heavy lifting in making music output sound quite good, whether using highest-res audio files or merely high-enough res.
• Adequate default capacity of 128GB, expandable to 196GB as needed.
• Fine weight and size for handheld use.

The bad

• No amount of testing made 192kHz/24-bit FLAC audio sound noticeably better than high-quality MP3s.
• Sluggish touchscreen is made worse by interface's tiny, tappable details.
• The eight-hour battery life doesn't quite outpace an old iPod Classic.
• How do you feel about banana yellow?

The ugly

• The lack of "hold" button renders portable Pono use pretty much moot.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/...-of-snake-oil/





Keurig's Attempt to 'DRM' its Coffee Cups Totally Backfired

A system designed to lock out third-party competitors just enraged consumers
Josh Dzieza

You know Keurig’s machines. The company's squat black coffee brewers have become fixtures in offices, hotels, and homes around the country, as have garbage cans heaped with the spent plastic pods they use. Purely on the strength of those machines — or more accurately, the relatively expensive pods they use — Keurig transformed its parent company, Green Mountain Coffee, from a small regional brewer to a major corporation doing over $4 billion in sales each year.

Late last year, Keurig announced a new machine, the 2.0, calling it the "future of brewing" and touting its ability to make both small cups and large carafes. But another, less-publicized feature has been getting most of the attention: the brewer’s advanced scanning system that locks out any coffee pods not bearing a special mark. It’s essentially a digital rights management system, but for coffee, and it’s proving to be the brewer’s downfall.

On an earnings call Wednesday the company announced that brewer sales fell 12 percent last quarter, the first full quarter for which the 2.0 was on sale. "Quite simply our 2.0 launch got off to a slower start than we planned," said CEO Brian Kelley. He said the company had been too slow to get 2.0-compatible cups onto retail shelves and "confusion among consumers as to whether the 2.0 would still brew all of their favorite brands."

Indeed, the 2.0’s Amazon reviews overflow with caffeine-deprived fury, the idiosyncratically capitalized wrath of people who bought 2.0 machines only to find that their old cups don’t work. "Talk about GREEDY corporate ridiculousness," said one guy who tried to use his refillable pods. "On principle alone, I hate that they are dictating which coffee I'm using in my machine," said another. "It is a HUGE SHAME that the company decided to remove the ability to use your own coffee grounds in the home brew k-cup. ...They should have just said we made these changes so our products would sell more so we could make a bigger profit," reads a typical review. "They took a potentially killer machine and added horrible DRM - a rights management system, in the greedy attempt to get all other coffee pod manufacturers to pay them so their pods work," reads another of the hundreds of one-star reviews. Many lamented the ability to give no stars. If you Google "Keurig 2.0," the first thing that autocompletes is "hack."

The funniest thing about the backlash is that it was entirely predictable. Consumers hate DRM — in music, in movies, in anything — but applying it to coffee feels especially galling. It’s the most open caffeinated beverage there is; all you need is beans and hot water and, I guess, a vessel to brew it in. Locking it up in plastic cups was already a little silly, though something lots of people were happy to buy for the sake of convenience. Building a complicated infrared scanning system so that you can only use Keurig-approved cups was a step too far.

At a Keurig 2.0 launch event last June, company representatives demonstrated the DRM system using old Keurig pods, without the scannable ink markers. If you tried to use one, the machine displayed a message saying "oops" and did nothing. It was designed to lock out cups made by third parties, but obviously it also locked out old Keurig ones, as the demonstration made clear. I asked whether that would be a problem, and no one seemed to think it would be. The old cups would be phased out, and retailers would carry only the new ones, Keurig said. That turned out to be wrong, possibly because so many Keurig users buy their cups in bulk, and probably because unlicensed pods were cheaper. Maybe the problems will subside somewhat now that retailers are stocking the new cups, but as Kelly acknowledged in the call, the initial angry response did a lot of damage.

Keurig says the scanning system allows the machine to optimize brew temperature for different types of cups, and to tell the difference between carafe-size cups and regular ones. But at the event, a Keurig engineer said the technology is based on anti-counterfeiting technology used by the US Mint, which surely is not the simplest way of distinguishing between one pod and another.

At a corporate level, Keurig’s attempt to make a DRM system for its coffee is understandable. The company’s business model depends on selling its brewers cheap and making money selling pods, a model reminiscent of printer manufacturers and their marked-up ink cartridges. It’s a tremendously lucrative business. Of Keurig’s $1.4 billion in sales last quarter, $1 billion came from selling cups. But in 2012, key patents on its cups expired, and competitors rushed in, selling compatible cups for cheaper and quickly eating into Keurig’s market share.

Many of these companies have declared their intention to make 2.0-compatible cups. Others have sued. Yet another third-party cup manufacturer is giving away a free clip that it says tricks Keurig’s scanner. And YouTube is full of videos showing how to hack the system.

Whether this stuff works is sort of beside the point. You shouldn’t have to hack your coffee, and that’s especially true for a company whose entire success is based on being super easy and convenient. Keurig’s latest earnings report proves that.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/5/798...ally-backfired





New High-Tech Farm Equipment Is a Nightmare for Farmers
Kyle Wiens

I squatted down in the dirt and took stock of my inadequate tools. Over my left shoulder a massive John Deere tractor loomed. I came here to fix that tractor. So far, things weren’t going as planned.

I’m a computer programmer by training, and a repairman by trade. Ten years ago, I started iFixit, an online, DIY community that teaches people to repair what they own. Repair is what I do, and that I was being rebuffed by a tractor was incredibly frustrating.

I tossed my wrenches and screwdrivers. The conventional tools of my trade had no power here. This job called for something different. Armed with wire, alligator clips, a handful of connectors, and a CANbus reader, I launched myself back into the cab of the tractor. Once more into the breach, dear friends!

The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two days, Dave’s tractor lies fallow. And so do his fields.

Dave asked me if there was some way to bypass a bum sensor while waiting for the repairman to show up. But fixing Dave’s sensor problem required fiddling around in the tractor’s highly proprietary computer system—the tractor’s engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast.

One hour later, I hopped back out of the cab of the tractor. Defeated. I was unable to breach the wall of proprietary defenses that protected the tECU like a fortress. I couldn’t even connect to the computer. Because John Deere says I can’t.

Farming Goes High Tech

Dave is a DIY kind of guy. But Dave would like to do more than just change his tractor’s oil. He’d like to be able to modify the engine timing. He’d like to harvest the information that his tractor collects to learn more about how his crops grow. He’d like to troubleshoot error codes. Most of all, he’d like to be able to repair his equipment himself—because it’s what he’s been doing all his life.

In the tech industry, we tend to talk about the exploding Maker Movement as if tinkering is something new. In fact, it’s as old as dirt: farmers have been making, building, rebuilding, hacking, and tinkering with their equipment since chickens were feral. I’ve seen farmers do with rusty harvesters and old welders what modern Makers do with Raspberry Pis and breadboards. There’s even a crowdsourced magazine, Farm Show, that’s catalogued thousands of clever farming inventions over the past three decades.

Of course, the world is changing, and that’s especially true in the world of agriculture. Most problems can’t be solved with duct tape and baling wire anymore. Regulations are stricter, agribusiness is more consolidated, resources are more scarce, and equipment is infinitely more complicated and proprietary. Small family farmers like Dave face challenges that even the most industrious Maker would find hard to “hack.”

What used to be done by hand is now managed at scale by giant machine. And that equipment is expensive—equivalent to the price of a small house (Dave’s mid-ranged tractor is worth over $100,000). New, elaborate computer systems afford the kind of precision and predictability that farmers 20 years ago couldn’t have even imagined. But they’ve also introduced new problems.

High-Tech Tractors Are Increasingly a Liability

Aside from using it, there’s not much you can do with modern ag equipment. When it breaks or needs maintenance, farmers are dependent on dealers and manufacturer technicians—a hard pill to swallow for farmers, who have been maintaining their own equipment since the plow.

“[DIY repair] is cheaper than calling out the technician. But that information is just not out there,” Dave explained to me.

The cost and hassle of repairing modern tractors has soured a lot of farmers on computerized systems altogether. In a September issue of Farm Journal, farm auction expert Greg Peterson noted that demand for newer tractors was falling. Tellingly, the price of and demand for older tractors (without all the digital bells and whistles) has picked up. “As for the simplicity, you’ve all heard the chatter,” Machinery Pete wrote. “There’s an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don’t require a computer to fix.”

The problem is that farmers are essentially driving around a giant black box outfitted with harvesting blades. Only manufacturers have the keys to those boxes. Different connectors are needed from brand to brand, sometimes even from model to model—just to talk to the tECU. Modifications and troubleshooting require diagnostic software that farmers can’t have. Even if a farmer managed to get the right software, calibrations to the tECU sometimes require a factory password. No password, no changes—not without the permission of the manufacturer.

John Deere, in particular, has been incredibly effective at limiting access to its diagnostic software. Which is why I wouldn’t have been able to tweak the programming on Dave’s tractor, even if I had been able to hack together the right interface. John Deere doesn’t want me to. The dealer-repair game is just too lucrative for manufacturers to cede any control back to farmers.

Hacking the Family Farm

After a second swear-word-inducing attempt to monkey around in the code that fuels Dave’s computer, I started wondering how other farmers were dealing with the increasingly cloaked and proprietary nature of modern farming.

My failure with Dave’s tractor got me fired up. I started lurking in ag forums, talking to my farmer friends, and hanging out in diesel repair shops. I found out that farmers aren’t taking the limitations lying down. There’s a thriving grey-market for diagnostic equipment and proprietary connectors. Some farmers have even managed to get their hands on the software they need to re-calibrate and repair equipment on their own—a laptop purchased from some nameless friend-of-a-friend with the software already loaded on it. There are even ways to get around the factory passwords that block access to the tECU to effect repairs.

But under modern copyright laws, that kind of “repairing” is legally questionable.

Manufacturers have every legal right to put a password or an encryption over the tECU. Owners, on the other hand, don’t have the legal right to break the digital lock over their own equipment. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act—a 1998 copyright law designed to prevent digital piracy—classifies breaking a technological protection measure over a device’s programming as a breach of copyright. So, it’s entirely possible that changing the engine timing on his own tractor makes a farmer a criminal.

Instead of wrestling with proprietary systems, other farmers are starting to go open source. Dorn Cox has been working the land most of his life. After a break to work in tech start-ups, he took over a 250-acre farm in Lee, New Hampshire. In 2010, he co-founded Farm Hack, an online community of farmers, designers, developers, and engineers “helping our community of farmers to be better inventors, developing tools that fit the scale and their ethics of our sustainable family farms.”

“Knowledge wants to be free,” Cox told me.

So Farm Hack is setting it free. Together, members are building an open-source library of farming tools and knowledge. They hack together solutions that work for them. Projects range from the classically low-tech (a farm bicycle that lets users pick ground crops like strawberries without destroying their backs) to the decidedly tech-savvy (a remote-controlled, Arduino-powered compost monitor).

“The main thing, from a hacker’s perspective, is that we’re not dependent on something to create the tools for us,” Cox explained. “We are actually adapting and taking ownership.”

Unfortunately, when it comes to modifying existing equipment—like Dave’s tractor—it’s that same idea of ownership that’s most contested. Dave paid for the tractor; he owns what’s tangible: the wheels, the metal chassis, the gears and pistons in the engine. But John Deere owns everything else: the programming that propels the tractor, the software that calibrates the engine, the information necessary to fix it. So, who really owns that tractor?

Even if he could, would it be legal for Dave to fix his machine? Right now, we don’t know; and that ambiguity is disturbing. So, we’re trying to find the answer. In conjunction with USC and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we’ve asked for a DMCA exemption for farmers who want to modify and repair their equipment. We’ll find out if it’s legal for farmers to tinker with their own equipment when the Copyright Office reviews the latest round of exemptions.

Until then, Dave’s tractor remains a locked box—and neither Dave nor I are allowed to pry it open.

Want to speak out in support of this DMCA exemption? Tell the Copyright Office that farmers should be able to repair and modify their own machinery. You’ve got until February 6 to make your voice heard.
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-hig...tmare-farmers/





Reports Indicate Canada Has Caved on Copyright Term Extension in TPP Talks
Michael Geist

Last month, there were several Canadian media reports on how the work of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, had entered the public domain. While this was oddly described as a “copyright quirk”, it was no quirk. The term of copyright in Canada is presently life of the author plus an additional 50 years, a term that meets the international standard set by the Berne Convention. The issue of extending the term of copyright was discussed during the 2009 national copyright consultation, but the government wisely decided against it. Further, the European Union initially demanded that Canada extend the term of copyright in the Canada – EU Trade Agreement, but that too was effectively rebuffed.

If new reports out of Japan are correct, however, Canada may have caved to U.S. pressure to extend copyright term. The U.S. extended its term to life plus 70 years in 1998 in response to demands from the Disney Corporation (Mickey was headed to the public domain) and has since pressured other countries to match. NHK reports that a deal on copyright term has been reached within the TPP with countries agreeing to a life plus 70 term. Alongside Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam (the TPP countries that adhere to the Berne standard), it appears that Canada has dropped its opposition to the change.

From a policy perspective, there is no credible evidence that this will do anything other than leave Canadians with 20 years of no new works entering the public domain. Indeed, many economists have examined the issue and concluded that extending the term unsurprisingly does not create an additional incentive for new creativity. Moreover, studies in other countries that have extended term have concluded that it ultimately costs consumers millions of dollars in additional royalties, most of which are sent out of the country.

While the Canadian decision to cave to the U.S. on copyright is disappointing, it should be noted that there are reports that Canada may still find itself outside the TPP altogether. Recent reports indicate that Canada will be required to make significant agricultural concessions (ie. changes to supply management) as part of the agreement. Japan and the U.S. have been actively working on market access issues, but Canadian negotiations have stalled as they apparently wait for the U.S. and Japan to resolve their differences. With a federal election set for later this year, the government may prefer holding off on major changes and sit out the initial TPP deal. Regardless, if the Japanese reports are true, copyright term will not be one of the issues that holds up the TPP with Canada one of several countries set to cave to U.S. demands.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/02/r...ion-tpp-talks/





China Cracks Down on Fake Web Accounts
Stephanie Mlot

As part of an effort to increase control over the Internet, China's government this week revealed new regulations that require Web users to register their real names.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the rules apply to users of blogs, microblogs, instant messaging services, online discussion forums, news comment sections, and other related services.

Beginning March 1, China will also ban Web accounts that impersonate people or organizations, Reuters said. That includes groups posing as government entities—the People's Daily state newspaper—and impersonations of foreign leaders, like President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

These moves come just as the government-backed China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released its annual report, which said the country now has 649 million Internet users.

China has the largest population in the world, so it should be no surprise that Web use there is also skyrocketing. Of note, however, is that 557 million access the Internet via mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, which account for 86 percent and 35 percent of the country's usage, respectively.

The CNNIC reported similar figures in July, when the agency said 83.4 percent of residents access mobile websites—the first time it topped PC use, which landed at about 81 percent. In the second half of the year, desktop and laptop computers accounted for 71 percent and 43 percent of use, respectively.

Internet gaming remains a popular pastime, while micro-blogging is on the decline, CNNIC said. As reported by the New York Times, the CNNIC said microblog users dropped 7.1 percent to 249 million—unsurprising, as social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are blocked in China.

But the country is seeing a surprising boost in instant messaging services, which grew 17.8 percent to 508 million, even in the face of government crackdowns on apps like Tencent's WeChat.

A number of applications came under fire last year for allegedly circulating information about terrorism, violence, and pornography—behaviors that, according to China's State Internet Information Office, "have raised bitter feelings among netizens."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476275,00.asp





China's Internet Population Hits 649 Million, 86 Percent on Phones
Paul Carsten

China had 649 million internet users by the end of 2014, with 557 million of those using handsets to go online, said a government report on Tuesday, as the world's biggest smartphone market continues its shift to mobile.

While growth is slowing, China's total internet population still rose by 31 million in 2014, said the report by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Growth in mobile internet users was faster, at 57 million.

Riding this wave are some of China's, and the world's, biggest technology companies. These include e-commerce groups Alibaba and JD.com Inc, social networking and video games firm Tencent Holdings Ltd, search giant Baidu Inc and smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL].

For these companies a huge part of China's potential remains untapped, much of it in smaller cities and rural areas. The country's internet penetration rate is 47.9 percent and rural users only account for just over a quarter of China's total, said the CNNIC. By comparison, in the United States 74.4 percent of households reported internet use in 2013, according to the United States Census Bureau.

In good news for Alibaba and JD.com people shopping online increased by 20 percent in the year to the end of 2014. Users of online payment services, operated by Alibaba and Tencent, increased by 17 percent. Instant messaging, which is dominated by Tencent's WeChat and QQ, saw users increase by 10 percent.

However, microblog use, a market dominated in China by Weibo Corp, was down 11 percent. Last year, CNNIC reported a 9 percent decline in users, triggering a sell-off in shares of the then-unlisted company's parent, Sina Corp.

But smartphone sales are flagging. Shipments in China were 389 million phones in 2014, down from 423 million the previous year, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Foreign internet companies have also been denied an opportunity to compete in China. Some of the world's biggest online services, like those run by Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc have been severely disrupted or simply blocked.

Nevertheless, domestic tech firms have weathered regulatory scrutiny and the onus of self-censorship to account for more than $600 billion (399 billion pounds) in total share market values.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0L713J20150203





F.C.C. Chief Wants to Override State Laws Curbing Community Net Services
Steve Lohr

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose an order to pre-empt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services, senior F.C.C. officials said on Monday.

The proposal focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. About 21 states, by the F.C.C.’s count, have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services. The initiative by Mr. Wheeler, if endorsed by the full commission, would be the first time the F.C.C. has tried to override such state laws.

Mr. Wheeler is expected to circulate his plan to the other commissioners on Thursday, and the full commission is scheduled to vote on Feb. 26.

His community broadband proposal is separate from the larger Internet policy issue Mr. Wheeler is to address this week — rules to ensure an open Internet, or net neutrality. In that proposal, Mr. Wheeler is expected to propose regulating Internet service as a public utility, but without getting involved in pricing and other corporate decisions.

Mr. Wheeler’s community broadband proposal is in step with the recent recommendations of the White House, as his net neutrality plan is likely to be.

The chairman’s plan to invalidate the two state laws comes in response to petitions from two municipal Internet service providers: the Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Greenlight, a community-owned broadband service in Wilson, N.C. In both cases, state laws prohibit the community Internet services from expanding into neighboring areas and counties. Their broadband services, they say, are far faster than those offered by nearby private-sector Internet service providers.

Proponents of the state laws, which are typically supported by cable television and telecommunications companies, say the municipal Internet service providers often enjoy tax and low-cost financing advantages not available to private companies. They also say states have the legal right to regulate local markets as they see fit.

The senior F.C.C. officials counter that the state laws deter broadband investment and competition, undermining consumer welfare. The municipal Internet providers, the F.C.C. officials said, are not competing unfairly but investing for the public good, providing high-speed service where the private sector does not.

Overriding the restrictive state laws, they added, conforms to the F.C.C.’s legal mandate to “remove barriers to infrastructure investment” and to “promote competition in telecommunications markets.”

If approved by the full commission, the F.C.C. order to invalidate the two state laws would almost certainly be challenged in court.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/0...-net-services/





In Net Neutrality Push, F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating Internet Service as a Utility
Steve Lohr

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission this week is widely expected to propose regulating Internet service like a public utility, a move certain to unleash another round of intense debate and lobbying about how to ensure so-called net neutrality, or an open Internet.

It is expected that the proposal will reclassify high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Communications Act, according to industry analysts, lobbyists and former F.C.C. staff members.

The change, the analysts and others say, which has been pushed by President Obama, would give the commission strong legal authority to ensure that no content is blocked and no so-called pay-to-play fast lanes exist — prohibitions that are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.

But Tom Wheeler, the F.C.C. chairman, will advocate a light-touch approach to Title II, they say, shunning the more intrusive aspects of utility-style regulation, like meddling in pricing decisions. He may also suggest putting wireless data services under Title II and adding regulations for companies that manage the backbone of the Internet.

The proposal is expected to be submitted to the agency’s commissioners by Thursday. Although the F.C.C. is not expected to release a copy of the plan this week, the contents are almost certain to leak out. A vote on the proposal by the full commission is scheduled for Feb. 26.

The maneuvering in Washington over the proposal has already started. Congressional Republicans have proposed net neutrality legislation that bans content blocking and fast and slow lanes, but also prevents the F.C.C. from issuing regulations to achieve those goals.

The F.C.C. proposal is Mr. Wheeler’s latest attempt to find a way to write open Internet rules that are politically palatable and that will stand up to legal scrutiny. Mr. Wheeler had initially proposed net neutrality rules that would not have classified Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II, and would have allowed the cable and telecommunications companies to strike deals with content companies and online services as long as they were “commercially reasonable.”

That approach brought a flood of critical comments into the F.C.C. last summer, saying it would open the door to fast lanes on the Internet for deep-pocketed companies and slow lanes for everyone else.

Then, in November, Mr. Obama took the unusual step of weighing in. He called on the F.C.C. to adopt the “strongest possible rules” on net neutrality, and specifically to classify high-speed broadband service as a utility under Title II. His rationale: “For most Americans, the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life.”

That changed the political calculus for Mr. Wheeler, even though the F.C.C. is an independent agency. On most key votes, the five-member commission votes 3-2, with Mr. Wheeler joined by the other two Democrats.

“The moment Obama issued that statement, it meant the F.C.C. was going to adopt a Title II rule,” said Kevin Werbach, a former F.C.C. counsel and an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The industry response to President Obama’s declaration was swift and divided along predictable lines. The Internet Association, whose members include Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, applauded Mr. Obama and urged the F.C.C. to follow his lead to “ensure a free and open Internet.”

The major Internet service providers, like Comcast and AT&T, protested and said utility-style regulation would threaten their investment in faster broadband service, ultimately harming consumers.

In response to those critics, Mr. Wheeler is expected to point to the agency’s handling of mobile voice services.

In 1993, Congress deregulated the cellphone business, allowing new carriers to enter the market. The F.C.C. has regulated mobile voice services under Title II since then, applying the light-touch approach and the industry has grown and thrived.

Mobile data services, however, have not been regulated as a telecommunications service. Mr. Wheeler, industry experts and lobbyists predict, will include mobile data services in his proposal. Today, 55 percent of online traffic happens on smartphones and tablets, according to the F.C.C..

President Obama outlined his suggestions to maintain an open Internet and urged the Federal Communications Commission to implement “the strongest possible rules” to protect it.

David J. Farber is among those who have misgivings about going the Title II route. Mr. Farber helped design parts of the Internet, served on the board of the Internet Society and is a former chief technologist of the F.C.C.

“My fear,” Mr. Farber said, “is that regulating the Internet like a telecommunications service potentially opens a Pandora’s box.”

This commission, said Mr. Farber, a professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, may well have no intention of deploying the broader powers of Title II. But, he added, there is no guarantee that future commissions will be similarly restrained.

Information services, Mr. Farber noted, are relatively free of taxes, while telecommunications services are not, especially at the state level.

Telecommunications regulation, Mr. Farber said, is a step toward a more rigid regime at odds with the freewheeling innovation of the Internet economy.

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, sees the strong rules the F.C.C. is moving toward as a way to safeguard the norm of equal treatment of content on the Internet, rather than viewing them as a threat.

“And the norm — no fast lanes — has worked awfully well,” said Mr. Wu, who is credited with coining the term “net neutrality.”

“The reality,” he added, “is that we’ve seen start-ups in San Francisco, New York and across the country build new businesses on the Internet.”

Most of the focus of net neutrality has been on the broadband gateway into households. But Mr. Wheeler, according to industry experts and lobbyists, will probably also take up the issue of handling Internet traffic before it makes its way to consumer devices.

These Internet backbone companies that shuttle data, voice and video across the country are unseen by consumers.

But the behavior and treatment of companies that operate in the so-called interconnect market does affect the user’s experience.

How smoothly a Netflix video stream of “House of Cards” plays on a subscriber’s screen, for example, reflects the performance of all the network operators that have transported the digital bits of that hit program.

These networks hand off their data payloads to the Internet service providers that serve households. The handoff arrangements are private business deals. But industry experts and lobbyists say the F.C.C. wants to deter content blocking or discrimination in this market as well.

“If you prohibit paid fast lanes by the Internet service providers themselves, you want to make sure fast lanes aren’t just moving up and being created in the interconnect market,” Mr. Wu said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/te...a-utility.html





AT&T Previews Lawsuit it Plans to File Against FCC Over Net Neutrality

AT&T says Title II proponents "are only deceiving themselves."
Jon Brodkin

AT&T seems resigned to the near-certainty that the Federal Communications Commission will reclassify broadband as a common carrier service in order to enforce net neutrality rules. But it isn't going to let the decision stand without a legal challenge, and the company is already telling the world what it's going to argue in court.

"I have no illusions that any of this will change what happens on February 26," when the FCC is expected to vote, AT&T Federal Regulatory VP Hank Hultquist wrote in a blog post yesterday. "But when the FCC has to defend reclassification before an appellate court, it will have to grapple with these and other arguments. Those who oppose efforts at compromise because they assume Title II rests on bullet proof legal theories are only deceiving themselves."

Hultquist's blog post summarized arguments AT&T made in two new filings with the commission. "Given that this decision seems driven by political considerations, I hold out little hope that the FCC will alter its course, but the letters nonetheless try to set out what we see as significant infirmities with reclassification," Hultquist wrote.

The first of AT&T's two filings concerns whether Internet service providers are information service providers, telecommunications service providers, or both. They are currently treated as lightly regulated information service providers, but they would be reclassified as telecommunications providers under the FCC's expected action. This would let the FCC regulate fixed and mobile broadband with the same "Title II" statute it uses to regulate the traditional telephone network, but the FCC could pick and choose which exact rules to apply. Specifically, the FCC would impose bans on throttling or blocking traffic and paid prioritization deals in which a Web service pays for priority access.

AT&T argues that the capabilities ISPs would use to throttle, block, or prioritize traffic must be classified as information services because of the way information services are defined under the law. "[T]he capabilities that allow prioritization... involve the use of an ISP’s 'computing functionality' to provide 'the capability of getting, processing, and manipulating information,'" AT&T General Attorney Christopher Heimann wrote in the filing. Thus, they can't be part of a transmission component that would be "understood as a separate telecommunications service subject to Title II."

"[T]he plain meaning of the statutory definition mandates the result that any offering including ISP functionalities—and thus, as discussed above, any offering that includes the ability to prioritize or block content—necessarily is an information service," Heimann wrote.

AT&T's second filing contains a procedural argument, accusing the FCC of making a decision without doing a required analysis. "Under longstanding precedent, the FCC must make particularized findings with respect to the offerings of individual carriers in order for it to find that either they are operating as common carriers, or should be required to operate as common carriers," Hultquist wrote. He continued:

The FCC has not engaged in the kind of detailed analysis that would be needed to assess the offerings of every ISP that would be subject to its rules.

In order for the FCC to find that an ISP is operating as a common carrier, it would have to examine the terms on which that ISP holds itself out to customers to assess whether it offers to serve indifferently, or whether it retains the ability to decline to serve customers. The underlying record in this proceeding simply does not contain the level of detail needed for the FCC to determine that any ISP, let alone every ISP, holds itself out to serve customers indifferently. And in some markets, such as for peering and interconnection, the record is in fact quite clear that ISPs do not operate as common carriers, and expressly retain the right to refuse to provide service. These services are unique carrier-to-carrier arrangements commercially negotiated in a robustly competitive market and it would strain all logic to find that they instead are offered indiscriminately to the public for a fee, the core requirement of common carriage.

The FCC cannot mandate that a service be offered on a common carrier basis without, at a minimum, a finding that a particular provider has market power in a particular geographic market. Needless to say the FCC has engaged in no analysis of market power on a geographic market basis. Accordingly, this option is simply not available to the FCC.


The FCC in 2010 passed net neutrality rules using its powers to regulate information service providers. Verizon sued and won, with the court ruling that the FCC had imposed per se common carrier restrictions without first reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service. That's what led the FCC to consider using its stronger regulatory powers.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says he expects a lawsuit no matter what the FCC does and that the commission will write its rules so that they can survive a court decision. He is expected to reveal more details on his plan Thursday.

Verizon has also warned the FCC that it will face lawsuits over reclassifying broadband providers.

AT&T and Verizon each face common carrier rules for telephone service, including cellular voice. But the companies are not (yet) treated as common carriers for Internet service on either fixed or mobile networks.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...et-neutrality/





Verizon's Last Tiny Shred Of Credibility On Net Neutrality Just Died
Karl Bode

You'll of course recall that the FCC's original 2010 net neutrality rules didn't do much of anything and exempted wireless networks completely, in large part because they were written by Verizon and Google. As such, companies like AT&T and Comcast actually really liked the rules, because, from their perspective, they effectively "settled the conversation," but in the process didn't even cover the biggest emerging technology in the history of the Internet (wireless), and generally allowed all manner of shenanigans provided ISPs were just clever enough with the presentation (or blamed the network congestion bogeyman).

But Verizon couldn't help itself and sued the FCC anyway, much to the chagrin of AT&T and Comcast. Verizon had hoped to strike a killing blow to FCC authority for years to come, but instead is almost single-handedly responsible for the agency's emboldened decision to now go the Title II route. Not just for its lawsuit, but thanks to a long history of anti-competitive Verizon behavior (remember their attempts to block GPS? Bluetooth? Tethering? Google Wallet?) repeatedly highlighting that the Internet and consumers really do need some form of codified protection from big red's relentless but clumsy ambition.

So it's more than a little amusing to see Verizon pout over at the company's policy blog about the FCC's decision to pursue tougher Title II-based rules when it's largely thanks to Verizon's actions:

"Heavily regulating the Internet for the first time is unnecessary and counterproductive. It is unnecessary because all participants in the Internet ecosystem support an open Internet, and the FCC can address any harmful behavior without taking this radical step."

Except the FCC tried to do that, and Verizon responded by suing them. Like AT&T and Comcast, Verizon makes it clear it would really prefer it if the public supported the net neutrality rules being proposed by Senator John Thune and Representative Fred Upton, in large part because the broadband industry wrote them to ensure they don't do anything useful. Verizon hopes you'll believe it when the company says it really just want to settle the issue "once and for all":

"Moreover, Congress is working on legislation that would codify open Internet rules once and for all. It is counterproductive because heavy regulation of the Internet will create uncertainty and chill investment among the many players -- not just Internet service providers -- that now will need to consider FCC rules before launching new services."

So basically Verizon sued to overturn weak neutrality rules that most on the ISP side of the aisle were happy with. Now Verizon really wants everybody to support the same kind of flimsy rules it originally sued to destroy, or the company will sue. Verizon's position on the issue has veered well past good humor and into a sort of painful surrealism.
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneu...ust-died.shtml





New Technique Doubles the Distance of Optical Fibre Communications
Bex Caygill

A new way to process fibre optic signals has been demonstrated by UCL researchers, which could double the distance at which data travels error-free through transatlantic sub-marine cables.

The new method has the potential to reduce the costs of long-distance optical fibre communications as signals wouldn’t need to be electronically boosted on their journey, which is important when the cables are buried underground or at the bottom of the ocean.

As the technique can correct the transmitted data if they are corrupted or distorted on the journey, it could also help to increase the useful capacity of fibres. This is done right at the end of the link, at the receiver, without having to introduce new components within the link itself. Increasing capacity in this way is important as optical fibres carry 99% of all data and demand is rising with increased use of the internet, which can’t be matched by the fibres’ current capacity, and changing the receivers is far cheaper and easier than re-laying cables.

To cope with this increased demand, more information is being sent using the existing fibre infrastructure with different frequencies of light creating the data signals. The large number of light signals being sent can interact with each other and distort, causing the data to be received with errors.

The study, published in Scientific Reports today and sponsored by the EPSRC, reports a new way of improving the transmission distance, by undoing the interactions that occur between different optical channels as they travel side-by-side over an optical cable.

Study author Dr Robert Maher (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering), said: “By eliminating the interactions between the optical channels, we are able to double the distance signals can be transmitted error-free, from 3190km to 5890km, which is the largest increase ever reported for this system architecture. The challenge is to devise a technique to simultaneously capture a group of optical channels, known as a super-channel, with a single receiver. This allows us to undo the distortion by sending the data channels back on a virtual digital journey at the same time.”

The researchers used a ‘16QAM super-channel’ made of a set of frequencies which could be coded using amplitude, phase and frequency to create a high-capacity optical signal. The super-channel was then detected using a high-speed super-receiver and new signal processing techniques developed by the team enabled the reception of all the channels together and without error. The researchers will now test their new method on denser super-channels commonly used in digital cable TV (64QAM), cable modems (256QAM) and Ethernet connections (1024QAM).

Study author Professor Polina Bayvel (Electronic & Electrical Engineering) who is Professor of Optical Communications and Networks and Director of UNLOC, said: “We’re excited to report such an important finding that will improve fibre optic communications. Our method greatly improves the efficiency of transmission of data – almost doubling the transmission distances that can be achieved, with the potential to make significant savings over current state-of-the art commercial systems. One of the biggest global challenges we face is how to maintain communications with demand for the Internet booming – overcoming the capacity limits of optical fibres cables is a large part of solving that problem.”
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-arti...e-optic-cables





Toshiba Releases Super-Secure Encrypted USB Flash Drive with Hardware-Based Encryption
Brian Fagioli

In a cloud-focused world, more and more people are shunning physical storage. It's hard to blame them, as cloud services are very convenient. Best of all, services like Dropbox and OneDrive store your files off-site, keeping them safe from floods, fires and other disasters.

Unfortunately, not everyone can utilize cloud storage. Businesses in particular may be wary of using the cloud to store or transport sensitive information and trade secrets. Yes, a flash drive may be an option, but what if it gets lost? They are small, and can easily fall out of a bag or pocket. Today, Toshiba releases its solution; the unimaginatively named Encrypted USB Flash Drive. While the name may not be impressive, the AES 256-bit encryption surely is.

"Available in 4GB ($95), 8GB ($112), 16GB ($140) and 32GB ($200) capacities, the Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive uses a built-in mini-keyboard to authenticate access, incorporating a rechargeable battery so the user can enter a secure code before plugging into a USB port. Users simply enter their secure PIN and plug the drive into any USB 2.0 port on a compatible device. Once access is granted, the drive 'unlocks' the media, permitting clearance to all of the content stored on the drive. When the drive is removed from a USB port, the drive automatically re-locks and encrypts the stored media", says Toshiba.

The company further explains, "should the Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive become lost or stolen, it is equipped with a Brute Force Hack Defense Mechanism that will render all stored information irrecoverable after 10 consecutive unsuccessful attempts to enter the secure PIN. The Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive also carries a FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) Publication 140-2 Level 3 certification, issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a certification often required by government agencies and other data security sensitive industries, such as healthcare and finance".

While everyone deserves secure files, the pricing makes it overkill for the average home user. This is more aimed at the enterprise, where lax file security can have a tremendously negative impact on the bottom line. In other words, your Nana's recipes, while important, probably do not need to be stored on a drive with hardware encryption.

The physical design is quite smart, as the aluminum sheath covers the keys. Since the data is destroyed after 10 unsuccessful unlocks, you do not want to accidentally press anything -- try telling your boss that you destroyed your work!

Since it is hardware encryption and not software, it should work on almost any operating system. Toshiba lists compatibility with the following:

• Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7
• Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9
• Linux
• Certain embedded systems

If you are interested, you can buy the drives here, where prices are already marked down.
http://betanews.com/2015/02/03/toshi...ed-encryption/





Peerio Offers End-to-End Encrypted File Sharing, Puts You In Control
Alan Henry

Windows/Mac/Chrome: Encrypted cloud storage services aren't difficult to find, but when you need to send a file to someone else and you want to make sure you keep some control over it (and it stays encrypted), you have fewer options. Peerio is a new service that wants to make that whole process easy.

The video above gives you a quick primer of how the service works, and why it's important to control your own encryption. Peerio never gets your keys, so they can't decrypt your files even if they want to. Similarly, when you share a file, you have to share it with another Peerio user (which may make things tricky, but sign-ups are free), and you essentially give that user permission to decrypt your file with their key as well—which again, Peerio doesn't have access to. All of your files are encrypted before they leave your computer, and they're encrypted in transit before they sit, encrypted, on Peerio's servers.

Peerio is more of a secure messaging and file sharing service than a cloud storage solution—you only get about 1.3GB of space for signing up. Messages sent back and forth between users work like IMs, and you can see where your files go after you've sent them. You can see when they've been opened, and at any time you can "destroy" them, so any user who has them in their inbox has them deleted and their permissions revoked. The Chrome app supports message and other notifications in real-time.

The service is from the same folks behind previously mentioned Cryptocat, and while the service is currently free, they plan to add paid features in the future (likely things like more storage, for example.) Mobile users: Android and iOS apps are on the way soon. Hit the link below to learn more.
http://lifehacker.com/peerio-offers-...s-y-1683251152





EFF Joins Coalition to Launch Canarywatch.org
Nadia Kayyali

"Warrant canary" is a colloquial term for a regularly published statement that an internet service provider (ISP) has not received legal process that it would be prohibited from saying it had received, such as a national security letter. The term "warrant canary" is a reference to the canaries used to provide warnings in coalmines, which would become sick from carbon monoxide poisoning before the miners would—warning of the otherwise-invisible danger. Just like canaries in a coalmine, the canaries on web pages “die” when they are exposed to something toxic—like a secret FISA court order.

Warrant canaries rely upon the legal theory of compelled speech. Compelled speech happens when a person is forced by the government to make expressive statements they do not want to make. Fortunately, the First Amendment protects against compelled speech in most circumstances. In fact, we’re not aware of any case where a court has upheld compelled false speech. Thus, a service provider could argue that, when its statement about the legal process received is no longer true, it cannot be compelled to reissue the now false statement, and can, instead, remain silent. So far, no court has addressed this issue.

But if you’re not paying attention to a specific canary, you may never know when it changes. Plenty of providers don’t have warrant canaries. Those that do may not make them obvious. And when warrant canaries do change, it’s not always immediately obvious what that change means.

That’s why EFF has joined with a coalition of organizations, including the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, New York University’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic, and the Calyx Institute to launch Canarywatch.org. The Calyx Institute runs and hosts Canarywatch.org.

Canarywatch lists the warrant canaries we know about, tracks changes or disappearances of those canaries, and allows users to submit canaries not listed on the site. For people with interest in a particular canary, the site will show any changes we know about. The page’s FAQ explains the mechanics and legal theories underpinning warrant canaries. It also has an anatomy of a canary that, since canaries come in so many different forms, helps anyone understand what they’re seeing when they look at a particular canary.

Warrant canaries are a unique tool ISPs have to provide users with more transparency about the government requests they do, and do not, receive. We hope the site will educate, improve the usefulness of warrant canaries for the general public, and help people with a special interest in canaries track them.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/0...canarywatchorg





Assange 'Frustrating' for UK and Sweden Officials

Julian Assange's residence in London's Ecuadorian embassy is 'frustrating', the UK's Deputy Prime Minister has said, after figures emerged that the Wikileaks founder's security has cost around 125 million kronor ($15 million) as he fights extradition to Sweden.

Police in London have confirmed that the Australian cost UK taxpayers 113 million kronor between June 2012 and October 2014, with current daily costs of around 13,000 kronor expected to have pushed up the total spending to 125 million kronor.

The figures were obtained by London radio station LBC under the UK's Freedom of Information Act.

In response, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Assange should "face justice" and spoke of a "frustrating situation" for both the British taxpayer and the Swedish government, during his weekly radio phone-in on LBC.

Julian Assange is wanted over rape and sexual assault claims made by two women in Sweden in 2010.

He has been holed up in Ecuador's embassy for two years to avoid extradition to Stockholm.

A spokesperson for Wikileaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson said: "It is embarrassing to see the UK government spending more on surveillance and detaining an uncharged political refugee than on its investigation into the Iraq war, which killed hundreds of thousands."

The site also posted a message saying the cost of the security could have paid the salary of 459 school teachers.

Julian Assange has long argued that extradition to Sweden could lead to him being transferred to the United States to face trial over Wikileaks' publication of classified US military and diplomatic documents. In 2010, Wikileaks began publishing 250,000 American diplomatic cables and 500,000 classified military reports, covering both American diplomacy and the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange has called on Swedish prosecutors to travel to London to question him over the rape allegations or alternatively to do so by video link, but they have repeatedly rejected the demand on the grounds that it was not normal legal practice.

The Wikileaks founder is continuing to fight his extradition to Sweden. On November 20th a Stockholm appeal court upheld his arrest order, but Assange's lawyer told The Local there was now a plan to take the case to Sweden's Supreme Court.
http://www.thelocal.se/20150206/juli...uk-and-sweden/





No One Knows What Happened to NSA Staffers Who Snooped On Their Lovers

Senator blasts DOJ in delayed answer to query about LOVEINT consequences.
Cyrus Farivar

Turns out, not even the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee can figure out what’s happened to the National Security Agency (NSA) staffers who were involved in the LOVEINT spying scandal.

Back in August 2013, the Wall Street Journal introduced the world to an internal term that NSA analysts have come up with to describe the act of spying on one’s ex-partner: LOVEINT. The word is reminiscent of existing spycraft parlance like HUMINT (human intelligence) or SIGINT (signals intelligence). (LOVEINT also spawned endless Twitter jokes.)

In a letter sent Monday to the attorney general, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) described how he initially asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to explain what it was doing to address the 12 publicly-known instances of this inappropriate use of NSA surveillance capability. However, the DOJ has stayed mum.

As Grassley wrote:

I asked you to provide more information about the Department of Justice’s handling of these 12 matters and requested a response by December 1, 2013. That deadline passed. However, when you subsequently appeared before the Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing on January 29, 2014, we discussed my request. You promised to provide a “fulsome response to indicate how those cases were dealt with by the Justice Department” and to “do that soon.”

It has been more than a year since both my initial request and your testimony before the Judiciary Committee. Yet I have not received a response.


One LOVEINT instance, which was described in September 2013 by the NSA’s Office of the Inspector General, involved an employee who on his first day of work in 2005, “queried six e-mail addresses belonging to a former girlfriend, a US person, without authorization.” An internal NSA audit four days later revealed this violation. His punishment?

“A reduction in grade, 45 days restriction, 45 days of extra duty, and half pay for two months. It was recommended that the subject not be given a security clearance.”

Ars has a pending Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA (filed in July 2014) concerning the LOVEINT cases. So far, we have not received any substantial reply. Neither the NSA nor the DOJ immediately responded to Ars' request for comment on Monday.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...-their-lovers/

















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